022108

This is from one of the forums I frequent on the web:

Him -

I have an interesting question that a friend of mine posed at his University's Interfaith Society. To put it in context there are quite a few Muslims, Christians and Jews there but he is the only Buddhist that is a member. At one of the meetings he got into quite a heated debate with a fundamentalist Christian.

The debate eventually got onto Sodom and Gomorrah and how God was righteous to destroy them for their sins. Essentially, if God hates sin and was so vengeful and wrathful in the Old Testament, why is he so tolerant of the sins that people commit today?

The thrust of his arguement was what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah that was so bad that does not happen in London every night of the week? People then had free will to sin just as they do now, so what's changed?

I'm sure the righteous went to heaven and the sinners went to hell before Christ, just as they do now but why does God not just smite us all for our sins?

Maybe I'm just not seeing what is so special about Christ that was different before. If people could live good lives and go to heaven before he was born, why is that not the case today?

Me -

God is not tolerant of sins people commit today. Every life ends in death and then every person goes to judgement. If you do not have Jesus Christ as your Savior when you go to judgement, you will be judged for all those sins you thought God was tolerating and you will be found guilty. The sentence for a guilty verdict is hell. Those who have Jesus Christ as Savior are also found guilty for their sins, however, Jesus Christ steps in and takes the punishment on Himself for them because they have believed by faith that He does and because of this, they get heaven through Him. He is the way. God doesn’t strike us all dead at once because He wants us to be saved by giving us the chance to hear the good news of His Son and accepting the free gift of salvation. He wants you to go to heaven and He waits patiently for you to understand that. As for people living good lives and going to heaven before Christ, God chose those people whom He accounted righteous and out of millions of people, their number is extremely small. They didn’t earn their way to heaven.

I may have this last part wrong about God choosing the old testament saints. If I do, would you the readers be so kind as to help me explain this better in the future? Thanks!