Contradictory Ways

Jay: At the end of last week’s discussion we began to explore a seeming contradiction in scripture. On the one hand, we are shown a picture suggesting that most people will be saved:

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; (Revelation 7:9)

Jesus seemed to confirm this when he said:

I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.  (John 10:14-16)

But then, on the other hand, he also said that few people would find the way to eternal life:

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

He confirmed and amplified this remark when…

… He was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem. And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; depart from Me, all you evildoers.’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.” (Luke 13:22-30)

So which is it? An inclusive heaven or an exclusive one? Or is the seeming contradiction an illusion?

Alice: If we have to make every effort to find the gate, where does grace enter the picture?

David: The contradiction seems clear and irreconcilable to me. I do not see that they can be reconciled, at least not without resorting to logical or semantic contortionism. But the reason I participate in this this group is precisely because sometimes enlightenment emerges!

Alice: The people whom Jesus told “I don’t know you” were obviously trying to find the right way.

David: Perhaps he was having another dig at evildoers who put on public displays of piety. They won’t get in. Anyone, including people not of his fold, can get in if they do not pretend. We are all sinners, of course, but I suspect that is not the same as being evil.

Robin: There is a difference. The wicked are destroyed at the end of the age, but Jesus saves the sinners—that’s why he came.

Charles: I think we need to separate the concepts of sin and salvation. We have been prone to sin ever since the fall from the Garden. God knew that his free-willed creation would be so prone. So sin is part of the human condition independent of God. It is thus not just possible but necessary that those who might be saved through Christ are still capable of sin. The question is the path to salvation. To me, it is easier to answer it if we take Jesus as omnipresent throughout salvation history—that is, ever since the fall, not just since New Testament times. As the only means of salvation, he was bound to be there for us the moment we needed it.

This would explain why God can be judge of our sins and dispense justice, on the one hand, while dispensing mercy and salvation on the other. In the approach to the end of the age the judgment question is whether we accept God’s will or man’s will, and the answer is that we are predisposed to do man’s will. Therefore, God had to provide the means of salvation, and he did so in the form of Christ. We enter through the narrow gate if we accept God’s mercy in the person of Jesus the savior. Some won’t accept him.

Jay: Is acceptance an intellectual, emotional, or behavioral act, or some combination of these?

Charles: It’s in some ways a combination of all three, but the behavioral component—the “works”—is a result of the gift of the spirit. I don’t think we are all born with the holy spirit. I believe it is a gift that is given at a time of God’s choosing. Jesus said that if you knew him then you knew the Father; in other words, there is, always was, and always will be one God, one Word, one Way, one Truth, one Light. Christ is not a creature of the New Testament. He is a manifestation of God’s mercy and God’s way of atonement for man’s sins. There are examples in scripture and in the works of some people’s lives. Human pride and fallibility predicts the inevitable fall of civilizations through increasingly laissez-faire notions of morality, and history is rife with examples.

Thinking of Jesus as a manifestation of God at a certain point in time that represents a sort-of deadline for salvation can lead to contradictions, but taking him as a part of the eternal I Am and taking the I Am as both judge and savior obviates them. We are coming back to a real deadline—the end of the age—when failure to accept the one God and failure to obey the Word, to be willingly subject to God’s will, will result in eternal oblivion.

David: To me, it still boils down to a matter of choice between the two sides of the contradiction—between contradictory scriptures or contradictory interpretations of a scripture. Choice is inevitable, and we tend to choose what we like—what is dearest to our heart. I like the idea of an all-forgiving God, so I like the God of the New Testament—Jesus. I accept the excellent point that he was, is, and will always be present, but he is still a choice. Daoism eliminates the problem of contradiction by accepting contradiction as an essential part of the unfathomable Way and accepting that the Way will guide you beyond the contradiction if you let it—which is to say, if you follow your heart. That’s the choice to be made: Whether or not to follow one’s heart (one’s deepest, innermost, conscience). That choice is what will be judged, not your choice of religion or your choice of a human-defined deity. Jesus lives in your heart, not in his name.

Charles: I tend to agree that salvation is not religion-dependent but it is dependent on choosing God and not one’s own will as the Way to salvation. The choice is between God’s will and our will (our will as dictated by what is on our hearts).

David: It is indeed a matter of choosing God if by God one means Goodness. I believe Goodness is implanted in everyone’s heart—as indeed scripture says (the “eternity” planted in everyone’s heart—Ecclesiastes 3:11). It is our conscience. It is what enables us to distinguish, and therefore to choose between, Good and Evil. Choosing Jesus as the Way means choosing Goodness as the Way. Daoism’s “Do Nothing” is not to be taken in a physical sense—it means “Don’t try to impose your will on the Way, don’t try to bend it to go your way. It means what Charles says: Do God’s will, not your own.

Robin: The psalmist asked God to lead him away from evil:

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139:24)

In Matthew 25, Jesus judged the wicked (those who did not love and help their fellow man in distress, and therefore did not love and help God) and the righteous (those who did). He went on condemn the wicked to everlasting fire and to reward the righteous with heaven. It seems that the wicked had the “Look at me!” (being pious) syndrome. The Rich Young Ruler had this too, and was dismayed when Jesus told him that works weren’t enough. We face the same choice: Give up everything for God. You choose God by emulating him, and that means leading a pretty spartan existence—hardly the coddled existence promised by today’s megachurch televangelists.

James got it:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)

David: There remains a contradiction: We have to emulate Jesus to get into the kingdom of heaven, yet we are incapable of emulating Jesus!

Robin: We can’t emulate him perfectly but we can at least love each other if we choose to do so. But the choice has to become second nature—inherent, not exhibited.

David: There is some goodness and some sin in all of us, but the judgment comes across as all or nothing, and we cannot be all good or all evil. Jesus did not say “You helped me a hundred and seventy three times, so you’re in, while you only helped me twice, so you’re out.” You either emulated him or you did not—there seems to be no in-between. The scripture is commendably clear on this point, but it conflicts with other scripture. Or so it seems to me right now—as I said earlier, the great value of this class is that it sometimes seems (to me, anyway) to enlighten, just by asking the questions even if there is no answer!

Jay: I would draw three conclusions from our discussion today: First, that Christ is, was, and always will be the Way—he is not bound by biblical human history; second, that the heart plays a central role yet scripture is contradictory as to whether it is a good or evil role; and third, that it is necessary to place scripture in historical perspective (as Harry often did) and to judge Jesus’s words at least partly in relation to his specific time and his specific audience.

* * *