Christians :If a person believes in Jesus's sacrifice and have bad deeds at the same time?

Ibrahim,

My understanding is that the fundamental Christian doctrine is embodied in John 3:16, which establishes Jesus' relationship to God (presumably God the Father, though this is not explicitly stated, and the doctrine of the Trinity wasn't official until the 5th century), the sending of him as a sacrifice and atonement for the sins of mankind, and that "whosoever believes in [some sources have this as "on him"] him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

Which, of course, sets up quite a quandary. As you say, if someone believes in (expresses faith in) Jesus but doesn't change anything else, where does that person sit in terms of salvation?

Other parts of the bible depict Jesus on the cross with two thieves, who confess their faith and hear Jesus say, "Surely today you shall be with me in paradise." So it would appear that all it takes is a deathbed conversion, so to speak.

However, this gives way to people who say they are Christian in fact being VERY EVIL and then basically apologizing for it and announcing that God forgives them.

You don't have to look very far elsewhere in the Bible to find examples of Jesus saying to people whose lives he's touched, "Go and sin no more." So most of the Christian world assumes that:

a) Yes, faith is enough, and is really the only thing that matters.

b) You should live a good life anyway, because it is the right thing to do and it's a commandment.

One of the classic conflicts between Old and New Testament theology is that in the Old Testament (and in Jewish thelogical teaching in general) the primary commandment is to observe the laws of God. Essentially, Christianity says, "Yeah, you have to do that, too. But it's not the primary commandment, and by itself, it doesn't count."

The whole heaven or hell thing baffles the heck out of me. There aren't that many references to it in the Bible, and most of them are vague, other than specifying various kinds of fire, judgment, and eternal torment. But honestly, I've seen more of that practiced right here on Earth than I care to see, at the hands of Man, not God.

If you look at the "punishments" meted out on Mankind--or at least what people say were punishments laid upon them by God--it all seems quite petty, arbitrary, and mean spirited. If it's truly a loving God then a lot needs to be explained (and not sloughed off as "His mysterious ways"), because the behavior resembles an abusive spouse a lot more than anything else.

I think that from a strictly theological perspective, we all get WAY off track when we try to figure out the logic behind it. Most of us know when we're "living in a godly way" and following the examples of good behavior taught by our respective religions. In my opinion, folks who don't acknowlege that are just trying to "game the system."

It's hard for me to believe that in the afterlife, any loving, fair-minded, and benevolent divine being is going to look at someone's behavior and say, "Well... technically you were an SOB, but since you said the magic word, welcome home, good and faithful servant."

I am sure that's going to rub some people the wrong way, but so be it.

We need to get more christians asking this same question. Congratulations to you for bringing the subject up.

Short answer: no one gets to heaven by avoiding bad deeds, or by doing good deeds. It is not "merit" based or "works" based. Everyone who gets to heaven is there because of grace...

Grace= unmerited love and favor of God.

Faith is also more than intellectual assent or agreement with the "sacrifice" of Jesus, or the Person of Jesus. The Bible says "Do you believe? You do well. The demons also believe, and tremble."

We know demons are not going to heaven, so what does this saying tell us? You can believe in your head and miss heaven altogether because it is not a trusting relationship formed in the heart AND the mind.

If the sinless life which pleased God is not living within the christian, by faith....he is still counting on his own works and merit to gain heaven. This will fail. If the "good" christian fails when basing his appeal to heaven on works...how will the sinning christian fare? If the righteous are barely saved, what will become of the ungodly, and the sinners?

First, do you mean actually "worshiping an idol" or showing reverence

and respect to a representation of Jesus? If you mean the latter, it is

not the same as "worshiping an idol" as many would like to claim.

If one worships an idol of, say, Osiris and

believes Jesus' sacrifice at the same time,

that is really bad, okay.

|||

But if one has an image of Jesus, crucified

or not, and does things towards it such as

bowing or praying, that is not worshiping

an idol, but it's only a means of directing

worship to the real Jesus.

|||

UNLESS, of course, that person

believes that the picture or statue

of Jesus is Jesus himself, THAT

is idol worship, which is bad.

i think of that maximum relgious human beings (no longer counting devil worshippers) will flow to heaven as long as they're a genuine believer and have some elementary morals. yet once you have faith 2 issues at as quickly as then you definately are no longer a genuine believer and that i assume then your screwed. Jesus ( or somebody like him) could be your idol.