Is there salvation for people who do not have a chance to be faithful?

Question

A question for Christians:

If an individual needs to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior in order to enter heaven, will individuals who lived and died without ever being exposed to Christianity not be allowed into heaven? Will they have to go to hell?

An example of this type of person would be an indigenous person of Africa, Asia, the Americas, etc. who lived and died before the missionaries came. Also, what happened to the people who lived and died before Jesus was born?

Answer 1

whether or not u get into heaven is a management issue....missionaries and preachers are just the salesmen

Answer 2

Yours is a good question.
unfortunately it is also one I can not truly give a definite answer to. If I am not mistaken there is a verse in the Bible that says something to the effect that everyone would be judged according to what they know. So people who know the truth but turn their backs to it will be judged more harshly than those who never heard. As far as where those other people go, I don't know. That is something for God to decide and reveal to us.

EDIT: The above responses have a good point. I have heard stories of missionaries going out to remote tribes only to discover they had already heard the Good New in some way or form......

Answer 3

There USED to be a pergatory....when Jesus died (before he arose) it is believed that He went to pergatory to tell the dead about His plan of salvation.

As far as people who where born after Jesus' death... The bible says that everyone will have the chance to know Jesus, some how I believe that everyone will have been witnessed to before they die and I do believe that if not by a person God will visit that person Him self

Answer 4

My grandfather was a Cherokee, and he told me this story about the missionaries who came to preach the gospels.

When the missionary came, he preached the gospels to the indians, and told them that in order for them to go to heaven, they would have to accept Jesus as their savior, and accept the gospels as the word of God. Then the chief came and asked him, "What of my forefathers, whom we worship? They never heard of your Jesus or your gospels. Do they go to hell?

The missionary responded, "No. Those who have never had the opportunity to hear of Jesus Christ, or of the gospels, are innocent. They will face judgement, but because they are innocent, they will go to heaven.

The chief then asked, "Then why are you telling us"?

Answer 5

The important thing is to believe in GOD, one GOD. If you do and live by a good moral code, you will be allowed into heaven.

Answer 6

If we believe we are saved by grace, then it is grace for all people. Grace is not earned by right belief or morality. Do we believe and take seriously that God is a God of love, and a just God?

Answer 7

there is a chance. because God loves the world so much, every person have a chance for salvation. they do not go to hell because there is no hell.

Answer 8

yes

Answer 9

All people are accountable to God whether they have “heard about Him” or not. The Bible tells us that God has clearly revealed Himself in nature (Romans 1:20) and in the hearts of people (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The problem is that the human race is sinful; we all reject this knowledge of God and rebel against Him (Romans 1:21-23). Apart from God's grace, God would give us over to the sinful desires of our hearts, allowing us to discover how useless and miserable life is apart from Him. This He does for those who reject Him (Romans 1:24-32).
In reality, it is not that some people have not heard about God. Rather, the problem is that they have rejected what they have heard and what is readily seen in nature. Deuteronomy 4:29 proclaims, “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.” This verse teaches an important principle: everyone who truly seeks after God will find Him. If a person truly desires to know God, God will make Himself known.
The problem is, “there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:11). People reject the knowledge of God that is present in nature and in their own heart, and instead decide to worship a “god” of their own creation. It is foolish to debate the fairness of God sending someone to hell who never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Christ. People are responsible to God for what God has already revealed to them. The Bible says that people reject this knowledge, and therefore God is just in condemning them to hell.
Instead of debating the fate of those who have never heard, we, as Christians, should be doing our best to make sure that they hear. We are called to spread the Gospel throughout the nations (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8). The fact that we know people reject the knowledge of God revealed in nature must motivate us to proclaim the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Only through accepting the Gospel of God’s grace through the Lord Jesus Christ can people be saved from their sins and rescued from an eternity apart from God in hell.
If we assume that those who never hear the Gospel are granted mercy from God, we will run into a terrible problem. If people who never hear the Gospel are saved…we should make sure that no one ever hears the Gospel. The worst thing we could do would be share the Gospel with a person and have him or her reject it. If that were to happen, he or she would be condemned. People who do not hear the Gospel must be condemned, or else there is no motive for evangelism. Why run the risk of people possibly rejecting the Gospel and condemning themselves – when they were previously saved because they had never heard the Gospel?

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

I guess that will be for God to judge.