They’re called Door Busters.
Sales – usually scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving – which are so significant that savvy shoppers will plan their days around them, lining up outside the store hours before opening with the rabid intention of winning the limited quantity prize.
As zero hour approaches, the throng presses hard against the door and the manager shivers with a perverse combination of excitement and dread. The exact placement of the door-busting items is a secret and the battle to discover it can become highly competitive, even violent. Finally, the key turns in the lock and the doors swing open. Mad shoppers rush about in a frenzy, searching out the object of their mission. The treasure espied, shopping carts descend upon it like ants on a picnic. Within seconds, the supply is exhausted and the throng moves to the check-out lanes. Victory!
Heaven, which surely would be worthy of a Door Buster promotion, is not like that.
Arriving early does not guarantee victory. The placement of the prize is no secret. Far from being competitive and subject to shortages and limited quantities, it is obtainable by every person alive today. And, it is not subject to discounts – the most valuable treasure known to man is priceless, even free.
Arriving early does not guarantee victory. Logically, the Jews of Old Testament lineage arrived at the Messiah’s gate first (Romans 2:9-10). Among them, their clergy among the scribes and Pharisees could expect to be at the head of the line. Gentiles showed up later, but were in no wise inferior. Jesus even recited to them a parable about a landowner who hired laborers to work his vineyard to prove this point. When the employer settled wages at the end of the day, he paid those who worked only the last hour the same as those who had worked all day, eliciting howls of displeasure from the latter. They represented the resentful Jews who disdained the late addition of Gentiles to “their” kingdom and “their” God. Having arrived early, they grew discontented in line and many went home before the door really opened (see Matthew 20:1-16, John 6:66-69). “So the last will be first, and the first last.”
The placement of the prize is no secret. The big box department stores rearrange their stock on Thanksgiving night so that no one will have an advantage on Black Friday morning. Everyone rushes in with no idea where the big prizes are hidden. Heaven, however, is right where it’s always been. Spiritually, it is somewhere beyond the clouds – somewhere beyond the limits of this material world (see First Thessalonians 4:13-18). How does one get there from here? Jesus claimed to be the way to the Father whose heavenly estate numbers many mansions (John 14:1-6). Too, he claimed to be the door for all those who would be his sheep (John 10:7). If Jesus is the way, faith is the vehicle and obedience the fuel (Hebrews 11:6).
Far from being competitive and subject to shortages and limited quantities, heaven is obtainable by every person alive today. Many who seek Door Busters come away empty-handed, especially when the store only has one or two of the top prizes. It is isn’t that the shopper didn’t believe or try hard enough – it’s just that somebody else tried harder. There is enough room in heaven for every person who submits to the gospel call, for Jesus is the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, not just the first 50 in line – or the top 144,000 if you prefer (Hebrews 5:8-9). Calvinism strangely brags about Christ’s limited atonement; the Bible goes further and promises universal opportunity (Titus 2:11).
Heaven is not subject to discounts – the most valuable treasure known to man is priceless, even free. Paul contrasts the wage of sin, which is death, with grace, the free gift of God that is eternal life through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus (Romans 6:19-23). While free, however, heaven is not subject to discounts, for our access to it was purchased by the very blood of the perfect son of God (Acts 20:28). Heaven would be cheapened if people could sin their way in, making a mockery of the Lord’s teaching by reveling in iniquity and asserting a right to redemption anyway. Heaven is priceless and as a sinner, you cannot afford it. Jesus had to pay the price, the just paying for the unjust, that you might pass through the gates of pearl, walk on streets of gold and enjoy a river and tree of eternal life (First Peter 2:24).
Anybody can show up on Black Friday, visions of inexpensive televisions dancing in his head. The aisles are narrow and the passage is difficult, but the right mixture of determination and perspiration will bring victory. Jesus cautioned against an excess of self-reliance or complacency, when he told his audience to, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14).
The common theory about the doors of Heaven is probably quite erroneous. The Bible nowhere indicates “St. Peter” is manning the gates as long lines of hopeful people wait for admittance or ejection. The doors of heaven, however are secure and protective (Revelation 21:25). “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:7-8).
If one could bust heaven’s doors, it would certainly be worth the effort. No such effort is possible, however. “For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:15-16).