The religions of the world sit at the feet of Jesus Christ

Today we will look at a subject dear to my heart, and dear to the heart of every religious person whose heart is not made out of stone: the fate of people who die in other religions than that of the Church. The typical doctrine that people hear from supposed Christian teachers goes something like this: people can only be saved if they convert to Christianity. Some of these 'teachers' will mumble a bit of add-on about 'only God knowing their hearts', and they are well to do this! Because it is correct, and they should not simply, pointblank say that people of other religions go to Hell after they die as too many say and believe.

The common verse quoted to 'prove' the assertion that people who die in other religions go to Hell comes from Acts:

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

If people only have the literal sense to go by, then even if they do have hearts they reluctantly assume that people who do not explicitly believe in Jesus Christ as their God cannot be saved. But the spiritual sense of this verse hinges on the spiritual meaning of the correspondence 'name'. Far from being a matter of syllables like 'Je' 'sus', and 'Christ', the name of a person in the Word indicates their quality in relation to charity and truth.

We often hear even in natural life of someone's 'having a good name'; or conversely of their 'having a name that will live in infamy'. We do not mean that we find their name melodious or in some other way salubrious in itself; but that we see their 'name' as equivalent to their moral character. We will now look at the Lord Himself defining the correspondence 'name': 

"5 And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation" (Exodus 34:5-7).

The statement that the Lord descended in the cloud, first of all, depends for its full effect on your understanding the meaning of 'cloud'. We will see more about this when discussing the 2nd Coming and the transfiguration on the mount, but for now let it be know that 'cloud' or 'clouds of Heaven' refers to the literal sense of the Word; while 'glory' when mentioned in relation to the cloud or clouds indicates the spiritual sense of the Word. So the reason why the Word makes explicit mention of the Lord's descending into the cloud involves His being about to say something important that will be obvious even in the literal sense. 

Much of the spiritual meaning of the Word lies hidden, or sealed, within the literal sense; but at certain special moments, and when stressing things we should literally do or not do, the Word makes the spiritual sense clear even within the literal sense. 

As we can see, the name of the Lord involves qualities, not syllables; qualities involved in being "merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth". You know, people sometimes ask about the essence of the New Church: and the answer, plainly and wonderfully, involves its being the religion of abundance in goodness and truth. 

It is the religion of abundance in good and truth in the time of the most ancient Church, that represented by Adam and Eve. It is the same religion of abundance in good and truth in the time of the ancient Church represented by Noah. And it is the same religion of abundance in good and truth in the times of the Jewish Church, of the Christian Church, and now of the New Church whose teachings you presently hear.

As we have been covering, all of the Churches start out healthily, embodying the name of the Lord in their beliefs and in their practices; but gradually turn from a "faithful city" into "an harlot" (Isaiah 1:21). As a result, there must be people who fulfill this role:

"And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in" (Isaiah 58:120.

To what breach does the verse refer? It refers to the adultery of and error which breaches the covenant and separates the practice of love from the teaching of truth; which renders the marriage of abundance of good and truth null and void such that "marital love perishes in the breach" (Conjugal Love 460). When the Lord restores the paths to dwell in, He removes all of the garbage which results in a state of breach, establishing a New Church lacking in that garbage which does not breach the marriage of love with wisdom ordained by God.

So those who say that a man established the New Church on his own two and a half centuries ago are gravely mistaken. That man fulfilled the role given to him by Christ in spades, but he who spoke often of this abundance of good and truth in no wise invented the religion characterized by the same. You can witness the same religion of abundance of good and truth openly declared in the cloud of the literal sense of ch. 34 of Exodus, almost 3000 years before the Lord designated a Swedish man to help clear away the garbage which breaches the covenant of love and wisdom; while restoring paths to dwell in that facilitate the abundance of good and truth.

Of all uses of 'name' in the Word, then, we can confidently know:

that 'name' is like to have a good name is.

For those who do His deeds are truly His.

We will now turn to the real doctrine of what happens to people in other religions as taught by Paul:

"10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:

11 For there is no respect of persons with God.

12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;

13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)" (Romans 2:10-15).

The term 'person' as used by God and the Church involves outward appearances of various kinds. For instance, a respecter of persons might be really nice to a rich man because they want something from them; while being nasty to a poor man because there is no material profit to be made from pretending to be nice. Such a person would be a 'respecter of persons'. Here the external appearance involved is that of religious affiliation.

Paul makes that quite explicit using the terms available to him at the time: Jew, Greek, and Gentile. Gentile, in this context, means those outside of the Church. As we can see, and as He elsewhere makes explicit, the Lord does not care so much about your merely hearing the right scripture or claiming to believe in that scripture orally; rather, He respects those who practice His name, the qualities mentioned in our extract from ch. 34 of Exodus or in the 'Blessed are' section of the Sermon on the Mount.

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). 

Pointblank: we cannot simply confess with our mouth that we believe in Lord Jesus Christ. We must practice the qualities represented by that name, and the Lord will certainly prefer someone outside of the Church to us if they embody His name better than we.

Have you ever known people who have all sorts of advantages and yet waste every one? And then there are people who have relatively few advantages and yet they work like a demon, or perhaps we should better say work like an angel! and get a whole heap done. Well, those in the Church do have access to greater light than do the other religionists on the planet. We have direct access to the purest teaching of our Lord. But if we are not careful, we can squander that special access and find that those who had less access but better embodied His name end up among the blessed; while we do not. 

Now let us consider what Paul describes as the bare bones of religion. Here it is again:

"14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)".

He makes special reference to the conscience, wherein we have or do not have abundance of good; and to the thoughts, wherein we have or do not have abundance of truth. We are told that those who have a conscience excuse their neighbor -- trying not to just condemn them even for obvious evils -- while those who lack a conscience accuse their neighbor without any attempt to make excuses for them. One does not refer to letting evil people walk on you like a doormat; one refers to how people in the Church should focus on anything about a person that may excuse someone's obvious evils which takes the edge off of any indignation or anger potentially felt at being on the receiving end of poor conduct. 

Personally, one will often trot out the excuse 'their childhood stank'; and if one has no proof that their childhood stank, then one will trot out 'their childhood probably stank'. There are other common excuses in one's toolkit, such as 'maybe they had a bad day' or 'they're under a lot of stress right now', but you get the picture. People with conscience want to understand even those who have made themselves enemies to us, taking the edge off of what might otherwise be some variety of accusing bitterness. 

When it comes to people's childhood stinking, let us not forget that this has a profound impact even on people who decide to live moral lives; and can take decades to get over, if they even do get over it in this life. It took me decades to stop simply hating the people whom I grew up around, those narrow-minded, stifling people whom I still react to with horror and distrust. And when it comes to a likely connection between evil behavior on the part of someone you know, maybe you do not actually know that their childhood stank; but this world is, how do I say, full of creepiness and evil that makes people edgy; though of course there are many better and more pleasant phenomena also. We should always look for excuses for other people, and infallibly this will shield us from the worst sins, even in our thoughts, towards them.

Let us now at the same kind of 'barebones definition of religion' from another of the apostles:

"27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27). 

In translation, this means that we should ourselves shun sin and error while cultivating the abundance of good and truth; while facilitating the shunning of sin and error by others and their cultivating abundance of good and truth.

Yes, we see reference to literal orphans and widows. And you know what? You go right ahead and assist literal orphans and widows, and whomever else you want to help (so long as your assistance does not enable evil like giving money to a homeless person addicted to opiates or just a drunk).

But the Word and its supplementary writings, such as those of the apostles, does not mean literal orphans and widows; rather, whenever you see these terms they involve something to do with providing spiritual nurturance of people who lack knowledge of charity and divine truth and how to practice these in their lives. We have frequently looked at the parable of the Good Samaritan recently, so here we have it again: he poured oil and wine into the wounds of the one spiritually robbed and left for dead because that person needed accurate information about charity and divine truth so as to be "set on their own beast" (Luke 10:34), capable of themselves practicing this abundance of good and truth in their lives.  In other words, the good Samaritan spiritually ministered to orphans and widows by pouring that oil and wine into those spiritual wounds. 

We will now refer again to another aspect of that so-useful parable of the Good Samaritan. People do not nearly notice enough what a shocking thing the Lord did by telling His auditors a parable about a good member of another religion! Because the Samaritans were not only of another religion but actively avoided by those of the Jewish Church. Meantime, Jesus portrayed members of the Jewish Church, the priest and Levite, as lacking in compassion and as not pouring oil and wine into wounds, not ministering to orphans and widows, and not facilitating abundance of goodness and truth. 

We will now turn to another mention of Samaritans in the Word which gives us yet more grist for our mill that outward differences like that of religious affiliation do not necessarily bar people from Heaven. One refers to the encounter between the Samaritan lady and the Lord at Jacob's well. This incident overall refers to the way people will resort to the Word and to divine truth, here represented by the well and its water, in order to apply these to their lives and become better and more loving people. But we will be looking at a specific part of that encounter:

"20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:20-24).

Here we see mention of a mountain, and in the literal sense this refers to the difference of opinion between the Jewish Church and the Samaritans about the proper location of ritual observances. Spiritually, though, mentions of the correspondence 'mountain' always have something to do with love; and the context tells us that these mountains are different religions, such that differences between them involve differences in doctrine as relates to love.

Clearly, Jesus does not make this difference a simple matter of one external affiliation being good and another being evil! He does make it clear that one of the religions knows more than the other by saying "Ye worship ye know not what [while] we know what we worship". This corresponds to the teaching of the New Church today about how other world religions do have light, spiritual truth, and practice this in their lives; but have what we call 'less light'. Sometimes when one explains this to others one describes it as a matter of a fine wine vs a satisfactory wine. In either case we have the same ultimate point: whatever our external religious affiliation or 'person' otherwise, we need to worship the Lord in spirit and truth. Those who do this, be they even non-Christian, will go to Heaven; while those who do not do this, be they even Christian, will go to Hell. 

We often hear about the 'good news of the Gospel' for the very simple reason that the word 'Gospel' comes from a Greek word, euangelion, which means 'good news'! We can see the origin of verb, to evangelize, in that same word. Well, the sad truth is that many of those who evangelize do not really have very good news to offer. Do you regard 'abandon the religion of your forefathers or you will certainly go to Hell' as good news?? I don't! I am pleased therefore to be able to offer genuinely good news today about the fate of those in other religions who die in the faith of their parents while living decent lives.

Speaking of people faithful to the religion of their parents, we will close with a look at an episode in Jeremiah when the Lord makes it very clear that exactly such faithfulness meets with His approval, not His disapproval. I refer to the incident between Jeremiah and the Rechabites. Without quoting too much of this story, it involves the Lord's commanding Jeremiah to offer the Rechabites wine; whereupon they refused, telling him that their father Jonadab had commanded them not to consume wine. At this point, the Lord told Jeremiah His thoughts about the matter: 

"13 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will ye not receive instruction to hearken to my words? saith the Lord.

14 The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are performed; for unto this day they drink none, but obey their father's commandment: notwithstanding I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye hearkened not unto me.

15 I have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me.

16 Because the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have performed the commandment of their father, which he commanded them; but this people hath not hearkened unto me:

17 Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them: because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard; and I have called unto them, but they have not answered.

18 And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you:

19 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever" (Jeremiah 35:13-19).

Even the literal sense gives us much grist for our mill. Very obviously the Lord does not condemn the Rechabites for faithfully practicing the teaching of their father Jonadab in regards to wine; while condemning the Jewish Church for not practicing His teaching. Now, we know that the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever; does that same Lord feel any different about a Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist man or woman who has lived a decent life of practicing the teaching they were given by their forefathers faithfully unto the death? He. does. not. 

Now we should consider the spiritual sense, which brings us back to the correspondence 'wine'. As frequently mentioned here, 'wine' means divine truth; which one will sometimes expand, defining it as 'divine truth about love' or 'divine truth about love of God and the neighbor'. Therefore, the Rechabites were obeying spiritual teaching that their father Jonadab commanded them to practice; which underlines the meaning of the literal sense with the spiritual meaning.

This lecture has gone on for some time in order to be particularly thorough. One hopes it will address the concern that people within the Church sometimes feel about the potential fate of those in other religions. Be it so, amen. Enjoy your Fridays and weekends, imbibing the gifts of God gratefully and responsibly. 

Appendix:

"The influx of the angels is especially into the conscience of man: there is the plane into which they operate" (Arcana Coelestia 6207).