I take the C.S. Lewis approach to this subject. Just as no one can do evil in the name of Christ, no one can do good in the name of a false prophet (pick your poison). A person who lives a good life as defined by the Bible can get into Heaven — note I’m not saying will. This doesn’t mean that someone who knowingly rejects Christ but still meets the ten commandments will get into Heaven — that’s a horse of a different color.
Too tired to go into the theology I’m trying to expound — go read The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis.
There’s one atonement provided by God—the death on the cross of the messiah.
That atonement is sufficient for everybody. Just how far God will apply it is up to Him, not us.
(Jews who died in the Holocaust died because of their being picked by God as the Chosen People; and, like it or not, were therefore killed because of their association with God’s plan. How is God going to look at that? I don’t know; ask God. But their entrance into heaven isn’t granted because of their good works—a lot of sinful Jews also died in the Holocaust; but
because an atonement was made for them, just as at Passover—it wasn’t the good or the bad who made it, but those who had the mark of the blood of the lamb on their door.)
The atonement has been made, and it (not our own works) is what restores us to God.
Thanks...I know the precise passage of which you speak, and was going to cite it here; you spared me the trouble of doing so. I agree that salvation can only be known through Christ, but my personal belief is that an all merciful Jesus Christ reveals himself to those who may have never been exposed to "Christianity" in the sense we think of it. Likewise, I agree that those who have been introduced to Christ and knowingly reject him will ultimately have to lay in a bed of their own making.