Category: Salvation

Q. Is it possible for a person whose heart has become hardened, and been hardened even further by God, to come back to God?

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by God hardening someone’s heart even further. We do have a record in the Bible of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. But that was for a specific purpose. Pharaoh had already set himself up against God, as became clear from his first answer to Moses: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” So this was a matter of God confirming Pharaoh in choices that he had already made, but that was for the purpose of God showing who he was to all the world through what he did to what was then the greatest empire in the world. We know that this made an impression on all the surrounding peoples, because later one of them told the Israelites how they had heard of what God had done to the Egyptians, and as a result, they knew that “the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.”

But I would say that, apart from such extraordinary purposes within God’s historical plan of redemption, God would not harden the heart of an individual so as to make it harder for that individual to repent and return. Sometimes God will confirm us in our choices in the sense of allowing us to experience the consequences of those choices. But God does that specifically so that we will realize that they were the wrong choices and repent.

So my essential answer to your question is yes, a person whose heart has become hardened can indeed return to God. Specifically if you are asking about yourself, the very fact that you are asking shows that your heart has begun to soften. You want to know if there is a way back to God. And there always is, for anyone who desires to return. The door is always open on God’s side. As the Bible says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.” God is eager to forgive and to restore us to relationship to him. So if you are asking about yourself, I would encourage you that the way is genuinely open for you to return to God.

And even if you are asking about someone else, the fact that God has put this person on your heart and you are wondering if there is still hope suggests to me that God, through his Holy Spirit, is reaching out to the person through you, wanting you to pray and intercede for that person. So I would encourage you to do that. See your concern for the person as something that God has given you because God is concerned and knows that you will pray and perhaps be someone who is able to encourage and help the person to return.

Only God truly knows what is in a person’s heart. Even if it might appear to us that someone has become so hardened against God that they would never return, we do not know what is going on inside that person. Jesus said he came to seek and save the lost. That is what we do know. If someone seems lost, then he or she is precisely the kind of person whom Jesus came to save.

Q. Good day to you. I am just curious. Are Muslims/Arabs the descendants of Ishmael, while the Christian Church is the descendants of Isaac? Did God promise kings and princes under the race of Isaac only? Is the division of Muslims and Christians because Sarah didn’t believe right away that she can have a child? Thank you for answering these questions. Thank you and God bless you.

Thank you for your question. We should distinguish between people of a specific faith and people with a specific ancestry. While Arabs traditionally trace their ancestry back to Ishmael, a person can be a Muslim without being an Arab, and a person can be an Arab without being a Muslim. There are, in fact, Arab communities that have been Christian for many centuries. Similarly, while Jesus Christ was descended from Isaac, a person can be a descendant of Isaac without being a Christian, and a person can be a Christian without being a descendant of Isaac.

God did not promise specifically that there would be kings and princes in the race of Isaac. Rather, God renewed to Isaac the promise he had made to his father Abraham, that through his “seed,” all nations on earth would be blessed. The initial meaning of the word “seed” in this promise is “descendants,” but Christian interpreters in the New Testament understand it as a reference to one particular descendant, Jesus Christ, whom they believe brought blessing to all nations when he came to earth as the Savior of all who would put their faith in him. So we may expect that there will be kings and princes in many different races of humanity.

Since it is not the case that Muslims in general are descendants of Ishmael and that Christians in general are descendants of Isaac, we should not see the division between them as the result of Abraham first having a child, Ishmael, through his concubine Hagar and then having another child, Isaac, through his wife Sarah. That would be the origins of an ethnic rivalry, not a religious division. However, we should note that while there was some rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac while they were growing up, they seem to have reconciled by the time they were adults. The Bible records that when Abraham died, “His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him.” This gives us hope that any ethnic rivalry between the descendants of these two sons of Abraham can similarly be resolved and the groups reconciled.

We can also hope that the same will be true of the religious division between Christians and Muslims. I do respect Islam as a great historic religion that, when followed in its true spirit, leads its followers to live good lives. Beyond that, as a Christian, I want my Muslim friends to meet my friend Jesus. The Quran describes Jesus as a great prophet and miracle-worker and even calls him the Messiah. So my hope is that my Muslim friends will want to find out more about who Jesus is and what he has done. This can and should be a matter of dialogue, not division, between Muslims and Christians.

Q. Faith vs. works has always been a troublesome topic for me. I have read all of your posts on this topic. (Thank you so much for the “Categories” listing. It is a wonderful resource.) I have found that James, in particular, has made a lot of sense to me. But recently I came across 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” I find that hard to square with salvation based on faith, even when taking into account understandings such as in James’s. When confused with Scripture, I often find it useful to read the same passage in The Message. It says, “We will appear before Christ and take what’s coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.” That version hasn’t helped me any.  I find that Paul writes the words you are asking about solidly within the context of salvation by faith. Shortly afterwards, summing up the discussion, Paul says, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all” and “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Beforehand, Paul talks about how God as “has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” So there is no notion here of conditional salvation, dependent on works. I would therefore say that when Paul speaks of us receiving “what is due us for the things done while in the body,” he is speaking not of salvation but of rewards. That is a topic about which the Bible does not tell us as much as we might like. But Paul told those same Corinthians, in his first letter, “No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.” Paul does not tell us what these rewards are, and we don’t find a description of them anywhere else in the Bible. But it is clear that they are not “earned salvation.” Paul says that the only foundation is Jesus Christ, meaning his saving work for us on the cross. Rather, these rewards are some special blessing from God in acknowledgment of faithful service on earth. Certainly they are an incentive to obedience. But we should not obey God in order to get the rewards. We ought to obey God out of joy-filled love and devotion. I think that if God simply said, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” that would be enough of a reward to satisfy for all eternity.

Q. In Matthew 26:2, Jesus says, “Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.” Does the word translated “betrayed” actually mean “betray,” or does it just mean “deliver”? Because to betray someone means a cunning malicious wicked action against someone who is ignorant of what is going on, while Jesus knew that He would be arrested with the help of Judas and He did not mind or resist that. What do you think?

I hear both a linguistic question and a theological question in what you are asking.

To take up the linguistic question first, the word that the King James Version translates as “betrayed” does mean simply “hand over” or “deliver.” It is the same word that Paul uses, for example, when he says about the Lord’s Supper tradition, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.” So the idea of malicious deception of an innocent, trusting individual is not implicit in the Greek verb. That would have to be inferred from the context. Because the notion of betrayal is not implicit in the verb, many modern translations do not use the word “betrayed” in the passage you are asking about. The NIV says, for example, “the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” The ESV says “the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

But if we do translate the word with its basic meaning, is it still appropriate for us to make the further inference that in this context, Jesus is talking about an actual betrayal? That is the theological question. It has two parts, based on two things you assert in your inquiry: (1) Was Jesus ignorant of what was going on? (2) Did Jesus mind that Judas enabled the authorities to find him and arrest him and demand his execution? I believe that the premise behind your inquiry is that if the answer to both of these questions is no, then it would not be accurate to say that Judas betrayed Jesus. We shall have to investigate that premise as well.

(1) Certainly by the time Judas actually led the authorities to Jesus, Jesus knew that he was going to do that. Jesus said as much at the Last Supper. Now personally I do not believe that Jesus recruited Judas to be a disciple with the direct knowledge that Judas was going to betray him. I don’t think it would have been fair to Judas for Jesus to give him the impression that he sincerely wanted him to be his disciple when all along Jesus was just looking for someone to betray him. Rather, I think that Jesus knew generally that one of his disciples would eventually betray him, and that one turned out to be Judas. Jesus described in the Parable of the Sower how some people “receive the word” but are then “scandalized” when the experience of living according to the word turns out not to be what they expected. That was what happened to Judas, and this was not a surprise to Jesus.

(2) However, when that happened, Judas could simply have walked away from Jesus, as others did. Instead, Judas seems to have wanted to “cash in” on Jesus by selling him out to the authorities. If, given the realities of human nature and spiritual conflict, it was inevitable that some of Jesus’ followers would turn away from him, it was still not necessary for any of them to sell him out to his enemies. As Jesus said in another context, “It is necessary that scandals come, but woe to the person through whom they come.” So I don’t think it was all right with Jesus that Judas led the authorities him in exchange for money.

But let us assume, in order to address the premise behind your question, that Jesus ultimately realized it was necessary for someone to tell the authorities where he was in order for him to be arrested and executed, and so, all things considered, he accepted what Judas did. Since Jesus knew it was going to happen, and if he accepted it, would be accurate to call it a betrayal?

I would still say yes. Right up until the last moment, Judas pretended that he was Jesus’ friend. When he led the authorities to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he didn’t point Jesus out from a distance and say, “That’s the man you want!” Instead, he walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek, which is how, in this culture, one man would greet another man who was his friend. At this, even though Jesus knew that Judas was going to lead the authorities to him, he said (I think with some incredulity), “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” Here Jesus uses the same verb as in Matthew 26:2, but now the NIV (which I quote here) and the ESV, like the KJV, translate it as “betray.” And I think the context justifies that translation. Pretending to be a friend when you are really an enemy is a betrayal, no matter how much idea the person you are betraying has of what you might actually be up to. Indeed, this action of greeting Jesus with a kiss illustrates how Judas went about the entire process of handing Jesus over. He acted all along as if he were deceiving an innocent, trusting individual, because that was what he believed he was doing. And in that sense, from the perspective of Judas’s own moral responsibility, he certainly did betray Jesus.

Q. I have never been baptized, but I pray a couple of times a day, asking God to forgive me for my mistakes in life and to watch over my family and friends. I feel as if I am a Christian, but I’m not sure.

Regarding the issue of baptism in particular, please see this post, which I think will help answer part of your question:

Am I still considered a Christian if I haven’t been baptized?

More generally, I would say that I am glad that you have a relationship with God through prayer, but I would like you to have the assurance that you do belong to God through Jesus because of what Jesus did for you when he died on the cross as your Savior. The Bible teaches that we can have confidence about this through faith in God’s promises and through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

But this confidence is not something we are expected to acquire on our own. Being a Christian is not a matter of pursuing certain devotional practices in isolation; it is a matter of becoming part of a community of people who love and serve God together. So I would encourage you to seek out such a community near you, a church that honors and worships Jesus, and find your place in it so that you can grow in your knowledge of God and in your confidence that you are indeed a Christian through faith in Jesus.

I trust that in this way, God will indeed bring you to the place where you are sure that you do belong to him.

Q. What does the Bible say about true religion, and how are we to identify it today? Let me respond to your question about “true religion” in a couple of senses. In terms of true religion, we might ask when religion is truly what it should be. James, a brother of Jesus who was a leader in the early church in Jerusalem, spoke directly to this question in his New Testament epistle: “Religion that is pure and undefiled in the sight of God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” In other words, the Bible says that religion is truly what it should be when it leads people to help others who are in need and to live in an honorable and morally pure way. Another way to put this would be to say that people are truly living out their religion when they do these things. The Bible suggests that this is a legitimate expectation that others can have of people who claim to be religious. We might also ask what makes religion “true” in the sense of genuinely teaching what God is like and how people can know God. You asked specifically what the Bible says about this, and the Bible says that in Jesus, God came to earth and revealed to us what God is like. As the apostle John wrote in his gospel, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” Jesus himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father [God the Heavenly Father] except through me.” So according to the Bible, true religion is that which points people to Jesus as the way to God. The Bible indeed identifies Jesus as the way to God, but it also demonstrates that God will take any way necessary to get to us. It illustrates, for example, how Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, an elderly Jewish leader, about being born again, but to a Samaritan woman whom he met at a well about living water. Jesus introduced himself as the light of the world to a blind man he healed. The apostle Paul preached from the Hebrew Scriptures when he spoke to Jews in the synagogues, but he quoted from Greek philosophers when he spoke in the Areopagus in Athens. So we can expect, on the Bible’s own testimony, that God will reach through the whole range of human cultures and languages to help people find the truth that the Bible says is uniquely in Jesus.

Q. I am perplexed by Mark 16:15-18, “These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”  Is Jesus saying that in order to have eternal life, we must exhibit the signs he has outlined? While I  believe and have been baptized, I do not speak in tongues and have not cast out demons.  In all fairness, I have not tested the snake theory or tried to drink any deadly thing, but I am not sure that would be wise.

Jesus is not saying that in order to have eternal life, we must exhibit the signs he is describing. He says quite clearly just before outlining these signs, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved.” (And baptism itself is an expression of saving belief, not a further requirement for salvation.) Then he adds, about those who have shown that they believe this way, that these signs will accompany them. But the signs accompany the whole community of believers, so it is not the case that each individual believer needs to have every sign in order to be sure that they are saved. So, put that snake back in its cage, put down that deadly drink, and rest assured in your salvation!