“Watch out that no one deceives you."~ Jesus, the Christ

One-Year Bible, 2/08/12 “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment but the righteous to eternal life (Matthew 25:31-26:13).”

Jesus’ promise that there will be eternal punishment is as sure as the promise of eternal life. It is amazing to listen to the illogic and back-peddling sophistry of contemporary Christians on this issue. In Chapters 25 and 26, Jesus continues his sermon on the “end of days” that began in Chapter 24. The first warning he gave the disciples must never be forgotten, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name claiming, ‘I am the Christ’ and will deceive many.’”

In our day and time, there are so many self-appointed “Christs” who with great ease and self-assurance tell us that Jesus did not really mean what he said. “God is too loving to send anyone into eternal punishment.” I wonder by what authority they make these pronouncements? Why should we accept their word as true and authoritative after 2012 years of the Judeo-Christian community's sound affirmation of this truth?

Yet I quite agree with them on this one point. God is not responsible for our refusal to live and act in the power of the spirit of unconditional love. God does not send us into eternal punishment. We destroy our own souls. Through our in-actions—not our words—we decide which side we are on.

God does take sides. God sides unconditionally with the poor and marginalized e.g., Luke 1:53, 4:18. Father Oscar Romero was assassinated by thugs working at the behest President Reagan's administration, because he declared that God has "a preferential option for the poor." In one of several places in the Gospels where Jesus emphatically and clearly speaks of the decree of eternal punishment, it is clear that refusal to respond to the hunger, the thirst, the homelessness, the poor living conditions, the criminal-criminal justice system, the absence of health care, education, the means to a livelihood for those who find themselves in the margins of life, garners the declaration from God: “Depart from me you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.”

What is required of each of us if we are to approximate divine unconditional love and avoid cursing our lives and our futures is to work to eliminate hunger, thirst, homelessness, imprisonment, poverty and all kinds of sickness and suffering, using the means available to us (25:42-44).

Those who claim to be persons of faith and spirituality while ignoring these truths in favor of a “personal relationship with God” or “one-ness with all humankind” have made their choice. These are important aspects of our faith, but not having achieved them does not consign us to eternal punishment. Your argument is not with me. But remember that your notions of God’s all-forgiving, all-encompassing love come from the same Jesus and the same Gospels that include these passages.

You judge for yourself.

P. S. After Jesus finished his sermon to the crowd we read, “Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him (26:3-4)." I want to remind you that those who determined to “take Jesus out” after he taught them God’s “whole truth” were also good, sincere and devout religious people.