Can someone who’s a cannibalistic serial killer be with God forever? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Atheists often like to talk about the atrocities of God in the Bible that they see. If God kills someone in the Bible, well He’s wicked and evil. What is amazing also is that if God is gracious, He’s also wicked and evil! Let’s consider this image.
I wrote something about a similar post once in addressing if your murderer will be in Heaven. Some atheists I have seen discussing this picture have asked what it will be like for someone who was ate by Jeffrey Dahmer to see him in Heaven. Awkward?
No. Not really.
It assumes that when people are around the throne in Heaven, they will be still in their same sinful natures. Not at all. Heaven is a place of grace and forgiveness. There are no grudges or desires for revenge and there is no hatred there. If anything, those who were victimized will be happy to see Dahmer because they want to see him get the same grace they have received.
Let’s also assume for the sake of argument that Dahmer did have a real conversion. I know some people could bicker that maybe it was a fake one, but for the sake of this discussion, I am going to assume it was real. Why is this really a problem for Christianity?
If anything, this shows how much God is willing to forgive. God loves His creation so much that He does forgive all the sins of the past. This doesn’t mean that everyone will experience Heaven the same way as I think there are degrees of reward in Heaven, but it does mean that one will at least get into the city.
If forgiveness could ever be earned, it would not be forgiven. When you forgive someone, you just forgive them. It doesn’t mean there are no consequences whatsoever, but it means there is no debt between the two of you. It won’t be used against you further.
I don’t need to repeat a lot in this post since much of it is in the earlier linked post, but this whole scenario always boggles my mind. God is a problem because He is angry at sinners and wants to kill them all supposedly, but then He’s also a problem because He will freely show grace to all sinners and pronounce forgiveness for them.
Besides, for my fellow Christians. My big amazement is not that Jeffrey Dahmer is going to make it. Many of us will happily talk about the grace given to sinners.
Our big amazement as Christians and the one we usually doubt is that we’re going to make it.
But we are, and this is mind-boggling. If we think the goal is to get people around the throne of God, the cross should show us that God is more serious about getting us there than we are. God’s ultimate goal is to include as many as possible and not to exclude. No. That’s not an inclusivism where there are many roads to God or something like that. It is a call that God has made it as simple as He could for us to come to the Kingdom by giving us the Son.
Atheists. Don’t think you’re going to make me doubt my Christianity by talking about the grace of God for Jeffrey Dahmer. I’m amazed enough that He has grace for someone like myself.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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