There's a lot of people in this world who believe God allows all people who are "good" people into heaven. Actually, about 20% of self-proclaimed Christians believe that people get into heaven by doing enough good or by being a good person (see here). There are even non-Christians who hold this belief. I've had discussions with atheists who are convinced that even if they're wrong about everything and there is a God, that he wouldn't condemn them to hell if they're a good enough person. But is this a biblical concept?
Not by a long shot. What the Bible actually says is, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Reread that for those of you who know it by heart and skimmed over it, Jesus goes on to say, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (v. 17-18). Being a good person and doing good things doesn't give you eternal life, believing in God does. However, we're still called to be good people too. 1 John 5 says that anyone who believes in God loves him and Jesus, and "This is love for God: to obey his commands" (v.3). Everyone who obeys his commands and believes in him will overcome this world. It's not that obeying the commandments God's placed before us will earn us some golden ticket into heaven, but instead it's a choice to show our love for God by obeying him and is a sign to other believers that we really have chosen Jesus as our Lord. The book of Romans teaches us that we're free from the bondage of sin, and therefore have no reason to keep living in it. Why stay in the prison of sin when you can live in the freedom of God? It's a wonderful lifestyle choice for believers, but being a "good person" without that belief isn't gonna get you into heaven. (And on the flip side, just believing in God won't get you into heaven if you continue to choose sin over God. Even the demons believe in God, and we won't be spending eternity with them!)
But what about those who never heard about Jesus? Paul writes in Romans 1 about how God's wrath will pour out on the evil, and adds, "since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (v. 19-20). This general revelation means everybody has the chance to look at the world around them and believe that it didn't just happen with a bang. Especially nowadays, we have everything at the tips of our fingers through the internet.
Anybody can look into the truth about Jesus, but if they constantly
refuse to seek him, then they have chosen their path.
Dr. Ming Wang is an atheist who believed in God after studying the complexity of the human eye and realizing that there's no scientific conclusion for how our eyes could have evolved into what we use to see. Lee Strobel is a former journalist who ventured to disprove Christianity after his wife became a Christian, and found the evidence so overwhelming that he ended up believing for himself. There are countless other stories of people who looked at the world around them and the Bible's teachings and couldn't help but believe in the God they found. God's fingerprints are everywhere from the tallest tree to the furthest star to the DNA that makes us who we are. People have no excuse not to believe in God according to Scripture. Those who choose to deny God's existence and refuse to believe in him are the ones who we won't be spending eternal life with.
Everyone has a chance to believe that there is a God of the universe whether they've heard about Jesus or not. God didn't even give his law to the people until the time of Moses, but everyone before that time was still a sinner and subject to the punishment for their sins. Yet I don't know anyone who believes Noah or Abraham won't be in heaven. They didn't have a law telling them how God wanted them to live, but God looked in favor on them because they chose to live good, moral lives and not be sinful and worldly like so many others at that time. God will judge people according to his plans and his will, and if someone has never heard about Jesus but believes in God and lives a moral life that lines up with God's law, then perhaps God will spare them on judgment day for their belief. Beyond that, Romans 2 says that "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law" but that "when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts", which God will take into account on the day of judgment.
That being said, Romans 10 teaches that those who believe in their hearts and confess that Jesus is Lord will be saved, and Paul asks how the people can believe if no one teaches them about God. If believers don't share the good news, then how will the unbelievers learn it? General revelation doesn't reveal what Jesus did for us. Ultimately, there's no way we can know who God will save and who will perish, but we
can know and trust that he will judge fairly and justly according to
the standards he's set in place. On top of that, for those of us who do believe, we know it's vital to spread the good news to everyone, so that everyone will have a chance to hear about Jesus and choose to live for him.
Don't get me wrong: God wants everyone to choose to believe in him, love him, and repent of their sins. He's knocking at our doors all the time to try and get our attention. In Revelation 3, God tells the church that "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." He's waiting for us to choose him, to accept him as our God! And if we do accept him, we get to be with him in eternity. We all have the chance, but if we're not going to accept him and the grace he offers us, then we have no place with him in eternity. He is a just God. He wants us to claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior and live for him. He wants the blood of Jesus to cover our sins. But if we refuse to accept him, if we persist in believing that we earn our own way into heaven and don't need the grace of God to get in, then we're going to miss out on a wonderful eternity with HIM! The God who made the universe is calling your name, waiting for you to believe in him and accept the grace that comes through Christ. It's up to you whether you accept or deny him. What do you choose?
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