beth

According to the Bible, if you look into theology. But I don't believe in this, anyway.

Beetle

1Peter 3:18-21 -- "For Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built."

Even in my extreme Calvinist days, I always suspected that the author had done some serious drinking before writing this gem down.

spurly

What happened to their souls? All we can know for sure is that they were saved by God's grace though faith just like we are today.

The entire OT system was symbolic of the New Covenant that Christ would come to establish. The sacrificial system foreshadowed and pointed ahead to Christ and to his sacrifice once for all for sins. (See the book of Hebrews for more details on this).

Those who put their faith in God and the provision he provided, before Jesus, were saved just like those who place their faith in God's provision for us today - the sacrifice of Christ.

Others, who did not know about Jehovah, were saved or lost based on what they did with what they could know from the world around them - see Romans 1.

Kevin

Daggah

So salvation without belief in Jesus is possible. Therefore, there's nothing stopping god from just saving everyone so that no one suffers in Hell, and your god just becomes that much more cruel and evil.

spurly

I believe you misread my post. Salvation apart from Jesus Christ has never been possible. In the OT they were saved based on their acceptance by faith of the OT system which foreshadowed Christ. The entire OT system was all about Christ.

People who have not heard are saved based on what they do with the little they are able to understand about God and Christ from nature.

Thanks for letting me clear that up.

Kevin

wade-w

If nobody can be saved without jesus, and jesus spent three days in hell saving the "righteous" who died before he came, what about all the people who died after the resurrection, but lived in parts of the world where they had no chance of hearing the "good news"? By that reasoning everyone born in the western hemisphere between ~ 30 A.D. and 1492 A.D. automatically got sent to hell, with no chance of salvation. That hardly sounds like the act of a benevolent being.

Bumble Bee Tuna

The problem here is this:

If salvation was possible at one point without Jesus, then Jesus was not the only way for God to save people.

Most theists tend to argue that the sacrifice of Jesus was the only way to fit together perfect justice and perfect mercy. But apparently God did just fine without the Big J-man for a long time...and that leaves theists without a good reason to explain the seeming ridiculous nature of the Christ story.

-B

beth

You are misunderstanding. Theology states that salvation only comes through faith in Christ. The righteous dead waited in hell for their Messiah to come and deliver them out of it. They were considered righteous because they kept the laws to the best of their ability. The day of attonement was just a foreshadow of Christ. Also, after the priest sacrificed the sin sacrifice, he came out of the temple entrance with the basin of blood and proclaimed, "It is finished!" It parallels with Christ's sacrifice.

malookiemaloo

greetings,

I do not believbe that the Bible says anything at all specifically about what happens to people who have heard the Gospel.

Christians and others speculate but it tends to 'darkening counsel without knowledge' in my view.

Where the Bible is silent, I think Christians should be silent also.


m

Amos

Good for you because that protestant theology sure doesn't make sense to me.