The good man in Hell

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Luke 5:31-32

In his book, “Letters to a Young Lawyer”, Alan Dershowitz, the controversial ex-Harvard Law School professor, argues, “For most people, the question why be good--as distinguished from merely law abiding--is a simple one. Because God commands it, because the Bible requires it, because good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.”1 Starting there, he forms an hypothesis that “being good because it is what God desires is actually the same as being a “calculating hypocrite”. He says, “..any god worth believing in would prefer an honest agnostic to a calculating hypocrite.” 1

I am not familiar with all that informs Mr. Dershowitz’s worldview, but I am convinced of one thing that he is wrong about. The Bible (and the only one to do so) does not posit that “good people go to Heaven, and bad people go to Hell”. In fact it does exactly the reverse. It is one of the most fascinating paradoxes of the Christian faith. In answering the Pharisees why he was hanging around the “bad people”, Jesus answers that it is because the sick who need the physician, not the healthy. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Jesus is saying that it is precisely the people who think that they are good are the ones doomed to an eternal hell. The Bible actually condemns the “good man” to Hell, and sends the “bad man” (who recognizes his badness and who runs to God for mercy) to Heaven.

In another instance Jesus gives an example of two men going to the temple to pray (Luke 18:9). One, a religious leader, a fine example of the “good” man, and the other a despised tax collector, which even we have a hard time disagreeing, a fine specimen of a “bad” man. The religious leader very happily is grateful for being so “good” and not “bad” as this other fellow, while the tax collector can hardly look up, and feels that he is really “bad”. Jesus passes the verdict, and says that the “bad” man came out of that worship service justified rather than the “good” man.

Any religion, any philosophy, any worldview that starts with the essential goodness of man is doomed to ultimately elevating man to be God. It is not surprising that Mr. Dershowitz ends up with a conclusion that “The true hero--the truly good person--is the believer who risks an eternity in hell by refusing an unjust demand by God” 1 Suddenly God is “unjust” because we decide what is “just”. God has now to adapt his goodness to our standard. Man is god, and God must now redeem himself! No wonder the Lord said, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” It is only at the Cross we find an answer. It is at the cross we find the essential goodness of God redeeming the essential sinfulness of man. It is where repentant bad men & women find true Goodness and true Life! It is where the justice and love of God meet to offer eternal life to an undeserving humanity. The Christian Cross is the eternal symbol of a Good God dying for a man gone bad, and all the “lost” who find their way to the cross find salvation. May you find your way today!

Danesh

1. from “Letters to a Young Lawyer. © 2001, by Alan Dershowitz”
All Bible references from New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Inc., 1982