Salvation Summaries

In my prior blog entry on II Thessalonians – Part 1 of 2, I answered the $6 million question of “How is a person saved?”  In this entry, I’ll answer a related question.  I want to warn you though, that my answer may be highly unsettling to some.

What will Jesus do to people who are not saved?  

2 Thessalonians 1:6-10   ⁶ God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you  ⁷ and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.  ⁸ He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  ⁹ They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power  ¹⁰ on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

Before I answer this question, let me provide the context of Paul’s comments in verses 6-10 above.  Paul is talking to the Thessalonian believers who have been persecuted for their faith by non-believers; in this case, Jews.  He tells them that God will repay these non-believing Jews with affliction.  The affliction, or retribution, will be by Jesus when He returns.  The retribution is not simply for their persecution of the Thessalonian believers.  Rather, it is because they “do not know God and do not obey the gospel” of Jesus.  The retribution is very severe – it is everlasting destruction, and being shut out from the presence of the Lord. Everlasting destruction is a reference to hell.

The painful but real understanding of these verses is this: any person who does not know God and who does not obey the gospel of Jesus, or in other words, any non-believer, will be punished by Jesus when He returns. This punishment is being shut out from God’s presence for the rest of their eternal life, in a very unpleasant place known as hell.

Now, some of you might say “that’s not fair! Just because I don’t believe in Jesus and am not a Christian does not mean that I should be sent to hell. After all, I’m a good person!”

I understand this line of thinking, because I had it years ago when I was an unbeliever.  In fact, I would guess most unbelievers feel the same way.  But as I’ve discussed in a number of blog entries now, salvation is not based upon how good you think you are. It is a spiritual transaction completed by God, whereby He forgives you of your sins, and gives you the Holy Spirit.  You cannot do this on your own. It requires repentance, faith, and a complete surrendering of your life and will to Christ, who becomes your Lord.  If the Lord has caused you to do this, you can rest assured that you will spend the rest of your eternal life in the most pleasant of all places – heaven.  But for those who have not, there is only one alternative to heaven, and that’s hell.

Dear reader, if you are not a believer in the Lord, please think seriously about what I’ve said.  Read my other blog entries for more information on salvation. Do whatever you need to in order to understand how a person is saved, and then determine whether you are.  May the Lord guide you, and bless you, as you do this.