Does God Condemn Good People?
I accept that those who are Christ’s people are promised eternal life, and that those who are really bad go in the other direction, but what about those who have not heard anything of God, really good people here on earth who use their lives for good purposes? God is love, why would he judge these with the others? ~ Noelene.
Hi Noelene, thank you for your heartfelt, albeit difficult, question.
The first thing I want to affirm in your question is the fact that God is love. Not just loving, but love itself.
Now because God is love, he doesn’t love everything. Love demands that he doesn’t. For example, he doesn’t love abuse, or murder, or the oppression of the poor. In fact, he hates these things and is committed to ridding the earth of them when he comes to judge the world.
The question is, who will be deserving of condemnation according to God’s justice? The unpleasant answer is that everyone will be.
This is a helpful way of reframing the conversation about God’s judgement, because it’s not fundamentally about people being either good or bad. There is only one good person who has lived in the history of the world. Only one who deserves to be pardoned by God. His name is Jesus.
I think we all recognise this when we examine ourselves against God’s standard. I know I fall short of that standard every day of my life. I don’t love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and I don’t love my neighbour as myself. More than that, I actively hurt those around me, and fail to acknowledge it when I do.
Romans 3:23 is right - all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
This is true of all people, including those who haven’t heard the gospel. I was once asked: What about the innocent people of a tribe who haven’t heard the gospel? This would be a vexing question if such a tribe existed, but there are no innocent tribes. There are no innocent people. All have sinned.
So then, it’s not really a question of whether one is good enough to escape God’s judgement because none of us are. We may judge people to be good or bad according to our own standards, but according to the only standard that matters, we’re all condemned!
Into this desperate state of affairs, God reaches down in love! He extends his hand of grace, not based on any action or virtue of our own, but wholly on the grounds of his mercy.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says it perfectly - For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.
I know this can be a difficult message to hear, but it’s God’s message, revealed in his Word. The right response is first, to praise God for his mercy, and then to share the good news of his grace with all people who are deserving of condemnation (which is everyone).
Love, JS
