Jesus died for Fidel Castro. This should not be a controversy

r it should not be a con­tro­ver­sy for Catholics. I know that Calvin­ists say Christ died only for the Elect. (Though they also say we can’t know the iden­ti­ty of the Elect, and would amend my title to read, “Jesus May Have Died for Cas­tro, But We Don’t Know.”). Where­as, for Catholics (those who are right­ly cat­e­chized) if we can’t know whether Cas­tro is saved, we do know that Christ died for him. Christ died for him just as sure­ly as he died for Moth­er Tere­sa.

• Ezekiel 18:23. “Have I any plea­sure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”
• 2 Corinthi­ans 5:15. “And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for them­selves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
• 1 Tim­o­thy 2:4. “[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowl­edge of the truth.”
• 2 Peter 3:9. “The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slow­ness, but is for­bear­ing toward you, not wish­ing that any should per­ish, but that all should reach repen­tance.”
• Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church 605. “At the end of the para­ble of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God’s love excludes no one: ‘So it is not the will of your Father who is in heav­en that one of these lit­tle ones should per­ish.’ He affirms that he came ‘to give his life as a ran­som for many’; this last term is not restric­tive, but con­trasts the whole of human­i­ty with the unique per­son of the redeemer who hands him­self over to save us. The Church, fol­low­ing the apos­tles, teach­es that Christ died for all men with­out excep­tion: ‘There is not, nev­er has been, and nev­er will be a sin­gle human being for whom Christ did not suf­fer.’ ”

At this point, it is always nec­es­sary to clar­i­fy what all of this does not mean.

• It does not mean that Fidel Cas­tro is saved. (Per­haps he’s not.)
• It does not mean we can know the eter­nal des­tiny of Cas­tro. (We can’t.)
• It does not mean there is no Hell. (There most cer­tain­ly is.)
• It does not mean Cas­tro did not do wicked things that mer­it Hell and that we ought to con­demn. (He most cer­tain­ly did.)
• It does not mean Cas­tro lived a vir­tu­ous life. (He most cer­tain­ly did not.)
• It does not mean those who suf­fered under Cas­tro should not feel joy at his death. (Their joy is per­fect­ly under­stand­able and even just.)

It means that Christ died for all human beings, with­out excep­tion, and that means that he died for Fidel Cas­tro. End stop.

I can under­stand that this would be an issue of apolo­getic debate between Catholics and Calvin­ists. It should not be an issue of debate among Catholics.

But.

•••

In response, one per­son asked: “Were you almost drowned dur­ing bap­tism or dropped?”

And of course, there is no answer to that. Case closed. I pack it up and go home, thor­ough­ly refut­ed.

One more dar­ling per­son told me: “Cas­tro is NOT a child of God. He is an Athe­ist there­fore can­not be saved because he did not con­fess his sins and ask for for­give­ness.”

On the first point, the author of that com­ment seems to be refer­ring to the belief that only Chris­tians are chil­dren of God. Gala­tians 3:26 says, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” Like­wise, John 1:12 says, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave pow­er to become chil­dren of God.”

And under that def­i­n­i­tion of “child of God,” the author is cer­tain­ly cor­rect.

How­ev­er the sup­po­si­tion that Cas­tro “did not con­fess his sins and ask for for­give­ness” is just that—a sup­po­si­tion. No one can pos­si­bly know whether he did or did not.

Oth­ers have offered Scrip­ture vers­es in an attempt to prove, appar­ent­ly with the cer­tain­ty of faith, that Cas­tro is in Hell—something not even a Calvin­ist would claim the abil­i­ty to know for sure.

• 1 Corinthi­ans 3:8. “He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages accord­ing to his labor.”

Now, the prob­lem with using that verse as a proof text for “Cas­tro is in Hell because Cas­tro did wicked deeds” is that in 1 Corinthi­ans 3, St. Paul is not talk­ing to us about eter­nal des­tiny. The con­text is the growth of the Church. He begins by cas­ti­gat­ing those who attach them­selves to par­tic­u­lar indi­vid­u­als in the Church and say, “I am of Apol­los” or “I am of Paul.” Apol­los and Paul, he says, are only ser­vants. Here is a fuller con­text:

I plant­ed, Apol­los watered, but God gave the growth. So nei­ther he who plants nor he who waters is any­thing, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages accord­ing to his labor. For we are God’s fel­low work­ers; you are God’s field, God’s build­ing.

Paul’s point is: “We are all co-labor­ers for the king­dom.” It is not: “Those who do wicked deeds will go to Hell.” Indeed, if 1 Cor. 3:8 is a proof text for Cas­tro being in Hell, it is a proof text for every­one being in Hell. All have sinned and come short of the glo­ry of God (Rom. 3:23).

• Matthew 7:13–14. “Enter by the nar­row gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy,[a] that leads to destruc­tion, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is nar­row and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

This verse cer­tain­ly tells us that many peo­ple are in Hell; it does not tell us that Cas­tro is nec­es­sar­i­ly one of them. Christ does not iden­ti­fy for us the names of these “many.” His point is not that we should wor­ry our­selves with the iden­ti­ty of the damned; His point is that we should take care that we are not one of them.

There are many oth­er such vers­es in the Bible that tell us that Hell is full of peo­ple, such as Isa­iah 10:19 and Isa­iah 17:5–6. But the prophet no more knew the names of those who are there than you or I do.

• 1 Corinthi­ans 6:9–10. “Do you not know that the unright­eous will not inher­it the king­dom of God? Do not be deceived; nei­ther the immoral, nor idol­aters, nor adul­ter­ers, nor sex­u­al per­verts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunk­ards, nor revil­ers, nor rob­bers will inher­it the king­dom of God.

Prob­lem is, the indi­vid­ual who cit­ed this verse con­ve­nient­ly left out verse 11: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanc­ti­fied, you were jus­ti­fied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spir­it of our God.”

There is for­give­ness and redemp­tion for those who repent. And we sim­ply do not know whether Fidel Cas­tro repent­ed. Per­haps he did not; per­haps he did; we do not know. And St. Paul is not telling us, nor is he telling the church at Corinth.

• 1 Peter 4:18. “If it is hard for the right­eous to be saved, what will become of the ungod­ly and the sin­ner?”

The first thing to point out here is that Peter is quot­ing Proverbs 11:31, and that he is mak­ing two gen­er­al points. The full con­text will help.

Beloved, do not be sur­prised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though some­thing strange were hap­pen­ing to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s suf­fer­ings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glo­ry is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spir­it of glory[c] and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suf­fer as a mur­der­er, or a thief, or a wrong­do­er, or a mis­chief-mak­er; yet if one suf­fers as a Chris­t­ian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glo­ri­fy God.

St. Peter tells us here to rejoice in our suf­fer­ing. Suf­fer­ing pre­pares us for sal­va­tion. That is, he is giv­ing words of encour­age­ment to those who are being per­se­cut­ed. In that con­text, “It is hard for the right­eous to be saved” means that per­se­cu­tion is hard to endure.

Now, the prob­lem with using this verse as a proof text for “Cas­tro is in Hell,” like the ear­li­er verse, is that it proves too much. “It is hard for the right­eous to be saved”; but there is none right­eous, no, not one (Romans 3:10). “What will become of the ungod­ly and the sinner?”—but we have all sinned and come short of the glo­ry of God (Romans 3:23). If 1 Peter 4:18 proves that Cas­tro is in Hell, then it proves that we will all go to Hell.

Indig­nant peo­ple all across Face­book gave me oth­er vers­es as sup­posed proof-texts for Cas­tro being in Hell. These include

• Mark 20:16. (This verse does not exist. If you can find it, I salute you.)
• Luke 8:23–24. (This verse tells us that Jesus calmed a storm at sea. Your guess is as good as mine, dear read­er.)
• Philip­pi­ans 2:12. (A gen­er­al warn­ing to not pre­sume upon one’s own sal­va­tion.)
• Hebrews 6:8. (A gen­er­al warn­ing against the dan­ger of apos­ta­sy.)
• Eccle­si­astes 1:15. (“What is crooked can­not be made straight,” saith the preach­er. It is a poet­ic expres­sion of his view that “every­thing is van­i­ty under the sun”—a sen­ti­ment we are not meant to share. Tak­en lit­er­al­ly, that would mean that repen­tance is impos­si­ble. More than that, it would con­tra­dict Isa­iah 45:2—“The crooked places will be made straight.”)
• Isa­iah 24:3. (Which only tells us that God will destroy the earth at the end of time.)

If you can fig­ure out what any of these have to do with the eter­nal des­tiny of Fidel Cas­tro’s soul, I salute you, because I sure can’t.

•••

Cas­tro may very well be in Hell. But if he is:

• We can’t know it;
• That does not change at all the fact that Christ died for him.

We do not know the names of the damned. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God (Deut. 29:29). We should be con­tent for Cas­tro’s fate to be one of the secret things, and instead work out our own sal­va­tion with fear and trem­bling.

And we should pray that Cas­tro did turn to Christ and repent at the end. Chris­tians should strive to have the mind of God, who does not desire the death of the sin­ner, but rather that he should repent and be saved.

We do pray for mer­cy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to ren­der
The deeds of mer­cy.