Last week, Pope Francis said that atheists can do good and go to heaven too! Catholic Online 25-May-13

He explained that atheists can be led to God by doing good. He said, “We are judged by a just God who will welcome us based on what we have done with what we knew. Those who do not know God will be judged on the good they have done and the values lived by.”

But the Bible teaches: “He that comes to God must believe that He is” (Hebrews 11:6).

The issue is faith and works.  Ordained a Catholic priest in 1507, Martin Luther found from his Bible studies that good works do NOT make a man good, but a good man does good works. The essential difference is FAITH. We learn and slowly develop faith, an absolutely acceptance of what God has promised. Faith only comes by ONE process – “hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17). 

We have to make the mental change FIRST.  “Let this MIND be in your which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5), and then good works will be the natural outcome of the conscience.

Start reading your Bible.  “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).  Christ is the mediator, the High priest, we need no priest of the Church to bring us to God.

Heaven?  God never promised heaven!  He promised “dominion over the earth” (Genesis 1:26) for “the heavens are the Lords, but the earth has he given to the children of men.” (Psalm 115:16) We wait for the day with the “Lord shall be king over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:9).