"
"But I still struggle with how I should view those who have other beliefs. I'm not sure I am ready to condemn them as wrong. I know some very good Buddhists. What is their destiny?"
I would take her to Romans 2:6-10: "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger."
What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that? I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say "he can't save them." I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved. But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: "There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.""
This kind of thinking is amazingly dangerous and I would say even borders on heresy.
1) If someone comes to you and says: What about my buddhist/muslim/atheist friend who is really good, won't they go to heaven? Your answer is very scripturally: Unless they repent and believe (Mark 1:15, Acts 19:4, Romans 10:9-10) they shall not be saved. There is absolutely only one sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:12), not multiple. In fact this is the entire point of Romans 1-3. In particular Romans 1:18-32 labors the point that God is knowable and that those who reject the God of the Bible do so knowingly and purposely. What kind of god is God who rejects those who are nice but reject Him? A righteous, holy, perfect, and just God. He is the ultimate one deserving of worship. It is Him alone who made the universe and everything in it. He alone holds the universe together even now. Worshiping any other, including ourselves, is the height of idolatry. In fact, God is infinitely merciful to allow all of us who previously worshiped other than He to live long enough to accept His Lordship.
2) Willard's whole point that people can be super good and just not know Jesus and therefore be hosed out of getting into heaven by an unfair God completely ignores the entire contents of Romans 1-3. Paul is making the point as strongly as possible that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none. NOT EVEN ONE!! who is perfect enough to get into heaven. That is except for Jesus of course. Remember that even a single sin separates us from God because is perfect. Once we're less than perfect we cannot be in His presence, and He can't stand to have us in His presence. Imagine if you said/did one dumb thing to the CEO of your company or to the President. You would be forever removed from his presence for your incompetence. Those at the top don't want to have you there to taint them. God of course is thousand, billion times more holy then mere men and cannot have sinners near Him. The only way we get to be in the presence of the Father is through His amazing mercy, shown through the willingness of God to kill His Son on our behalf to bear our burden in our place. Then we have the righteousness of Christ instead of our own, and suddenly we're adopted into the Family and made to be His children.
3) He says Christians get anxious about this point. No we don't. We get saddened for those who don't know the Lord and are too stubborn to look at the sin in their life and repent. We long for those we love to realize that their works are not sufficient to save them, and that only Jesus can do so. We long to tell them the truth that they may be saved instead of languish in false hope.
4) His strange laundering statement at the end that anyone who is going to be saved will be saved by Jesus regardless of their knowledge of Him is completely and totally ridiculous double-talk. Now at this point if he tried to bring up Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and their lack of knowledge of who Jesus is, I'd at least give him some credit that he was trying to argue from the Bible. Thankfully God doesn't leave us hanging with His Theology. Romans 4 makes it clear that Abraham was saved by faith in the Promise of the Messiah. And Jesus makes clear in Matthew 5 that Moses wrote about Him. But to say that anyone today who doesn't hear about Jesus is excused, but will still be saved by Jesus is nonsense and confusing.
If you don't know Jesus, Please, Please, Please read the Bible and pursue whether the claims of Christ are true. Talk to me about them, talk to someone else. Just find out if it's true or not. Because if you're thinking that somehow you are going to deal with your sin/guilt problem on your own or through some mechanism other than Jesus' death on the cross, you will have a very, very painful realization when you die.
