ODJ: so open it’s shut
April 2, 2011
What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces (v.13).
READ: Matthew 23:1-15
Solomon Stoddard had a problem. Like other pastors in 17th century New England, he wanted every citizen in town to belong to the church. But many of the Puritan children were not interested in following Jesus, so Stoddard relaxed the rules for church membership. Anyone who assented to the church’s teachings and avoided immorality could join the church, whether or not they showed signs of conversion.
Stoddard’s innovation enlarged the church’s reach, but significantly reduced its spiritual grasp. The church could boast that it included everyone in town, but what did church membership mean when the bar was set so low? Stoddard’s grandson, Jonathan Edwards, recognized the problem. But he was fired by the congregation when he demanded that church members produce credible confessions of faith.
A similar situation exists today. We want everyone to belong to the kingdom of God, but many people are not interested in following Jesus. Some pastors respond by relaxing the rules for membership. They say that we don’t need to believe in Jesus to enter the kingdom. We don’t even need to enter, for everyone is already in.
But Jesus said that He is the door and only “those who come in through Me will be saved” (John 10:9). If Jesus is the only door, then anyone who denies his or her need to believe in Him is shutting the door to the kingdom (Matthew 23:13-14). Worse, like Stoddard’s church-membership experiment, lowering the bar for belonging to the kingdom eliminates the very idea of the kingdom. A kingdom that includes everyone and asks nothing from anyone is no longer a meaningful concept. If it is everything, it is also nothing. So the kingdom would no longer exist, and you can’t enter what isn’t there.
If you want your friends to enter the kingdom, don’t knock down the walls. Show them the door. —Mike Wittmer
Is it more loving to tell people that they must repent and believe in Jesus (Mark 1:15) or that they were born inside the kingdom? Why is it vital that we believe in Jesus?
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