I have this uncanny ability to be out in the middle of nowhere minding my own business and suddenly wind up getting confronted by two of the most vile, foul mouthed, self appointed street preachers ever invented. Laugh with me, because I finally just accepted this was downright supernatural as in, "Oh look, here comes the accuser of the brethren again, right on schedule." Once I was sitting in a restaurant attempting to explain to someone that God is good, that Jesus loves her, when two barbarians decided this would be a good time to just pick me out of the crowd, come on over and start preaching about how God hates us and we're doomed to hell.
I mention this so that you will know what kind of rubbish I am currently responding to in this post, so you won't take it personally. There is simply some vile stuff being done behind the veil of Christianity. Never mind unbelievers and atheists, I speak of those often calling themselves Christians. Don't make me post links, there are thousands. A lot of Christians are kind people, doing the best they can. Some simply are not. Some make me wonder whose side they are even on.
Also, please don't think I'm advocating for universalism here, although when it comes to such matters I try to just align my heart with my Father's heart. He says in 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." It's the Father's will that none shall perish! I have no idea what the details are or how that all plays out in the end. I don't worry about it, because it's in my Father's hands and that is the safest place to be.
Recently someone discovered I actually like pineapple on my pizza and decided to scream, "wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction!" I jest a bit, but that is exactly how absolutely stoopid these things can get. Said barbarian who was trying to revoke my salvation lacked the grey matter required to engage in a fruitful conversation, but I was reminded of a tale about that "narrow gate" that I really like, the one that equates it with being born, with a birth canal. People don't ask to be born, we don't ask to live, and we don't ask to die but these things happen to us anyway, outside of our freewill. In light of these truths it seems a bit silly to insist we have complete freewill and full autonomy over our own salvation. In fact, I don't think the Bible says that at all, actually it says the precise opposite. Also, if we could just do it all on our own, Jesus wouldn't have had to lay down His life for us! Somebody smart once said, "if salvation was in our own hands we'd probably loose it." Yep, like our keys, our relationships, and our common sense.
The verse we are looking at is in Matthew 7, the whole chapter really because it provides all the context, but specifically, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
That's not a gate of exclusion. It is not a gate that keeps the riff raff out. It is not as if some people just get in the wrong line, the line to the down elevator going to hell. Since we are born again, a narrow gate is more like a birth canal. You will be squeezed, pressured, and pushed through a very small passage. Sorry, but it just is what it is! Being born again requires us to become new creatures and it can be a painful process, for the baby. Life is pain. Love is also going to be painful. The road that leads to them is painful. This narrow road however, leads to life. It is the only way to be born...again.
There is another way, a wide gate that doesn't involve so much suffering. You are not being squeezed. The problem being, avoiding our own suffering doesn't cause us to be born. A child unwilling to be squeezed would not be born and would eventually die. This is not a threat of destruction and hell, it is an analogy, a tale to help us understand why we suffer. "Wide is the gate" because a lot of people are unwilling to face their own pain and actually be born into new life.
Not facing our own pain leads to destruction. We do a myriad of destructive things to try to squash and avoid our own suffering.
I do like how that verse also says, "and many enter through it." Much like a regular birth, your feelings or cooperation in the matter are somewhat irrelevant. You are still going through the gate, either wide or narrow. And you can go through the wide gate that leads to destruction and still find Christ! People do it all the time. That's what testimonies are all about. It is not the line to the down elevator going straight to a literal hell. Sheesh, people.
Sometimes people act like that narrow gate is a gated community, like a housing development where the fancy people live in million dollar mansions with waterfront keeping all the riff raff out. I can just scream at you that you're going to hell as a form of control, to get you to denounce the pineapple on pizza or else you'll be kicked out of the cool kid's club. Well, that's not of God, that's just icky human behavior.
You don't really have to "choose" to line up behind the right gate, just like you didn't get to choose what day to be born or how you were going to arrive in this world. Those things are in the Father's hands, not ours and certainly not in a churchian barbarian lacking all self awareness who thinks his or her job is to try to kick the riff raff out.
I genuinely believe those verses are intended to help us understand the need to feel our own pain and the value of our suffering. They are analogies and comfort for believers, encouragement, not tools for self appointed bouncers at the churchian country club.
I absolutely do NOT believe all paths lead to the Father, but I do believe all paths lead us to Jesus, eventually. Willing or unwilling, we will all meet Him someday. Faith is not about behavior modification and punishing our enemies at all, it's about an entire heart transplant.
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