Do Those Who Never Hear of Christ Actually Go to Hell?

By the time you read this, Radius students will be back on campus starting their last semester.  Stories will abound about the times with their families, churches, friends, and the great conversations they’ve had.  As a staff, we love hearing them retell the fun ones, the encouraging ones, and yeah, even the stories that are a bit puzzling.  Scattered in among the many stories will always be a couple where the students got pressed on– “Why are you wasting your life? God will make a way for those who never hear the gospel to have eternal life.”

Even when Beth and I served overseas, we would be met with vacant expressions by a few who were stunned that we actually believed in a God who would send people to Hell.  If this topic was unpopular 40 years ago, it is more so today.  In an age of moral relativism, radical inclusivism, and ‘hate speech’ getting attached to words or phrases that make someone feel uncomfortable, I have few illusions that this article will be universally lauded, even by the conservative readership that generally make up those who read the Radius Report.

Any discussion about the God of scripture and His ways of dealing with mankind must start and end with the word of God. The Bible is the only authoritative voice on this topic.  If that’s not true, then this topic is open to endless debate from all who have an opinion. If my favorite author, radio preacher, Uncle Bob, Aunt Sally, the New York Times, my most cherished Christian publication, or even my own ‘gut feelings’ are equally authoritative, we will be hopelessly mired in confusion. So, we start and end with scripture.

The words of Christ himself make this abundantly clear in John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” Jesus not only excludes access to the Father, the one and only God of the Universe, but he also excludes the idea that outside of knowing Christ there is access into the presence of the Father. Only through Him. Jesus is the exclusive way to access the God of the Universe. In Acts 4:12, the apostles voice that same statement.

Romans 1:18-20 states clearly that due to light given to each man via creation and conscience, no man is without excuse.  Romans 2:15,16 teaches us that no man has lived up even to the light given him by his own conscience; we all have earned our way to Hell. We all stand condemned, if only by our conscious that He gave to us and that we all have violated. Interestingly the Iteri people never doubted their forefathers deserved Hell. Even as there are no ‘noble savages’ living up to the light in some far-off jungle, there are no noble moderns living up to their own conscience. There never have been.

The Bible throughout and Christ in particular talk in very clear terms of an eternal destiny for all mankind, in New Testament terms… Heaven and Hell.  In Matthew 25:31-46, the ‘sheep and the goats’ are separated and the clear ending of the unrighteous is eternal (never ending) punishment.  In Revelation 20:14,15 we read, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Mark 9:43 speaks of the ‘unquenchable fire’. There is nothing transitory about the abode of those who know Christ, and those who do not.

What Hell exactly will be no one can say for sure except this: it will be forever, horrible, and a place no one will want to be. The heresy of annihilationism is just not backed up by scripture. Its basis comes from a lack of understanding God’s holiness and ‘otherness.’ It lessens the gap between God and mankind.

The late R.C. Sproul made the point, clearly seen in scripture, that people are not sentenced to Hell for rejecting Jesus but for rejecting the light they do have. Whether that be conscience, nature, or whatever portion of the Word of God that they may have heard.  Jesus said that those who saw the works of Christ and still rejected him (Matthew 11:20-24) would be subjected to far greater punishment than those who had not.  Light rejected equals proportionate punishment…but it is still punishment. Only the most arbitrary, out-of-context reading of scripture allows those without the imputed righteousness of Christ to experience eternal life.  And there is only one destiny for those without that righteousness.  No matter how sincere, kind, religious, deceived, good, even ‘spiritual’ a person is there is only one destiny for those without the righteousness of Christ. Even as those stepping out of an airplane at 30,000 feet without a parachute have only one destination. All the unique factors of that person falling through the air won’t matter at the end of their ‘journey’.  Christ alone saves from Hell.

I appreciate Denny Burk and the way he shows clearly that any attempt to make the Hell of scripture into the temporal burning garbage dump in the Valley of Hinnom, or ‘Gehenna’, is once again just a misinterpreting of scripture to achieve a desired outcome– no eternal Hell. Endless attempts have been made to mitigate the horror or duration of Hell; none of them come from a coherent, comprehensive view of scripture.

If those who never hear of Christ are spared the torments of Hell, why would Jesus expend his last words in Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:45-47, John 20:21 and Acts 1:7,8 to make the point that this message needs to be taken to the ends of the earth so that all nations could hear it?  If not hearing this message gives a person a pass on eternal judgement, would we not be more merciful to not put this message out before all mankind?  In his excellent book, Reasons for God, Timothy Keller devotes a whole chapter to the rightness and reality of Hell.

So, why is any of this important?  Because the difficulties of getting this message to the last languages of this earth are so extreme that unless a person is convinced that this message alone gives eternal life and saves from a real, agonizing, eternal Hell few would stay the course to proclaim it in the hardest of places it needs to go to.  I know I wouldn’t have. I, my wife, and even our children knew that the eternal destiny of the Iteri people, in some measure, rested on our willingness to persevere when we wanted to leave the jungle. John Piper’s famous statement, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t,” although true, is very reflective of the age we live in.  It’s a positive thought and is correct in what it puts forth.  But make no mistake, historically and still today, if missionaries aren’t convinced of the reality of Hell they will be hard-pressed to stay the course.  “Missions exist because Hell is real and men and women, made in the image of God, will suffer eternally” is equally true and more likely to keep the suffering missionary going forward in difficult days. This message is certainly not trendy, especially today, and it can even sound somewhat negative and out of sync with the common messages of our times. But, the horrific reality of men and women forever existing with no hope, no life, no ‘final peace’, in eternal torment, must not be left out of this discussion.  For the cross-cultural church-planters we teach here are Radius, this truth has already gripped them.  They would not have sold homes, businesses, and uprooted children from grandparents and schools had they not seen Christ alone as the hope of all mankind.

May God grip all hearts with this reality; our neighbors will suffer eternally without knowing the forgiveness of Christ and having His righteousness imputed to them!