PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Romans 11:1-2^a, 25-32                                                           Do Jews Get to Heaven?

Sermon August 17, 2008:  People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

            She asked me the question this way:  "How do Jews get to heaven with God, if they don't believe in Jesus Christ?"  That's the sermon topic for today.  My own interpretation of the scriptures and my own sense of the heart of God has led me to answer the question like this:  Jews are saved by God's election, just like everybody else. 

            Now, you may or may not agree with my view.  In the Protestant heritage we have an old tradition that says:  "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."[1]  As we begin today I invite us to remember that "everybody talkin' 'bout heaven ain't a-goin' there," and remember that the answer to the question of anybody's eternal destiny can only be an opinion; and so let me try to show you why my opinion is that Jews are saved by God's election, just like everybody else. 

 

            In the question she asked, she used the word "heaven"; but in my theme statement I don't say "heaven," I say "saved."  Over the centuries Jewish religion has not been consistent in teaching a doctrine of heaven and hell.  I believe when we deal with issues in somebody else's religion we need to pay attention to their vocabulary and their honest belief about the ultimate purpose of their religion.  In the Hebrew Bible there is no doctrine of heaven as humanity's eternal reward.[2]  That teaching was developed by the Pharisees and shared by Christianity at the very beginning of the church when Christianity was still nested within Judaism.  Since that time Jews have traditionally talked about heaven and hell; but today most Jews are not focused on heaven as the ultimate purpose of their religion.  Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer has written that the principal tenets of Judaism in our time are three:  the love of learning, the love and worship of God, and good deeds toward fellow humans.[3]  Most observant Jews just don't emphasize what they call "the world to come."  As Arthur Hertzberg has said:  "the emphasis is on the present world where the Jew is taught to choose that which is good."[4] 

            As Christians we naturally ask the question about the ultimate purpose of religion by talking about "heaven," but this is a Christian emphasis.  I prefer to respect the way Judaism itself describes the Jewish view of the ultimate purpose of their religion; so I say it this way:  Jews are saved by God's election, just like everybody else. 

 

            The New Testament is where we read the earliest Christian teaching about eternity.  When we open the New Testament what we discover is diversity—not a unified, monolithic presentation but rather the representative writings of various apostolic traditions.  It's evident from the very beginning:  there are four Gospels, not one; and the Gospel of John even uses a different outline than the other three.  Nevertheless the New Testament is foundational in our learning the Christian faith; so what does the New Testament say about this question?  There are passages that state clearly that faith in Jesus as the Messiah is required for salvation.  When the authorities arrested the whole group of the apostles in Acts chapter 4, Peter said they preached Christ because:[5]

 

The Fourth Gospel places into Jesus own mouth these words:[6]

 

 

These two verses in particular state clearly the early Christian teaching that eternal life is found only through Jesus Christ.  However, on the other hand, in the same New Testament there are verses that present a more universal view of redemption.  When John the Baptist saw Jesus walking beside the Jordan River, he turned to some of his followers and said:[7]

 

"Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

 

Did the Gospel mean for us to read that, or was it just a slip of the pen?  It's an affirmation of universal redemption.  Then in the First Letter of John we read this:[8]

 

 

And in his great treatise on salvation, the Epistle to the Romans, Paul also takes the more universal view.  This was in our First Lesson today:[9]

 

 

This is the key point in Romans, and one that we will miss if we aren't careful:  that God didn't just say that everybody is okay and throw open the pearly gates; rather, God dealt with the reality of human sin and failure, and declared first that all people are sinners; and then brought about the redemption of all sinners.  Paul wrote:[10]

 

 

So we can see that there are plenty of verses in the New Testament that affirm the salvation of all humankind, and especially of all Jews. 

            And to be honest, this way the New Testament has of saying both "Yes" and "No" at the same time resonates in my own heart.  I want the clarity of being able to say straightforwardly that "The only way anybody can be saved is to believe the Christian gospel."  But how much of that is just to make me feel good and secure?  On the other hand, I really do want a God who is welcoming to every person who seeks God with integrity and desire, whether they've had the opportunity to hear the Christian message or not.  And again, how much of that desire is wishful thinking?  The New Testament says both things.  My own heart says both things.  Where does this leave us? 

 

            Well it leaves me at a point where I simply remember how I myself have come to know and love God.  I can't decide about everybody else:  I can, however, testify to my own redemption.  In the long run the question whether someone else somewhere else has God's love is just an intellectual question; what I need to come to terms with is my own life's spiritual vitality, my own faith and hope and love for God and neighbor.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  And so I seek that approach to God that I myself have known, which has blessed me again and again.  And here it is: 

 

            And more:  it is Jesus Christ himself who, over the years, has led me to see and believe in a God who is bigger than my own understanding.  I have come to believe with all my soul that my little definitions of God and of God's plan for the world are all too small—that God is always bigger, always different than I expected.  The God which Jesus Christ has shown me is the God who can always surprise me, and stretch my thinking, and push me in my relationships with other people to become more than I was before.  And that is why I lean toward the answer to this question I do:  that Jews are saved by God's election, just like everybody else. 

 

            When I was a boy, going to Sunday School and sitting in church as quietly as I possibly could, I formed a picture of God in my mind and heart.  God was like my grandfather who lived on a farm seven hours away, and who was always glad to see me and talk with me about wonderful things on the farm, but who was also just a little bit scary because he was different—he shaved once a week and so he always had gray stubble; and he played with cows instead of dogs like I did; and he was just different.  So my image of God was that he was distant, a little scary, and also good.  Well, that picture of God was too small. 

            When I became a teenager and my hormones were driving my thoughts and feelings so hard, I drew a new picture of God as a kind of law-giver and policeman.  There were rules, and I'd better suck it up and obey.  But there was also that face of God which Christianity calls the Holy Spirit—divine love, God's providential care, God heard my prayers.  So I developed a picture of God as a kind of big angel, invisible, always on patrol, who had a good side. 

            Over thirty eight years of ministry the picture I've been drawing of God has continued to change, and now it's much more like what the Puritan mystic Richard Baxter called "ocean of delights":  all things subsist in the richness of the universal Origin and Destiny, who also meets us with the face of the man from Nazareth and through suffering calls us to friendship.  And that's just a corner of my present picture. 

            What kind of pictures have you drawn of God through your life?  A couple of years ago the Lenten Study included a little book titled Your God Is Too Small by J. B. Phillips, who also translated the New Testament—the "Phillips translation."  In this book Phillips talks about these different pictures we draw of God, and he names some of our pictures:  "resident policeman," "parental hangover," "grand old man," "meek and mild," "absolute perfection," "heavenly bosom," "God in a box," " managing director," "pale Galilean," "God in a hurry."[11]  Dr. Phillips' point is clear:  I can't draw a picture of God that's big enough for the real God.  My pictures are useful—they may help me for the time being, and so they're okay; but God, the real God, is always going to surprise me. 

 

            And so I invite you, not to accept my opinion that Jews are saved by God's election, just like everybody else—that's a theological discussion; rather, I invite you to let Jesus Christ enlarge your own personal picture of God—to let the real God surprise you and make you more.  And as that happens through the seasons of your life, I invite you to share with me your new picture of God.

AMEN