Who Can Be Saved?

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Father Joe

I am a bit perplexed by recent soteriology debates. One group assumes a form of universalism wherein most if not everyone will ultimately be saved. This contingent hopes that hell is the afterlife’s ghost town, populated by a few like the devil, Judas and Herod and maybe with a Nero, a Hitler and a Stalin. The other side contends, much in line with Scripture and the private revelations of saints that only a few will be saved and that hell is a crowded abode of souls anguishing in eternal hell-fire. While we can hope the devil is lonely, it seems to me that we should merely acknowledge the reality of heaven and hell and leave it entirely to God’s merciful providence and justice as to where he will assign us. Nothing about God’s generous mercy will be compromised if most souls should be damned. After all, we have always spoken about salvation as a gift which we cannot merit and do not deserve. I would not be surprised if God should save many that men would count as condemned. We are fortunate that God and not men make such determinations as we struggle to love and forgive as we should. Those who count baptism and Church membership as sure signs of being saved should be on guard against the “yeast of the Pharisees.”

Jesus tells us: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

Is it not enough that we admit our sinfulness, ask for forgiveness, and invoke divine grace through faith in Christ— walking in right relationship with God and striving to take a few of our family and friends to heaven with us?

We come into this world wounded in the womb. We cannot save ourselves. The world would beguile us with false treasure and empty assurances of safety and success.

Jesus speaks to us the uncomfortable truth: “‘Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible’” (Matthew 19:23-26).

Jesus gives us hope but not what some posit as an absolute assurance. If he were to do any other, then malice could wrongly find excuse for the exploitation and satisfaction of vices. Except for the Christ as the source of holiness and the virgin preserved from sin; there are some questions that must not be answered on this side of the grave. It is so terribly hard to be good. It is easy to love those who love us and to want those things that give us immediate pleasure. More difficult is trying to love those who are hard to love and embracing those things wrapped with the crown of thorns. As believers we have moments of grace that seem to enthrall or intoxicate us. We feel as the great saints must have felt within the intensity of their mysticism. But the joy is fleeting. The veil comes down. Suddenly the moment is gone. We have lost the oasis and only have the dry sand of the desert. The sense of loss is terrible and we are tempted to fill the vacuum with something less, anything that will take away the terrible sting of loss. Once we have had a taste of genuine joy, we want more and we want it in never-ending abundance.

Our primordial parents brought death into the world. Does this mean that in the evolution and battle of life that they were immortal? It is true that they could have been. No matter how the first man or woman was formed, it was their choice in sin that damaged the immediate trajectory of creation. Even if mortal or physical death had remained, great theologians have speculated that it would have been entirely redefined— nothing as we now experience it. The door between this world and the next closes abruptly. We cannot see clearly to the other side. There is so much pain and isolation. We are afraid. We are also naked and we know that we are naked. Had our first parents remained in the full flower of grace, death might have been no more a struggle than our walking from one lit room into another. They journeyed with God as a people in perpetual contemplation, desiring to cross the threshold from this world to the next with a hope to fully possess God and to have him possess them. Unfortunately, they broke this peace for themselves and for all who would follow. That peace is only restored in Christ.