It’s been three years since we invited Christian teens to send us their tough questions. We hope the answers we’ve shared since then have been helpful. If you are a Christian teen or the parent or teacher of Christian teens, we invite you to send questions to us and we’ll be glad to share our thoughts with you.

Here’s our next question.

[Podcast Version available here.]

Some of my friends say their church believes God will save everybody in the end no matter what they believe. If that’s true, why did Jesus have to die?

Excellent question! Let’s begin with the idea that God will save everybody in the end no matter what they believe.

That belief in churches is known as universal reconciliation and universal salvation. It comes from a view of God known as universal theology. Universal reconciliation is the belief that God will eventually save everyone who has ever lived no matter what they believed about God when they were alive.

The Why Question

Why do you believe that? That would be my first question to friends who believe in universal salvation. What’s their evidence for their belief that everyone will be saved? Everybody has personal beliefs and opinions based on their beliefs, but shouldn’t they have good evidence to support what they believe? I think they should. We should also have good evidence to support what we believe about God and salvation. Asking the why question is a great way to develop a healthy and helpful discussion with friends.

The idea of universal salvation is not a new idea in churches. In fact, the idea pre-dates Christianity by hundred of years (e.g. Zoroastrianism, Stoicism). We find it in writings of church leaders from the 2nd century AD all the way to the present time. We also find leaders throughout church history who disagreed with universal salvation. So, who’s right?

Love Wins?

People who believe in universal salvation believe that God’s love for people will win out over any anger He might feel toward their poor beliefs and bad behavior. Pastor Rob Bell, in his best-selling book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, makes the case for universal salvation. Many Christians read the book and liked what Bell believed. Here’s something Bell wrote about his book that might help us get a good answer to your question:

There are a growing number of us who have become acutely aware that Jesus’s story has been hijacked by a number of other stories, stories Jesus isn’t interested in telling, because they have nothing to do with what he came to do. The plot has been lost, and it’s time to reclaim it.

A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spend forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear. Rob Bell, Love Wins

After asking the why question to someone who presents a truth claim with which you may disagree, listen to how they answer your question. If they answer, as Pastor Bell does, that Jesus’ story has been hijacked by a number of other stories, “stories Jesus isn’t interested in telling, because they have nothing to do with what he came to do,” a good way to respond is to look at the story Jesus told. Going to the original source is always the best method of dealing with truth claims.

We are fortunate that the original source of Jesus’ story is available to us — Jesus in His own words. Many universalists like to quote John 3:16 because it’s about how much God loves the world. Universalists believe God will save everybody because He loves everybody, no matter what they believe or do, and will save them in the end. That’s why Bell titled his book Love Wins. He believes love will win in the end and God will let everyone into Heaven. However, universalists are telling only one part of the story. That’s not an honest way of telling a story, so let’s see what Jesus really said about God’s love for the world.

A religious ruler of the Jews approached Jesus at night to ask Him some questions about His teachings. The ruler was comfortable with his religious beliefs until he heard Jesus preach and saw the miracles He performed. What he heard and saw made him uncomfortable. Here’s how Jesus responded to the ruler:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3

The first thing Jesus said was that some people “cannot” see the Kingdom of God “unless” they are born again. That’s an interesting response if Jesus’ real story is that everybody will see God’s Kingdom (Heaven) in the end. Did Jesus mean that people would see the Kingdom of God even if they cannot see the Kingdom of God? That doesn’t make sense. The “cannot” statement seems to contradict the theology of universal salvation, but let’s keep reading. Here’s how the ruler (Nicodemus) responded to Jesus:

How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?

Here’s how Jesus responded to that:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Jesus first said that people “cannot see” the Kingdom of God. He then said people “cannot enter” the Kingdom of God. Both are powerful ideas. The person who is not born again cannot see God’s Kingdom and cannot enter it. That sounds like a pretty sad state of affairs for those people.

Here’s what Nicodemus said next:

How can these things be?

Jesus’ final response to Nicodemus is pretty long, but it’s important to read all of it since universalists like to pick their Jesus verses out of context.

Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.

What we see here are two types of people: those who perish and those who have everlasting life. The idea of life that lasts forever seems clear enough, but what about the meaning of the word “perish”? The Greek word translated perish in John 3 means “to destroy fully.” It’s not just a matter of someone dying then being brought back to life later to enter God’s Kingdom. The word has the idea of a terrible end to one’s life — a permanent cutting off from something. That something in the context of what Jesus said in John 3 is being cut off permanently from the Kingdom of God; they cannot see or enter the Kingdom of God.

The end of the Bible make this pretty clear. There are people who will not enter the Kingdom of God, just like Jesus told Nicodemus:

Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. Revelation 22:14-15

Jesus said that people who don’t believe in Him are condemned already. He said that the Son of Man (Jesus) “must” be lifted up so that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Some universalists believe that because Jesus was lifted up (died on the Cross), everyone will be saved through His sacrifice but is that what Jesus said? Do people get to enter the Kingdom of God no matter what they believe or do because Jesus died for everybody? As we saw earlier in the context, people who are condemned cannot see or enter the Kingdom of God.

Jesus had a lot more to say about that, but here are just a couple of examples from His teachings:

But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall. Matthew 7:26-27

Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Matthew 25:41-46

Notice that Jesus used the term “everlasting punishment” in the same sentence as “eternal life.” It is the righteous (those made right in God’s sight) who will enter the Kingdom of God, also known as eternal life. Those who are unrighteous (those who are condemned already and not made right in God’s sight) will not enter the Kingdom of God and will suffer an everlasting punishment.

The story Jesus told in the Gospel accounts doesn’t match up with what Pastor Bell and other universalists say. You may find that your friends are interested in talking in-depth about this, but if they don’t want to talk you can at least ask them the question why and respond to their answer in the time they give you. We don’t want to be argumentative with our friends, but we do want to help them see the truth about the salvation God offers to the world.

It may make people feel good if they believe God will save them in the end no matter what they believe or how they live their lives, but if what they believe is not true then what good does their belief do them in the end? Just like the story Jesus told about the foolish man who built his house on sand, their end will not be good — “And great was its fall.“

[Podcast Version available here.]

Next Time

We will answer the question “If that’s true, why did Jesus have to die?” in the next part of our special Tough Questions series.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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