If Jesus Christ is God, and God is all loving, all knowing, etc...How come every person (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, etc) who does not believe he was our saviour will burn in hell and/or the lake of fire?
What happened to the people before Jesus died on the cross?
These are just questions that i've been struggling with for a long time...can anyone help me out?
The Catholic Church teaches no such doctrine. I can't speak for anyone else.
When you get to heaven, you will understand ALL things and know that God's love, justice and judgement are perfect. We are way too carnal and imperfect to begin to understand so many things of an infinite and divine nature.
Its like trying to figure out how God could always exist, never having a beginning or ending. Impossible to understand on this plane.
I will say this, nobody will ignorantly go to "hell", whatever that is. See, even the nature of hell is a mystery. Some people say a burning fire, some say eternal darkness, some say non-existance. Again, just know Jesus died for YOU, and let God take care of everyone else, trusting everything in the end will end up exactly where it was meant to end up based on perfect judgement, not our imperfect preception of judgement.
I too have struggled with what happens to the ancients, the philosophers, the decadent Romans. I think the overriding factor to deal with is in fact Love, the presense or absence of it with the ancients. Surely there was Love!
God judges the hearts of those who have not heard the Gospel. As for before Jesus Christ, the tribe of Levi served as preists and interceded on behalf of God's people. The question really isn't about what happens to others. that is left up to God. But you must decide for yourself who Jesus Christ is and what you will do with him. Wouldn't it be awful for you to reject Christ as your personal Savior just because you cannot answer your question and especially so if God has made a provision for those you profess to be concerned about. How ironic it would be that they might be saved but you would be condemned to hell simply because you did not have an answer to your question. They would have a benefit and your uninformed decision would condemn you. You have the opportunity to know the truth and reject Jesus; they did not, yet may be in heaven anyway. Does your decision really make that much sense when you consider all the possiblities. They have an excuse; you don't!
Jesus waits at your heart bud . Repent and ask Him in because who knows how long anyone has to live for one . For another life with Him is all the better do to the fact you can talk with Him and get to know Him through prayer and His word .
Simply talk to Jesus now, it's not hard, tell'em you're sorry and realise you've sinned and allow Him in .
Afterwards find yourself a good Christian church to go to .
Cheese.
Abraham, in Old Testament times, became the father of the faithful when he believed God, and the Scripture says it was counted to him as righteousness -- in other words, God accepted Abraham on the basis of his faith -- and the Bible even calls Abraham God's friend. This all happened way before the Cross. God made a covenant with Abraham on the basis of his faith -- the "Abrahamic Covenant."
Every person who followed after Abraham had a choice to make about believing God on the basis of how He had revealed Himself. Out of Abraham's lineage the Jewish nation was born. God continued to reveal Himself and His law progressively to the Israelites. That provided the framework for faith (when Israel would obey God!) and the framework into which the Messiah could be born ... a nation that awaited the Savior. Israel understood sin and hell and faith, etc., but they had to wait for the Messiah. Until He came, God set up a system of worship and atonement, yearly sacrifices of blood in the form of bulls, rams, lambs, etc. If people believed in God, they performed the worship and brought the sacrifices. This covered their sin but could not cleanse it, wash it away, remove it.
Still with me? I really am going somewhere with this!
When Jesus came to earth, He came as the Lamb of God, sinless, without blemish. He offered His sinless life as a sacrifice in our place before God for all our sins. His blood now does what all the blood of bulls and goats could never do: it washes our consciences and cleanses us in God's eyes, when we step up and accept what Jesus did for us.
But Jesus had another mission to finish after He died and before He rose from the dead. He spent three days in hell. Did you ever wonder what He did during those three days? The book of Ephesians in the Bible says this:
EPH 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says:
"When he ascended on high [rose from the dead and returned to His Father], he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."
He led captives into freedom behind Him when He arose because He revealed Himself to the physically dead who came before Him just as He had revealed Himself to the physically living while He walked on earth. Part of the freedom is that we are no longer bound to sin and a fear of death -- He canceled our covenant with death. But also check this out:
Matthew 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
I do not understand the totality of what happened while Jesus was in hell, but it is clear that while He was there, He revealed Himself to those who had believed in God under the Abrahamic covenant. I can't fathom that He did not also reveal Himself to all who were dead ... but that point isn't as clear in Scripture.
The Bible teaches us that the one thing that will keep us out of heaven is not having faith in Jesus as our Savior. If not hearing the gospel -- not being given a chance to bow before Christ -- were grounds to be excluded, then that would put aside the need for faith in Christ -- a lack of hearing about Christ would take greater precedence on Judgment Day than faith in God's Son's gift of salvation. That would mean that the devil who had kept people from hearing by his nefarious plots and plans were being given more power than God, which is not the case. And yet no one gets into heaven without faith in Christ as his Savior ... so I have to trust to God's mercy and absolutely righteous nature that He has this all sorted out somehow. I suspect an earlier poster got it right when he or she said that everyone who hasn't heard the gospel before death is going to be given the knowledge of Christ before judgment -- One might tend to think that, seeing Jesus in His glory and seeing hell on the other side would make a believer out of anyone -- the foxhole converts, as they say. But Scripture does teach us that there are those who are so wicked that they will curse God even as they are being taken away to hell.
Someone else said earlier on the thread that the one thing that is most important is for YOU to know your sins are taken care of before the Father. With all my heart, I urge you to pray that prayer posted above (from Carol Hu-Tex), if you haven't done so already. I can promise you this: once you belong to Him, God will start explaining life to you and a lot of these types of questions will begin to be answered as you study His Word and are in fellowship with a good, strong, Bible-believing church. And I can promise you this, too. If you do have him in your heart as Savior, He'll start burdening you to pray for and share your faith with some of those Moslems and Sikhs, and others around the world who don't know Him ... yet.
This question has plagued me, as it does most Christians. I've taken every opportunity to ask several Bible believing pastors this question, and the consistent answer I recieved is that we simply don't know what happens to the "good pagan." Paul states in the New Testament "We are all judged according to what we know." (Sorry, I can't remember the exact cite, does anyone out there have it?) In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis suggests that if all must come to God throught Christ, and Christ is God, could he not individually judge the good pagan? Generally, what I've learned from pastors is exactly what others have said on this post. Through the Bible, God told me how I get to heaven, and I need to follow the instructions I've been given. I need to trust our loving and just God to do the right thing about good non-believers.
Suppose you had a child that was starving, and food was made available to you to save that child, and you refused to take it and give it to the child?
Now suppose God sent His Son to pay the penalty for all sins on His cross, that "whosoever believeth" should not perish, but have everlasting life, and you refused to take it -- give it to yourself, refused to allow yourself to have it?
What happened to the people before Jesus died on the cross?
They were under law, and had to do works -- keep the law -- to be saved. We also know that David sinned and yet was forgiven and made it to heaven.
And we know that sacrifices of the Old Testament were types or pictures of the true sacrifice, the Lamb of God, and so faith and reliance on them and observance of them, being types, was important -- presuming and ascribing grace to God -- and honoring the blood atonement. Remember that even in Old Testament times, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD."
I'm not a theologian, but here goes... When God gave man free will, man gained the ability to rebel against God. But the price for choosing to rebel is high -- it demands death, because God cannot abide sin. "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) In the "Old Testament" times, a substitute could be offered in place of the sinner -- atonement for sin required animal sacrifice. When Christ came, and died on the cross, he, having lived a perfect life, became the perfect sacrifice, and as such, the substitute for the blood required by sin for those who believe in him.
What happened to the people before Jesus died on the cross?
As someone else said earlier, the Catholic Church has no such doctrine. Check out this link for info on your particular question, and click on the link at the top of the page to go to a general listing of FAQ's.