If Jesus is the way to salvation, what happened to everyone who died after Adam and Eve?

Question

If Jesus is the only way to salvation, what happened to everyone that was born and died after the first sin, but before Jesus was born? Is it simply "Sorry, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 and go directly to Hell"?

Answer 1

Before Jesus came, the Bible referred to the Jewish people alone. They can better explain their beliefs regarding the afterlife, but as a Christian I know that the Jewish people are the chosen of G-d...a good thing, since man has done a real number on them through out history.

After Jesus came, salvation was through him. It could have hardly been through him prior to his birth and life. cal

Answer 2

Great question! I knew you'd get some interesting answers!

I particularly like the one about all those people who died before Jesus arrived being "grandfathered" in. Does this mean that if I die having never accepted Jesus, but my great-great-great-great grandson does 200 years from now, I will be grandfathered in for salvation?

Here's something else I've always wondered about. Galileo was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun. This would be sort of like excommunicating Darwin today for saying that evolution occurred.

A few years after the church excommunicated old Galileo, they finally came around to the idea that maybe the Earth really does go around the Sun, that maybe the Earth isn't the center of everything after all. So then they decided that Galileo shouldn't have been excommunicated and a modern pope rescinded Galileo's excommunication.

Now presumably Galileo was in hell at this time. That's where you go when you are excommunicated from the church. So here's my question: When the Pope rescinded Galileo's excommunication, did old Galileo suddenly pop up out of hell and get blasted into heaven? What do you suppose God thought, to see this smouldering badly burnt individual suddenly arrive in heaven after spending a few hundred years in hell?

Answer 3

No God is not so mean. The Bible says during the 3 days he was dead, Jesus preached to everyone who had died so they could go to Heaven too. The good people who died before Jesus went either to hell or a world right next to hell called Paradise. The good people and innocent children went to Paradise and could not go to heaven. Everyone in Paradise was transported to Heaven after Jesus did what he did. He has made it possible for everyone ever born or who will be born to be saved.

Answer 4

The reason that Jesus is the only to salvation is cause he was a perfect human. Instead of everyone that was born after Adam and eve they had inherited sin and for that reason that includes us today

Answer 5

Adam and Eve got here to Earth with the information of being the first mothers and fathers. They were given a decision. they could stay perpetually interior the backyard of Eden, understanding no discomfort, yet understanding no exhilaration. Or, they could eat of the forbidden tree and easily die. They understood this packaged deal. It became no longer prompt lack of life. The kit also protected operating, turning out to be previous, having and elevating toddlers, and shortage of life. yet, in the experience that they did not partake of the fruit, there might want to be no human race. you'll not have come to Earth.

Answer 6

the bible says that everyone will be judged "by the deeds done in the body" during the white throne judgement. obviously God is not going to require anyone who lived before christ to go through chrst as their salvation. so the will simply be judged by God based on how they lived. The jews had the livitical law they had to obey before christ. i believe it iwas 813 laws.

the problem with the law was that it told what is right and wrong, but the rules had no power to help the people chose to do right or wrong, after christ's death we have the holy ghost if your saved, the holyghost fulfills the law within us and gives us help and power to do right.

Answer 7

You'll find the answer in the book of Romans.

For those who never heard of God, then God is going to judge them by their works, how they live their lives... God is a just God.

For those who believed in God and believed in the coming Messiah (the Hebrews before Christ came), then they are saved on the "promise".

For those who have heard the gospel about Christ, and have turned away, will be judged, and -- sorry -- you won't get to spend eternity with Him, but be forever separated, and it won't be pretty.

That's why God said that it is better for a man to never have heard the Word, than a man who has heard and turned away.

Answer 8

Those who believed in the Messiah to come were sent to a place called Paradise or Abraham's bosom, where they awaited the finished work of Christ. Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, where both men died. the rich man went to hell and Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom.

once Christ completed his sacrifice, those saints who were in Paradise were reunited w/ God.

Answer 9

Since the fall of man, the basis of salvation has always been the death of Christ. No one, either prior to the cross or since the cross, would ever be saved without that one pivotal event in the history of the world. Christ's death paid the penalty for past sins of Old Testament saints and future sins of New Testament saints.
The requirement for salvation has always been faith. The object of one's faith for salvation has always been God. The psalmist wrote, "Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him" (Psalm 2:12). Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham believed God and that was enough for God to account it to him for righteousness (see also Romans 4:3-8). The Old Testament sacrificial system did not take away sin, as Hebrews 9:1-10:4 clearly teaches. It did, however, point to the day when the Son of God would shed His blood for the sinful human race.
What has changed through the ages is the content of a believer's faith. God's requirement of what must be believed is based on the amount of revelation He has given mankind up to that time. This is called progressive revelation. Adam believed the promise God gave in Genesis 3:15 that the Seed of the woman would conquer Satan. Adam believed Him, demonstrated by the name he gave Eve (v.20) and the Lord indicated His acceptance immediately by covering them with coats of skin (v.21). At that point that is all Adam knew, but he believed it.
Abraham believed God according to the promises and new revelation God gave him in Genesis 12 and 15. Prior to Moses, no Scripture was written, but mankind was responsible for what God had revealed. Throughout the Old Testament, believers came to salvation because they believed that God would someday take care of their sin problem. Today, we look back, believing that He has already taken care of our sins on Calvary (John 3:16; Hebrews 9:28).
What about believers in Christ's day, prior to the cross and resurrection, what did they believe? Did they understand the full picture of Christ dying on a cross for their sins? Late in his ministry, "Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day" (Matthew 16:21). What was the reaction of His disciples to this message? "Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, '‘Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen to you!'" (16:22). Peter, and the other disciples, did not know the full truth, yet they were saved because they believed that God would take care of their sin problem. They didn't exactly know how He would accomplish that, any more than Adam, Abraham, Moses, or David knew how, but they believed God.
Today, we have more revelation than did people living before the resurrection of Christ, we know the full picture. "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). Our salvation is still based on the death of Christ, our faith is still the requirement for salvation, and the object of our faith is still God. Today for us the content of our faith is that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Answer 10

Im sure youll get a few people that will say God will judge them on deeds, but i thought that christians dont like going on deeds, another common response is Jesus is God therefore he always was, which is also false since christians worship the Son and not the father.