Teaching an RS lesson with a rather alert bunch of youngsters a couple of months ago, I got an interesting reaction.I had loosely remarked that the Scriptures teach that 'Salvation can be acquired by all.'
The response from one lad was immediately to ask, "What about Hitler, Sir?"
This brings us into the same territory mentioned in the Blog entry on Myra Hindley. The simple truth is that we cannot know.
There are perhaps three areas we may consider however:
1) Jesus appears to say in Mark 14 verse 21 that Judas cannot repent: "The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born."
2) There is clearly no repentance possible for Lucifer, the fallen angel of light and
3) Hebrews 6: 4 states: " For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance .... "
So the betrayer, the fallen one and certain types of backslider may not be able to repent.
Cutting across this is the problem of evil as opposed to sin. Evil is always sin but is sin always evil? - I do not think so.
Consider when Jesus tells us in Mark that there is an 'unpardonable sin' and that it consists of 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit' - the context of that remark was when The Holy Spirit in Jesus was recognised by His accusers as being Beelzebub, the prince of demons.
They were incapable of discernment. They had committed evil. From this it would seem that seeing 'good as evil' and/or 'evil as good' is the distinction.
In other words, committing the sin is a sin. Committing the sin then claiming it is 'good' has crossed the line.
[This is largely why evangelicals are so concerned about liberal churches attempting to legitimise the sin of homosexuality. It is not merely sin to do so.]
I am certain that sinners can all be saved. That is why Jesus died.
For those who are truly evil, I am not so sure that they will have anything within them that would allow them to repent and be saved.
That is my personal opinion.
In Mark 10 however, we find out that "To God ALL things are possible."
Simple answer? - I'm not sure that there is one.
