So are you saying that people who have never heard the Gospel.....living or dead.....past...present....future....have no chance at being saved because there is no "WORD" for them to hold onto?
What happens to THOSE people.
You ask really good and relevant questions...they deserve answers.
I think we need to go back to the Bible to discover what "hell" actually is. There are several words translated "hell" in some Bibles that are not describing a place of eternal torment at all....but a place of eternal death. That is all God ever placed before his people. (Israel)
He told them.....
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you that today I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Oh, that you would choose life; that you and your children might live! 20 Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and to cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days. You will then be able to live safely in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20 TLB)
So what is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek "hades"? The Septuagint (Hebrew to Greek translation used in the first century as Greek was the common language) says that "sheol" is what the Jews believed to be associated with death.
Solomon wrote...
"For the living at least know that they will die! But the dead know nothing ; they don’t even have their memories. . . . Whatever you do, do well, for in death, [sheol] where you are going, there is no working or planning, or knowing, or understanding." (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 TLB) The word for "death" there is "sheol" which simply means the common grave.
There is no immortal soul. The Bible does not teach this.
If the dead are not conscious, not capable of planning or knowing or understanding, then there is no conscious part of man that survives death.
Solomon went on to lament that we humans have no advantage over animals in death because we all end up in the same place.
"For men and animals both breathe the same air, and both die. So mankind has no real advantage over the beasts; what an absurdity! 20 All go to one place—the dust from which they came and to which they must return." (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20) TLB)
"Hades" is therefore not what Christendom teaches at all......it is a place of rest, not a place of torture. Going back to the garden of Eden, we can see that there was no mention of "heaven or hell"....only "life or death".
The other word translated "hell" in the NT is "gehenna".....this is not a place of literal torture either. It was a reference to the Valley of Hinnom where the apostate Jews were sacrificing their children to the false god Molech. God said that he was disgusted with that practice and that burning children alive would not have even entered his mind. (Jeremiah 7:31) If God punished his people for doing that, then why would he do the same thing himself?
"Gehenna" was turned into a rubbish dump outside of the walls of Jerusalem, so if something was cast into "gehenna" they were already dead. The bodies of dead animals and even executed criminals were thrown into the fires of gehenna because they were considered trash. It was a symbol of eternal death as opposed to eternal life. There would be no memorial of the fact that they ever existed...no grave with their name and lineage marked on them, which was so important to the Jews....giving God a place to raise that person back to life.
So what happens to the dead? Jesus answers....
"Don’t be so surprised! Indeed the time is coming when all the dead in their graves shall hear the voice of God’s Son, 29 and shall rise again—those who have done good, to eternal life; and those who have continued in evil, to judgment." (John 5:28-29 TLB)
Paul wrote...
"and I believe, just as these men do, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and ungodly." (Acts 24:15)
So all are to be resurrected, no matter if they are righteous or ungodly.
A resurrection is a
return to life....not a
continuation of it. Most of the human dead have never heard of the true God Jehovah or his son, so why would God punish people for their ignorance? All the dead are called from the same place....."sheol/hades" which is just the grave, where they sleep peacefully unaware of the passing of time, and most dying without any knowledge of a possible resurrection.
The period of 'judgment' that Jesus spoke about will be a time of education, giving all ignorant ones the chance to hear the truth about the true God and to bring their lives into harmony with his will. The very same choices that we have. Being born at the wrong time and in the wrong place was not their fault. God will give them an opportunity.
So, death doesn't mean going to 'heaven or hell'....because God never gave humans that option in the first place.
Resurrection for the majority of humans means being raised, just like Lazarus was when Jesus resurrected him from his grave.
Where did Jesus say that Lazarus was?
"Then he said, “Our friend Lazarus has gone to sleep, but now I will go and waken him!”
The disciples, thinking Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night’s rest, said, “That means he is getting better!” But Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
Then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead." (John 11:11-14 TLB)
Jesus' promise to resurrect the dead is simply bringing them back to this life by the power of God's holy spirit.....on a cleansed and restored earth, into the paradise conditions that we lost. Peter spoke about that in the future. (2 Peter 3:13) The "new earth" will be ruled by the "new heavens" which will be Christ and his elect ruling over their earthly subjects. (Revelation 20:6) These will form the government (kingdom) of God which will take a thousand years to bring humans back into a reconciliation with God. The sin that formed a barrier between us and our Creator will be removed, and we can get on with the life that God promised us at the beginning. (Isaiah 55:11; Revelation 21:2-4)
That is what makes sense to me......all this talk of "hell" is rubbish.
