Heaven or Hell?

How does God determine who goes to Heaven or Hell?

This question is actually the central point of Christianity. It also defines what separates Christianity from other belief systems. Let me start out by saying that in the vast majority of religions, the answer to this question would be that "a person is good enough". Meaning that a person had done enough good things to outweigh the bad things.

Perhaps it would surprise you to know that this is NOT what Christianity teaches though. Christians do not make it to Heaven by doing good or refraining from doing evil. I'll get to what this means in a minute.  First, from a logical point of view, the above system of good deeds, which most religions claim a person needs to do is very abstract. How can a person know if they've managed to reach the unknown line of 'good enough'? What measure could a person use to decide if, say, weeding the garden for your parents without complaining could cancel out throwing a temper tantrum? What 'payment' would God consider worth canceling out the debt of cheating on a test? What would happen if a person thought they were doing okay, but had forgotten how they had thought unkind things towards another person and thus didn't do something to make up for it? The idea of 'Good Works' getting a person into Heaven would mean that you'd never be sure if you had made the cut or not. I don't think it is a bad thing to attempt to do more good than bad in your lifetime, but as a means of assuring that you're on God's "Good List", it's a rather poor idea.

So what does Christianity teach? Well, for that, I'll have to lay out some background teaching. First, Christianity believes that humans are inherently evil. (In 'doctrine terms', this is called a 'sin-nature') Meaning that we were born with a nature that will do bad things without having to learn such actions. A child is a good example of this. A parent doesn't teach a child to be selfish or to throw tantrums or to lie, but every child will do all of those things 'naturally'. We have to learn to be mindful of others, to be patient, to be truthful even when it is inconvenient. So, from God's perspective, we kind of start out life with a bit of a handicap. We start out with a weight on the negative side of things. I'll come back to this thought.

Now God, on the other hand, is morally perfect. He does not ever do anything evil nor would He be tempted to ever do so. Heaven is His home. And just like you would never walk up to a stranger who'd been rolling in dog crap and who was glaring at you in hatred and invite him home for the evening, God is the same way. The bad things we do (called sin), are basically spiritual 'dog crap' which we've coated ourselves with. And unfortunately for us, we can't get clean on our own. The good things we do are the 'expected behavior', not things that clean us up. It is IMPOSSIBLE for us to make up for the bad things we do. Crawling over broken glass all the way to Canada wouldn't make up for a single thing, no matter how awful a punishment it was. That's because at the beginning, God warned people that the punishment for any sin is death and separation from God (Hell). So at this point in the story, what you have is that everyone is going to die and go to Hell. It is humanity's default destination.

Which means that we have a problem. We are born with a sin nature and we do sinful things and nothing we can do can fix that situation. But God knew this and He chose to love us. Love means that you do your best to bring the highest good to the other person, even at a cost to yourself. So, since we were stuck, God provided a way to escape the situation.

First, he clothed himself in human form "taking on the likeness of man" - that would be Jesus. Then Jesus lived and taught as a man for about 33 years, giving us both an example and showing us what God is like and what He intended us to be like. You've probably heard of the 'virgin birth' before. Jesus was conceived by God, not by natural means, which side-stepped the whole 'sin-nature' problem. He then lived without ever doing anything bad throughout his life, and thus didn't rack up any debt that would have to be paid with death and Hell. Then, at age 33, he allowed himself to be killed. As I just mentioned, he didn't earn death, and that's the main point. It was like an accounting book - God took my life, all the sin-debt I have accumulated during my life-time and credited it to Jesus and then took Jesus' perfect life and credited it to me. We exchanged places in God's eyes. So my penalty of death and seperation from God is paid for (God, who is completely fair in his justice can't forgive a sin-debt without there being payment somehow, but he can forgive ME because He paid my debt himself). The death of Jesus was so valuable an exchange in God's eyes, His death isn't just payment for a single person, but payment enough to cover every single person who has ever lived.

Which means that anyone and everyone can get to Heaven. But not everyone makes it. And this is the final piece of this question. From what I just outlined, the 'ticket to Heaven' is freely available to everyone - no good deeds required. But the catch is that a person has to be willing to accept the trade of Jesus' death instead of ours. A person has to acknowledge before God that they deserve the punishment (in other words, they have to be truthful with God and fess-up to the idea that they've done bad things), then trust that Jesus' death was enough to pay for those bad things. That's it. A person does this and they've got a ticket to Heaven.

It seems so very easy (to the point of ridiculousness, almost), but it is intentionally done this way so that even the least intelligent person can understand and do what is required. But, despite the ease of the access to Heaven, many people still stumble over the idea. You notice first of all, I haven't mentioned that a person who believes in Jesus' death 'saving us' from Hell ever needs to do anything. No church attendance required, no feeding the orphans, no giving of money, nothing. That's because none of the 'good things' you can think of are required to become a Christian and get to Heaven. Don't think that this means that a Christian just goes on doing whatever they want however. Once a person becomes a Christian, God won't leave that person alone! A person who get's Jesus' perfect life on their divine accounting book is changed in that transaction. It's subtle, but in a genuine exchange, God transforms a person's heart and the person has a stronger desire to then please God and do what is good and right. This is where the good works finally come into play. It becomes more natural and desirable for a Christian to do good things - the good works are actually evidence of the changed heart. It's not an absolute definition (people who do good aren't necessarily Christians), but it is a very strong indicator (if a person claims to be a Christian, but doesn't live out the principles of love and goodness, then they are probably lying or self-deceived).

So now you know, if you ever want to go to Heaven, that's how it is done. You simply talk to God, then trust that He took care of your sin-debt. With that in mind, what questions do you have about what I've written?