Striking thing to ponder

Updated below.

Because more thoughtful individuals tend to get kicked off Christian forums and so forth I can't post this to a forum where the subject has come up, but here goes anyway... The subject is a pastor from Missouri who after WWII became the pastor to 15 of the Protestant Nazi war criminals condemned to death at Nuremberg. The pastor stated that some of them repented and had faith in Jesus Christ prior to their execution by hanging.

My thought to ponder is this (and it has real meaning beyond the shocking surface of it): the unbelieving Jews who suffered and died in so many horrific ways in the Nazi death camps went to hell; while their guards and the higher up Nazis who created the death camps, if they were subsequently regenerated by the word and the Spirit and had repentance and faith, went to heaven to be with God at their death.

The suffering Jews = to hell
The Nazis responsible = to heaven

What this very real scenario teaches is this: Salvation is above anything that is happening here in this fallen world. Other than the unforgivable sin, no sin can keep God's elect out of heaven; and no amount of suffering can keep an unbeliever out of hell.

So, what this scenario is teaching is all the outrage and moralizing about the hell of this fallen world and the acts of fallen men and women in this fallen world are a sound and fury that is not connected with God's plan of redemption which goes about it's way quietly above it all.

And if that outrages you think about this: you never cared about the millions of victims of Communism around the world that were suffering and dying at the very same time that the Jews were suffering and dying in the Nazi death camps. That shows what fallen man's outrage and moralizing is worth. Hence the disconnect between it and the plan and working out of salvation that is effected above it all...

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The reason the scenario is striking (I just want to emphasize) is because it so starkly shows up fallen man's state vis-a-vis God. When we look at that scenario we say, that is such a blatant example of evil against victims. But that is *our* man-centered sense of justice and our moralizing in action. From God's point-of-view it's just one group of children of wrath over-lording it on another group of children of wrath.

In hell there are torturers and tortured too. There is suffering in hell too.

The scenario really is powerful because it forces us to see how whatever happens to us it doesn't matter regarding our salvation. We can't whine about anything because it's empty (vain) regarding our salvation.

We have to see in ourselves what we dislike in others. And we have to see that we attract our lives and are responsible for everything that happens to us.

And this statement too: Christianity is not about being good, it's about making contact.