The Strait Gate: Great Difficulty of Going to Heaven

by John Bunyan

Plainly proving, by the Scriptures, that not only the rude and profane, but many great professors, will come short of that kingdom: with directions how and why every one should strive to enter in. "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."- Matthew 7:13, 14

Genres: Theology, Christian

108 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Bunyan, a Christian writer and preacher, was born at Harrowden (one mile south-east of Bedford), in the Parish of Elstow, England. He wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, arguably the most famous published Christian allegory. In the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August.

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit at the outset that I have rather different eschatological beliefs to the author when it comes to the kingdom of God, but by and large even with these disagreements, there is much in this book to appreciate and agree with, as is generally the case when one reads Bunyan [1].  Suffice it to say that I do not believe that mankind has an immortal soul but rather that eternal life of any kind must be given as a gift by God, and that even those who believe rest in the grave until the return of Jesus Christ at which point they will be raised at the last trumpet and will dwell with God and Jesus Christ and their resurrected brethren together forever in God's Kingdom.  Be that as it may, the author does not spend a great deal of time speculating about heaven, which means that the points of disagreement between the author and I are rather minimized in the face of our much greater agreement about the difficulty of salvation as a human being and the rather small amount of people who profess to believe in Jesus Christ who actually follow Him.

Over and over again in this short treatise the author points out the difficulties of salvation and makes comments that correspond with his more famous work in Pilgrim's Progress about the obstacles within us and outside of ourselves that make salvation such a difficult challenge.  What would seem like a fairly straightforward discussion about the narrowness of the way into God's kingdom becomes a way of talking about how salvation has always been rare in human history and that the vast majority of those who profess to follow Jesus Christ do not do so.  In fact, there is nothing about which I can disagree with the author's point, one only wonders what it was that made and continues to make salvation so rare, and here the author gets part of the answer right but does not give the whole answer.  It is likely that given the author's lack of understanding about the history of Christianity, he focuses more on the barriers related to our love of sin and our lack of commitment to God's ways rather than going into detail about how following  God has always been a difficult matter because Hellenized Christianity and biblical Christianity have always been so antithetical to each other.

Nevertheless, the author at least appears to understand this problem at least in part because of his own struggles.  Recognizing the corruption of the Christianity of his time and the way that it was enmeshed in heathen carousing and in political grandstanding, and recognizing as well that those who like himself were motivated by sincere religious belief ended up falling under government persecution, he correctly extrapolated his own experiences and the insight gained from looking at the Bible to point out the relative scarcity of believers across all human history.  If he did not tie in the Sabbath, for example, to this scarcity, he can be forgiven because of his own lack of knowledge about Christian history, but his concern with the difficulties of being a genuine believer in this present evil world are definitely something that has to be kept in mind by those who would wish to make Christianity more popular by being less rigorous, something that is bound to fail and a very common approach these days as well as in the author's own times.  Even without perfect agreement there is still much to appreciate here.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

[Christian Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this book enough. Jesus says clearly enough that few people will be saved and they will find it difficult, but a great multitude will believe they're saved, deceiving themselves all the way to destruction. Most professing Christians will be in hell. Those who are saved will be found striving.

Maybe hearing it from this saint will help open our ears to the words of God. Lord, help us to know your love so we can love you and share your love with everyone around us, amen.