I work with children who are clearly broken. I doubt anyone would look down on them for their unhealthy reactions to the things they have been through. In truth, all of us are broken to one degree or another and react in unhealthy ways to our traumas. What we don't usually think about is that the people we judge and look down upon are also very broken, sometimes in more devastating ways than we could ever imagine.
We probably will never see what is below the surface of those people we look down upon and write off as not worthy of love. Oh, I know some people reading this are thinking "Oh, I don't judge anyone. I don't think I'm better than anyone." Let's be honest, though. We all do to an extent at times. It's human nature, and understandable when we look at the outside. Some people are just not very endearing or simply do reprehensible things.
Fortunately, God does not look at man in regard to the surface or our actions. He knows us inside and out. He sees the traumas and the pain behind our very worst actions. He understands more than we could ever know about ourselves, let alone those people we judge and write off as beyond love. He loves them just as much as He loves each one of us who feel we are the "worthy" ones. Our carnal perspective keeps us from understanding how unconditional His love is. We see people as worthy or unworthy of love (whether we admit it or not), good or bad, evil or divine. God sees all of us as His.
God has gone to great lengths to redeem our brokenness in ways that may or may not manifest within our lifetimes. He became one of us to take our sins, our death, and our brokenness--indeed our very humanity--upon Himself. He took it all and died with it, then resurrected us with Him as a new humanity. This is the gospel. His work is finished, whether we believe it or not. Those of us who believe benefit greatly from knowing what He has done, while those who do not know or believe cannot benefit despite it being just as true for them.
Because I have come to a different perspective of the gospel, the traditional Christianese often just doesn't work for me. When people hear me state things such as the previous paragraph, it's not uncommon for them to say "Are you saying everyone is saved?" or "Are you saying there's no Hell, or nobody's going to Hell?" I lose patience with these questions sometimes, but they're reasonable from the vocabulary of mainstream Christianity. I have to ask "What do you mean by 'saved'" or "What do you mean by 'Hell?'" Another question I'm often asked is "If God has already reconciled everybody to himself, why bother to preach the gospel?" Again, frustrating, but reasonable from the mainstream perspective.
This is why we spread the gospel--to tell the world that their sin, death, and brokenness has been redeemed by the Creator of the Universe. Some may never believe, or even be hostile and reject the very Truth, but that makes it no less true for them. It will only cause them great misery. Those are things that are objective facts, but cannot be experienced by us until we actually believe them. I work with kids who truly believe they are bad kids, or unloveable. As a result, they cannot receive praise easily for good behavior, or believe our care for them is sincere. They simply have believed lies about themselves they have been told repeatedly. The same goes for us as humanity. Until we fully come to believe we belong to God and that we have been raised to a new humanity through His resurrection, we will live as if we are slaves to sin. None of it is true, but it's very REAL to us because of the lies we have believed about ourselves.
Now about Hell. Some have accepted Dante's vision as if it's a part of the canon of scripture, despite scant scriptural evidence of that. Others simply believe Hell is eternal separation from God. I've come to believe something different. First, I believe it's completely impossible to be separated from God, who is omnipresent. Scripture also repeatedly tells us He will never leave or forsake us, and that we cannot be separated from His love. So, I've come to believe Hell is a self-imposed state experienced by those who refuse to believe or are actively hostile to the truth I've stated above and to God's all-encompassing love. I believe God will be showering His love on those miserable ones for eternity just as He will shower it on those of us who come to believe. It's just that to those who embrace it, it will be all joy, while to those who reject it, it will be all torment. Not imposed by God, but experienced by those who hate and reject His love. Will all of those eventually be won over by His love? I cannot know, but I certainly hope so.
So, are all saved? I guess if you mean forgiven, reconciled, and resurrected to new life in Christ, then yes. If you mean do all respond and accept that truth, thereby living in freedom, then certainly not. But don't think for a second that those people are any less loved, forgiven, reconciled, and alive than those of us who believe (and few of us, including myself, have fully come to believe the full truth, though we may be on the journey to having it become real to us). Let us forget the repeated lies we have been told and open our hearts to the truth of His gospel.
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