Audio Transcript
Well, we start the week with a weighty question: Will God judge a person for being born into a Muslim family and nation? A very real question for global listeners, like one young woman who sent us today’s question. “Hello, Pastor John! I love listening to episodes of Ask Pastor John. They are helping me grow in the faith. Keep pressing on! My story is a long one, but I’ll keep it short. I was born into a Muslim family in an Islamic country in North Africa. I still live here. Unlike my family, I became a Christian and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior and treasure.
“My question for you is this: Will my unbelieving family go to hell? They don’t know anything about the good news of Jesus Christ! And I can’t tell them about him because they will not listen. They call me crazy. And it’s not safe to tell anybody in my country. You may get killed for that. Leaving Islam to become a Christian is illegal here! So, will my family go to hell because they’re Muslim? And how is that their fault since they were born that way? And will God judge me for not sharing the gospel with them? And if all things go by God’s plan, does that mean it was meant for them to be Muslims? Or is this by chance? What should I do? I know God is just, but I am deeply worried for my family. Thank you.”
I hear six questions, which is overwhelming.
Will my unbelieving family go to hell?
Will my family go to hell because they’re Muslim?
Is it their fault since they were born Muslim?
Will God judge me for not sharing the gospel with them?
Is their Muslim situation God’s purpose or by chance?
What should I do?
And we have ten minutes.
So, at the risk of oversimplification, I will try to say something biblical and, I hope, helpful about each of those questions.
1. Will my unbelieving family go to hell?
John said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). Peter put it like this: “There is salvation in no one else [but Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul put it like this: “[Christ will return] in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not . . . obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:8).
There is a principle in the Bible that human beings will be punished by God in accord with the knowledge that they have access to. We see this in Romans 1:19–20:
What can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived . . . in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
And that word so is really crucial because it shows the ground of accountability. His argument is that everybody has sufficient knowledge to be held accountable to respond with worship and trust toward God, but nobody does. We’re all such sinners that we suppress truth apart from the saving work of the Holy Spirit in the hearing of the gospel of Jesus.
2. Will my family go to hell because they’re Muslim?
Since, for millions of people, the word Muslim encompasses so much that is cultural and political and ethnic, I think a proper way to answer that question is to say this: to the degree that the word Muslim signifies the rejection of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God, crucified for sinners, raised from the dead — to that degree will the word Muslim imply lostness. People who reject Christ’s offer of himself as God’s crucified sacrifice and substitute for sinners as a way to be reconciled with God will go to hell.
3. Is it their fault since they were born Muslim?
Nobody is born Muslim or Hindu or Christian; we are born sinners. We have a corrupt nature that, without salvation and transformation through Christ, is in rebellion against God. We become Muslim, we become Christian, we become Hindu or Buddhist by the truth or error that our hearts embrace or reject as we grow up.
“Nobody is born Muslim or Hindu or Christian; we are born sinners.”
At the final judgment day, God will not say to anybody, “You perish because you were born Muslim.” Nor will he say, “You are saved because you were born Christian.” We will give an account of how we have responded to the truth of God as we have access to it. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for sinners, is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
4. Will God judge me for not sharing the gospel with them?
The reason this question is difficult, not only for this woman in her situation but for all of us in all of our situations, is that there are always more people that we could talk to about Jesus. We can talk to people instead of sleeping — stay up another hour, get up another hour early. We can talk to people instead of eating — skipping meals. We can talk to people instead of reading a book at night. Love wants to share the gospel. Faith trusts Jesus for the power to share the gospel. But the path of love and the path of faith have limits.
What are they? God said through Ezekiel,
If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand [who didn’t blow the trumpet]. (Ezekiel 33:6)
So, there is a kind of lovelessness, a kind of indifference to people’s lostness, that will receive God’s judgment. But whom we should talk to and how many times we should talk to them and how many of them we should talk to is a matter of genuine love and God’s guidance.
5. Is their Muslim situation God’s purpose or by chance?
At this point, I think it’s fair to say that Muslims and I believe the same thing, or at least similar things — namely, nothing happens by chance. Muslims believe that; I believe that. There’s no such thing as chance given the sovereignty of God, not ultimately. From our human perspective, given the limits of what we can see, there are coincidences and flukes and random acts and accidents and luck. But in relation to God, nothing is by chance. “[God] works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11) — all things.
6. What should I do?
The apostle Paul prayed the way he did in Philippians 1:9–11, I think, precisely because of some of the ambiguities that this woman lives with and, in some measure, we all live with. He didn’t just pray that we would be loving people — he did pray that, taught that — but also that our love would have a Spirit-given discernment and insight to know how to love, how love should act.
Here’s what he prays, and this is what I think you should do. She said, “What should I do?” I think you should pray this earnestly and expect God to answer it for you. “[I pray] that your love may abound more and more . . .” So, you pray, “God, help my love for my family to abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that I may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
That’s the only way that I know how to walk in such difficult situations with a heart of obedience and peace.