Posted on 07/08/2023 12:29:30 PM PDT by JAG 5000
Question: How is God good or just to abandon to Hell those who have never even heard the gospel?
JAG Writes:
Consider the following:
First, we Bible believing Christians start with the true proclamation that God always does that which is right.
This means that the God who always does what is right, world-wide and history-wide, is never going to abandon one of His elect to Gehenna, but will find a way to save them and give them the gift of eternal life as per John 3:16's "shall not perish but have eternal life."
Second, we Bible believing Christians MUST stay within the confines of doctrinal orthodoxy and so we hold solid and fast to John 14:6 that correctly teaches: no man can come to the Father except through believing in the Lord Jesus as his Savior.
Third, none of the above prevents us from considering the following:
Eternal Now. With regard to God's knowledge there is no past. present and future. God sees everything in the Eternal NOW. God's Omniscience demands this position. God now knows all that can be known, God does not learn new information and new truths.
So?
So the Eternal NOW knowledge is God's reality. And God's reality IS REALITY.
What YOU (we) can see is very limited and what YOU (we) can see IS NOT REALITY.
God has Middle Knowledge -- what that means is that God sees and knows fully what every human being would choose to do under all possible sets of different circumstances.
Let us take for an example a man named Akua Adisa, born in Africa in the year 1600 A.D.
Akua lived and died never knowing a single word of the gospel message.
God's Middle Knowledge knows precisely what Akua Adisa will choose to do in all possible sets of circumstances --
-- for example if Akua Adisa had been born in, say, South Carolina in the year 1990 A.D. and had traveled to hear Franklin Graham preach the gospel.
___________________________
HOW IS THIS ↓ CONCLUSION NOT COMPELLING?
If the Sovereign God knows that Akua Adisa would
have accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior if he had been born in the year 1990 A.D.
in South Carolina when he heard Franklin Graham preach the gospel then in God's
reality Akua Adisa has accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior and has therefore
fulfilled the requirements of John 14:6 no man can come to the Father except through faith in the Lord
Jesus.
ARE WE NOT COMPELLED TO REACH THIS ↑ CONCLUSION?
Thoughts?
__________________________
PS God's Omniscience demands we hold that God has what the philosophers call Middle Knowledge.
JAG
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It always amuses me how everyone, including so called bible scholars always tie themselves into knots when confronted with .. “What about all of the people who died before Jesus gave his life for all mankind?”
Either Jesus was necessary for salvation or he wasn’t.
What amuses me is how everyone scrambles to create a way to answer the question so as to give God a way out of an insurmountable situation.😁
The answer has always been in the scriptures but no one has ever bothered to try to find the answer on their own.
They have been taught, preached to by those who also don’t have a clue.
Preachers, scholars, evangelist ... all who do the same, create a way that sounds like a good answer.
None are right.
The answer is Right in front of them in the scriptures!
The answer would take me more time than I am willing to go into now.😟
I will leave some clues for anyone who really cares to do some research.
No one had gone to heaven before Jesus.
There will be a resurrection of the righteous And the Unrighteous, why?
Ask yourselves: How is it that an infallible God has started something, (paradise earth for man to live on forever) to have failed?
Clue: He hasn’t failed.
The bible is the roadmap, given to us on how his will, his original plan will be fulfilled!
Forget the “everyone goes to heaven” rhetoric, (that’s the Broad path or road to destruction).
The scriptures call Jesus what?
The second Adam.
The first man Adam became a living person.”
The first man is from the earth and made of dust; the second man is from heaven.
The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
I could go on but like I said, anyone with an ounce of curiosity should be willing to do their own research or maybe even ask someone who doesn’t use the same old, same old rhetoric as all the so called preachers and experts rely on.
But why does he let millions of his people, suffer, be tortured, slaughtered... After all we’re all his children, right? And the vast majority deserve none of that.
I don’t get it. Would you treat your kids like that?
That’s not a very loving God if you ask me.
What do you mean “let”? A Christian agreed to the possibility of such trials as the way into God’s kingdom, for building patience among other virtues. Look at what happened to all the apostles, just for starters.
“What do you mean “let”? A Christian agreed to the possibility of such trials as the way into God’s kingdom, for building patience among other virtues. Look at what happened to all the apostles, just for starters.”
By “let” I mean God had and has the power to stop all the suffering (he’s all powerful and all loving in case you haven’t heard) and yet he allowes it to happen (since EVERYTHING that happens, he wills).
So the only thing one can rationally conclude, using the most important gift he has “given” us, our brain, is ...
1. He is NOT all powerful and all loving as his true believers claim, or...
2 He’s a demonic, cruel being, or...
3. No one can know for sure whether a God exists and even less what his personality and attributes are. In other words, you’re an agnostic.
Which one do you pick?
You seem to have the wrong definition of phrases such as “all-loving”. Nowhere does God promise to act as our 24/7 bodyguard or stop us from making our own choices. Please lay off the red herrings.
Nobody is going to do any research based on what you said in your post.
And the problem, for the Bible believer, regarding the question: “Can people who have never heard the gospel be saved?” is not going to go away.
The traditional view is that God puts then into eternal Hell.
But that does not harmonize with “God is love.”
Or with common sense.
So?
So we have to find a solution to this problem and the OP is a good place to start.
Best
JAG
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PS
Is it not reasonable to believe that the person who responds favorably
to his limited knowledge of God revealed to him in natural law and
conscience in the absence of the gospel in his part of the world
and in his time in history, would also respond favorably to the gospel
preached in our world today?
My view: Yes it is reasonable to believe that.
But we do not have to conclude from Romans that they are going to be sent to Hell.
See my PS down below:
____________
The problem, for the Bible believer, regarding the question: “Can people who have never heard the gospel be saved?” is not going to go away.
The traditional view is that God puts then into eternal Hell.
But that does not harmonize with “God is love.”
Or with common sense.
So?
So we have to find a solution to this problem and the OP is a good place to start.
Best
JAG
[]
PS
Is it not reasonable to believe that the person who responds favorably
to his limited knowledge of God revealed to him in natural law and
conscience in the absence of the gospel in his part of the world
and in his time in history, would also respond favorably to the gospel
preached in our world today?
My view: Yes it is reasonable to believe that.
Your view ends up, history wide worldwide, with tens of billions of humans that will scream in agony for all eternity in Hell.
Question: How do you reconcile that with “God is love’?
My friend there has to be a way for us to remain orthodox and at the same time find a solution to this problem.
Best
JAG
You’re looking for proof and arguments. I admit I have no proofs nor arguments that I can offer you that I think will convince you or change your mind. I can’t even convince my acquaintances that President Biden is a malevolent dotard. I have my faith in Christ and that is enough for me. I know it’s not enough for everyone. I’m sorry I can’t do better for you.
I reconcile it with SCRIPTURE.
God’s word is clear. We don’t like it because we are sinners and it grieves us deeply.
But his word is clear. “Narrow is the way, and few there be that find it.” It gives urgency to our mission to share the gospel with the whole world, get the Scriptures translated, disciple, witness.
God tells us what is good. We don’t tell Him.
Knot twisting I see.
What did I say that no one would bother to look up?🤔
You claim that there is no solution except for what we can think up and in doing so make the sacrifice that Jesus made irrelevant!
If that were true why did God bother with the part where his son had to give up his life in such a horrible way?
According to you, everyone who thought correctly could be saved.
The original words translated as “hell” in some older Bible translations (Hebrew, “Sheol”; Greek, “Hades”) basically refer to “the Grave,” .. the common grave of mankind.
The Bible shows that people in “the Grave” are in a state of nonexistence.
The dead do not praise Jah,
Nor do any who go down into the silence of death
Psalms 115:17
After Adam sinned, God told him what his punishment would be: “Dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19)
He would pass out of existence.
If God were actually sending Adam to a fiery hell, He surely would have mentioned it. God has not changed the punishment for defying his laws.
Long after Adam sinned, God inspired a Bible writer to say: “The wages sin pays is death.”
(Romans 6:23)
No further penalty is justified, because “the one who has died has been acquitted from his sin.”
Romans 6:7.<——
(Job 14:13) “O that in the Grave (“hell,” Douay-Rheims Version) you would conceal me, . . . that you would set a time limit for me and remember me!”
Meaning: The faithful man Job knew that hell (the Grave) would bring him relief from his pain and that God could restore him to life from there.
Meaning: Death, not torment in hell, is the full penalty for sin.
(Revelation 20:13) “Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.”
Meaning: Those in hell are dead. They will come back to life by means of the resurrection.
(Revelation 20:14) “Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.”
Meaning: After being emptied by means of the resurrection, hell (the Grave) will be destroyed forever, as if by fire.
Thereafter, death resulting from Adam’s sin will be no more.
(Romans 5:12)
I suspect that you will come up with “confusing”, (to you) scriptures that talk about people being in Hell.
Especially the parable that Christ used when talking about Lazarus or even Jesus himself.
Most religions do believe that parables are at work here but That is a whole nother, in-depth study!😵
So .. death, the resurrection, Jesus being called “The Second Adam”: Where oh where would, or should all of this lead you and others?🤔
Supplement to the article:
What about those in non-Christian lands in say 1600 A.D. who died
having never heard a single world of the gospel message? Is God
good and just to abandon such persons to Gehenna? And does He
actually do that?
It is important to find a reasonable solution to the problems raised
by these three questions because the notion that God consigns to Gehenna
for all eternity all people (past, present, and future) who lived and died
without ever hearing the gospel, characterizes God as unreasonable,
mean-spirited and cruel (which He most certainly is not).
Many who hold the view that God does do exactly that, have not paused
to seriously consider what they so readily believe about the character of
God.
Akua Adisa was born in 1600 A.D. in Africa and he lived to an old age and
died without ever hearing a single word of the gospel.
Are you going to proclaim that God will consign Akua to sternal Hell and
at the same time tell everybody that “God is love?”
Remember, on the traditional view of Hell, when Akua has suffered in agony
in Hell for 999 trillion (to the power of 500) years, he is no nearer to the end
than when he first entered Hell. It is not possible to reconcile such as this
with 1 John 4:8 “God is love.”
Thought Experiment:
How long is an Eternity of agony in Hell? Let us say a sparrow is magically
assigned the task of cutting the Earth in half and the sparrow is to fly by
the Earth every 100 years and brush one of its wings against the ground
surface of the Earth. How many years would it take the sparrow to cut the
Earth in half? For argument’s sake let us say it took in years 999 trillion to
the power of 999 trillion. So? So Akua Adisa, after being in agony in
Hell for as long as it took that sparrow to cut the Earth in half, would be no
closer to the end of his agony than when he first entered Hell.
Such as this is not possible to reconcile with 1 John 4:8 “God is love”
or with the general character of God as presented in the Bible.
We need a solution to this problem and a good start in finding one is God’s
Middle Knowledge as presented in this article.
JAG
[]
Gal 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.Scripture was preaching to Abraham before the Bible was written.
I truly understand how you feel and I am with you 100% in spirit — however many Christians are NOT willing to live with the following:
ARE YOU?
Supplement to the article:
What about those in non-Christian lands in say 1600 A.D. who died
having never heard a single world of the gospel message? Is God
good and just to abandon such persons to Gehenna? And does He
actually do that?
It is important to find a reasonable solution to the problems raised
by these three questions because the notion that God consigns to Gehenna
for all eternity all people (past, present, and future) who lived and died
without ever hearing the gospel, characterizes God as unreasonable,
mean-spirited and cruel (which He most certainly is not).
Many who hold the view that God does do exactly that, have not paused
to seriously consider what they so readily believe about the character of
God.
Akua Adisa was born in 1600 A.D. in Africa and he lived to an old age and
died without ever hearing a single word of the gospel.
Are you going to proclaim that God will consign Akua to sternal Hell and
at the same time tell everybody that “God is love?”
Remember, on the traditional view of Hell, when Akua has suffered in agony
in Hell for 999 trillion (to the power of 500) years, he is no nearer to the end
than when he first entered Hell. It is not possible to reconcile such as this
with 1 John 4:8 “God is love.”
Thought Experiment:
How long is an Eternity of agony in Hell? Let us say a sparrow is magically
assigned the task of cutting the Earth in half and the sparrow is to fly by
the Earth every 100 years and brush one of its wings against the ground
surface of the Earth. How many years would it take the sparrow to cut the
Earth in half? For argument’s sake let us say it took in years 999 trillion to
the power of 999 trillion. So? So Akua Adisa, after being in agony in
Hell for as long as it took that sparrow to cut the Earth in half, would be no
closer to the end of his agony than when he first entered Hell.
Such as this is not possible to reconcile with 1 John 4:8 “God is love”
or with the general character of God as presented in the Bible.
We need a solution to this problem and a good start in finding one is God’s
Middle Knowledge as presented in this article.
JAG
[]
I simply trust God at His Word. I am not more holy or good than Him. What He has revealed is, we urgently all need to put our trust in Christ and in order to do that we must know who He is. I am not going to, in the least bit, say He is not good. He defines what “good” means; we don’t.
I appreciate your compassion and trust it fuels a fervent effort to share the gospel, in person as well as in missionary and Bible distribution etc support.
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Many thanks.
God bless.
JAG
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You cannot assign to God your own definition of "love". God does not fit our standards. We are commanded to fit His, which is impossible outside of Christ. To assume that anyone can come to God any other way than through Christ is to say that Christ died for no reason.
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