How Eternal Life Will Ultimately Be Offered to All
What happens to those who, simply because of when and where they were born, never had an opportunity to hear of Jesus Christ and God's Word? Are they doomed to eternal torment? What exactly does the Bible teach about hell?
Death does not discriminate. The righteous and sinners all die. Jesus
used two widely known tragedies of His day to acknowledge that death can
be arbitrary and to draw an important lesson from it:
"There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered
and said to them, 'Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners
than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you,
no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen
on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they
were worse sinners than all the other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell
you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish'" (Luke 13:1-5).
The details are unclear. Apparently some Jews were viciously slaughtered
by Roman soldiers during a religious ceremony at the temple in Jerusalem.
On another occasion a tower collapsed, killing some. Both incidents are
examples of the random deaths of innocent people. Jesus says these people
weren't any worse than others. They just happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Similar tragic events are all around us. We're especially disturbed when
children's lives are cut short by accidents, crime or illness. We shake
our heads in bewilderment when an airplane crashes, a house burns or a
terrorist attack kills dozens of innocent people who were simply going
about their everyday lives. Victims of these tragedies were in the wrong
place at the wrong time; God didn't single them out for punishment. As
Solomon explained, we are all subject to the uncertainties of time and
chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12).
