E. W. Letter Ritchie Way June 2009

PLATO AND JESUS
Dear Ritchie
Sometime back, in the first Good News for Adventists magazine I think, you contrasted Plato’s and Jesus’ way of getting man into heaven. I’ve hunted everywhere for that article, but can’t lay my hands on it. Would you please be so kind as to give me the main points of your thesis?
Kind regards
E. W.

Dear E
Plato understood, as did the Hebrews, that there was a great gulf between man and God. Man lived in a sinful world, but God lived in a sinless world. Plato’s means of bridging that gulf, however, was worlds apart from the Hebrew solution.
For Plato, the separation between man and God was spatial—man lived here on earth and God lived in heaven above. The only way man could enter the presence of a perfect God was through the death of his sinful body, which released his perfect soul to travel to heaven above.
For the Hebrews, the separation between man and God was relational. Man’s soul was sinful; only God was holy. The only way man could enter into the presence of God was to become perfect.
The New Testament reveals how that may be done. Jesus, our atoning sacrifice, opened the way back to God when he died for us on the cross (John 14:6). He not only died to cancel our debt of imperfection, but he also credited his own perfection to us (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 10:10). That means there is now nothing to prevent us entering into God’s presence—no past sin and no lack of holiness.
N.B. It is not our death that gets us into God’s presence (though many Christians still cling to that Platonic paradigm), but Jesus’ death. When he died the door to God’s throne-room was opened to us (Heb. 10:19-22). ‘Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence’ (Heb. 4:16).
There’s just one more difference between Plato and the New Testament that I should point out. For Plato, heaven was a literal place, but for Christians living between the two advents, (the kingdom of) heaven is a spiritual place (see Heb.12:22-24).
Grace and peace to you
Ritchie.