1. I don't want to give any more attention to Adam Lanza. He didn't deserve the attention I gave him in the last blog.
2. I don't regret ANYTHING I said in the last blog!
In fact, I wrote it almost as a preemptive attack on the following notion of some Christians:
"We don't know for certain where Adam Lanza is for all eternity. Maybe in the last moments of his life he accepted Christ."
That notion vomitously sickens me!
So, let me get this straight: milliseconds before he selfishly and cowardly kills himself, he has conscience and presence of mind enough to "get saved," but didn't have the same presence of mind milliseconds before he shoots his mother in the face? Or how about the time it takes to prepare and use the guns he chose for murder and massacre? As one with law enforcement weapons training, I can tell you it takes time, skill (for lack of better words), and thus presence of mind to shoot a weapon, and to hit your target. There was the time that he had to load and prepare his weapons, and the time and resolve to go through with killing the woman who brought him into this world, as well as 20 innocent children.
But he went through with it, killing his mother, murdering 27 people. If killing his mother didn't trigger some semblance of conscience, no matter what she may have done to him (not that she did anything), then where is this sudden burst of conscience coming from?
Some use "the thief on the cross" as an example of last minute salvation. But the thief on the cross only makes my point. He was on a cross, first of all, dying a slow excruciating death by Roman government, forced to face Rome and her citizens.
HE HAD TO FACE THEM!
HE HAD TO FACE WHAT HE DID!
HE PAID THE PRICE OF WHAT HE DID!
That point alone drives home this truth:
The Good News of Jesus Christ never negated justice!
Nor was it some private convenient confession of sin
that had nothing to do with confession to men and women!
The very fact that confession and baptism were assumed to be public by Jesus and His followers is what got them persecuted and killed!
So Adam Lanza's hypothetical private confession and salvation is contrary to the justice of the Good News Of Jesus!
27 PEOPLE DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE FOR ADAM LANZA TO BE SAVED!
ONLY ONE NEEDED TO DIE! JESUS HIMSELF!
If he really were sorry for what he did, in accordance with the gospel, he would not have shot himself, but would have taken the public scorn, just as the thief on the cross did when he came to his senses. At first the thief mocked Jesus, but then he realized AND CONFESSED that he deserved the cross while Jesus didn't! Even when he asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus entered His kingdom, the thief didn't ask with any confidence or certainty that Jesus would remember him.
So was I saying in the last blog that I know with certainty Adam Lanza is in hell?!
Yes.
But what I was saying even more is that I HOPE HE IS!
If there is a such thing as justice, and if the Good News really is Good News, it would seem to demand Adam Lanza's sentence to hell. .
I hate the idea of "some good coming out of Lanza's evil" because I would see NO GOOD coming out of my children's deaths!
None!
No point.
No meaning.
It wouldn't make me "appreciate my children more." It would be a meaningless evil act.
Furthermore, it seems to me that even in the mind of God, there comes a point where enough is just enough, where it is too late to try to play Him! Could I just plan to do hellish things and confess my sins in the last minute, and expect God to grant me heaven right after I shoot myself!? Everything in us that understands justice yells NO!
I wish none of this had happened, because it was not necessary for Adam Lanza's "last minute salvation." If God can convince Lanza in the last milliseconds of his life to "get saved," he could have convinced him in all the years before the massacre, or at least milliseconds before he murders his mother. I am convinced that if Lanza were "really sorry" and really wanted "to get saved," he would have done what the gospel demands: make public confession of his sin, and that he deserves hell, IN ADDITION TO EVERY EARTHLY CONSEQUENCE OF HIS SIN--the public scorn, the facing of the parents and all survivors, and especially the death penalty.
C.S. Lewis made these points very well in his essay on punishment. Yet we already know in our heart of hearts that there is something dreadfully wrong with the idea of Lanza's last minute private confession and salvation; that he gets to do unimaginable evil, then conveniently has time and frame of mind to "get saved," and is escorted into heaven by angels, while parents and loved ones on earth suffer what feels like unbearable grief ! This makes the good news bad news!
It cannot be so.
It is not so.
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