RevealedReveal what the Bible says about your life.

Salvation & Grace

My grandmother died having never heard any of this, in a place where nobody was talking about Jesus. What happens to someone like her?


Old TestamentGenesis 18:25

That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Abraham is arguing with God about the fate of a city, pressing him on whether the innocent will be swept away along with the guilty. The question he asks is essentially the one you are asking. Notice that scripture preserves the argument rather than rebuking it. Abraham's confidence is not that he knows the outcome, but that the one deciding it can be trusted to do right.

New TestamentRomans 2:14-15

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

Paul is writing to a church divided between Jews who had the law and Gentiles who did not, and he acknowledges people who never received the revelation yet still show something of it written on them. He does not turn this into a complete answer about their eternal fate, and neither should we. What he does establish is that God judges each person with full knowledge of what they were actually given.


A path forward

  1. Say plainly in prayer that you do not know, and hand her to God rather than to your own verdict. Entrusting someone is a real act, not a way of dodging the question.

  2. Ask a pastor how their tradition holds this question. You will find far more humility in the historic answers than the internet leads you to expect.

  3. Let the question move you outward. If this matters for your grandmother, it matters for the people around you now, so have one honest conversation about faith with someone you love this month.


Closing verse

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

- 2 Peter 3:9

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