Hay una tendencia común entre las personas a hacer juicios negativos sobre otras personas. En las escuelas secundarias, esta tendencia se muestra en las camarillas. Unos pocos chicos populares se meten en un grupo, y poco a poco empiezan a pensar que son mejores que otros porque les gustan más. Los niños que no están "en" pueden convertirse en objetos de lástima, o de desprecio, o incluso de bromas crueles. De una forma u otra la camarilla juzga sutilmente a los demás como una clase inferior de seres humanos.

La misma tendencia a despreciar a los demás se muestra en varias religiones. Algunos grupos religiosos se vuelven tan egocéntricos que creen que nadie de una fe diferente puede ir al cielo. Cuando se lleva a un extremo, este tipo de actitud es mucho más cruel que las camarillas de adolescentes esnobservadores.

Las enseñanzas de la Biblia son un gran contraste con esto. Para empezar, la Palabra de Dios nos dice que no debemos etiquetar a la gente como "salvada" o "pecadora". Jesús dijo,

"No juzgues, para que no seas condenado. ¿Por qué miras la paja en el ojo de tu hermano, pero no consideras la viga en tu propio ojo?" (Mateo 7:1, 3)

El discípulo James lo dijo de esta manera: "Hay un Legislador, que es capaz de salvar y destruir. ¿Quién eres tú para juzgar a otro?" (Santiago 4:1)

Cuando el Señor estaba en la tierra, una actitud de juicio prevalecía entre los líderes de la iglesia. Muchos pensaron que cuando el Mesías viniera, salvaría a los judíos, y no a otros. Cuando Jesús vino, lo condenaron por asociarse con no judíos y judíos por igual.

Jesús desalentó este tipo de actitud. Una vez habló con algunas personas que "confiaban en sí mismas" que se salvaron y otras no. Les pidió que consideraran dos oraciones: "Dios, te agradezco que no soy como los demás hombres", y "Dios, ten misericordia de mí, un pecador". Jesús alabó al hombre que se creía pecador. (Lucas 18:9-14)

Es mejor pensar que eres un pecador que pensar que estás salvado.

Tal vez recuerde también la parábola del buen samaritano, que se detuvo a ayudar al hombre herido al borde del camino. A pesar de que este samaritano era de la fe "equivocada" (desde el punto de vista judío), Jesús dijo que el samaritano debía ser amado como un prójimo, porque era un buen hombre. De hecho, dijo que una persona que quiere la vida eterna debería ser como este samaritano (Lucas 10:29-37), aunque el samaritano no era ni cristiano ni judío. Jesús vio - y ve - lo que hay en el corazón de una persona, no sólo la iglesia a la que uno pertenece.

La Biblia dice claramente que es la forma en que una persona vive, no sólo lo que cree, lo que determina si va al cielo o no. Jesús dijo: "No todo el que me diga: 'Señor, Señor', entrará en el reino de los cielos, sino el que haga la voluntad de mi Padre que está en los cielos". (Mateo 7:21)

De nuevo, "recompensará a cada uno según sus obras". (Mateo 16:27)

"Los que han hecho el bien", dice, "irán a la resurrección de la vida, y los que han hecho el mal, a la resurrección de la condenación". (Juan 5:29)

Dado que la vida de una persona, no sólo su fe, determina su suerte eterna, Jesús predijo que muchos cristianos no se salvarían, porque habían vivido una vida malvada.

"Muchos me dirán en ese día: 'Señor, Señor, ¿no hemos profetizado en tu nombre, expulsado demonios en tu nombre y hecho muchas maravillas en tu nombre?' Y entonces les declararé: "Nunca os conocí: apartaos de mí, los que practicáis la ilegalidad". (Mateo 27:22-23, Lucas 13:25-27)

Una razón por la que un no cristiano puede ser salvado, es que puede amar a su prójimo. Quien ama genuinamente a su prójimo también ama a Cristo, aunque no se dé cuenta. Jesús dijo: "En la medida en que has atendido a uno de los más pequeños de estos mis hermanos, me lo has hecho a mí". (Mateo 25:40)

La fe en Jesús, sin amor al prójimo no tiene sentido.

"Aunque tengo toda la fe, para poder remover montañas, pero no tengo amor, no soy nada." (1 Corintios 13:2)

El amor genuino, por otra parte, es un signo de que una persona conoce al Señor en su corazón, independientemente de la religión que profesa en el exterior.

"El amor lo cree todo". (1 Corintios 13:7)

"El que hace el bien es de Dios, pero el que hace el mal no ha visto a Dios". (3 Juan 1:11)

"Amémonos los unos a los otros, porque el amor es de Dios, y todo aquel que ama nace de Dios y conoce a Dios. Dios es amor, y el que permanece en el amor, permanece en Dios, y Dios en él". (1 Juan 4:7-11)

Resumen:

Algunas iglesias cristianas enseñan esto: Sólo los cristianos se salvan.

Lo que la Biblia realmente dice (y lo que la Nueva Iglesia Cristiana enseña): Gente buena de todas las religiones se salvan.

Algunas referencias de las enseñanzas de la Nueva Iglesia Cristiana: Sobre el Cielo y el Infierno 318-328, La Divina Providencia 326

Usado con el permiso de John Odhner, el autor de este sitio muy útil: http://whatthebiblesays.info/Introduction.html

324. Since this also shows us that divine providence is a predestination only to heaven and that it cannot be changed into anything else, I need to show at this point that the ultimate purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race, and I need to do so in the order just proposed.

(a) Everyone is created to live forever. In parts 3 and 4 of Divine Love and Wisdom, I explained that we have three levels of life called earthly, spiritual, and heavenly, and that these levels are active in each one of us. I also noted that there is only one level of life in animals, a level like the lowest level in us, the one called earthly. It then follows that unlike animals, we can have our life so lifted toward the Lord that we enter a state in which we can discern things that come from divine wisdom and intend things that come from divine love, and in this way can accept something divine. If we can accept what is divine to the extent that we see and sense it within ourselves, then we must necessarily be able to be united to the Lord and to live forever because of this union.

[2] What would the Lord have been doing with all this creating of a universe if he had not made images and likenesses of himself with whom he could share his divine nature? Otherwise, it would only have been making something so that it existed and did not exist, or so that it happened and did not happen, and doing this only so that he could simply watch its permutations from far away, watch its ceaseless changes like something happening on a stage. What divine purpose would there be in all these changes unless they were serving subjects who would accept something divine more intimately, who would see and sense it? Since Divinity has inexhaustible splendor, would it simply keep it all to itself? Could it keep it all to itself? Love wants to share what it has with others, to give to others all that it can. What about divine love, then, which is infinite? Can it first give and then take back? Would this not be giving something that was bound to perish--that was intrinsically nothing, since it would become nothing when it perished? There is no real "is" involved in that. Divinity, though, gives what truly is, or what does not cease to be. This is what is eternal.

[3] To enable us to live forever, what is mortal is taken from us. That mortal part is our material body, which is taken from us by death. This lays bare what is immortal about us, which is our mind, and we then become spirits in human form. Our mind is that kind of spirit.

The sages and wise ones of old saw that our mind could not die. They asked how a spirit or a mind could die when it could be wise. Hardly anyone nowadays knows the ancients' deeper concept of the matter, but it was a concept from heaven that resulted in their general sense that God is wisdom itself, that we share in that wisdom, and that God is immortal or eternal.

[4] There is also something I can say from experience, because I have been allowed to talk with angels. I have talked with some who lived many centuries ago, with some from before the Flood and some from after it, with some from the time of the Lord, with one of his apostles, and with many who lived in subsequent centuries. They all looked like people in the prime of life and told me that the only thing they knew about death was that it was damnation.

When people who have lived good lives get to heaven, they all enter the young adulthood of their earthly lives and keep it forever, even though they had been old and debilitated in the world. Women, even women who had become old and frail in the world, return to the flower of youth and beauty.

[5] We can see from the Word that we live forever after death, in passages where life in heaven is called eternal life. See, for example, Matthew 19:29; Matthew 25:46; Mark 10:17; Luke 10:25; Luke 18:30; John 3:15-16, 36; John 5:24-25, 39; John 6:27, 40, 68; John 12:50. Or it is simply called "life," as in Matthew 18:8-9; John 5:40; John 20:31. The Lord told the disciples, "Because I am alive, you will also live" (John 14:19), and he said of the resurrection that God is God of the living and not God of the dead, and that they could no longer die (Luke 20:36, 38).

[6] (b) Everyone is created to live forever in a blessed state. This is a corollary, since the One who wants us to live forever wants us to live in a blessed state as well. Otherwise, what would eternal life be? Love always wants what is good for others. Parents' love wants what is good for their children; a groom's or husband's love wants what is good for his bride or wife; our love in friendship wants what is good for our friends; so why not divine love? Further, what is goodness if it is not pleasing, and as for divine good, what is it if it is not eternal bliss? We call things good because of the pleasure or blessedness they provide. We do refer to things that we are given or own as "good," but unless they give us pleasure, it is a barren kind of goodness that is not really good at all. We can see, then, that eternal life is eternal blessedness as well.

This state of humanity is the ultimate goal of creation, and the Lord is not to blame if only the people who get to heaven enjoy it. That is our own fault, as we shall shortly see.

[7] (c) This means that everyone is created to go to heaven. This is the ultimate goal of creation. The reason not everyone gets to heaven, though, is that people immerse themselves in pleasures of hell that are contrary to the blessedness of heaven. People who do not enjoy heaven's bliss cannot enter heaven because they cannot stand the place.

When we arrive in the spiritual world, no one is forbidden to come up to heaven, but if we enjoy the pleasures of hell, then as soon as we get to heaven our hearts pound, we struggle for breath, our life starts to ebb away, we are in pain, tortured, and we writhe like snakes next to a flame. This happens because opposites actively oppose each other.

[8] Even so, since we were born human, which provides us with the ability to think and intend and therefore to talk and act, we cannot actually die. Since we are unable to live with others unless their life pleasures are like ours, we are remanded to the company of such people. This means that if we have enjoyed the pleasures of evil, we are sent off to our own kind, as we are if we have enjoyed the pleasures of what is good. In fact, we are all allowed to enjoy the pleasure of our own evil, provided only that we do not make trouble for people who enjoy the pleasure of what is good. However, since evil cannot help but make trouble for the good because of its inherent hatred for everything good, we are sent away to keep us from doing actual harm and sent down to our places in hell, where our pleasure turns into displeasure.

[9] All this does not cancel the fact that by creation and therefore by birth we have the inherent possibility of getting to heaven. All the people who die in early childhood go to heaven. They are raised and taught there the way we are in this world. They absorb wisdom because of their desire for what is good and true, and they become angels. People who are raised and taught in this world could do the same, since what is in little children is also in them. On little children in the spiritual world, see Heaven and Hell 329-345 (published in London in 1758).

[10] The reason it is different for so many people in the world is that they love that first level of life called "earthly." They do not want to let go of it and become spiritual--left to itself, this earthly level of life has no love for anything but ourselves and the world. It stays glued to our physical senses, which take center stage in this world. In contrast, the spiritual level of life has an inherent love for the Lord and heaven and also for ourselves and the world. God and heaven come first, though, as primary and definitive, while our selves and the world come second, as tools or servants.

[11] (d) Divine love cannot do otherwise than intend this and divine wisdom cannot do otherwise than provide for this. In Divine Love and Wisdom, there is ample evidence that the divine essence is divine love and wisdom. I also explained in Divine Love and Wisdom 358-370 of that work that the Lord forms two vessels in every human embryo, one for divine love and one for divine wisdom. The vessel for divine love is for what will be our volition, and the vessel for divine wisdom is for what will be our discernment. This means that each of us has been given the inner ability to intend what is good and to discern what is true.

[12] Since the Lord has put these two human abilities in us at birth, and since the Lord is therefore within us in those abilities as his gifts, we can see that his divine love can intend only that we come into heaven and enjoy eternal blessedness there. We can also see that divine wisdom can provide only that this happen.

However, since the Lord's divine love wants us to feel that heaven's blessedness within us is our own, and since this cannot happen unless we feel absolutely as though we are doing our own thinking and intending, talking and acting, we can be led only in ways that follow the laws of the Lord's divine providence.

319. The reason that everything we have justified in both our volition and our discernment stays with us forever is that we are our own love, and love is the substance of our volition. Or it is because we are our own good or our own evil, since everything good in us is a matter of love, and the same is true of everything evil.

Since we are our own love, we are also the forms of our own love and can be called organs of our life's love. I explained in 279 above that our feelings and consequent thoughts are changes and variations of the state and form of the organic substances of our minds. Now I need to explain the nature and quality of those changes and variations.

We can get a relative concept of them from our heart and lungs. Their changes are alternating expansions and compressions, or dilations and contractions. In the heart we call them systole and diastole, in the lungs they are our breathing, the alternating stretching and restraining, or the parting and squeezing, of their lobes. These are the changes and variations of the states of our heart and lungs. Similar things happen in the other organs of our bodies, and quite similar things in their parts, the parts through which our blood and life fluid is accepted and circulated.

[2] Much the same happens in the organic forms of the mind, which as already noted [279] are the subjects of our feelings and thoughts. The difference is that their expansions and compressions, their alternating motions, are relatively so much more perfect that there is no way to describe them in the words of ordinary language. Only the words of spiritual language are adequate, and these necessarily sound like whirlpools spiraling in and out like endless twisted coils joined together in forms that are wonderfully receptive of life.

[3] Now, though, I need to state what these purely organic substances and forms are like in evil people and in good people. In good people, the spirals face forward and in evil people they face backward. When they spiral forward they are turned toward the Lord and are open to the inflow from him. When they spiral backward they are turned toward hell and are open to its inflow. It is important to realize that to the extent that they are turned backward they are open behind and closed in front, and that conversely, to the extent that they are turned forward they are open in front and closed behind.

[4] This shows what kind of form or what kind of organ an evil person is and what kind of form or organ a good person is--they are turned in opposite directions. Further, since once a direction is established it cannot be twisted back the other way, we can see that we keep forever the orientation we have when we die. It is our volition's love that determines this direction, or that turns us forward or backward; for as just noted, each of us is her or his love. That is why after death we all follow the path of our love--to heaven if we have loved what is good and to hell if we have loved what is evil. We find no rest until we arrive in the community where our own dominant love is; and strange as it may sound, we all know the way. It is as though we were following a scent.