Is there accountability in the life to come? - New Testament indications

When we were looking to buy property I had this overzealous realtor show us what can only be described as a totally worn-out old farm. I mean the land had just been worked to death. The weeds were hardly even growing.

The smiling super salesman said, “Now really, all this land needs is a little water, a nice cool breeze and some good people.”

I replied, “Yeah, I agree, but couldn't the same be said of Hell?”

Discussions of accountability, from a religious point of view, usual take two forms. One is accountability for our actions as those who profess to believe in some higher power or creed and the requisite behavioural choices that accompany that belief. The WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) fad illustrates how people try to hold others accountable for their actions.

The other form has to do with ultimate destiny. If one fails to make the proper life-changing choice to follow Jesus (or Allah, etc., etc.), one will suffer eternal punishment. An old preacher from my young days used to urge people to repent by shouting, "Turn or burn!"

What I've been asking myself is, if membership in the Kingdom of God is the default position for his created beings, and one has to fight one's way out of the Kingdom, rather than into it, and if Hell is a metaphor for finality rather than a real abode for the damned, in what way are we held accountable on earth for our choices and our actions?

Or to put it another way, if only a life of grievous and persistent sinning that renders a person unforgivable (see my posts in August-September/2011 on falling from grace) keeps us from eternal life with God, and if an afterlife of torment is not to be feared, why shouldn't I live the typical kind of life that doesn't necessarily "seek first the Kingdom of God", having the confidence that the slate will be wiped clean one day when we enter the heavenly state? I'll be there at the starting line with Billy Graham on my left, Mother Teresa on my right, and Bill Clinton two lanes over (beside Monica Lewinsky this time, rather than facing her).

I have already posted elsewhere why being a Christian is different from, and better than, being a member of God's Kingdom. Not better in the sense that this makes a person more meritorious in some way--a cut above, and all that. We're all sinners saved by grace, to use old fashioned terminology. Rather I mean that Christianity, to my way of thinking, is what God wants us to embrace. It is this kind of relationship with him that allows us to know him best in this life. Christianity is the best explanation we have as earth-bound humans, seeing through a glass darkly, of who God is, his will, his way of dealing with us, his love for us, his mercy and grace, and so on.

But Christianity is more than just a set of beliefs to which one gives assent. It requires a commitment that St. Paul compared to running a very difficult race. Jesus compared it to living a life of denial of some aspects of one's own preferences, if called upon to do so, in order to walk a narrower road. It brings with it a ethical system that sometimes requires God's help to live up to. That help is often mediated through friends and family who keep us accountable.

But again I say, why bother. Isn't heaven the great equalizer where we all start afresh? Why all the struggle, giving things up, taking on new priorities in this life when none of it is of any consequence in the life to come?

That's what I'll try to tackle next.