Ah, but finally you let the cat out of the bag! Finally a bit of honesty comes forth here. All this while you were feigning to be a biblical Christian, but now the truth finally emerges. You are a Swedenborgian. That explains everything of course.

It is now all quite clear why the words of Jesus and the Bible mean so little to you. You have latched on to a spiritualist fruit loop, and worship at his altar, instead of at the living and true God’s altar.

OK, so now that your cards are finally on the table, we can have a proper debate. Swedenborg is of course the very sort of false prophet that Jesus warned about.

One could ask whether he was eating too many funky mushrooms, for all of his visions, dreams and “spiritual” experiences match those of other cultists, occultists, sectarians, spiritualists, and false teachers. He of course rejected all of the mainstream biblical doctrines, including the Trinity, salvation in Christ, and the authority of Scripture.

His Arcana Coelestia (Heavenly Secret) is just the sort of nonsense that people like Oprah would be happy to parade today, and deceive many. It is just more New Age foolishness. Indeed, I was heavily into all these sorts of teachings and esoteric doctrines before I became a Christian. After I became a Christian I realised I had to make a choice: either Jesus is the final and sole source of truth, or these other mystics and spiritualists are. I chose Jesus.

A Swedish contemporary of his called Swedenborg “nothing but a fool”. Quite so. There are so many warnings in Scripture about these kinds of charlatans, and the fact that so many people will fall for this mumbo jumbo hook, line and sinker.

He is just one of countless heretics who have emerged to deceive the very elect. Indeed, no wonder why the Swedenborgians reject so many books of the Bible. Being a medium, a shaman and a “seer”, Swedenborg was involved in the very things the Bible clearly condemns (eg., Deut. 18:9-12). His occult involvement made him a perfect channel for demonic deception.

Now that you have finally spilled the beans, answering you is quite easy. You have rejected Jesus Christ and the Word of God for this bit of psychobabble. Now that we know where you are coming from, I will have to remind you of my blog rules. If you want to push your own agenda, do it on your own website, not mine.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

Best wishes
Philip Richards

You wrote,

We have the criminal on the cross in Luke 23:42,43 who said to Jesus, “Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” And Jesus said unto him, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” The self-confessed criminal was not even a Christian because the Christian Church was not in existence then, and he was a law-breaker but he was saved.

Why would you believe the criminal was not a Christian when he clearly acknowledged Jesus’ authority and identity, his own need of this power and his own helplessness? That is profoundly the very essence of being a Christian! Look again at your argument – you seem to be saying that God needs the church to give the label ‘Christian’ before one can be saved. I rather think it is the church that needs God’s authority to do anything first!

Also, consider this verse: “That if you confess 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 confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”"
Romans 10:9-11

My view is, this episode at the crucifixion with the criminal is a good example of how simple God has made it for us to be saved and consequently how strange (and offensive to God) it is for people to invent other ways to achieve it. He has made it as easy and as graceful as is possible. The criminal made a confession of faith in Jesus directly to Him (interestingly, before the resurrection but yet still acknowledging life after death) and in so doing certainly became a Christian at that moment.

I’m not sure why you want to persist in discussing this issue. Jesus made it clear to his followers that we are to preach the Gospel, and what happens to those where the message does not get to them before they die is not an issue that we need to spend much time on – at least, not over and above concerns of our own faith and how it is expressed.

The reason why I believe this is so is because I can only admit to God so often of my failure to take seriously the Great Commission and therefore, if less people know of God’s offer (and therefore proliferate the extent of the dilemma) who is responsible for the problem? Me. I am therefore disqualified from giving too much time in the discussion of this. I have only assisted in creating the problem, therefore it would be rather arrogant of me to give God advice (or speculate at length on what He must do) on the solution. I could be wrong, but I doubt it if you could say that you were in any better a situation than me.

In other words, if it is a problem to you what happens to those who have not yet heard the Gospel when they die, then may I respectfully point out you have a clear mandate to become a missionary first and become part of the solution! I think I understand why you are concerned about this issue, but to discuss it at length (ie. speculate on what God should or might do) is simply a waste of time. The biblical position on what we should do is pretty well defined.

Mark Rabich

What you do with the Gospel, is what you believe about the Gospel. If you leave folk with no Death, Burial, and Res… to justify us in the court of God without Good works. They have no hope, no peace, no indwelling Christ Jesus. You’re just [Phil] patting them on the back into Hell. You got to tell folk about Him !!!!!!!!!!

Jim Junkins

With all due respect none of the passages you mention has the slightest thing to do with Hindus or other non-Christians going to heaven. It is a basic principle of hermeneutics to study passages in context. The clear context of John 10 is the fact that as the Jews continue to reject Jesus and the gospel, others will receive Jesus, namely the gentiles. The gentiles will become part of the fold. The gospel is not only for the Jews, but for anyone who will listen, repent, and turn to Jesus. Thus this passage merely refers to a wider audience, but the need to come to Christ is the same criteria for kingdom entrance.

As to John 14:2 the imagery of the Father’s house with many rooms was a common Jewish description of heaven back then. Jesus is simply comforting his followers here, and is saying that they can be assured of a final eternal abode. Of course the passage says nothing in the least about those of other religions who follow their own teachings going to heaven. Nothing whatsoever. Why are you clutching at straws here Philip?

Anyone can play fast and loose with Scripture. Back in my hippy days (before I was a Christian; when I may have been “good” and a devout New Ager, but I was still on the way to hell), I was sure this passage was a proof for reincarnation. My spin on John 14:2 was just as reckless and off the mark as those who use it to argue for the salvation of people from other religions.

Finally, the Lukan passage equally has nothing whatsoever to do with those devout followers of other religions going to heaven. Unlike the other crucified criminal, this man knew he was a sinner and knew that only in Jesus did he have a chance of forgiveness and eternal life. Once again there is nothing here to argue that a Muslim or Buddhist is somehow going to heaven simply because he is devout or a nice guy. So yes, in answer to your question, the criminal knew his need, repented, and cast himself on the mercy of Christ. That is the only way a person will make it to heaven today; not by thinking one is quite alright and devout, and has no need of a saviour.

Thus I am afraid you are still left without a scrap of Scriptural evidence for your position Philip. For some reason you continue to ignore passage after passage that we quote to you about no one being righteous, about all our righteous being like filthy rags (literally, menstruous cloth – Is. 64:6), and about Jesus dying for everyone, not just “bad” people. So I ask you once again, is God’s word the final authority on these matters, or mere human opinion and wishful thinking?

For some reason (even if well intentioned), you keep seeming to think that God is not merciful enough, and you have to help him out here. Sorry Philip, but God sets the rules, not us. If you do not like the ground rules that God has set, fine, but pretending to somehow be more merciful than God (which is the clear implication of what you are trying to do here) is not helping matters much. With all due respect again, it is effectively to call God a liar, and to say that mere humans know better than God and can do a better job than God.

You simply seem to have a very low view of the horror of human sin. That corresponds with a very low view of the holiness, purity, perfection and righteousness of God. While Scripture clearly teaches we are all lost sinners deserving of eternal punishment, you do not seem to think so. Well, again, I must be true to Scripture. So I cannot go along with you here.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

I am just coming along now in this. I think honestly; someone in your past has hurt you in regard to spiritual things.

This is real, there is no denying the plain facts as they are. I greatly would like to think there was no Hell, for anyone.

But think about how strongly you would think if your son died to save someone’s life and they were rude about not wanting to. It is understandable. God is right.

Love and prayers
Br Jim Junkins

Look at Romans 3:9-20 which concludes in verse 20 with “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”

You say that “if a person lives according to the teachings of his or her religion he or she will go to heaven.” I would challenge you to name one person (apart from Jesus) who has unswervingly throughout their life lived according to the teachings of their religion. Can’t think of anyone? I thought so. If living by rules will get us to heaven then we all stand here condemned. If you’re guilty of breaking one law it’s as bad as breaking the lot of them.

You say “But when it comes to the afterlife our eternal home is determined by how we live on earth. Do we repent of our sins and strive to live in accordance with the teachings of our religion?”. You are saying that if we repent and obey a set of rules we’ll get to heaven. That’s sounds awfully legalistic to me.

The Bible is clear. Only Jesus can save us.

You wrote:
“Could there be some further instruction provided by angels in the spiritual world to newly arrived good spirits from earth correcting their false ideas and thereby preparing them for heaven?”

Hebrews 9:27-28 “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

There is no mention of a purgatory or some instruction from angels changing us to become right with God once we die. Jesus will come to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. It says nothing about those who are not waiting for him. They are not given any assurance of salvation.

No one comes to the Father except through Jesus.

I feel that this highlights a reason why the Great Commission is so important. Jesus doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He would like as many as possible to believe and be saved.

Then once all nations have heard the gospel of Jesus he will come back.

Matthew Mulvaney

Regarding your notion that common-sense should be used as to who we choose to witness to or don’t, I would urge you to read a very challenging book by Brother Andrew and Al Janssen of Open Doors International called “Secret Believers”. This documents how many Muslims IN THEIR OWN ISLAMIC COUNTRIES, are being led to Christ. They then conclude the book exhorting us in western countries not to rule out witnessing to those Muslims in our own communities, but to pray for them and to display a Christian life to them as a witness, because most of them have never seen what true Christianity is. According to your thinking, we shouldn’t bother because they are already going to heaven anyway. Do you want to stake these people’s souls on your interpretation of scripture? I know that sounds harsh, but this is important stuff.

Note also that we wouldn’t have thought it necessary to witness to the Pharisees of Christ’s day under your system, because they would have appeared very sincere in their faith and impeccable in their works. And yet Jesus, who could discern more than others (being God), saw straight through their works and condemned them because he knew that they were not sincere (see Matthew 23). I’m not quite sure how under your system we are supposed to decide who is sincere and good enough (so leave them alone), and who is not (so witness to them).

Regards,
Mathew Markey

I would like to comment that I agree with Bill. I think that if we can get to heaven and be with God and be holy by other means than the cross, than why did Jesus do it? Why would Jesus die if it was not necessary? In my view that would be the epitomy of masochism, God suffering without need for that suffering.

And Philip, when I think about what you read, I think that it sounds so nice. It sounds great actually… My muslim friends or other non-Christian friends can still get to heaven without Jesus. I do not really have to worry about them because, as long as they live a good life, I will meet them again! Even better, I do not have to go through the whole work of trying to evangelize because it is not really necessary. Christians all over the world do not have to go through the persecution they are facing, because ‘living a good life’ is good enough.
So to be really honest, it is very appealing to believe what you are saying and it would perhaps be true if Jesus had said that we would have an easy time as Christians on this world. But did Jesus say that?

Paul gives us the example of running a race. I am working as a missionary using sports and I can tell you that running a race is not easy life. Ask any marathon runner if it was an easy race and listen to what they have to say. At about 30 km in the race you reach the point where you simply think you can not continue, it is a fight to break through and mentally you have to be strong enough to break through this barrier to be able to finish what you started. I think it is the same with Christianity, we do not have an easy life in the way that everything is going for us, but we do have Jesus with us along the way. That is something other religions do not have… Jesus said himself that He is the way, without Him, no one will get to the Father.

Our lives are not easy, we do have to go into the world and preach the gospel because it is the only way.

I am sorry Philip, I do not want this to seem like a ‘tag-team against Philip’, but Biblically Bill is correct in what he said. And this is my first comment on websites such as these, so maybe I do not fully make sense. But you said that you are a Christian, then I ask you to take the scriptures that Bill quoted to heart, read them over and over again, ask God to reveal to you what the meaning of that word is! That is what I do every time again and I believe that is what Bill does as well. By doing that, I have come to this conclusion…

Mendel Ottow