In Christian beliefs would a rapist and murder who brutally raped and killed 5 young adult girls who just weren't sure if God existed go to heaven if moments after his 5th rape/murder he realized he had been shot. He began to pray and beg for forgiveness and ask Jesus to save him while the 5 girls rot in hell for not being so sure that God exist?
2007-03-05 17:19:40 · 7 answers · asked by auriga2099 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
only God knows the answer to questions like these. God is not a tyrant judging people if they know Him or not.....He reads the heart and true motives.
What God knows and does is best
2007-03-05 17:25:06 · answer #1 · answered by quiz me 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
You are assuming that there are degrees of sin and hell has some sort of hierarchical arrangement for sin.
To a perfectly righteous God, all sin is bad sin. All sins can be forgiven by God for the truly repentent, except one. That one sin is the fully knowledgeable sin of disbelief. This is the unforgiveable sin.
Since we know that the sinful thief on the cross was redeemed at the 11th hour of his death, I am confident that for a truly repentent person, God would forgive their sins. But that is God's decision to make as He is the One who truly knows the heart of the person making the claim for redemption.
While, hell has no hiearchy, the bible does suggest that the rewards in Heaven will be apportioned according to one's righteous behavior on earth. So, in the case of the thief on the cross, or similar scenarios, the thief's heavenly rewards would be very different from, say, a Mother Teresa.
2007-03-05 17:32:30 · answer #2 · answered by Ask Mr. Religion 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, if he truly meant it God would forgive him. and a s far as the girls go, they had an opportunity to believe and chose not to. In whatever siuation they may have died from they would have died not believing in God & they would have gone to Hell anyway. In todays day and age, there isn't that many people that haven't had an opportunity to hear about God and Jesus. Maybe somewhere deep in a jungle or cave perhaps but that's about it. So, it's no ones fault but their own if they choose to not believe.
2007-03-05 17:40:28 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Only God knows if he was sincere or not, I'd say that he likely was not since the only reason he tried a quick prayer was because he realized he was shot. What if the gunshot killed him instantly and he hadn't prayed? What if he never got shot at all? Would there be a 6th victim? 7th? 8th? We are educated by God's word to be able to discern what kind of person we would need to avoid in order to not be influenced by them. I'd say he'd definitely be one of those to avoid, but only God knows for sure if he's sincere.
2007-03-05 17:32:05 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
That's difficult. you are asking us to have God's understanding of his every deed and belief. I suppose, if he was truly sorry for his actions and God forgave him, he could be saved. However, the Bible tells us that this is uncommon- for someone so bad to somehow see the error of their ways.
THAT IS, however, a VERY COMMON Lutheran belief -it is very widely taught ! Sad.
A child's salvation rests on their parent's beliefs/ salvation- nothing else.
And everyone who dies, sleeps, until Jesus returns again.
Both of those are widely misconcieved ideas.
Rest in the fact that that man would be rightly judged one day by Jesus. Our place is not to judge others, ONLY, ONLY their actions- for our own personal judgement of our own actions !
2007-03-05 17:33:10 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes
2007-03-05 17:23:43 · answer #6 · answered by sahara_springs 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Anyone who truly repents and believes will be saved. I know that what you described is a horrific crime, but all sins deserve death and damnation. It is only by realizing that we need Jesus to do it for us that we can be saved.
2007-03-05 17:26:20 · answer #7 · answered by DawnL 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋