There's something interesting to me about the following passages:
"Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, 'In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.' " All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult." (Isaiah 45)
"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2)
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord,"and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile - the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10)
To summarize, the Old Testament says that all the descendents of Israel will be found righteous, and the New Testament says that there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles (at least if they call on Jesus). The Old Testament verse indicates that those who have "raged against" God will be put to shame, yet the New Testament says that everyone who trusts in Jesus (which, contextually, seems to be synonymous with confessing his Lordship) will never be put to shame. Most importantly, everyone will someday acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, and anyone who acknowledges Jesus' Lordship will be saved. So who goes to Hell?
There is that bit about everyone "in heaven and on earth and under the earth", which people take to mean the dead Christians in heaven, the dead sinners in hell, and some group of people who for some reason are still on earth. Personally I'm not sure where we get this idea that Christians will inhabit heaven, so I'm immediately a bit suspicious of this interpretation. I think it makes more sense to read this as talking about angels in heaven, demons in hell, and humans on earth (the old one or the new, I don't care). Based on the curious relationships between these three passages, it almost looks to me like no humans are damned.
I know I'm distorting scripture and taking stuff out of context and being selective and twisting it to fit my preconceptions and all that terrible stuff. I know Matthew 25 seems to indicate that some people go to hell. (But which people?) Yes, I have unorthodox views about damnation, but no, I don't feel the need to justify them with scripture. This little exegetical project is just the extension of a "waitaminnit" moment I had the other day. It just struck me as interesting that the clearest verse on salvation (or it might be more accurate to say the most popular verse on salvation) says that all who confess Jesus' lordship are saved, while a popular judgment day verse says that everyone will one day do just that, which begs the question of why we would not all be saved. Interesting - that's all I'm saying.
Most conservative Christians wouldn't consider such an unorthodox proposition as a second chance for salvation after death. ("Most", in this case would not include Brother Clive.) Most people would take it for granted that the confess/believe method of salvation works only before death, which is a reasonable (though unprovable) interpretation. But I can't imagine why God would still condemn people to hell if they confess his lordship after death. It just doesn't make sense. Unless this confession is involuntary or forced, isn't it a) what God wants from us in exchange for salvation and b) suggesting that all people desire Christ's lordship at this point, and would prefer fellowship with him to eternal separation? I suppose you could interpret this as rebellious people saying "We recognize your greatness and power, but we want nothing to do with you", but it seems like a stretch. The very act of saying "You are Lord" suggest submission, and if the confession is done willingly, then the submission would be willing too. In any case, the confess & believe formula (Ro 9) says nothing about the attitude of your heart, so it seems to me that even reluctant belief would qualify for salvation. (Again, take Lewis as an example.)
Again, I'm not pretending that this is the "correct" interpretable of the Bible, or that it somehow harmonizes with all other verses on the subject, but frankly, there aren't many better interpretations out there. I absolutely reject the just-say-the-prayer theory of salvation. To me it seems neither logical nor fully Biblical. James, John, and Jesus (to name a few) all believed that there is no salvation without action. Not that action is required for salvation, but that if there is salvation, actions will result. No action, no salvation.
(By the by, in NT times they actually used the presence of the Spirit people's lives as proof of salvation. These days we have it reversed: we use our salvation as proof that we have the Spirit. In the same vein, these days Christians see people being saved and infer that the Spirit is at work. Back then sinners saw the Spirit at work, and consequently became saved. Weird, eh?)
Of course, this whole no hell theory assumes that God is a fairly reasonable, loving, egalitarian kind of guy. If God is a fundamentalist, a sadist, or anything like the way he comes across in certain portions of the Old Testament, all bets are off.
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I like the idea that Chirstianity is more about being freed from bondage to sin or having abundant life than about escaping the wrath of God. My problem is that I just don't see Christianity actually having these real-life inherent benefits. Of course, it's impossible to accurately measure, but do Christians really have some kind of special ability to resist what we call sin? Does Christianity (not my views about Christianity or my disposition towards Christianity but Christianity its self) really have an effect on me? I have a very hard time believing that. Of course for some people being a Christian is inspiring, exciting, calming, ennobling, etc. but to say something like "if you become a Christian you will be freed from sin" just seems absurd to me.
I think I'm a little bit cynical about any blanket claims made about the effects/results of Christianity. Probably because I haven't yet found one that isn't belied by either my own experience or that of someone I know. I used to say that the only thing I can promise you if you become a Christian is that you will go to heaven rather than hell when you die. Now I don't think I can say even that. I think what I believe now is that for some people becoming a Christian would be a positive step (and for others maybe not). That's just my view.
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