Going Lost Or Getting Saved Can
Only Be Decided In This Present Life!
Going Lost or Getting Saved
Can Only Be Decided in This Present Life!
By Jan Lilleby
Can you repent from a life in opposition to God, for instance if you are an Atheist in this life, and come to faith in God and Jesus Christ after you have died? Resulting in your salvation?
I shall give you the most direct answer straight up front: No, you cannot.
The first reason I will mention to such a scenario is that there is no automatically life or existence after death. You just do not ‘wake up’ one morning, dead.
The Bible says the dead knows nothing.
If a person is dead, he is STONE DEAD, and he actually no longer exists as a person. He has been reduced to a corpse without any life in it, but the bacterial decomposition setting in.
At creation the Lord breathed oxygen into Adam’s still unused lungs, and that made Adam come alive – the Bible says of this conclusively in Gen. 2:7 – and God Jehovah formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (ASV Bible).
Here it says clearly (as in many other Bible translations) that Adam became a living soul. Body plus oxygen pumped into the lungs of that body, resulted in a living soul.
Without oxygen (if one day no longer this living soul has any oxygen) he is dead. No soul anymore. There is no separate ‘soul’ that lives on, after oxygen has left a man’s body, regardless of reason. Or if death caused by for instance an accident having his head smashed, or being hit by a gunshot, or stung in the heart by a knife, etc.
The fairytales of humankind on what will happen after death are countless.
But it is entirely false if saying that there is automatically life after death. Only believers in Jesus Christ have such eternal life promised them. They shall be raised from the dead by God. Only God has immortality says the Bible.
Give that dead person a beautiful burial, let the Minister hold a dignified sermon, let his family cry tearfully and grieve, and keep the memories of this dead family member in respect and love. Still, the dead beloved one remains dead. No man on earth can do anything to alter this.
And God will not raise anyone from the dead unless he had faith in God and Jesus Christ when he was alive, here on earth.
The dead will be gone forever; like he never had existed.
And by the way, let me tell you that there is no Hell or everlasting torment or any such fictive ‘reality’ after death. Paul never used a single word in his epistles talking of a supposedly harsh punishment by eternal fire or any other sort of torment, often called for Hell in English speaking nations, or Helvete in Norway where I live. No such place of punishment for disbelievers exists!
Paul only talked of ‘going lost’ when talking of unbelievers. Our faith in Christ has only valid currency if we have that faith here on earth, and I shall come back to that shortly.
Likewise, no intermediate Paradise-like waiting place exists, in which a dead person can make up his mind to believe on Jesus for salvation if he did not believe on Him when alive on earth. Such a scenario will suit Hollywood better, rather than people in real life!
The second reason I can say there is no automatically after-life in which you can make a final choice of eternal life or not, is simply one that screams at you right here and now, but you can’t see the forest for all the trees:
Earth is inhabited by humankind by the billions. But since this life has no use or value to decide our choice for eternity, - it is pure nonsense that we are here in the first place! Why let us suffer through the earthly life for decades, fighting illness, accidents, hunger, wars, poverty, divorces, - you name it, if this life has no decisive effect on the coming eternity whether salvation or going lost? Life here is a waste of time and effort – so why not just create us right there, in that Paradise-like waiting room, and let us go right into the full salvation?
One important element into this equation is the fact that you are actually already given a ‘Second chance’ for each new day you wake up to! If you are an Atheist you can recon every day that you live to see, as your new chance – not just second chance – it may be your chance number 5000, if you have lived as an unbeliever for almost 14 years and each day count as a new chance. And yet, some foolish ignorant Christian bookworms dig up a fantasy, that God may give all people a ‘Second chance’ in a supposedly ‘after-life’ setting. How can one go for such incredible lies and fictive ‘reality’?
The whole foolish idea of an after-life, so people can decide for salvation or going lost, is totally out of reason and logic.
The third reason I can say there is no automatically after-life, is that you cannot find any such doctrine with our apostle, Paul; the apostle to the Gentiles. Our doctrine of faith can only be found with Paul, written in his two epistles Ephesians and Colossians. Not one single word on any “second chance” to get saved after death. On the contrary, Paul warns against believers getting caught up into foolish thoughts, Eph. 5:17,
“Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.
In same chapter, verse 5, Paul really gives us a mindbender in the right direction,
“Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person (homo) or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (NRSV Bible)
Here, if you are not an unfortunate born dyslectic (word blind) or disturbed in your mind, keeping you unfit to live without nursing assistance, - we cannot understand Paul’s exhortation as anything other than such described sinners are already lost for salvation. Paul has declared that this is a closed case here and now. If he doesn’t repent and turn away from those sins, he shall not come into heaven, which is the other way of saying ‘salvation’. We have inherited the heavenly salvation ALREADY HERE in this life by faith alone, no works, and thus it is ‘Case closed’. And likewise, you go lost already here, case closed.
Paul also tells us that we must KEEP OUR FAITH at all times, for without faith we will go lost in eternity, Eph. 1:22, 23,
“Yet now has Christ reconciled you to God in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in His presence. - - PROVIDED THAT YOU CONTINUE TO STAY WITH AND IN THE FAITH, well-grounded and settled and steadfast, NOT SHIFTING OR MOVING AWAY from the hope glad tidings, which you heard and which has been preached to every person under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
Notice that right here, at the end of the verse above, - Paul would have had an excellent opportunity to point out to his readers if there was a ‘Hidden catch’ in there:
“Hey, fellas! Relax, don’t get too anxious over my mention of eventually shifting or moving away from the faith. Cool it now! You see, God has shown to me that He will give all eventual backsliders or atheists or God-haters a glorious second chance after you die! Aint’ that just glorious fellas?”
We are not to be taken into some place after death, to have any second chance. If we, the believers, as described by our apostle Paul here are saved by faith and keeping away from those sins he described, - then it is the same principle in effect for those who are not saved by faith here. They must be considered lost forever unless they repent and come to faith in Christ here, now, in this life before they die.
Eph. 2:8, 9 is Paul’s concentrated summary on our salvation, telling us that we ARE ALREADY SAVED, here in this life, and in no need to have a supposedly ‘Second chance’,
“For it is by free grace that YOU ARE SAVED, through faith. And this is not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. - - Not because of works, lest any man should boast.”
Can it be told any clearer than this?
Must you have the archangel Gabriel come to you and tell you these things straight to your face to make you believe?
Having just read Paul’s doctrinal statements on salvation by faith, we have to be aware of the fact that a scenario of a ‘Second chance’ in life after death, is not one where people can be saved by faith! If you are shown into a place like this, you have become one who sees these things. You cannot be a believer like we now can in this life, for in this life we are believers since we walk by faith and not by sight! Have you thought of that?
The demand from God, using His elect apostle Paul to tell us, is that we have to have faith in Jesus Christ, and only if we have such faith can we be considered as saved persons. It is irrefutable and non-negotiable Bible truth.
Here you may read the passage above, II Thes. 2:10-12 – Paul telling them of the future anti-Christ and what trouble he will cause for the Jews in the time of the Great Tribulation. It says that God – seeing that the Jews refuse to believe on Jesus (the Truth) – shall turn them over to a strong delusion so they get stuck in a false belief. Why this? So that these wicked unbelievers shall be judged and CONDEMNED (lost of salvation). They took pleasure in unrighteousness.
There can be no doubt that this prophetic saying from Paul is a word that is irreversible and therefore will be fulfilled when time is up. It is out of the question that these ungodly sinners will ever get a ‘Second chance’. We better believe what Paul says, if you think you are a serious Bible believing Christian!
And if these cannot get saved, then all other people like them, with unbelief and opposing God and Christ, cannot get saved either. It is a fact. No ‘Second chance’.
I hereby end this little article. Much more can be said, but if you cannot grasp truth by these vital points I have shown you…then I doubt that you would grasp it after reading 20 pages more from my hand.
