I read an article yesterday that broke my heart. The article was talking about Pope Francis. I was shocked to hear that he has recently said that an individual does not have to believe in God to go to heaven. He was assuring the atheist by saying that, “the issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience”. I am in no way trying to hate on the Pope, but I am outraged at this statement.
In the very first sentence of the article I read, it said that Pope Francis was most likely making these statements “to enhance his progressive reputation”. I thought that was interesting. Whether it is true about the Pope or not, it is true about many Christians today. I’m broken hearted over all of my brothers and sisters in Christ that are trying to change or sugarcoat the Gospel in the name of their own reputations. While I wish that hell was not a real place, it is. I wish that everyone could go to heaven, but, unfortunately, everyone is not. This is reality. It’s uncomfortable for people to hear, but that doesn’t mean we should simply neglect it or feed people lies that are more comfortable for them to hear. Whether you are the Pope or just a teenager, you cannot rewrite the story of God.
The first part of the Pope’s statement is that one does not have to believe in God to go to heaven. The word “believe” is found over 120 times throughout the New Testament. Something mentioned that many times in the Word of God deserves our attention, don’t you think? John 3:16, one of the most widely known verses in all of the Bible, says, “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” Whosoever BELIEVES. It does not say “whosoever follows their conscience”. Where did we get off thinking that we could change the very words of God? This is not something we can redefine. God makes it clear in His word that the only way to Him is through belief in His Son. When you die, the only thing that is going to matter is whether or not you believed in Jesus.
The second part of the Pope’s statement is about following your conscience. If we follow our conscience, then, according to the Pope, we are good people, thus forgiven by God. Isaiah 64:6 says that, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Even our best acts are still not enough to get us into heaven. So, there is no such thing as a good person. We have all sinned against a holy God. If we could get ourselves to heaven simply by being good people, then why would God send Christ to die for our sins? Galatians 2:21 says, “if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” There would have been no reason for Jesus to die on the cross, if we could attain salvation through our own good works. So, there are no exceptions to this, we must believe in Jesus to get to heaven.
Let us get back to talking about conscience. It is defined in the dictionary as, “an inner feeling or voice acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior.” However, if we are not perfect people, then how can we have perfect consciences? What if every person’s view of right and wrong is different? Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of over 11 million people, once said, “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator”. Can we justify Hitler’s actions because he “followed his conscience”? He thought what he was doing was a good thing. There is no real right and wrong if every man makes up his own version of what right and wrong looks like.
John 3:18 clearly says, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Again, I wish I could say this was not a big deal and, like the Pope, say that the atheist will make it heaven. However, this verse makes belief a huge deal. We cannot sugar coat this. If you do not believe in God, then you will not go to heaven. You will be cast into a burning lake of fire, completely separated from Christ for all eternity. We have a sin nature in us, so we surely cannot always trust our conscience. We cannot get to heaven by being good people, because we are not good people, according to the Word of God. We cannot earn a place in heaven by being good. Thus, the only way to get to heaven is belief in Jesus. He made a way for us. He took the wrath of God on the cross for us, so that we can go to heaven, but we must believe in Him. Please do not be lead astray from the truth, the only way to heaven is through belief in Jesus.
If anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at christy@tonynolan.org . Also, if you have a topic you would like me to write about, simply email me and I will do my best to write a Biblical perspective on that topic. Thanks for reading.
Works Cited
Day, Michael. "Pope Francis Assures Atheists: You Don't Have to Believe in God to Go to Heaven." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 13 Sept. 2013.
It is great to see a young adult know something that the world is confused by. Thank you for sharing your heart, and for publicly taking this stand for Christ Jesus!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the encouragement, Robert. God bless.
DeleteVery good response and article all together. However, when citing verses, especially OT ones (Isaiah), it's very important that you consider what was going on at the time and do the full exegetical process. Also, when John talks about hell in Revelation, he's describing a vision that he had, he did not actually go to Hell. Therefore, we cannot assume what hell will ACTUALLY be. We can kind of get a feel what it will be like, but there is no tangibility in the book of Revelation. Also, when you say "believe" do you mean believe as in someone just needs to believe that Jesus lived, existed, and walked on the earth? Or do you mean they need to believe that He is the Only savior of the universe? You might want to clarify, because there are plenty of people that believe Jesus lived and roamed the earth, however they do not believe He was the Son of God (if they believe God exists) and they do not believe He is the Messiah. I think it's SOO awesome that you stepped up to defend your beliefs against the pope, just make sure you clarify and quote scripture correctly!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Julia, for your comment. Let me clarify what I meant by belief. By belief I mean, surrendering to Jesus as Lord and as the only way to gain salvation. Belief is wonderfully defined in Romans 10:9-10, where it says, "If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord", and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved."
DeleteAs for my comment on Hell, I believe that the Revelation description concurs with Matthew 13:50 where it describes Hell as "the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Also, the story of the rich man and Lazarus gives us a vivid description of Hell in Luke 16:19-31.
Thanks again for you comment! God bless.
Don't believe what the secular media tells you! :)
ReplyDeleteThe problem here is the article's title, which comes from its author's misunderstanding (or purposeful misrepresentation) of what the pope said.
Let's look at exactly what the author quoted the pope saying:
”You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith.”
Note, he does not say atheists are forgiven here. He says "You ask me IF..." So he is addressing a question the author had put forth previous to this article, which the pope is responding to.
"I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart."
Here he says IF you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart (aka: turn to God and repent), then there is no limit to God's mercy. Pretty standard stuff so far.
”The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”
So what to make of this part? Is he saying all people need to receive forgiveness is to follow your conscience? He already stated that turning to God results in forgiveness. Now he's addressing those who will not turn to God. He is simply telling them to do good. You could almost consider it a plea. "If you won't turn to God, at least follow your conscience." But why? First, let's look at the next quote.
”Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”
So what is he saying here? That sin is only a violation of each individual's own moral ideas? Or might he be meaning that we all, Christian and atheist alike, truly know what is right and wrong in our hearts, even if we don't want to acknowledge it? Perhaps he was thinking of Romans 2:14 when Paul wrote:
When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.”
We know what's right and wrong in our hearts, regardless of what we want to believe. It's also written on our hearts that God is real and he's here. Many choose to ignore or reject what is written on our hearts, unfortunately. But if our conscience bears witness to what is written on our hearts, then shouldn't we tell an atheist to follow it? What better advice could a Christian give to someone who refuses all other attempts to bring him to God?
So don't let your heart break over what the pope said. What's heart breaking is that we have secular media all over the world spinning his words around, causing division among Christians and leading others away from the truth.