The Big Questions About Salvation and FaithSample

What About Good People?

I’ve heard people ask, “What about good people? People who live their lives as best they can, loving and being kind to others and doing good things? They might not be believers; they might not go to church. Shouldn’t they go to heaven, anyway?”

Well, first of all, did you know that going to church isn’t the requirement for going to heaven? It might be a good thing to do, but it isn’t what gets you there!

No matter how much we may admire someone, we are only ever using the word “good” in a relative sense. We mean that we think they are far better than the average. We’re not saying that they’re entirely perfect in every way.

An interesting conversation Jesus had comes to mind. A young man came running to Jesus and asked him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” (Luke 18:18, NKJV).

Jesus replied, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God… (v19).

This exchange tells us that the way we use the word “good” is not how God uses it. We lightly call people “good,” but God uses it in an absolute sense. As Jesus says, no one is good in the absolute sense. If you measure people by God’s standard of goodness, there’s no such thing as a good person.

The Bible teaches that all of humanity is infected by sin. None of us are perfect, no matter how “good” we may be in a human sense. The only thing that can enter heaven is absolute perfection - near enough is not good enough.

Jesus replied to this wealthy young man, “If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” The man responded he had already been keeping all the commandments, and he asked Jesus what he was still missing. Jesus told him to go and sell everything he had and give the money to the poor.

What did Jesus mean by this? He suggested that you needed to think again if you thought you could enter heaven by being good – by your performance. Because no matter how good you were – how much you had done – there would always be more to do.

The only way anyone is ever going to get to heaven is by the goodness of Jesus. On the cross, he paid the price for your sins. Now, when you trust in him, his goodness is credited to your account because of what he did on the cross. There’s no other way.

So, what about “good people”? I’ll leave that to God.

– Eliezer Gonzalez