Once I was with a bishop and we were talking about various challenges in our Catholic Church in Germany. Toward the end of our conversation, he asked thoughtfully, “What does salvation actually mean?”
This question arises among many people, in all religions. If there’s a loving God, why is there still so much evil in the world? Some say Jesus redeemed us from original sin, but people continue to sin, and so it would seem that evil rules the world more than good. Illnesses are still present, and unkindness and ignorance in people’s behavior could make us doubt if the “redeeming death” of Jesus ever happened.
There are different opinions about what will happen to sinners who don’t seem to care about redemption. Can those people be saved? “No,” say many Christians and people of other religions. “Sinners who refuse to convert are condemned to hell,” to eternal damnation for all their malice…
Yet this would seem almost a continuation of what we do on earth, where we punish criminals with life imprisonment or with lethal injection.
However, in the “Our Father,” we do not pray “in heaven, as it is on earth,” but rather, the other way around: “on earth as it is in heaven!” (Mt 6:9–10) Heaven is the standard for our earth. God is completely different from us: he wants to save every human being. That’s his name: Jesus — “God saves.” He wants and will shape the coexistence of us human beings in the manner of heaven, in accordance with the most holy Trinity, which is entirely a “living for one another.”
Since God the Almighty is also the all-loving who will draw everyone to himself, as the Scriptures say (Jn 12:32), he must redeem everyone! So, even if someone does not repent of his sins during his life, if he never asks for mercy, nor wants to be saved at all, will God save this person?
On the other hand, we could ask: Can God’s love be limited by the freedom of a human creature? We won’t know the answer here on earth. I’d say how God changes people’s hearts and saves everyone is truly his mystery.
Understanding, not condemnation
It is commonly thought that whoever violates Church moral doctrine is committing a sin and needs to be corrected. Many refer to the passage in Mt 18:15–17, where it says to correct a brother first in private, then with two or three others, and eventually to expel him from the community.
In the historical context, this was a big step away from accusing someone publicly and immediately to a thoughtful conversation. It was meant for the future church, but does not reveal a fundamental quality of God, as described instead in the account of the woman caught in adultery.
Once, the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman whom they had allegedly caught in adultery. “Moses taught that she should be stoned, what do you say?” (Jn 8:3–11) Jesus is extremely careful not to condemn the woman, nor to send her to the supposed hell. After asking the woman if no one condemned her, he answered: “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (Jn 8:10)
God wants to save — even the sinner. People are rarely improved by imprisonment or punishment; they are only changed by love and affection and thus led away from evil ways. That is why Jesus urges us to love our enemies too.
Indeed, Jesus said, “Love one another” (Jn 13:34), “love your enemies” (Mt 5:44); therefore, our attitude toward anyone we consider a sinner should be, first and foremost, love, and not condemnation — help, and not exclusion.
In addition, Jesus came to redeem us from egoism and greed so that we can live “for one another.” That should be the face of his church, and it always shines in the saints who gave their lives for orphans, for the poor, for those excluded in society.
Freedom from false images of God
The evangelist John told us right at the beginning of his Gospel how much Jesus wants to free us from false images of God. Jesus is with his disciples in the temple in Jerusalem; he sees the livestock merchants and money changers — and makes a whip and drives everyone out (Jn 2:13–16). His disciples are horrified; the Pharisees ask angrily, “Why are you allowed to do this?” (Jn 2:18).
To this day, theologians ask, “Why did he do it?” The answer seems simple to me: He chased a false image of God out of the temple, out of all “temples” and religions and people’s minds. An image of God in which God appears like a trader: If you pay me — then you get the goods, heaven. Or like a highwayman: “Pay and I’ll let you move on.” But the true God, says Jesus, is not a dealer! Like a mother, my heavenly Father wants to give in abundance to each one of us. (2 Cor 9:8)
For this reason, I had replied to the bishop: “With his words and actions, Jesus freed all people and religions from false images of God, namely from those who make God’s compassion depend on good behavior, on the observance of laws. He has shown repeatedly that his father is not like that! God is a maternal father who goes after everyone who is lost until he finds him or her and can seat them at his heavenly banquet.”
What is hell?
So, will the “bad guys” who have no regrets, or who don’t ask for mercy, go to hell?
The word “hell,” as we use it in the Christian faith today, does not appear in any book of the New Testament (nor in the Old Testament either). Wherever it says “hell” in our Bibles, that is a wrong translation of the Greek original. At that time, Jesus used the following three words: abyss (which we still use today); Sheol/Hades — that means “kingdom of death/of the dead”; and Gehenna — the name given to the sewer of the city of Jerusalem in the southeast, the lowest point of the valley that surrounded the city. It was the place where all trash rotted away, which very often ignited a fire. Later, our word “hell” developed from this root.
But one can add the following two thoughts about hell: God, our Christian faith tells us, is infinite, limitless in his essence. There is no “outside” of God, otherwise God would be limited as in all earthly dimensions. Therefore, there can be no hell outside of God; if it existed, it must exist within God. Then that would take away the horror and agony of hell!
A second thought: we used to pray: “… he descended into hell.” When Jesus descended into the kingdom of the dead after his death, as the correct translation must read, “then the eternal Son of the eternal Father, went into the kingdom of the dead,” or, as some still say: “into hell.” But even if just once, wherever the eternal Son goes, he stays, because he is the eternal Lord.
If we were to speak of hell, then we would have to say that the eternal Son is in hell. But as the Father and Son are one, then God would be, so to speak, in hell forever — and hell would necessarily be in God… That is redemption.
Elements of mercy
When I wrote the book Hope for Judas, I had a lot of discussions with like-minded people, as well as with those of different opinions. They asked, “Are conversion, repentance, and atonement, therefore, unnecessary?” The answer to this is strange: yes, they are necessary — and at the same time, no.
From God’s side, they are not necessary because God’s love is unconditional — as already true with humans: a good mother cares for her family without conditions. Let’s look at the three parables of the “lost,” (Lk 15) where Jesus expressed this concept wonderfully while answering Pharisees complaining about his eating with sinners. And they describe different intensities of God’s readiness to mercy: the prodigal son could still decide for himself to turn his life around and go back home. The lost sheep, instead, is only able to cry out for help. But the lost coin that the woman is searching for is utterly dead; it cannot repent or convert. Yet God looks for it; it is precious.
The more a person is lost, the more active God himself becomes, the more he goes after what has been lost and searches for it until he finds it and can carry it home. So is God: far bigger, more beautiful, more loving than we can grasp. This is the epitome of our wonderful Christian Catholic faith!
From the human side, however, the following applies: yes, you have to convert, change and become a new person. Jesus presented this in the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus (Lk 16:19–31). Until his death, this rich man remained self-centered and greedy, but after his death he started to care for his brothers.
This shows that the eternal God does not cease to save his creature; even in death, he continues to work on a change of heart. His love melts the selfish evil away from the person until he is changed. This “heavenly rehab” (as I call purgatory in my book) is painful, but it leads to a change and renewal of human beings in the image of their creator.
And Judas?
When I started writing the book, I had no idea what new things to write about Judas. Then I found the picture of the “Good Shepherd of Vézelay,” a sculpture on top of a column in the Basilica of St. Magdalene in France. Jesus carries Judas home.
He had named him “my friend,” like Abraham was named “friend” by God. Suddenly, I saw Judas in the many sinners, be they in the New Testament, be they around us or in ourselves. How does God deal with sinners, with people who might even hate themselves, condemn themselves? He brings them home.
I admire this unknown sculptor from 900 years ago. Against the general opinion of people, he presented the salvation of Judas, the greatest of all sinners — because God wants to save. This “Jesuan Christianity” must become the valid standard for us. No teaching of men can stand above the revelation of God in his son Jesus.
“Lord, may your boundless love lead us to understand ever more deeply the eternal mercy of your maternal Father and to put it into daily action.”
Fr. Christoph Wrembek, SJ
(Living City, USA)
The author entered the Jesuit order in 1961 and was ordained in 1971. After studying film in Hollywood, he returned to Berlin in 1974 to work in Campus Ministry. Since 1983, he has provided pastoral care for priests and religious.
He has written 13 books in German, and his book “Hope for Judas,” which is in its seventh printing in German, was translated to English and published by New City Press in 2021.
