Will people who've drifted from the Lord get to heaven?
You can also watch this on video
In This Article:
The story of the Chief Rabbi
Some years ago I was privileged to be part of meeting where a chief rabbi from Jerusalem agreed to speak at a church meeting. He was quite nervous about it, and requested that we meet in the hall not in the sanctuary, and that we have no religious activities like prayers or singing. But he graciously agreed to speak to us about his faith. After his talk, the floor was open to questions, and someone asked the question, “Do you believe in heaven?” He answered, “Yes we do.” He was then asked, “How do you believe people get to heaven?”
He gave this remarkable answer:
“If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds by 51% to 49%, you will get into heaven.”
To say I was shocked would be an understatement. His answer raised so many questions. Who set the pass mark of 51%? Surely any sin leads to death? Rom 6:23 says “The wages of sin is death,” it doesn’t go on to say “unless if your sins do not exceed 49%.” Isn’t the pass mark 100%? (Habakkuk 1:13 says, “You are of purer eyes than to see evil, and cannot look upon wrong.”) How do we decide if we have reached 51%? And why do we only include deeds, and not words and thoughts? The tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” is about how we think and feel, not just how we act. Jesus said in Matthew 5 that thoughts, not just deeds, will be counted against us: that if we even look at a woman lustfully, we have committed adultery in our heart; if we bear anger in our hearts, we have actually committed murder. By those standards, surely even 51% is actually unattainable. And what if we include, as the Common Book of Prayer does, “the good deeds which I have left undone” – sins of omission? That thought always scared the heck out of me, and surely makes even 51% completely unattainable? And don’t some deeds count a higher percentage than others? A person might do good deeds all his life, and then murder his wife. Doesn’t murder outweigh all his good deeds? And, above all, aren’t we saved by grace, not works?
These are difficult and important questions.
Four Kings
In my video series “Know your Kings,” I showed graphs of the spiritual lives of four of the Kings of Israel
and asked the question: “Will they get to heaven?”
Here are the four graphs:
Josiah.
Josiah is one of only five of the 41 Kings who was consistently good and faithful throughout his life. He came to the throne at the age of eight, and did more than any other king to cleanse Israel of idolatry and turn people back to worship the Lord.
David.
David started his career brilliantly – full of faith and good deeds. Unfortunately, towards the end, he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then engineered the murder of her husband. He only repented when Nathan the prophet confronted him. His repentance is famously recorded in Psalm 51.
Manasseh.
Manasseh was the most evil of all the kings of Israel and Judah. He instituted a veritable plague of idolatry; he “filled Jerusalem from end to end with innocent blood;” and, perhaps worst of all, he sacrificed his own son in the fire to the god Moloch. God disciplined him severely and he was sent to Babylon with the hook through his nose. There he repented. God appeared accept his repentance, and he was restored as king of Israel.
Joash.
As a baby, his grandmother, Queen Athaliah tried to murder all the descendants of David, including Joash, her own grandson. He was miraculously saved by his aunt Jehosabeth and her husband, the high priest Jehoida, and was made king at the age of seven. He also started really well. Under him, a lot of idolatry was removed from Judah and there was a turning back to the worship of the Lord. Unfortunately, after Jehoiada died, Joash went astray and started worshipping idols himself. When Jehoiada’s son Zechariah rebuked him, Joash had him stoned to death in the temple area.
Will these four Kings be in heaven?
First thoughts
Please read these carefully and see if they “ring a bell” within you.
1. Josiah.
I think most of us would be comfortable in saying that Josiah has gone to heaven – he was good and faithful from beginning to end, and led a lot of people to worship the Lord.
2. David.
Obviously, David as a boy and a young man loved the Lord and served him whole-heartedly. And he did repent, apparently sincerely, after his great sin. But his sins were enormous – adultery, deceit and murder. And even though he repented, he only did so after Nathan caught him out - it is doubtful that he would have repented otherwise. He got away with murder – simply because he was a king. There is a part of me that is very uncomfortable with the idea of his going to heaven, but the Scriptures say he did, so we must reluctantly accept that.
3. Manasseh.
Admittedly, Manasseh did repent at the end, although only after he had been severely punished. His sins were far beyond an ordinary man’s. They were egregious in the extreme, and caused tremendous damage and death to other people. And, although he repented, he did not put right the wrongs he had done - it was left to his son Josiah to clean up the mess after him. It’s really hard to see how he could be in heaven.
4. Joash.
Admittedly, Joash started well. But his fall was far worse than ordinary backsliding. He became involved in idolatry and murder – murder of the high priest in the temple. This was extreme, and surely must have negated the good he did
earlier in his life. Surely he can’t be in heaven.
What do you think of my first thoughts?
They all have one thing in common – they are based on the same basic thinking as that of the Chief Rabbi - that we are saved or lost through our works. This concept is so deeply embedded in us that we hardly noticed that it’s there. Even long-standing evangelical Christians have it lurking within them.
One day I was playing golf with another pastor. We had to hit over a big pond to reach the green. My ball went high in the sky and came down in the middle of the pond. My partner then hit his ball “in the teeth” which means it travels very low. I counted – his ball bounced on the water eleven times and rolled out onto the green. I was devastated and I said, “We can see who had a quiet time this morning!” Now of course I was Joking, but there it was – the belief that we are rewarded for our good deeds and punished for our bad ones.
I saw it far more seriously in my own mother. Before I was born, she was sitting knitting one Sunday afternoon. That night, she was rushed into hospital. I never found out why, but I suspect she suffered a miscarriage – the brother or sister I never had. Many years later she told me that she had believed that she was being punished for knitting on a Sunday. There it is again: a deep belief in a Bible-believing woman that we are punished for our misdeeds – that God would take away a child for so slight a “sin” as knitting on a Sunday. It is a very difficult belief to get rid of.
Second thoughts
My second thoughts are based on two Scriptures:
Ephesians 2:8 – “By grace we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves – it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
Genesis 15:6 – “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
These, and many other Scriptures, lead me to the following fundamental truth:
Human beings get to heaven only because they are covered by the blood of Christ, and for no other reason. It is a gift - it cannot be earned, and we access it by faith. And, once you are covered by the blood of Christ, you are brought under a covenant of grace which can scarcely (if ever) be broken.
Even people in the Old Testament were saved by being covered by the blood of Christ, even though they lived before Christ was crucified. We are told that Jesus was “slain from before the foundation of the earth.” And people who lived before Christ, like our four kings, received the gift of righteousness by faith, not by works.
In the light of this, let’s look at our four kings again:
Will the four Kings be saved?
1. Josiah.
Josiah will certainly be saved, but not because he was “good.” Even if he was 80% good (which I doubt is possible) he would still have been lost because of his sins. Even if Josiah had been the only person on earth, Christ would still have had to die for him. No, he was not saved because he was “good,” he was saved because he put his faith in God, and he was given the gift of complete cleansing in the blood of Christ. It’s wonderful that he didn’t backslide or commit any serious sins, but that’s not why he’s in heaven.
2. David
We need always to be mindful that our natural tendency is to revert back to the belief in salvation by works. This doctrine can lead us into real absurdities.
For example, we could end up saying:
If David had died at point A, he would have gone to heaven;
if he had died at point B, he would have gone to hell;
if he had died at point C, he would have gone to heaven.
This is absurd.
Consider this graph which makes it even more absurd:
Someone commits their life to Jesus as a child, and really means it. Then they backslide, but as a teenager they come back to Christ, and really mean it. Then backslides again. but, in their 30's, they come to Christ again. I know of many people whose lives but like this. None of the backsliding’s are bad as David’s, but it’s not pretty. It’s a pity for a Christian to live like this, but it’s quite common.
So what are we to say such a person? We could say, absurdly, but if they died at point A, C, or E they would go to heaven; but if they died at B, D, or F they would go to hell.
I call this “daisy-chain” spirituality – “He loves me, he loves me not" - saved, not saved.
It is absurd, and it leads to a very fragile sense of assurance.
My belief is that David would certainly have been saved if he had died at point B, and the reason his this: As a young shepherd boy, David wrote and sang the words “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and he meant them from the bottom of his heart. That was the moment at which he committed his life to God.
At that moment, he was given the gift of total righteousness, for life. From then on, whenever God looked at him, he saw only righteousness – the gift of the blood of Christ. When he committed his sins of adultery and murder, he was already fully covered by the blood of Christ, and would have been saved. In a real sense, he was forgiven the sins of adultery and murder when made his commitment to God as a little boy. David’s repentance was real, and the blood of Christ cleansed him from all his sin, and he is in heaven today.
Paul talks in one Corinthians 3 about people who have been given the foundation of Christ (have been covered by the blood of Jesus) and then build rubbish on that foundation. He says, “They will be saved as by fire.” I do not know what “as by fire” means, but it sounds very unpleasant, and something to be avoided at all costs. If David had died at point B, he would have been saved “as by fire.” But he would have been saved.
Of course it would have been so much better if David had not committed those awful sins. They certainly stained his reputation, and his family life was never the same again. If David had died at B it would have been a pity, but he would have been saved.
3.Manasseh
Manasseh is, without doubt, in heaven. We may find this hard to swallow, but it is so. He did indeed do enormous damage and his sins defy imagination. That he could be forgiven is a picture to us of how powerful and far-reaching the blood of Christ is - if he can save Manasseh, he can save anyone. The thief on the cross (who presumably was also a considerable sinner) had no time whatsoever to put right the wrongs that he had done. But with his dying breath, he gave us a marvelous example of repentance (“We deserve to be here”) and of faith (“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”) He and Manasseh are great examples to us that we are not saved by works, but by grace. It’s not for nothing it’s called “Amazing Grace.” Perhaps it should be called “outrageous grace.”
If I feel a bit offended that such a terrible sinner Manasseh should receive the same reward as me, it is simply an indication of how little I understand my sin and how serious it is. Christ would have had to die for me if I been the only sinner in the world.
4. Joash
Joash is possibly the most troubling of all. We all know people in this category: As a child or a young person they committed their life to Christ - and they meant it with all their heart. Perhaps they were even baptised and served the Lord for a while; but then they started “backsliding.” Perhaps the backsliding was quite serious and went on for the rest of their life. And then they died. Will they be saved?
Of course, none of us knows who will get to heaven and who won’t. It is a mystery known only to God, and we are not to judge.
But I believe that if a child or teenager repents and puts their faith in Christ, they are forgiven all their sin - all their sin – past present and future. They are covered by the blood of Christ; they are “justified” and brought under the covenant of the blood of Christ. I believe that once that has happened, it is very rare for someone to “get out” of that covenant. Rare, but not impossible.
The story of the people of Israel teaches us a great deal. God did not give up on the Northern ten tribes of Israel for a very long time. Only after 180 years and a succession of nineteen evil kings, all of whom indulged in idolatry and various degrees of wickedness, did God finally cast them from his presence. He did eventually give up on them, and they lost their salvation. We need to take note of that.
But God never gave up on the Southern nation of Judah. Their sin and idolatry at times was extreme, and God certainly disciplined them. But he has never rejected them – not to this day.
Conclusion
When Abraham believed God, it was “credited to him as righteousness.” He did not earn that righteousness; it was put into his “bank balance” as a gift. He was given the gift of complete forgiveness, and was brought under the covenant of the blood of Christ. And once you’ve received those gifts, you do not easily lose them.
It is not easy to get out of God’s covenant. It is possible – God did eventually give up on Israel, and they lost their salvation and their covenant blessings. But it took a long time and extreme behaviour before it happened.
So I believe it is by far the exception when someone loses their salvation.
The blood of Jesus is so completely efficacious,
the covenant in Christ’s blood so powerful,
and the love of God so great,
that there are going to be far more people in heaven than we expect, and that when we get there we are in for a lot of surprises.
The blood of Christ is far more far-reaching than we imagine.
“There's a wideness in God's mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.”