(This is the fifth of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church, and the second in which I tackle this particular question.)

If God plans to “save” people who aren’t explicitly identified as Christians, he hasn’t told us. All we know is how God has purposed to bring salvation to the world – through Jesus – so until God tells us otherwise we’re going to focus on that. This brings up two other points:

1. God hasn’t told us to spend a lot of time speculating what he might do with others. (In the Bible, this is one of God’s people’s favorite ways of avoiding looking at our own problems.) And he hasn’t told us to determine with certainty who will go where and experience what when God returns to make things right.

2. Consider that God might sometimes intentionally not tell us things for our own good. You’ve probably heard of the age of accountability – the idea that children are not held responsible before God for their actions until they reach a certain point in maturity. Well, Scripture never tells us specifically when that is. But if you think about it, that’s probably a good thing. If God had said, “All children are safe from judgment until they reach the age of 10” (or whatever age), then what would happen? You’d have some crazy person going around killing all the children under a certain age in places where the message of Christianity was not present or allowed. Do you get my point? If we knew that there was some “other way” for people to be saved – not other than Jesus, but another way of being saved through Jesus – then lots of (or lots more) people would never worry about telling people the truth about Jesus. (I owe this point to my friend Nick Parsons!)

So does God save people apart from explicit faith in Jesus? We don’t know. If he does, he hasn’t told us about it, and for that we are grateful. Within this, we hold out the possibility that God may accept into “heaven” persons not explicitly identified as “Christians” (such as Ghandi or someone who never heard about Jesus). We are not saying that we’re sure this is the case; that would take us beyond the bounds of what we think God has revealed. But we are affirming that we don’t think it would contradict the character and ways of God revealed in Scripture’s witness to Jesus Christ. So does God save people apart from explicit faith in Jesus? We don’t know, but we’re not willing to say we know for sure that he doesn’t. And more importantly, we believe that God has come to us in Jesus, offering salvation in both the next life and this one. Our task is to faithfully respond to what we believe God has revealed.
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(This is the fourth of eight posts in which I’ll answers questions that come up often in our church.)

There is a huge problem with this question, which generally assumes that the thing God is concerned about is individual persons getting to heaven when they die. But God’s goal is not to save individuals out of the world to live with him in heaven, but to redeem – and eventually re-create – the world, including the people in it. Moreover, the Bible does not teach that we will live together with God in heaven forever, but that God will come from heaven and dwell with us on a freshly created and fully healed “new earth.” Nevertheless, the question still remains as to who will “be there,” so to speak, wherever “there” is and whatever it will be like. So we continue. (For the most part, I will use the language of “saved” and “heaven” in the way they’re typically used, but keep in mind that I find this usage problematic.) I will offer my thoughts on this topic in two posts.

God can be trusted to do the right thing. It’s his call, and I’m very glad about that. Whatever God does will be right, and it will not violate his love, his grace, or his holiness.

If anyone will be in heaven, it will be because of Jesus. No one can be “good enough.” The only reason any of us can be “saved” – that is, liberated from the powers of sin and death (in the next life and/or this one) – is because Jesus both averted God’s wrath and broke the stranglehold of sin/Satan over humanity. Had Jesus not done what he did, none of us would be saved. So there is no way anyone can be saved apart from Jesus.

We want God to save as many people as possible! We never rejoice at the prospect of anyone being shut out of God’s future. If we get to heaven and out that God’s mercy and grace were wider than we imagined, we will certainly celebrate. We don’t use God as a way to make ourselves feel better than other people.
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Sorry I haven't been posting much at all. Life comes at you fast. As I mentioned in the last post, I'm in the middle of a seminar on "world religions" at Real Life called We Are Not Alone. Since I don't have much time to read or think about other stuff (like the books I recently promised to blog through) right now, what I post will probably have to do with world faiths and stuff. At the beginning of the seminar, I wanted to be honest and forthright about my assumptions coming in. There is much that I do not understand about this whole conversation, but like everyone else I have certain assumptions that I bring to the table. Here are some of the most important ones.

What can be known of God is best known by looking at Jesus. This is my way of affirming the uniqueness of Jesus as God's fullest and finalest revelation. Everyone looks at God from somewhere, even the people espousing the whole "all roads lead up the same mountain" (see the poem below). The funny thing about the poem below is that someone is assuming the position of the speaker / observer. And that person makes an implicit claim to know something about God that all the other "religions" miss. I make a similar claim, but I think the answer is not by acting as if we can step outside the historical faiths (which actually involves stepping into yet one more historical faith, this once going by various names: scientific, rationalism, enlightenment, modern, postmodern, etc), but by trusting in Jesus as the way God came to us.

Salvation is about more than what happens to individual humans after they die. First of all, salvation is God's plan for the entire universe. Salvation, for instance, is something creation (or "nature," if you subscribe to the new historical faith mentioned above) looks forward to and will participate in (Romans 8.19-21). Salvation is about all of God's creation being rescued from the disastrous effects of sin. So it is about more than just humans. Humans do nevertheless stand at the center of salvation. This is where the second part comes in; speaking of salvation in terms of humanity, it isn't just about "where we go when we die" (or, more precisely, when Jesus returns). That is certainly important, and I'd never want to deny that at all - like, at all! - but salvation is about freedom from the power of evil and sin and death right here and now. Please understand, I'm not trying to deny the importance of the future, but I am trying to remind us that asking whether a person is "saved" has as much to do with how free they are from sinful ways of thinking and living as it does where they'll go when they die. If anyone cares to ask me to elaborate, feel free and I'll try. (By the way, ARod, I haven't ignored your question; I'm just waiting until I can do it justice.)

God’s saving plan is both “universal” and “particular.” That is to say, everything God does is designed to reach the whole world and all the people in it. He never acts just for this or that group. His plans are as big as the world he created. This is a scandal to some "religious" people who want God to care about only their group. That is also to say, however, that God (for reasons unknown to me) always goes about reaching all people by working in and through particular people (or groups of people). He chose one man out of all the tribes of the earth - Abraham - and promised to bring his blessing through that one family's seed. He remained committed to Israel as his people through whom he would bless the whole world. Etc. So it comes as no difficulty to me to believe that God would remain committed to one person or group as the means through which he will bring salvation to all (or as many as will have it). This is a scandal to many "secular" people, primarily because they fail to recognize that their commitment to universality is but yet another particularity among others.

That's enough for now. I have about five more, but I'll post them bit by bit. Any questions, reflections, or disagreements?

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