A long, long time ago, fifty years +/-, my father and a Mennonite pastor were discussing certain aspects of the Christian faith, which I was listening to. Eventually, the conversation turned to the sacrificial and atoning death of Jesus Christ as payment for humanity’s sins and my father asked the question. “What about all the people who lived before this, never heard the Gospel, and never had a chance nor opportunity to accept Christ as their Savior and be reconciled to God through this experience?”
He wasn’t quite that voluble nor elaborate in his wording and I confess that I have dressed it up a little, but the meaning is the same. I repeat the question. What about the billions upon billions of human souls who have lived and died without ever hearing the Good News that Jesus died to save them and never were given the opportunity to beg forgiveness and ask to be saved? Are they doomed to Hell forever through no fault of their own, but solely at the mercy of what might be called a bureaucratic “glitch”?
The pastor on the other side of this question gave an answer which was quite revealing and, again, I am expressing this from memory so it won’t be an exact quote. “I believe that in some way, God has revealed Himself to them in such a way that they could have received His saving grace if they wanted to.” In other words, I don’t know and can’t give you a good explanation. To be quite honest, as far as I know, Christianity and its individual churches and members still haven’t come up with a good answer to that question, reasonable though it is, although some might say that the apostle Paul addressed this in Romans 1:20.
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”
They are without excuse, even though they have never walked down a sawdust trail nor been baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Obviously then, the Mennonite preacher had some idea of the truth but had never worked it out to its logical conclusion. I can’t say that I have either, but I may be one step further along than he was. Maybe not. I’ve learned (hopefully) not to place too much significance in my own knowledge and I never stop questioning what I do “know”.
Probably the first place to start to unravel this thorny question is to determine what Hell is. We all know the popular image of an eternal lake of fire into which unrepentant individuals are thrown, which doctrine is drawn from verses such as Revelation 20:15, which says quite plainly,
“And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”
Dante’s “Inferno“ builds on this and the art world is chock full of paintings which depict the scene, complete with ghoulish demons performing various diabolical acts on suffering human beings who have no chance at all of escaping. You know what I mean. There is no need to describe this further. Further, Revelation 14:11 describes the final result of their predicament as “…the smoke of their torment [which] ascends forever and ever [without] rest…” This “smoke” can be contrasted with the smoke which rises to God’s nostrils as a “sweet aroma” from the sacrifices offered up to Him in worship, adoration, and obedience. (See Genesis 8:21, Leviticus 1:9, Ephesians 5:2, and Philippians 4:18.) Obviously, this is a metaphorical reference to lives lived, either in submitted accordance with God’s law or in defiant rebellion to it. The “smoke” cannot be taken literally and, in fact, virtually all of Revelation is symbolic and metaphorical, so it is possible to believe, by extension of reason, that people really are NOT thrown physically into a literal lake of fire, which casts doubt on the existence of a literal lake of fire at all.
A better explanation for this, in my opinion, is that Hell is an eternal spiritual separation from God. Submission to God’s Spirit produces results which are shown in Galatians 5:22-23–“…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…” On the other hand, Hell is inhabited by people who practice absolute selfishness and indifference to others with all the attendant attributes–lust, rage, murder, theft, jealousy, envy, greed, etc., without any restraint at all because the Spirit of God has been withdrawn from them. They run wild in their own rebellion, each of them attempting to grasp the fruit of the desires which drive them, but are unable to achieve any success in their selfish pursuit, creating an atmosphere of complete frustration which builds continually, goading them on to greater and greater effort, all the while failing miserably. Forever. Hell is an all-out war of everyone against everyone else, without any hope of achieving victory over anyone. Hell is a total absence of love–love toward God, toward oneself, and toward other people. It is pure selfishness in action.
But, then, this brings us back to the original question. What about all those people who never heard the message that God is love? Are they doomed forever to inhabit this place? Without reservation, I believe that they are not, solely because each person who has ever lived (or will live) experiences God’s love while here on Earth and has the opportunity to share that love with those around them. The spirit which “draws all men to Myself” (John 12:32) works in the lives of everyone, regardless of who they are, when and where they live, even those who died long, long before Jesus Christ ever walked on this planet. In some way or another, the Spirit of God has drawn them, so that they are without excuse if they fail to respond to it positively. How they respond to that drawing (tug, pull, attraction) within their hearts determines how they live while on Earth and how they will live eternally, whether in Heaven experiencing the full presence of God or in Hell experiencing His complete absence.
Side note. The common interpretation of John 12:32 does not (again, my opinion) spend enough time on the meaning of this phrase, “will draw”. It implies that there is a constant and unrelenting pull on the hearts of men to surrender to the Spirit of God, to come home, to come in from the cold, so to speak. The parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates this concept quite well. That drawing is universal and applies to everyone without exception and those who accept it and embrace it are the ones who see Heaven. Those who reject it and rebel against it experience Hell, both while on Earth and in eternity. We are drawn to it irresistibly, coming ever closer to God’s perfect love, or we deliberately and stubbornly harden ourselves against it, continually moving further and further away from it. It’s either one or the other. There is no neutrality.
The New Testament proclaims that God is love. This is not the same as saying that God loves, but that God IS love. The very nature and character of God is love and the resulting consequence of that attribute is that God loves. First the being, then the action. God loves because God IS love and cannot be nor exhibit anything else.
If this is true, if God is love, if Jesus draws all men, then it must be concluded that everyone, every person has “heard the gospel” in his own life, even if that message was not written in the language of King James, which, for the vast majority of mankind, it was not. Yet, they all heard it. Everyone has felt the draw of the Spirit of God and everyone has responded to it in one way or another. People do not have to sit through an emotional, thundering sermon on the topic of “fire and brimstone” which only the blood of Jesus can quench. All they have to do is hear the still, small voice within their soul and respond to it in a spirit of surrender and obedience.
If God is love and, if Jesus is God, then it logically follows that Jesus is love. If humans are created in the image of God and, if Jesus is God, then that means we are created in the image of love, pure and unconditional love, and those who emulate the example Jesus lived while on Earth are those who have the greatest chance of entering Heaven. Those who don’t risk hearing those dreadful words, “I don’t know you. Get out!”
I have no problem believing that people, all imperfect, all flawed, all conceived and born under a sin nature, from the beginning of time have experienced the “drawing” of the Christ in their souls and that many of them have responded to it positively, thereby ensuring that they have, at the very least, a chance of entering into Heaven, whether they said the “sinner’s prayer” or not. To my way of thinking, following the example of Jesus’ interaction with other people out of a spirit of love, would bring to life what the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 5:14.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is not a defense nor endorsement of the doctrine known as universalism, i.e., that everyone will be saved. I don’t believe that at all. Some people deserve Hell and I have no doubt that a righteous judge, The Righteous Judge, can and will make the correct call on that score. That is beyond my pay grade and, as such, not worth any speculation on my part. However, I do believe that there will be many, many people in Heaven who have been written off by others because they did not go through the demanded ritual of “salvation”, yet somehow, the love of God got through to them and they flowered because of it.
I’m looking forward to meeting them.
Poor Roger's Almanac 