by Tim Isbell, March 2018
People ask, "What about those who've never heard of Jesus? It doesn't seem fair that God would send them to hell!" It's a good question that keeps many people from seriously considering the Christian faith. A few weeks ago, a church invited me to preach. The pastor there is a lectionary preacher, and my Sunday fell on the first Sunday of Lent, which includes the Noah story. Preachers take the Noah story in many directions, and I organized my sermon around four questions. The third was, "Suppose you get to heaven. What are the chances you'll meet any of Noah's neighbors?"
I'll leave it to you to read the Noah story in Genesis 6-10. But I'll tip you off about what the Bible says about Noah's neighbors: everyone was "corrupt and filled with violence," which is why God sent the flood to exterminate them. Except for Noah, who the Bible describes as "a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God." So, God made a plan to save Noah, his wife, and their three sons, along with their wives, and a pair of each animal.
Setup
We'd be in theological trouble if all we knew about God came from this story. There are more Old Testament stories that bring up the same question. And then there's the Jesus story and many other stories in the New Testament. So, before we judge God on his fairness, let's take a look at what the Bible says about God's personal characteristics. Here's Millard Erickson's list from his Christian Theology (chapters 12 & 13):
Greatness, two elements of which are:
Personality. God is an individual being with a will and the capacity to feel, choose, and engage in reciprocal relationships with other personal and social beings.
Infinite. But this does not mean he can do anything whatsoever. God cannot do the logically absurd or contradictory. He cannot act contrary to his nature.
Goodness, four elements of which are:
Just. God administers his creation consistent with his Law. He is like a judge who, as a private individual, adheres to the law of society and administers that law to others in his official capacity.
Benevolent. God seeks our welfare, loving all women and men based on the likeness of himself, which he placed within them.
Gracious. God does not deal with us based on our merit or what we deserve, but according to our needs. God supplies us with undeserved favors.
Merciful. God extends exceptional tenderness to the needy - whether or not they offend him.
I've been a Christian for a very long time. Early in life, I read scripture to judge for myself God’s greatness and goodness. But later, I experienced enough life with God to give him the benefit of the doubt. So, now I read Scripture assuming his greatness and goodness. Let's do a thought experiment in which we examine the Noah story, assuming God is great and good.
But what about Noah’s neighbors?
There is a set of Christians who will answer this question immediately by saying that Noah's neighbors are already in hell or the final judgment will send them there. People base this on such New Testament scriptures as:
Jesus told his disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned…” (Mark 16.15-16)
And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remain under God’s angry judgment. (John 3.36)
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. (John 14.6)
And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. (John 17.3)
There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. (Acts 4.12)
But hold on a minute. Based on those 5 scriptures, Noah also would be in hell along with everyone else who lived before the incarnation of Jesus. Yet Hebrews 11, a book that was written after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, lists Noah among the “Great Examples of Faith!” I expect to see Noah in heaven along with all the other Old Testament characters listed in Hebrews 11. So, how does Noah get into heaven without believing in Jesus?
Or consider John 10:14-16, in which Jesus says to Jewish listeners, "I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, 15 just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd." The most obvious group fitting the description of "other sheep" are Gentiles who would come to know Jesus starting in the first century. But the term also applies to those who have never heard a clear version of the gospel of Jesus in their lifetimes.
Suppose, just for a moment, that when Noah died, he didn't go directly to hell for not believing in Jesus. Further, suppose that God could get the Jesus story to Noah centuries after he died. I'm sure Noah would immediately believe, confess his sins, and receive God's forgiveness. The New Testament gives us an example of this sort of event when Saint Paul met some Ephesian "believers" in Acts 19.1-7 and told them about Jesus for the first time:
Saint Paul traveled through the interior regions of Asia Minor (Turkey) until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. He asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
“No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
“Then what baptism did you experience?” he asked.
And they replied, “The baptism of John.”
Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.”
As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then, when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.
Now, what if I told you that there’s a pretty good hint in the Bible that God arranged precisely that for Noah? It's in 1 Peter 2:11-12, "Dear friends, I warn you as 'temporary residents and foreigners' to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world."
1 Peter 3.18-20 delivers a complementary teaching about what Jesus did between the cross and the resurrection:
Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.
So he went and preached to the spirits in prison—those who disobeyed God long ago, when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood.
Also see Revelation 20.11-12, where John describes his vision of the final judgment:
And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books...
So we can see how Noah and the people of Hebrews 11 can appear in heaven, even without knowing Jesus.
But what about Noah’s corrupt neighbors? They never heard of Jesus either. Even worse, the Bible says they were "utterly corrupt."
A way to think about these things:
Some Christians believe that to go to heaven, we must know the Jesus story, believe certain things about Jesus, and specifically ask him to forgive us. I agree that knowledge, beliefs, and confession are essential. However, God primarily wants us to get to know him personally. He isn’t just interested in us knowing that he exists; he wants us to experience his personality and nature to a depth where we begin to share in his characteristics. So, God communicates in ways that reveal Himself most fully. We may wish God would speak differently and that the Bible didn't have so many apparent contradictions, but I’ve come to assume that God's ways are optimal for his purpose. To judge otherwise is above my pay grade.
The Bible teaches that God is just and merciful to all, inviting even the most corrupt of us into a transforming relationship with himself. If God judges based on knowledge that wasn’t available to the sinner, we could rightfully conclude that God is unjust - in violation of what systematic theologians say is his nature. Instead, I choose to give God the benefit of the doubt and look deeper into how God may thread a way through this problem. Decades ago, I concluded that God would judge us by what we do with the resources at our disposal. Before we find ourselves eternally in hell, God will make sure we have sufficient knowledge of salvation and an adequate opportunity to decide whether or not to confess and receive Jesus as Lord.
Condemnation to hell arises when we become aware of God’s truth and respond to it with hatred or contempt, twisting ourselves out of shape rather than admitting its claims on us. In a relational world, designed by God for us to share the Good News of Jesus with people all around us, there is no reasonable way for God to give each person equal access to salvation. However, God will give each person a genuinely sufficient opportunity for salvation. Eventually, God will judge each of us based on the person we have chosen to become.
So, are people better off not hearing the Gospel? No, for several reasons. Here are some:
Those who have not heard that there's forgiveness for even their deepest sins will remain trapped in their guilt.
Those carrying heavy burdens won't experience the Spirit's rest for their souls.
Those who need wisdom beyond their experience, which is all of us, will miss the wisdom of the ages that the Spirit wants to share with us.
Those who are bored will miss the purposeful life of Christian living.
Those longing for family will miss the family life among the Divine Community.
Those who worry about their eternal destiny discover that the Spirit gives them an indwelling confidence in their relationship with God and in their eternal destiny.
I began this post with this question: "What about those who've never heard of Jesus? It doesn't seem fair that God would send them to hell?"
Here's my answer: "Let's trust that God is just, merciful, and infinitely qualified to judge the world he created and administers.
Blessings,
Tim
Notes & references:
For a more extensive description of God's characteristics, see Characteristics of God.
See Are Bad Historians in Danger of Hellfire? And A conversation about why God doesn't speak more clearly.
What of Those Who Have Never Heard by J. Oswald Sanders.
I'm Glad You Asked by K. Boa and L. Moody.
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis has a character (Emeth) who is not a follower of Aslan but, surprisingly, ends up in Narnia. Lewis doesn’t explain this, but it implies that he anticipates some who have never heard of Jesus will be in heaven. This character appears in the last part of chapter 14, and Emeth tells his story in chapter 15.
My sermon notes for The Gospel of Noah, preached on 2/28/2018.
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