Michael Bloomberg has earned his place in heaven

Many of us saw the New York Times article on Mayor Bloomberg’s gun control efforts. In the final paragraph he is quoted:

Pointing to his work on gun safety, obesity and smoking cessation, he said with a grin: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

Hopefully everyone here on this board sees how wrong that statement is.

Theologically of course, as Baptists, most of us should agree that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works (Eph 2:8-9) and nothing Michael Bloomberg could ever do would earn him a place in heaven. The only way he will ever enter heaven is through the blood of Christ. And that of course he even opens the quote with the statement "If there is a God."

Politically speaking, it is easy to see that Bloomberg considers himself a benevolent ruler who has only the best intentions of his subjects in mind. The problem with that of course is that a benevolent tyrant is still a tyrant. Eric Erickson has a diary piece on this posted online yesterday (April 15, 2014). You can see it here:

http://www.redstate.com/2014/04/15/the-rich-man-and-lazaruss-big-gulp/

Ericson quotes C. S. Lewis crediting Mark Hemingway on twitter and I think the Lewis quote bears repeating:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.