In other words, my goal is not to win you to a Christ that is necessarily easy to believe or follow. And I am afraid that some of those who are attempting to be theologically astute wind up becoming academically agnostic. That is, they are agnostic enough to find every place where they don’t have to take a stand, which allows them to remain neutral for the sake of evangelism.
However, if you were to look at the life and ministry of Christ, you would never find him lowering the bar of doctrine or life in order to make people feel more comfortable. Rather, at every turn he seems to close loopholes, up the ante and make the Gospel not less difficult but more difficult to believe.
In the Gospel of John, for example, we frequently find Christ gaining a significant following. A good thing, right?
Then people begin to question some of his more difficult teachings. In John 6). I mean, who does he think he is? This is a hard teaching.
However, Christ does not make things easier. In fact, he makes it a lot harder, pushing those who may be on the fence in the opposite direction. He basically tells them that they are having trouble believing that his is the bread that came down from heaven because the Father is not with them.
Notice: “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).
Therefore, if Christ is unconcerned that people get tripped-up by noncardinal hang-ups, we don’t really see much evidence of this in the Scriptures. From Christ’s perspective, when one believes God, he believes God. That is, becoming a believer is not the simple act of believing one or two not so difficult things about God, but of having one’s life immersed in the belief of everything that God says, no matter how hard, no matter how difficult. It is in the trusting that God’s knowledge and understanding are perfect, and that our emotions, will and intellect always bow to his revelation.
So when someone asks whether or not they can reject an eternal hell and still be saved, the most important thing for me to attempt to discern is the underlying reason why this person is asking such a question.
