"What About Those Who've Never Heard the Gospel" ~Shannon

"Recently my boyfriend of 2 years and i had a religious discussion. he confessed to me that he is having a hard time believing in Jesus. All through our relationship i was confident that we were on the same page spiritually, but this news of him doubting Jesus has broken my heart. his main problem is that he is having a hard time believing that only those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life. for example, what about the random tribes in Africa that have never heard of Jesus and some zealous missionary explains it to the tribe in a way that the tribe immediately rejects it, but the tribe members live their lives in a relatively "good" way (as they've been taught), but when they die, they burn in hell bc that missionary didn't do a good job of explaining christianity. He believes in God, but the Jesus part is what he's havingtrouble with. He's very intelligent and researches everything. He's having trouble grasping that God could condemn people to hell because they've never heard of Jesus. I believe that Jesus is the way, truth and the light. only through Him is eternal life. and some things we cannot understand bc God is of a higher power that our brains cannot even fathom. i believe you have to have faith that God knows what he's doing. But he gets frustrated of my answer "you have to have faith." he sees it as a cop-out. I have encouraged him to find a church to attend regularly and bible study (he lives in another state). how can i help him through this? we had planned to get engaged in the next year or so and i told him if we don't have the same beliefs, i cannot be with him, or raise children on an unequally yoked system. I realize this is a self journey he has to conquer on his own, but i want to help him in the right direction. any suggestions?" ~Shannon

"Thanks for writing! The issue your boyfriend is dealing with is not uncommon. I think every Christian who seriously considers their faith has to deal with this at some time or other.

I can't say that I've got all the answers on this (like you said, God is beyond us Isaiah 55:9), still, here are some thoughts that I have learned from the Bible:

God's prerogative: God made us all. We are His creations, and so He has the authority to do with us whatever He wants as much as it's nobody's business but mine if I want to break all my furniture. When all the stuff happened to Job, and all he wanted was to know why, God's answer was basically "that's my business, not yours" (except much cooler - Job 38).

God's fairness: Though we can't understand why God does all He does, we can trust that He is fair (Deuteronomy 32:4), that He Loves us (1 John 4:10), and that He doesn't want anyone to go to Hell (Matthew 18:14). I don't know whether Jesus reveals himself to people at the moment of death (though the highest % of converts from Islam are because of "visions of Jesus" almost like Paul's encounter on the road to damascus), or if it is simply that they are only held accountable for the revelation to which they've been given (Matthew 11:22-24), but we can trust in the qualities of His fairness and love that He has a plan. God doesn't hide the truth from anyone. Matthew 7:7 says "seek and you will find". Romans 1:20 says that God revealed Himself through nature since the dawn of time, so nobody has an excuse to say they didn't know better. I believe that God has written the knowledge of Himself on our very hearts (Jeremiah 31:33) and that no one can honestly believe that He does not exist (they only deny it because it is inconvenient to the sin nature).

Condemning a good person: A lot of people don't understand how God could condemn someone who leads a relatively good life:
1. The problem is that God and Heaven are perfect, and only that which is perfect can be there. Unless we are willing to put down our sin (at Jesus feet) and be renewed, it doesn't matter how "good" we are, because we'll always be imperfect.
2. CS Lewis (author of Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) once said "the doors to Hell are locked from the inside." What he meant was that it isn't God who condemns and rejects us, but we who ultimately choose to reject Him and so enter Hell (which is by definition "absence of God"). Lewis also said it this way, "There are those who say to God 'thy will be done', and there are those to whom God says 'very well then, thy will be done.'"
3. Even if God did condemn a "good" person, he is only holding them to their own standards. Think of it this way. If you had a tape recorder hanging around your neck every day of your life, and then they played it back to you at the gates of heaven, how many judgments of other people, or sweeping statements or standards that you couldn't live up to yourself would we hear come out of your mouth?

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions, or if I didn't answer the question the way you meant. I'll be praying for you and your boyfriend!

PS For other people's perspective on this subject, type "never heard of Jesus" in Google. Be careful though, some people post some wacky stuff, so not every site is Biblical or even Christian.

PPS As for finding a good church fellowship for him, I can try to help if you tell me about where he lives, or you can look up churches in the area online or in the yellow pages, but he'll ultimately have to be the one to give it a try, and probably try a few churches until he finds a good one." ~Jeff