If the Damned can be Saved Why Bother with Jesus Now?
I was recently asked the question above.
If a decision about Jesus can be put off until the afterlife why not enjoy sin and selfishness now?
It is questionable whether sin is enjoyable since its effects eventually lead to misery but let me respond to the question.
This is the question that prompted St. Augustine to put an end to all discussion of concern for the damned in the early Church. Sin now and repent – later leaves no work for the Church on earth to do.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord … is not willing that any should perish (eternally) but that all should come to repentance (knowledge and acceptance of God’s love in Jesus).
Decisions
God is not seeking our punishment but our salvation. It is God’s will for all to come to repentance. This does not mean that every soul will be saved. It does mean that every soul has the right to come to repentance – come to the place of decision about God’s offer of acceptance through Jesus. Each soul can choose to accept or reject it. Every soul has the right to this knowledge because it is God’s WILL.
The decision to not hear or make a decision about Jesus while you live is a decision.
It is a choice to accept the default consequence of sin (eternal death and separation from God). That choice has already been put in place for us by Adam. After death the results of this living choice cannot be overturned by a later one.
The reason, the Lord explained, is that the living choice begins a process of ‘hardening’ of the heart towards God. Once death occurs there is no longer a willingness on the part of a soul to hear the gospel and neither do they have a right to hear because, having heard or suspected the truth already, they have rejected it.
Evangelism in Hell
is only the extension of the right we have, to hear the gospel and to repent, beyond the gates of death. This applies in the case of those who never heard the good news in life or who heard such a distorted or incomprehensible version of it that they had no ability to make a valid choice.
It is possible to be preached to about the details of the Christian life without ever having heard words that give you knowledge of salvation. It is every soul’s right to hear the gospel and have the opportunity to come to repentance.
This is not Heresy it is Justice.
