Comments
|
|
|
Arsin Delve has written an article about this called, "Do People Who Don't Believe in Jesus Go To Hell?", and you can find it from the Articles menu under discovery. This article does not speak about the Jewish people specifically, but I hope you can find some useful information there. In the meantime, we'll work on a more complete answer for you. Thanks!
|
|
|
|
marklang-
1/14/2008 8:23:40 PM
|
|
|
I'm sorry you've waited so long for an answer. I've been reading and re-reading Romans looking for some answers.
There are things we know from the Scripture, but the rest -- well, all we can do is speculate. What we know is that Jesus is the only way to salvation and to heaven. I've written a few times on what it means to "know" Jesus. Someone who accepts that they are a sinner, accepts that Jesus died for them and confesses that He is Lord is certainly saved. On the other end of the scale, someone who despises God and wants nothing to do with Him will perish. The rest is gray. Do children "know" Jesus, and are they saved if they die? I expect so. What about mentally incapable people? What about people who never know the name of Jesus, but love God, know that they are sinners and accept His plan of salvation, even though they don't know the details of it?
Except for the two extremes, all we can do is make some guesses based on what we know about God's nature and how we feels about the Jewish people.
We know that almost the entire scripture is about God's special relationship with His people, the Jews and that they are precious to Him. We also know that God does not desire that anyone should perish. Finally, we know that the Jews, far more than the gentiles, have every opportunity to see Jesus for who He really is, since their entire scriptures point to Him in one way or another. He is the culmination of what they have been hoping for and looking for, while the gentiles were never even looking. The book of Romans has so much to say about this, especially the first three books, and later where it speaks of grafting into the tree.
So with tall this in mind, here is my speculation. Throughout their lives, the Jewish people have many more opportunities than anyone else to know Jesus, since he was their messiah. All they need to do is look at the evidence and their scriptures with an open mind and they will find him. Furthermore, I believe that due to their special place in history, the Holy Spirit calls to Jews in a powerful way to repent and turn to Christ. Therefore, I think as long as a Jewish person has an open mind and earnestly seeks to find the truth, they certainly will find Jesus and will be saved. In some ways, they have many more opportunities than Gentiles to know God and that is a great benefit. The flip side of this is that they have fewer excuses. They cannot claim ignorance, for the Old Testament is like a bright neon sign pointing to Christ. Despite all this, if they refuse to see the truth and hear the call of the Holy Spirit, then they will be lost.
This sounds terrible, but we know that God has infinite love for His people and wants none to perish, so that if any fall away, it was their ultimate choice and that God did everything possible short of violating their free will to bring them to repent.
I hope this helps. There is so much outside of those two extremes that we don't understand, and may God forgive me if I've misled anyone or said anything untrue.
|
|
|
|
arsindelve-
1/22/2008 6:48:07 AM
|
If you have an answer or some information to contribute, or you would simply like to say something to the author of this question, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Don't forget that our forum
is also open if you want to join or start a discussion.
|
|