Good people don't go to heaven

• Published in: Daily mercury (Guelph. 1967)
• Main Author: Hamel, Royal
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Guelph, Ont Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited 29.01.2016
• Subjects: Lennon, John
• ISSN: 0841-6834

Second myth: A great many other people believe that only "good people" will go to heaven after death. So what does a good person look like? If you were to ask the person on the street, he/she might say, "No, I've never killed anybody, robbed a bank or committed adultery so I think I must be OK. Yeah, for sure God will see me as one of the good ones". Is that true? What if God's definition of a "good person" is much more stringent? What if God's standard is absolute perfection? What if even the teeniest breaking of one of his commandments is an absolute disqualifier? But that is exactly the teaching of the New Testament. The Bible says, "There is not one righteous, no, not even one ... all have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Romans 3:10-12). just maybe the old crooner, who "did it his way", got it all wrong. Frank Sinatra sings, "For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught?" Jesus taught, Paul taught, the early church taught that man does not have it in himself to save himself. That's why God sent a Saviour who alone can cleanse us from sin, give us the gift of eternal life and thus prepare us for the life to come.