How Many Gospels Are There?

How Many Gospels Are There?

There has been a lot said about salvation over the last two thousand years.  People of different countries, different people groups, ethnicities, theologies, and philosophies all seem to have come up with their own ideas about salvation.  We, as humans, have probably thought of just about every way imaginable to make it from this life securely into the next.  We have conjured so many varied ways to cross over to the next world that we are now bringing back to life ancient eastern religions and mixing in a few thoughts of our own time just to make them more palatable and more fun.  

Many people don’t seem to think salvation is even necessary.  They are happy to just run along skipping and jumping their way through life believing that every man’s good is his own creation.  And what about when their time on earth is finished, well, it is incomprehensible to them that they will do anything but decompose back into the soil whence they evolved hundreds of millions of years ago, never to be heard from again.

Yet others believe salvation is possible and struggle all their lives to obtain salvation.  They volunteer, they give to the poor, they visit with shut-ins.  They work themselves into a frenzy trying to work their way into heaven.  The sadness of  beliefs such as these is when you ask them if they are saved, they will often reply, “No one ever knows for sure whether or not they are saved!”  How terrible is that?  You must work all your life dedicating all that you are and all that you do, to raising your family and teaching them the things they should do to obtain eternal salvation.  And in the end, you must convince them to trust what they have been taught, to sacrifice all their lives, and merely hope that they have pleased God enough that they may enter into heaven.  Because they have no assurance of eternity, they have no assurance that the god they worship and sacrifice for even cares one whit about them!  How sad.

Let us not forget the butterfly children.  These are those misguided souls that believe God is all love all the time, and in the end, will welcome everyone into heaven for an eternity of cuddles, hugs and kisses.  Where is the truth in this?  There can be no true mercy without true justice!  Without the judgment of God, what are they being saved from? 

According to this misguided belief, people like Stalin and Hitler or more recently people like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Saddam Hussein are all sitting on God’s lap for story-time with no hint of repentance.

I agree with these butterfly children because God is love.  But scripture also tells us that God is just.

“4He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.” Deu 32:4 (NKJ)

“8For I the LORD, love justice...) Isa 61:8 (NKJ)

And without judgment, there can be no justice;

“27And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” Rom 9:27 (NKJ)

“17For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” 1Pet 4:17 (NKJ)

At times in my life I have dabbled with a few of those unfounded nonbiblical ideas and even tried to get them to fit into the bible a little.  Mostly, I just ignored the bible because it didn’t say what I wanted to hear.  Besides, reading the bible was a lot like studying (which I hated to do) and because it was so hard to understand.  I wanted no part of any kind of homework, especially on something like religion.  I believed that if God wanted me to know something, I would just know it.  I was, I thought, satisfied with what little bible knowledge I had and the deep (very shallow) conversations about universal energy and the soul that my friends and I would occasionally ponder while trying to impress each other (ourselves) with how little we actually knew about anything. 

But thank God, I finally saw the destructiveness in placing my faith in foolish ways that are not and never have been of God.  Because of my trusting in the Lord, the Holy Spirit lives within me and perfectly leads me while I imperfectly follow.  And unlike all other religions, I have the perfect unbreakable promise of God himself, that I will spend eternity ruling with Him.  All the other religions of earth tell us what we must do to obtain salvation.  Christianity is the only religion where our salvation is already done.  Christ took care of that two thousand years ago.