Now what is being talked about here? Some imagine that God has a huge accounting book up in heaven, and peers down upon the earth, looking for those who are baptized and believe in Jesus. If you have these qualifications, you’re in. Doesn’t matter how you live, you just have to be baptized and mouth the words, “I believe in Jesus as my personal savior.” If you don’t, well, you’re damned. Pray for the right check mark in the book of heaven, then!

Here’s another view. Those who do not believe are already living in a kind of hell because they do not realize that the goodness and grace of God surrounds them every day. Like the Japanese soldier who hid out for a couple of decades in the Philippine Islands following WWII, because he believed that the war was still on, so “unbelievers” either believe nothing or believe the wrong thing. They are still at war, living in a hell of false belief and despair.

The gift of faith, birthed in the waters of Baptism, is not an embedded microchip, then, magically making us God’s pets, identifiable for either heaven or hell, but is rather the beginnings of an alternative world view and relationship to the Creator: the war is over. I live in freedom. And my life is now not defined by the powers who run this world, but by God who looks upon me and declares: “No matter what, you are my beloved child.”

Whoever believes this, based not on feelings, but on the “fact” of baptism, is saved—is already living, not in hell, but in heaven! Lord, we believe, help our unbelief! Alleluia!