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I want to know what you people out there think about Heaven and Hell: Who Gets In? (I wanted it to sound like a 60 Minutes feature). A basic question that I’ve been thinking about a lot. And I want to know what some Christians think.

Specifically this: Speaking from a Christian point of view, what do you think God thinks about Amer the Muslim who grows up Muslim, lives a good life, then dies? All of you Christians-from-the-cradle: Amer did exactly what you’ve done. He was taught right and wrong within a system of belief, he met God (or something like him) in his own “heart,” and served him faithfully for his whole life. I use Islam as an example, but obviously it can apply to anyone who tries his/her best in life. So do you simply say that you were lucky enough to be born into the true family of God, while he was not? Do you come with the argument that everyone has a chance to accept Christ because everyone will inevitably hear about him (except babies . . . and half of Asia)? Do you cite God’s “invisible qualities” from Romans 1? Do you take the Unitarian approach and say that we’re all saved? Do you shrink from the argument, saying it’s out of our realm of thinking?

For me, the last two are the only ones I can give any creedence to. But I’m very much at sea about all this. What do you folks think?

Is my timing just bad, or does no one want to throw anything in?

I was just telling my husband the other day about this particular thread which no one seems to want to respond to, so, as I can’t sleep right now, I’ll give you some summed-up thoughts on the issue:

I think the Bible makes it pretty clear that there are not numerous paths to Heaven, as the Unitarians might believe – “THE Way, THE Truth, THE Light.” If we embrace their ideology, the whole point of Christianity is kind of … pointless.

As for Islamic Amir and people in similar situations who never hear the Word of God and therefore remain of the dark, I believe God is the only judge and it’s not for me to speculate. It’s my job to help illuminate, though.

Conversely, I believe people who know of God and willfully reject Him are doomed.

i was at home today. typical sunday while in college, we ate around the table talked about our lives and my dad was talking about how the elders in my church are looking at the education system the church. so he was telling us how he was at this 5-6 grade sunday school class this morning. they were talking about the ten commandments, and how moses went up got the ten commandments and then broke them when he saw the golden calf. this prompted a fifth grader to ask, “what about the people who have never heard of God, and are worshiping their own idol(s) that they see as god? are they sinning?” the sunday school teacher, a college student, basically answered saying, “boy that’s a good question, and i’m glad that God has to deal with that and not me.” which is a valid answer.

then my dad asked us what we thought (i have one sister) and she said well, i think it’s kind of simple, we are all sinners by being human, so unless we have that redemption that God gives us, then we are damned.

my father then spoke about how he has often said that jews are going to hell, and most people don’t like to hear that.

so i wonder about this scenario with what you posed as a question. i think my sister would say, that unfortunately for amir, he isn’t redeemed, therefore he will go to hell, unless he finds God in general revelation, or someone witnesses to him.

but the deeper question, why does God choose, or decide that we have that privilidge (sp), and amir doesn’t? i’m not sure. i don’t think she’d have a good answer to that question either.

i’m still thinking on the issue. what do you think of this, i have it, and you don’t tough luck idea?

Adam,

I have resisted posting to this due to the fact that I had planned on seeking out Biblical evidence for my position prior to adding my opinion. Due to crazy weekend scheduling…I still have not. Nevertheless, I will post my opinion/thoughts and let those who follow agree or disagree. I encourage anyone to prove me wrong…I am willing to learn…but this is what I have picked up through the years.

The book of Romans clearly spells out that God has revealed Himself to man in 3 ways: Nature (His creation), The Bible (His Word) and Jesus (His Son). Through any of these we are capable of seeing who He is and subsequently worship Him. He also has instilled in all men the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of right and wrongs. These may vary from culture to culture, but if you delve into the roots of all of these cultures you will find that they all have a common ground and speak of common do’s and don’ts. (The Law).

Now, granted, to read His Word is to know His Son as Christ incarnate is manifested in the written words of the Scriptures. The Bible is an intricately designed medium that encompasses not only His Son (per the apostle John) but also the very nature and Characted of God. But there are those who do not have the option of reading God’s word in it’s entirety, some even only having a few pages, who have come to know Him through the power of His word. It is incredible when you think of the fact that a person with only one torn out page of the Bible, is able to come to know His Creator in a deep and personal way. Mind boggling.

Obviously, as Christ Himself said, “To know the Son is to know the Father”. I think we all agree that this is the most common approach we have to becoming a “Christian” (i.e. one who takes on the name and identity of Christ in replacement of his/her own).

The initial one, Nature, is often misunderstood and misrepresented. Logically this comes from the paganistic ideologies and teachings, but keep in mind that Satan’s method of disuading someone from the truth is to distort that truth and veer the intentions of seeker. To be clear, I do not mean that it is through the worship of nature that one can reach salvation, but through the worship of the Creator of nature that salvation can be obtained. I think some tribes of American Indians understood this far before any “modern” man arrived with the Gospels. I remember reading in college of a tribe of indians who had the concepts of divine inception and the virgin birth in their mythology before ever meeting a card carrying Bible toting European. When they heard the Good News their response was “So? Tell us something we don’t already know!” (Again, I have alot of research to do if I am to back that up so consider it hearsay at this point…far from authoritative…)
I believe that to gaze upon the perfect Creation brings to question it’s origins. To bring to question it’s origins is to seek out He who created it. God’s fingerprint is on everything that He has made. The more we delve into the Creation, the more we see evidence of that.

That ties in to the inborn Law that we are all born with. Now, we are all born into sin, and have the natural impulses of our sinfulnness and depraved nature rule over us from birth. At some point in our lives, we come to grasp our accountability for our actions (different in every person). If an individual, who has no knowledge of Christ or His sacrifice for our sins, reckognizes the accountability he or she has for personal actions and adheres to that “code” (which I think is very much Spirit driven) they will have to have reason to do so which will inevitable cause them to seek for the answers as to why should I choose the good over the bad. This eventually will bring them onto focus with nature (and the natural) and this will eventually lead them to the Creator. They may not call Him Jehovah. They may not have a clue who Jesus is. It is possible, however, that they will know God and live according to His word without even knowing His word exists. It is possible that they could seek forgiveness without ever having knowledge of the substitutionl sacrifice of the cross.

In this way, Amer, who may never have heard the Gospel of Christ, may be worshipping the same God we are without even knowing it.

Are we all saved? I don’t think so. What would be the point of Christ’s suffering, death and ressurection. What would be the point of evangelism and missions, charges we are all called as Christians to engage in in one way or another.

Ultimately, mercy and grace are God’s to give. Who am I to question His ways?

I was with you, JaBird, until the end, where you essentially claim “good” people, with or without a personal relationship with the Judeo-Christian God, can be saved. Is that what you’re saying?

No, salvation comes through a relationship with the Creator. Faith is not determined by works or deeds. No amount of goodness gets you into heaven. It is, however, a byproduct of an experience/relationship with God.

I didn’t think I was giving off the impression that I believe that goodness can achieve godliness in it’s own merit. Salvation comes as a gift from God through His Son. It is not dependent on man’s actions. The man who never has the knowledge of Christ cannot find God through the Scriptures, nor His Son, but can find relationship with God through the means the Spirit uses to draw the individual to Himself.

Does that make more sense?

Implied in the original question is that sending people to hell is a big part of the Christian story. Though that may have become a big thing several years after Christ and the Gospels, hell doesn’t seem to play much of a role in Scripture at all! The emphasis on a final resting place in Scripture is more about getting a reward for what you labor for. Christians need to know that their suffering will yield great rewards in the end. Non-Christians do too, of course, but they must come up with their own alternatives to help them feel like they have a purpose in this life. Those who do not work for God’s Kingdom or who have not accepted the better hope that Jesus Christ is the only truth will not get the rewards of the Kingdom of God, but for these Muslims, atheists, agnostics, secularists, etc., this is fine with them. They won’t feel like they’re missing out at all. If they don’t want to live in God’s kingdom now, why would they want to live in such a heaven after they die?

The problem with the idea of going to hell in the end is that it assumes people aren’t living in a kind of hell right now. Living without the grace that was won for us through Jesus Christ is not a blessed existence. Indeed, the reward for trusting secular society is very similar to Sartre’s “hell is other people” scenario. In a world without God, all we have is other people, good democratic people—yes, but people who fail us time and time again. And in contrast to the Muslim hope, I would much rather live forever with the loving God who created all good things and saved humanity from itself and from the law by sacrificing his own first love, than die in the arms of a law-giving Master who expects extreme submissiveness and never comes down to our level. For a Christian, serving forever under the lordship of such a merciless master is the same as being in hell.

My parents wanted to raise us in the right way and to make sure we stay on the right path they scared us to death with an idea that if Jesus had to come or we had to die and there happened to be unconfessed sin in our lives we will surely go to hell. All my life I lived in fear and prayed every night before I went to bed that God would have mercy on me and if there was anything in my life that I may have forgotten, that He would forgive me and that I would go to Heaven.
Now that I’m older and have a personal relationship with Christ I realise that it isn’t about the sin of the past but the intentional sin of the “now”. If I’m living in sin that God has directly told me to part with and die, I will be faced with the judgement of God because I have distanced myself from God in that way. In the Bible it says that Gods arm is not too short to help and his ear not too deaf to hear but our sins have created a wall between us and God which separates us from God. However we can’t take this out of context as well and say that if you happened to get angry you are going to hell! There is another verse in the Bible which states that not all sin leads to death and as I understand it, there are sins that grieve God and there are sins that break our relationship with God.
We could get angry and that grieves God but if we commit adultery and continue therein we are chosing another path which leads away from God.
Help me if I’m wrong but it seems to make sense to my heart and mind.?

In our biblestudy focusing on the Gospels, we encountered Jesus talking about Hell. He says people who aren’t considered God’s people will be cast out and thrown into Gehenna (sp?), which is where we get our word for hell. Gehenna is the burning trash heap outside the city of Jerusalem. I think Jesus was being very clear here, explaining that hell lies outside the holy city where the people of God live. Perhaps Gehenna later (during the Greek-Christian synthesis) got mixed up with the Greek idea of Hades, an underworld where people go after they die, but the concept originally seems to mean separation from God and His people.

This is a subject which I agonize over daily. The real truth is, none of us knows exactly what is going to happen. The Bible is not absolutely clear on every detail.

I know this: I have two small children and I can’t imagine telling them that God is going to send people to an everlasting dante’s style torture chamber.