Getting into Heaven

May 5 2007

Question:

What does a person have to do to get into heaven?  I’ve heard people say that all you have to do is believe in Jesus, but what difference does that make?  I guess I believe in Jesus but I’m not sure I’m going to heaven.

Billy Graham’s Simplistic Answer:

You ask the most important question any person can ever ask, because nothing – absolutely nothing – is more important than our eternal salvation.  Life is short, but eternity is forever.  And yet, tragically, countless people never stop to prepare for eternity. The bible tells us salvation is a gift from god, a gift we receive by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. The word “believe” in the bible means “to trust.”

Jen’s Response:

I love this question, especially since the Vatican revised its thinking on this very issue recently. See “Out of Limbo”  Anyway, since that story, I have talked to my neighbors and read some more about this and it just is really amusing to me that you can’t get into heaven unless you believe in Jesus Christ, unless you are a good person, in which case you don’t have to even have heard of Jesus and you will get in.

Honestly, I think the Catholics are at least intellectually honest enough to realize that there is an inherent contradiction in these beliefs and have at least made an attempt to reconcile the problem.  They of course fail, but at least they tried.