사람들은 다른 사람에 대해 부정적인 판단을 내리는 일반적인 경향이 있습니다. 고등학교에서는 이러한 경향이 파벌에서 나타납니다. 인기 있는 몇몇 아이들이 한 그룹에 들어가면 점차 자신들이 더 좋아하기 때문에 다른 아이들보다 낫다고 생각하기 시작합니다. '끼지 못한' 아이들은 동정이나 경멸의 대상이 되거나 심지어 잔인한 농담의 대상이 될 수도 있습니다. 어떤 식으로든 파벌은 다른 사람들을 하위 계층의 인간으로 미묘한 판단을 내립니다.

다른 사람을 무시하는 경향은 다양한 종교에서도 동일하게 나타납니다. 일부 종교 집단은 자기중심적이어서 다른 신앙을 가진 사람은 천국에 갈 수 없다고 믿습니다. 극단적으로 말하자면, 이런 태도는 속물적인 10대 파벌보다 훨씬 더 잔인합니다.

성경의 가르침은 이와는 상당히 대조적입니다. 우선, 하나님의 말씀에 따르면 우리는 사람들을 "구원받은 사람" 또는 "죄인"으로 분류해서는 안 된다고 말합니다. 예수님은 말씀하셨습니다,

"너희가 정죄받지 않도록 판단하지 말라. 어찌하여 형제의 눈 속에 있는 티는 보고 네 눈 속에 있는 들보는 생각지 않느냐?"라고 말씀하셨습니다. (마태 복음 7:1, 3)

제자 야고보는 이렇게 말했습니다: "구원할 수도 있고 멸망시킬 수도 있는 한 분의 율법 제정자가 계십니다. 네가 어찌 다른 사람을 판단하겠느냐?" (야고보서 4:1)

주님이 지상에 계실 때 교회 지도자들 사이에는 판단하는 태도가 만연했습니다. 많은 사람들은 메시아가 오시면 유대인만 구원하고 다른 사람은 구원하지 않을 것이라고 생각했습니다. 예수님이 오셨을 때 그들은 유대인이 아닌 사람과 유대인 모두와 어울린다고 정죄했습니다.

예수님은 이런 태도를 경계하셨습니다. 한번은 예수님께서 자신은 구원받았고 다른 사람들은 구원받지 못했다고 "스스로 믿는" 사람들과 대화하고 계셨습니다. 예수님은 그들에게 두 가지 기도를 생각해 보라고 하셨습니다: "하나님, 제가 다른 사람과 같지 않음을 감사합니다."와 "하나님, 죄인인 저에게 자비를 베푸소서!"입니다. 예수님은 자신이 죄인이라고 생각한 사람을 칭찬하셨습니다. (누가 복음 18:9-14)

자신을 구원받았다고 생각하는 것보다 죄인이라고 생각하는 것이 더 낫습니다.

길가에서 부상당한 사람을 돕기 위해 멈춰 섰던 선한 사마리아인의 비유를 기억하실 것입니다. 이 사마리아인은 (유대인의 관점에서 볼 때) "잘못된" 신앙을 가지고 있었지만, 예수님은 그 사마리아인이 선한 사람이기 때문에 이웃으로서 사랑해야 한다고 말씀하셨습니다. 사실 예수님은 영생을 원하는 사람은 이 사마리아인과 같아야 한다고 말씀하셨습니다(누가 복음 10:29-37), 사마리아인은 기독교인도 유대인도 아니었음에도 불구하고 말입니다. 예수님은 어떤 교회에 속해 있는지가 아니라 그 사람의 마음속에 무엇이 있는지를 보셨고, 지금도 보고 계십니다.

성경은 천국에 갈지 말지를 결정하는 것은 단순히 무엇을 믿는지가 아니라 그 사람이 살아가는 방식이라고 분명히 말합니다. 예수님은 "나더러 '주여, 주여' 하는 자마다 천국에 다 들어갈 것이 아니요 다만 하늘에 계신 내 아버지의 뜻대로 행하는 자라야 들어가리라"고 말씀하셨습니다. (마태 복음 7:21)

다시 말하지만, "그는 각자에게 그의 행위대로 갚아 주실 것입니다." (마태 복음 16:27)

""선을 행한 자는 생명의 부활로, 악을 행한 자는 정죄의 부활로" 갈 것이라고 주님은 말씀하십니다. (요한 복음 5:29)

신앙뿐만 아니라 사람의 삶이 영원한 제비를 결정하기 때문에 예수님은 많은 기독교인이 악한 삶을 살았기 때문에 구원받지 못할 것이라고 예언하셨습니다.

"그 날에 많은 사람이 내게 이르되, '주님, 주님, 우리가 주의 이름으로 선지자 노릇하며 주의 이름으로 귀신을 쫓아내며 주의 이름으로 많은 권능을 행하지 아니하였나이까' 하리라. 그러면 나는 그들에게 '나는 너희를 알지 못하였으니 불법을 행하는 자들아, 내게서 떠나가라'고 선언할 것이다." (마태 복음 7:22-23, 누가 복음 13:25-27)

비기독교인이 구원받을 수 있는 한 가지 이유는 이웃을 사랑할 수 있기 때문입니다. 이웃을 진정으로 사랑하는 사람은 비록 깨닫지 못할지라도 그리스도도 사랑합니다. 예수님은 "너희가 여기 내 형제 중에 지극히 작은 자 하나에게 한 것이 곧 내게 한 것이니라"고 말씀하셨습니다. (마태 복음 25:40)

이웃에 대한 사랑이 없는 예수님에 대한 믿음은 무의미합니다.

"내가 모든 믿음이 있어 산을 옮길 수 있어도 사랑이 없으면 내가 아무 것도 아니요." (1 고린도전서 13:2)

반면에 진정한 사랑은 겉으로 고백하는 종교와 상관없이 마음속으로 주님을 알고 있다는 표시입니다.

"사랑은 모든 것을 믿는다." (1 고린도전서 13:7)

"선을 행하는 자는 하나님께 속한 자이지만 악을 행하는 자는 하나님을 보지 못했습니다." (3 요한 복음 1:11)

"사랑은 하나님께 속한 것이므로 사랑하는 사람은 누구나 하나님으로부터 나서 하나님을 알고 있습니다. 하나님은 사랑이시니 사랑 안에 거하는 사람은 하나님 안에 거하고 하나님도 그 안에 거하십니다." (1 요한 복음 4:7-11)

요약:

일부 기독교 교회에서는 이렇게 가르칩니다: 오직 기독교인만이 구원받는다.

성경이 실제로 말하는 것(그리고 새로운 기독교 교회가 가르치는 것)입니다: 모든 종교의 선한 사람들은 구원을 받습니다.

신그리스도교회의 가르침에서 인용한 몇 가지 참고 자료 : 천국과 지옥 318-328, 주님의 신성한 섭리 326

이 유용한 사이트의 저자 John Odhner의 허락을 받아 사용: http://whatthebiblesays.info/Introduction.html

"With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright; With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward." Psalm 18:25-26

Additional readings: Joshua 2:14-24, Matthew 7:1-20, Psalm 87, Psalm 88

The Lord says in His sermon on the mount "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:7-8). All the blessings pronounced in that sermon involve the same principle. We read also, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38), and "With the same measure that ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" (Matthew 7:2, Mark 4:24).

There are many other passages of the same import, all implying that in order to receive good we must do good. And it is a fact that in a marvelous way under the Divine Providence what we wish for others in the end becomes our own lot. If we wish good for others and work to that end, good will be our final lot; if we wish evil and failure for others, our life will end in disaster.

From the letter of our text the appearance is that the Lord is merciful only to those who are merciful and that He rewards evil for evil as well as good for good. Yet God is no "respecter of persons." He loves the good and happiness of all equally. He is in fact mercy itself and goodness itself. He therefore can do only good, and that continually. God cannot be unmerciful nor can He withhold mercy where it can be received.

To understand our text we need to know the true nature of man and his relation to the Lord. That we may have a true sense of the importance of this knowledge and that we may see how true even the literal sense of our text is it may be helpful to consider briefly what has resulted from the want of such knowledge.

The Word is the same in its letter to everyone who reads it. Yet people derive exactly opposite doctrines from the same passages. This cannot be said of other writings. Why is it? The cause is not in the Lord, nor is it in the Word. It is in man. Many false systems of religious faith have been drawn from the Bible because men have not understood the principle according to which the Bible is written and have read into it their own desires.

Throughout the Scriptures God shows Himself as bestowing favors and as meeting out punishments just as an arbitrary earthly monarch might do, and as doing this "for His own glory." But this is because He has to reach mankind who, even at their very best, are selfish and perverse.

Everyone when left in freedom will incline to that idea of God and to those religious doctrines which are most in harmony with his own nature. It is true every day that to the impure the Lord appears Impure, to the revengeful He appears revengeful, to the unforgiving He appears unforgiving unless His forgiveness is purchased by penance. This is the real reason

for the great diversities in religious faith. If a man believes Christ to be a mere man or if he believes that Christ in undergoing death on the Cross expiated the sins of the world, he so believes not from rational conviction but because such teachings are in harmony with his own character. It is only as man becomes regenerated that the Lord can show Himself to him as He really is. A selfish man cannot conceive that anyone can do a really unselfish deed. The impure think that all are impure.

Man is a recipient of life from the Lord and is related to Him as a branch to the vine. And life is not given him once for all: he is a constant recipient of life. It flows into him from moment to moment. This is true also in the realm of nature. Plants receive the same heat and light from the sun and grow in the same earth. Yet they are innumerable in their varieties. But man differs from them in that he is not, as they are, a passive recipient. He chooses what he will receive.

A diseased or defective eye does not see things as does a perfect eye, though the object and. the light is the same. The principle is this: if we are good and true, we are open to the reception of goodness and truth. If we are evil, truth and goodness do not appeal to us as virtues and we do not want them. Even on the natural plane what is sweet to one may not be pleasant to another; it depends on the condition of his body.

This law works on the spiritual plane as well as on the natural because the natural and physical are only the lower effects of the same spiritual laws operating on the plane of nature. In the spiritual world the influx of heavenly life causes pain to the wicked and they cannot endure it and flee to their own abode.

Life goes forth from the Lord to all, but this life is not to be appropriated by man and used for selfish purposes if it is to retain its original quality. It is to go forth and produce good works. If shut up within one's self, it is like pure water which, when not flowing, becomes stagnant and breeds corruption. A selfish man absorbs life and does not give it forth. To receive life from the Lord into ourselves for the sake of ourselves is to gather it into dead and stagnant pools in which hideous things are bred. These seem to us then to be from God, but they are actually the offspring of our own perverted life, the creations of our own diseased vision. What a man receives from the Lord is changed to partake of his own internal nature, and consequently it and the source of it appear to him like himself, of his own quality and disposition.

Whatever is received from the Lord should be an ever-living and overflowing stream, with no stagnant pools, never stopping in its work but always going forth to bless. Life is life, love is love, mercy is mercy only as the recipient of it is a free and active medium through which it may pass on to others continually by the active cooperation of the recipient.

Thus in proportion as one is merciful the Lord appears, or shows Himself merciful; as he is pure and upright, the Lord shows Himself upright; but as he is froward, the Lord shows Himself froward. This is the great cardinal principle which characterizes all revelation.

Such is the general teaching of the text. As a man is in himself, so he judges God to be, for so God appears to him.

This doctrine explains many passages of Scripture. It enables us to understand why God is sometimes represented as being angry and as possessing other human infirmities. To reach men and meet their needs the Word must be embodied in ideas and clothed in language adapted to their states and capacities. Because men were selfish the Lord had to appear to Moses and the prophets as a vengeful God, a God delighting in sacrifices and burnt offerings, a God like themselves who, when offended, needed to be appeased. It was better for them to have such a God than to have no God, no being who could exercise any restraint over them. It was better for them even to worship the sun and moon than to acknowledge nothing higher than themselves.

In the wise providence of the Lord He appears to men in such a character as the best good of their state is capable of receiving. When man's state is such that he cannot see the light, it is in mercy provided that darkness shall appear as light to him.

There is a lesson in this for us. If we would see God as He is, a being of pure unchanging love and wisdom, the only way we can find Him is to learn and do His will. This enables Him to form us into His own image and likeness. It is when we receive His qualities in ourselves by exercising them that we really see Him and we make ourselves living receptacles of His qualities by doing what He would have us do.

"Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, 'Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?' Jesus answered and said unto him, 'If a man loves me; he will keep my words: and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:22).