Bad ideas don’t die, they just hide out on the internet and regroup. — MennoKnight (@Menn0knight) January 13, 2016



I recently came across a video ambitiously titled, “Proving that nobody can get into heaven.” It was produced by Marshall Brain, the same guy who founded the How Stuff Works website, and the author of How “God” Works, which is essentially an argument for atheism.

The video is ten years old, but it’s still making the rounds online. To spare you the 8-plus minutes of it, I’ll summarize Brain’s argument here. He claims he can prove that heaven is “a fairy tale” by looking at the eight times Jesus was asked what it would take to go there. According to Brain, here are the eight answers:

Love God and your neighbors (Luke 10:25-28) Honor your father and mother, plus sell everything and follow Jesus (Luke 18:18-22) Hate your father and mother—and your own life!—(Luke 14:26) Eat Jesus’ flesh and drink Jesus’ blood (John 6:53-54) Become like little children (Matthew 18:2-3) Be born again (John 3:3-7) Have more righteousness than the Pharisees—keep all 613 OT laws (Matthew 5::17-20) Believe in Jesus (John 3:16)

The gist of his argument is that these contradict each other. About a half-dozen times he says, “if you are a normal intelligent person” you would see how foolish Jesus’ answers are. And he has a point. I’d like to help Brain out here, and make his point more clearly than his video did: Jesus’ answers do contradict each other. He says that you need to love your father and mother, and then later that you need to hate them. He says you need to be like a child, but then that you need to be born again! Well, which is it?!?

Brain ends his video by saying that “If you are a normal, intelligent adult, three things are going to be obvious to you”:

“John 3:16 is only one slice of an 8-slice pizza. Why do you only hear about the John 3:16 step, but not the other ones?” You have to love everyone, and hate everyone.

You have to be like a child, and like a law keeping Pharisee.

You have to eat flesh and drink blood, and sell everything.

“No normal intelligent adult is going to sell everything. That’s nuts!” Jesus had no idea what he was talking about. If Jesus was perfect, every time he was talking about eternal life, he would have said the same thing”

“If you are a normal intelligent adult” this chart should make it obvious. Heaven is a fairy tale

Obviously Brain doesn’t quite understand the gospel (or the way syllogisms work, but one thing at a time). So in the spirit of How Things Work, here is How the Gospel Works. I’ll use Brain’s same eight points and the same eight verses (but I will move two of them around, and add the word “unless” at a very critical point). After reading this, “no normal, intelligent adult” would think Jesus didn’t’ know what he was talking about.

How the gospel works:

If you want to go to heaven when you die, Jesus says you must:

Love God and your neighbors perfectly (Luke 10:25-28)

Of course, “no normal person” can do this. And that is in fact Jesus’ point. Honestly, either Brain is totally unfamiliar with the gospel, or all of his shock about Jesus’ supposed contradictions is fake. In other words, either the video is entirely ignorant about Jesus, or it is intentionally deceptive. Either way, the response is the same: God is holy, and demands that you be holy too. If you want to go to heaven, you had better be perfect, just like God himself.

Honor your father and mother, plus sell everything and follow Jesus (Luke 18:18-22)

This is more of the same. Jesus is saying that not only do you have to be perfect, you also have to love Jesus more than everything else, including your possessions. Brain is right—no “normal intelligent person” is going to do this, because normal people don’t love God; they love their stuff instead. So far, its not looking good for us.

Have more righteousness than the Pharisees—keep all 613 OT laws (Matthew 5:17-20)

And again, in case you missed it the first few times, Jesus actually does mean that if you want to go to heaven you have to be perfect. He doesn’t just mean Pharisee-perfect either. He really means that you have to godlier than the Pharisees. Basically, if you have ever sinned once, you have no hope of going to heaven.

So that’s it. If you want to earn your way to heaven, of if you think that you will get there because you are a “normal, intelligent person,” then Jesus says you are mistaken. In fact, unless you are the godliest person who ever lived, there is zero chance of you going to heaven when you die.

UNLESS:

You are born again (John 3:3-7)

That’s right—Jesus taught a different way to go to heaven. One way is impossible (#s 1-3 above). But if that were the only way to get to heaven, then Brain would be exactly right: heaven would be a fairy tale. Yet there is a second way. That way depends not on your righteousness and law keeping, but on the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. But how?

Believe in Jesus (John 3:16)

You are born again when you believe in Jesus. Not “believe in Jesus” like the law-keeping Pharisees, but “believe in Jesus” as in “believe that he died on the cross to pay the penalty for your failure to be more righteous than the Pharisees.” Because you are a sinner and you deserve hell, God cannot let you go to heaven without punishing your sin. So God sent his son (and if this is confusing, you should totally read John 3:16—the exact verse Brain uses here) and his son died to bear your penalty for sin. Believe that, and you can be saved.

Hate your father and mother—and your own life!—(Luke 14:26)

Simply believing in Jesus can sound trite though. I mean, if you are born again, shouldn’t your life be different? And the answer is, yes it should. Instead of loving your own life, you hate it. Instead of living for yourself, you live for Christ. The Jews often used “love/hate” not in the way Americans use those words, but in terms of a preference. If you love McDonanld’s, you hate Burger King. If you love your own life, you hate Jesus. Better to love him and hate your life.

Eat Jesus’ flesh and drink Jesus’ blood (John 6:53-54)

But Jesus doesn’t just call for your love. He calls for your life. You internalize the gospel. You partake of his sanctifying work. His death becomes your spiritual food. In something that is obvious to every Christian (except Lutherans!), Jesus is using a metaphor here. He is not purporting cannibalism, but is saying that when you are born again through belief in him, you will then live dependently upon him.

Become like little children (Matthew 18:2-3)

When this happens, you become like a child. You do not have standing on your own right to enter heaven, but rather you have standing because of who your heavenly father is. You don’t bring anything to the table, so to speak. All you contribute is the sin that makes your salvation necessary. You are very far from a “normal, intelligent adult.” Instead you are a broken and contrite child, with childlike wonder that Jesus would save you.

If you think that normal people are good and intelligent, then you need to focus on #’s 1-3, and realize that for you, heaven is a fairy tale and you are not going there. Once you realize that, then move on down the list, and see that Jesus made a second way for you. That is How the Gospel Works.