The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

by Dallas Willard

Associated with this agreement that the issue in salvation is only “heaven or hell” is a further agreement that being saved is a forensic or legal condition rather than a vital reality or character. No one is in this “saved” condition until declared to be so by God. We do not enter it by something that happens to us, or in virtue of a reality that moves into place in our life, even if that reality is God himself. The debate then is about what must be true of us before God will declare us to be in the saved condition. Finally, the two sides agree that getting into heaven after death is the sole target of divine and human efforts for salvation. It is what such efforts are aimed at, rather than a by-product or natural outcome of something else that is the target. But we get a totally different picture of salvation, faith, and forgiveness if we regard having life from the kingdom of the heavens now—the eternal kind of life—as the target. The words and acts of Jesus naturally suggest that this is indeed salvation, with discipleship, forgiveness, and heaven to come as natural parts.

Our personal existence will continue without interruption. Perhaps, by contrast, we must say that those who do not now enter the eternal life of God through confidence in Jesus will experience separation, isolation, and the end of their hopes. Perhaps this will be permitted in their case because they have chosen to be God themselves, to be their own ultimate point of reference. God permits it, but that posture obviously can only be sustained at a distance from God. The fires of heaven, we might

suspect, are hotter than the fires of hell.