Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[mlsoft]

"With all due respect, the Christian right's interpretation of "saved" seems somewhat ridiculous. Per a literal interpretation, a cold blooded serial killer could go to prison, "find" Jesus (which many of them do) and be saved. While Schneersohn, the Dalai Lama, and maybe Mother Teresa are eternally damned..... That's not a concept that I'd put much "faith" in, but to each his own. :)"
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sarai...

You are correct - a cold blooded murderer could accept Christ just before being executed and be eternally saved (an example would be the man crucified with Jesus) while the Dalai Lama and possibly Mother Teresa are not.

You touch on a very difficult topic from a human perspective, but not as hard when looked at from a devine one. The question centers on sin and atonement for sin. Since all of us sin (yes, even Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama), God's Holiness and Justice demand that the sins must be punished. God has decreed that there is only one way for sins to be forgiven, and that is through the shed blood of Jesus, a once for all atonement where He paid the penalty for all that accept it. If the murderer actually accepts Jesus, his sins (all of them) are paid for. If Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama do not, their sins are not paid for and they will spend eternity in Hell. That is what the Bible teaches and therefore that is what I believe.

We have a tendency to see some sins as unforgivable, but God does not. All sin is forgivable through Jesus, but none are forgiven without Him which means that the only unforgivable sin is to deny Christ. I do believe that if (perhaps a big IF) Mother Teresa were to have ended up in Hell, her existence there would be much more tolerable than that of say, Hitler - even God sees some sins as being worse than others, and deserving of more punishment.

God's thoughts are so far above our own understanding that we cannot fathom the reasons behind what He does, or what He allows to happen. That is just another area where faith comes in, that God is perfect and always does what is best even though it may not seem so to us at the time.

mlsoft