As I watch the Olympic luge team relay, I notice a guy in the grandstand at the finish with a sign that says:
JESUS = HEAVEN
NO JESUS = HELL
Do people actually expect this sort of thing to win converts?
It all depends on the context.
Is the sign claiming that everyone needs to believe in and accept the teachings of the sign-bearers version of Jesus in order to avoid Hell?
Perhaps. But I initially saw it a bit differently.
I saw the sign saying that only through what Jesus has done for us can we receive endless joy, or entrance to Heaven and that if there were "no Jesus", all Mankind would be consigned to Hell, or endless misery.
Ignoring for a moment the belief that the pre-mortal Jesus Christ created the entire physical Universe (John 1), let's operate under the idea that we somehow existed without Him first creating all things, what would happen to all Mankind if Jesus had never entered into mortality and performed His Atoning Sacrifice?
I am a Latter-Day Saint (aka "Mormon") so I will be quoting from the Book of Mormon, even though the Bible supports the ideas I will be presenting, I find that the Book of Mormon explains them with less ambiguity.
A prophet named Jacob taught his people about the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and the universality of its effects upon the human family.
He explained that Christ "suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men" because Mankind had been "cut off from the presence of the Lord" by reason of the Fall of Adam and Eve therefore, because of their transgression "death hath passed upon all men" and yet he taught that "to fulfil the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection". (2 Nephi 9:5-6)
Then he revealed,
"Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more.
O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more." (2 Nephi 9:7-8)
The idea that all people will one day "put on incorruption", or receive a bodily Resurrected, means that all people will eventually be saved from physical death and that their spirit will be reunited with their physical body. The Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ will cause all to rise from the dead.
Not only this, but Jacob taught that the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ will also save all Mankind from Hell. For he continued saying,
"O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.
And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave.
And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel." (2 Nephi 9:10-12)
Jacob talks about a lot of other good stuff and I will provide a link to this chapter, but I would encourage everyone to read and study from the Book of Mormon.
2 Nephi 9
