Thanks. See bold print below.
Yes, I understand. I have absolutely no issue with how you see the process as transactional. From my perspective, if you do not have the advantage of Faith, salvation as a transaction is the only perspective you have at your disposal. You are unable to see it any other way. That’s OK; It hinders nothing.
I do realize, from my long history as a Christian, that you can’t earn your way into heaven as the Jews believe. I was simply trying to demonstrate that there were conditions (a transaction so to speak) for getting there which may be interpreted as earning your way.
If you see salvation as transactional that that leaves you with your part of the transaction; it empowers you with volitionally choosing compliance to the terms or rejecting them. There may be a misunderstanding of the terms; you may not understand what God is offering, the terms of transaction may have been misread. As I stated before, you may not be hoping to gain what God is really offering, and so the actual outcome of God’s supposed transaction may not be what you are actually looking for.
Allow me to inform you, God is under no obligation to honor any transaction of your own making. I don’t speak for God, but I advise If you write the transaction, God will surely reject it. In this eternal economy, God has all the leverage. So, my aim is to make sure you understand the supposed terms (as you say), that you are fully aware of what is actually being offered, and so you are then capable of making a properly informed decision. I can’t help wonder, as a “transaction” you must be curious what God gets from the deal. From your perspective, do you think the honor of your presence in heaven is worth God dying for? Are you worth it? If you think you are, you must think yourself to be pretty special (no offense intended). As transactions go, the deal seems pretty lop-sided, you must admit. As I see it, you personally have everything to gain, nothing to lose, and there is no cost to yourself. God gets stuck with the big bill, does all the giving, condescends to your level, all for privilege of providing badly-broken you with perpetual life, health, and happiness.
I think you may be making the assumption that I am actually buying into the idea that His deal with us humans is even real. As I had previously stated, a solid foundation of an argument must be established before credibility can be given to what it’s based on. My point in bringing attention to it (God granting us access to heaven if we believe in Jesus as the son of God) was to subtly suggest a level of absurdity, and therefore, difficulty in believing the whole story. That is my struggle, not that I am aware of the deal and just not wise enough to take it.
The reason I didn’t comment is that chasing truth with hypotheticals is a fool’s errand. That said, I am a glutton for a good parable, an allegory, or a well-formed metaphor, so I will indulge you in that vein. Your illustration is famous, and on the surface seems to expose great injustice. As stated, it does sound unethical and tacitly accuses Holy God of wrong-doing (which is impossible if God is Holy). The problem(s) with the scenario you posit are manifold.
Well, there’s nothing wrong with a hypothetical story to convey a point. Sounds like you actually do agree with that with your comment about the inclusion of parables in the Bible that are made up to demonstrate a point (e.g. the story about he who casts the first stone story).
Their citizenship in the KoG is not dependent on how their particular culture (including you) evaluates their morality, even if you think your evaluation came from God Himself. There are things you, and your culture think are just fine and moral and God finds repulsive. There are behaviors you label as immoral and God, who sees through them into the interior, to their very core, into the heart of man, judges with perfect and righteous judgement.
Certainly there should be clarity for us on what God sees as repulsive, right? Are you saying we may be unaware that some of our actions are repulsive to God? How could that be and where are you getting that notion from?
In your scenario, we cannot tell what was in the heart of these men, and what motivated them to act the way they did. Here we must rely on the only Righteous Judge.
Does it matter? How often have you heard Christians saying to non-Christians “just say you believe, that’s all you have to do”? I’ve heard it a lot.
Your story assumes the goal is “going to heaven” or “avoiding hell”. I know this position is popular, and even embraced my many professing Christians. I have already covered this error previously, so to keep within my 6000-character limit, I won’t reiterate here.
Of course. You’d have to admit that is the primary goal of many Christians, perhaps not ideal but sufficient.
I do like your hypothetical story. I had to think about it before replying. Here is my answer. I believe I would forgive the son who asked for forgiveness and welcome him back, and continue to be angry at the other son, even though I knew he had been a good person all his life. The story does lack a key analogy though. The kids in your story actually know, without question, that I was their father. Disowning implies initial ownership followed by a deliberate move to sever ties typically caused by some sort of conflict. That would not be the case with my story. It goes back to credibility. The Jesus story is just a tough one for non-believers to accept.
Does it change things if I add to my story that the bad guy’s decision to accept Jesus is to simply cover his bases in case Jesus is real (this does undoubtedly happen)? You know, faith as small as a mustard seed. The point here is not to argue that the “good guy” should go to heaven and the “bad guy” to hell. It comes down to a simple credibility issue.