Don’t All Good People Go To Heaven? > 목회자칼럼

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The view that entrance into heaven is on the basis of merit (our works) 

rather than God’s grace is also common. 

But a works based system of salvation is foreign to the message of Christ. 

Whether or not one enters heaven is not dependent on a continuum 

of good and evil, wherein we hope our good acts outweigh our bad ones. 

While this perspective may be common, it is biblically incorrect. 

As Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith 

and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God —not by works, 

so that no one can boast” (NIV). 

Grace is God’s unmerited favor, demonstrated most fully in the sacrifice of Christ. 

In short, the only way to heaven is through Jesus, 

“the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). 

Those who argue that all good people go to heaven often suggest that

 if hell exists, it is reserved for a minority of particularly evil people. 

But since most people are not so evil, they argue, 

it makes sense to claim that all good people will get to heaven 

regardless of any minor lapses in moral behavior. 

Does this reasoning hold up? It does so only if it fails to take into 

account the nature of God, the nature of sin, and what the Bible has to say 

on the subject. As we’ve noted, God is holy, but He is also just. 

God’s justice requires the reality of hell for the unredeemed. 

The nature of sin extends, biblically speaking, to everyone. 

Salvation is not by works, but by God’s grace through Christ.

What about sincere and good people who are not Christian? 

See the articles in this series, “Is Christ the Only Way?” and 

“What about those who have never heard?” for related information. 

Won’t God welcome them into heaven? This assumes that sincerity is enough 

to correspond to truth, when in reality it is not. 

As Proverbs 16:25 reads, “There is a way that seems right to a man, 

but in the end it leads to death.” Sincerity will only get someone so far, 

then it must face reality. No matter how sincere someone may be about 

being able to fly by frantically flapping their arms, their sincerity will not keep 

them in the air. Besides, if someone is actively believing something that 

is not true and, as a result, is implicitly if not explicitly rejecting God, 

it seems odd for God to welcome such a person into heaven. 

Sincerity, then, is not enough. One also has to believe what is true. 

Like the man who approached Jesus and used the word “good,” 

perhaps without giving it much thought, we too need to be careful how we 

use and define our terms. 

As Jesus answered, “No one is good – except God alone” (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19).

Do all “good” people go to heaven? Since no one is good as defined by God, 

the answer is, “No.” Those who enter heaven do so not on the basis of merit, 

but on the basis of God’s grace as bestowed by Jesus Christ. 

We can’t work our way to heaven or claim to be without sin (1 John 1:8). 

Instead, we must humbly submit to God, turn from our wrong behavior, 

and turn to Christ for salvation.