Who is saved?
William Allberry
St George's, West End
2nd May 2010

Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life!
Clearly it came as quite a shock to the early Christians, who took it that Christianity was simply a form of the Jewish faith, that non-Jews were offered the salvation that Christ brought to the Christians.  They had assumed that you had to be Jewish first – Jewishness was the basis of the relationship with God – and so Christianity was built on that foundation.  They had been so accustomed to hearing the stories of salvation – from Noah and the ark onwards, through Joseph and the migration to Egypt, and then the deliverance from slavery into the Promised Land: so accustomed to the mantra that they were God’s people, that it hadn’t occurred to them that people outside that special relationship could ever get a look in.
It comes as quite a shock to many Christians today when it’s suggested that perhaps some people who aren’t Christians might get to heaven.  We find it hard enough to accept that the labourers in the vineyard who came in just before sunset are given the same reward: but those who haven’t even laboured at all – surely not?
I like the story of the Catholic priest, the Anglican vicar and the Baptist minister who arrived at the gates of heaven and were met by St Peter.  The Baptist stepped forward and introduced himself as a minister, but St Peter apparently wasn’t impressed.  So the vicar pulled himself up to his full height and showed his dog collar and his cycle clips – but again St Peter looked away, to the priest who was standing looking quietly confident.  ‘Oh Father, come in,’ says St Peter, and ushers him in to the waiting ministering angels, closing the pearly gates behind him.  The Anglican and the Baptist look at each other in horror, but then the gates open and St Peter comes out to pull them in.  ‘Sorry about that,’ he says, ‘but the Catholics don’t like to find that other Christians get into heaven.  Come in!’
It’s silly nonsense, of course – but what if we re-told the story about a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim?  There might be more truth in it.  But at least they all worship the one God.  What if it were a Christian, and Humanist and an Atheist?  Well?
Not long ago we had a sermon in Christ Church – perhaps here as well, I can’t remember – when the OT reading was from the Book of Daniel, about the names written in the Book of Life; and the visiting preacher asked us whether our names were written in the Book of Life?  He made it quite clear that we had to be sure of this, as the Book of Daniel (ch. 12) said in no uncertain terms that ‘those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.’  Do we believe this?  Do we really think that God made some people in order to consign them to eternal torment?
The question is, how wide is the love of God?  Who is saved?  I think we can argue, with good justification, that we can look at today’s Bible readings and see there a pattern developing, a pattern for an understanding of human salvation that gradually widens, until all people are included.  Universal salvation!
The continuing story from the Acts of the Apostles is of St Peter defending himself before the Church in Jerusalem after he has baptised non-Jews, and so admitted them to the Church.  In Acts chapter 10 he had met Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and found that the Holy Spirit fell on all his household and his friends – and seeing this, he felt compelled to baptise them all – even though up to that moment it was only Jews who had been allowed to receive baptism.  And in chapter 11, as we heard just now, he tells the Christians in Jerusalem about the dream he had had about all types being drawn into heaven.  Peter’s experience of God’s leading, by allowing the Holy Spirit to descend on these people, convinced him that Gentiles should be admitted to the faith, just the same as Jews.  A bit later, of course, St Paul came along and took an even more radical view – how the life and death and resurrection of Jesus had implications for the whole human race.
Well, Peter’s account was accepted by the Jerusalem Church, and we’re told that the community there gave thanks for God’s ever-widening mercy, in that Gentiles were now to be admitted to the fellowship of Christ’s Church.
So the pattern in the Bible is of people’s relationship with God: first of Abraham; and then, through him, of the nation that descended from him; and then through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the whole human race.  The Bible marks the early stages of this development in Christian understanding, and perhaps helps us by giving us some guidelines to work out what is compatible with faith in Christ.  We can see clearly the beginnings of the development of God’s purpose of saving his people, first through the chosen people of Israel, then through the Church, through all people who respond to the God who reveals himself in Christ – sometimes people who respond in unknown and hidden ways.  Who are we to say who gets to heaven and who doesn’t?  When Jesus was asked who gets to heaven, what did he say?  Did he say it’s those who say, ‘Lord, Lord?’  Or is it those who ‘do the will of my Father who is in heaven’?  Is it the Pharisees who say abide by all the rules and regulations of the faith, or is it people who really love God?  Is it the good church people who sing their hymns and prayers, or is it those who actually love their neighbours?  I think we might be surprised who gets into heaven – and I only hope that, unlike the priest in the story, we have the humility to greet them joyfully, and delight in the fact that they have found salvation too!
The psalm here calls on the whole of creation to give thanks for the glory of God.  And in the Revelation reading (from chapter 21) the image of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ is central to our understanding of the gospel.  The vision of John the Divine – John the Seer – is of a totally newly created world, in which there’s nothing to cause harm, nothing to detract from a harmonious relationship with God.  John gives us an image of God’s being ‘all in all’, and the whole world being one in him.
There’s the same theme in the gospel passage from St John ch. 13.  ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him’, Jesus says.  This is after Gentiles have come up to the disciples with the desire to see Jesus – ‘Sir, we would see Jesus’.  The Christian gospel – the good news for the world – is that the whole of humanity is to be united, and it’s significant that such a weighty theological theme should climax in Jesus giving a ‘new commandment’: that those who follow him should love one another.  The unity which Jesus prayed for and which is central to our message is summed up in simple obedience – that those who take any note of him should live as he lived – in love of others.  The glory of Christ is the love of people for one another: in that way they show to the world that they have his Spirit.
I don’t want you just to take this from me, but I want to ask you to think it out for yourselves.  Are we entitled to pick and choose from the Bible the parts which fit our thinking?  Are we justified in interpreting it in the way I have just now?  There are many Christians who don’t agree with me.  Our visiting preacher that time was one of them.  And I think we need to respect their views – because they may be right!  Certainly, the Bible talks about judgement, and if there is a judicial system, there must be both acquittal and conviction.  And if we’re convicted, are we sentenced, and punished?  Who can say?  I would say in answer to that: there is judgment to come, certainly, but judgement doesn’t necessarily mean condemnation: there is rehabilitation, and restoration.  And even St Paul says that in Christ there is no condemnation!  But I’d be dishonest if I told you that the development of the theme in the Bible goes all in the same direction, because the OT vision of Daniel about the Book of Life is repeated in the very last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, in the chapter just before the one we read from this morning, in chapter 20, where it says ‘If any one’s name was not found in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire’.
Are we entitled to interpret the Bible, or must we accept it as the written, unchanging Word of God?  How far does God expect us to interact with the text and the culture of our own day, so that we can discern how we must live out the faith in our own generation?  It’s the responsibility of each of us to make up our own minds about this.  And while I hope and pray I have the humility to accept that I may always be wrong – I know what I think!

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