Can Criminals Go to Heaven?

"Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" 

Dear friends:

Below is an email debate between me and a far away friend T to share with you. The light purple fonts are my reply.

T:No spear can pierce through a certain shield (nobody can comprehend God's will) 

Me: However, if God reveals His will to us then we can comprehend; in another word, we can only comprehend God's will as much as He reveals to us. And God has revealed His wills in the Bible, so if we study Bible, we certainly can understand His main wills. Still there are mysteries of God like Trinity which is beyond our comprehension at this side of Heaven.

 T: But I am trying to design a spear that can (But Christians are trying to comprehend God's will) 

Me:Yes, as much as we can about God's revealed will. Many times, God's sovereign will, we may not comprehend though.

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  Christians should love our neighbors, the Bible teaches. 

  Criminals have harmed the society and their neighbors.

  T:But as long as criminals believe in the Bible, they can enter the gate of heaven.

Me:Nope! Believing in Bible is not sufficient; the criminals need to truly repent and turn around from their sinful behaviors; they should turn around to love God and love their neighbors as proof of their truly repentance.

  Conclusion: The heaven's gate is opened for those who have not cared about their neighbors, but have only cared about living an eternally happy life. 

Heaven's gate is open to anyone who truly repents and accepts Jesus' offer for salvation, not as narrow conclusion as you have above.( the rare case of your conclusion perhaps deriving from the thief on the cross because he repented last minute of his life, he didn't have chance to love his neighbors; wait a minute, he did love his neighbor who was crucified on the other side of Jesus by pointing out to him that Jesus is sinless ( God) and both he and the other thief are guilty deserving the punishments.He scolded the other thief with love, right?)

  Perhaps this conclusion is the primary reason why Christians, relatively, are in-compassionate. Compassion is not an if-and-only-if (sufficient and necessary) condition for deceased people to enter the gate of heaven. 

Do you like that compassion is " if and only if " condition of entering Heaven's gate? If so, then nobody can enter there because none of us are compassionate enough to qualify to go to Heaven.We all need Jesus' salvation.

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  The two ironies above are my interpretation of God's will. you, of course, will jump to defend them. When you defends God's will, you think that you comprehend God's will better than your debating opponents do. 

The fact is simple because you don't want to read Bible so you are less familiar with God's revealed wills, however, God has given us built in conscience that is your 老天爺，so we basically know when we are guilty and offending our Creator God. So there is no excuse in not knowing God's will for us to love our neighbors. Agree?

(Luke 23:39 One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!" 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." 42 And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" 43 And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.")