I HAVE BEEN, FOR SOME TIME NOW, WORKING THROUGH THE PROBLEM of my former religious mindset. For over thirty years I accepted as truth, without question, that only believers in Jesus Christ were “right” in the sight of God and, therefore, fit for heaven. All other people, those who failed or refused to believe, were on their way to an eternal torment in a Godless Hell.

This is the basic viewpoint of the evangelical Christian church. I obtained the following statement from the Statement of Beliefs of a local church close to our home. Here is their doctrine of Final Judgment… “We believe there will be a final judgment for all unbelievers. Hell is an actual place of great suffering, bitter sorrow, and remorse reserved forever for the devil and his angels and all whose names are not written in Christ’s book of life.” And, of course, the common teaching in the Christian church is that a person’s belief in Christ (believing in his death, burial, and resurrection from the dead) is what causes a person’s name to be written in the Christ’s book of life. (Never mind the fact that there is no mention in the Bible of anyone getting their name written in Christ’s book of life!)

The bottom line here is that I no longer believe in any “judgment to come” at all for anyone, believer or unbeliever. What I believe comes from an interpretation of the New Testament that attributes more love, more grandeur, more accomplishment, more compassion, grace, peace, and mercy to God than the Christian church has ever acknowledged.

First of all, I do believe in God’s wrath being poured out in judgment against sin, but I am convinced it is behind us and not ahead of us. According to Jesus’ own words (John 12:31) his cross was the judgment of this world! If there is a judgment against sin that yet looms over mankind… what was it that the cross of Christ accomplished? Was Christ’s “passion” worth only a conditionally partial triumph over sin, hell, and the grave? If that is the case, what a treacherous precipice lays before us all! Not only do we have to believe, but we have to believe correctly and respond to that belief within divine parameters that we know will properly qualify us for a blissful eternity with God.

Personally… I am so thankful to report that I fully reject that miserable viewpoint.

Secondly, it has become my belief that all humanity was redeemed and reconciled to God through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. It was there that we were “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 3:24) I love those words, “justified freely by his grace…” That is exactly what “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” accomplished… a freely given justification through HIS GRACE! It is freely given by God to humanity… his creation! It is not freely given after you believe, receive, or accept. It is freely given by God’s grace to an undeserving humanity.

Moreover, I do not believe that human beings are “in sin” until they accept God’s offer of salvation. What I believe is what Paul actually wrote in Romans 5:18, “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”

In my view, this understanding credits the Lamb of God with the complete and overwhelming achievement of “taking away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) In this light, Christ can no longer be considered the sorrowful rejected savior that is only able to “save” a few hardy souls who managed, through their own faith, to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of God. No longer can God the Father be thought of as having this wonderful will and plan for all mankind, but sadly “only a few there be that find it!”

As my friend, Mike Williams, has often said… “true spirituality is never measured by how many people you can exclude, but by how many you can include!”

God included us all in his perfect plan “…according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself…” This amazing God “…raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus…”