Part Three: The Warning:  Everyone Has the Opportunity to Meet God—Including Those Who Reject Him 

The Bible is unambiguous that the eternal destiny of every human being depends on whether or not they believe in the one true and living God. Moreover, the only religion whose deity can be demonstrated to be this true God is the God revealed in the Bible.

But what about people who never had the opportunity to meet God revealed in Scripture? Will they go to Hell? I have answered this question in detail elsewhere, but let me make a few comments relevant to this study. (see Defending Your Faith; Reliable Answers for a New Generation of Spiritual Seekers)

The Bible reveals that people without access to God’s revelation in Scripture can encounter Him in and through creation (e.g., Ps. 19:1-4; Rom. 1:19-20). This “general revelation” is available to every human being who ever lived. It can introduce any spiritual seeker to the one real God and prompt them to seek fuller revelation. We can trust that God will deal fairly and justly with people who sincerely respond to God’s self-disclosure in nature.

But what about people who fail to respond to general revelation in nature? The Apostle Paul answers: They “are without excuse.”  Why? Because they willfully “suppress” God’s self-disclosure in creation. (Rom. 1: 18-21). People can’t suppress truth unless they possess it, so those who reject God’s general revelation in nature are without excuse because they do possess knowledge of God. In short, God has revealed enough about His divine nature and attributes in the natural world for people to respond in some manner and hold them accountable if they don’t.

However—and this crucial to understand—general revelation is not salvific; it does not reveal God’s specific plan for salvation. But it does disclose enough insight into God’s divine nature to prompt spiritual seekers to be receptive to Christian witness, where they will meet Jesus Christ—who is “the image of the invisible God.  . . . [in whom] all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 1: 15; 2:9). Believing in God, then, is to believe Jesus is the doorway to eternity. Jesus made this claim Himself in John 14:6 and demonstrated it by His resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4).

All this is to say is that people have a choice: They can do it God’s way—which is to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior—or they can reject God’s way and face the consequences. C.S. expresses this well:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: Those who say to God, ’Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who know it is opened” (The Great Divorce). ©