As many different people who post on this forum, is about how many different answsers you will get. What you have brought up is a debatable issue that I don't believe anyone really has a true answer for ... except the answer that God is the Righteous Judge and however He decides to make the determination as to who will and will not go to heaven is up to Him and will always be right.

Now for my opinion. If Jesus says, "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me" and if Paul says, "there is no other name [Jesus] given among men by which we must be saved", then we can rest assure that one must belong to Jesus Christ by accepting Him as their Savior to fulfill those verses. Also if Jesus says elsewhere that the ones who will be saved are those who visit the sick, feed the hungry, etc., and those who do not will not enter into heaven. Then we can say that not only accepting Christ as your Savior, but also living as Christ lived is necessary to be saved. Now that kindof goes along with what Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-ff ... "Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of God but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven."

You can't just take one verse at the neglect of all of the other verses and expect to have all of the necessary information needed to come to a right understanding of salvation.

Deist