This may be the most controversial post I’ve ever written, but it needs to be said.

Unless you’ve hidden under a rock, you know that Osama bin Laden was killed by a team of U.S. Navy Seals less than a week ago.

Bin Laden certainly committed a myriad of evil, evil acts. How can a person be so filled with hate for people he’s never even met? Unfortunately, bin Laden is not the first person to be filled with this hate- history is filled with evil leaders who indiscriminately slaughtered others. From Attila the Hun to Vlad the Impaler to Ivan the Terrible, to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin- all men who committed these unspeakable acts of hate.

Yet, as a committed Christian, I dare to believe that every single one of these at least *could* have received divine forgiveness for their actions.

Now let me clarify: I am saying they COULD have received forgiveness, not that they DID. Had they made the choice to repent of their sins and devote their lives to Christ, they could have been forgiven. Only God knows their hearts, but in all these cases, there is reason to suspect that they did not.

I am not saying that, by devoting their lives to Christ, they would have been absolved of the consequences of their actions. I’m reminded of a man here in my home state of Missouri who was executed a few years ago. He committed a terrible crime- torturing and killing a man who stopped to help him when his car broke down. In prison and on death row, spending many hours alone with just his memories of what he’d done, he started reading the Bible and gave his life to Christ. He became a changed man, repeatedly apologizing to the family of his victim. He even sought stay of execution based on his changed life. However, giving his life to Christ didn’t undo his earlier actions. He had to face the consequences of his crime- execution.

I can’t imagine what kind of punishment would be suffered by, for example, Adolf Hitler, if he had lived beyond the war. It would certainly not have been easy.

Yet this life is but a breath. We blink, and it’s over. Jesus is about eternity, and His forgiveness gives us the privilege of spending eternity in Heaven, in the presence of God. There is nothing on earth that He can’t or won’t forgive.

Of course, the flip side of this is hell. For those who do not accept Jesus, for those who reject forgiveness, there is eternity in hell. It’s often portrayed as fire and brimstone and Satan in a red leotard with horns and a pitchfork, but in reality it is so much worse. Reality is an eternity of being separated from and even rejected by God. It’s an eternity of knowing what you could have had, but realizing that you gave up your chance.

It grieves me to see so many people (mostly Americans) celebrating bin Laden’s death. He was an evil man, for sure, but he now has to stand before God and make account for his actions. He is receiving a judgement that is far worse than anything we could think up.

I understand why he was killed from a “macro”, national-security perspective. I understand why his capture or death was important to national (and global) security.

But must we celebrate someone spending an eternity in hell? It is not unlike the words of John Bradford: There but for the grace of God go I. We are all sinners, and while we may not be as “bad” as bin Laden, we are all deserving of an eternity in hell. It is only by the grace of God that we received the opportunity to spend our eternities in Heaven.