The question of whether good, moral, ethical people will go to heaven has a deceptively simple answer. Yes, absolutely. Good, moral, ethical people will go to heaven. That’s a relief to most people because most people consider themselves to be basically good, moral and ethical. They compare themselves to other people and feel “I’m probably above average.” The problem is that God doesn’t grade on a curve, he grades each person according to his perfect standard of holiness. The good news is that good moral, ethical people will go to heaven but the bad news is that no human being, except Jesus, has been truly good and truly moral and truly ethical.
The Bible says in Romans 3:23 that we all fall short of God’s standards. And we don’t even meet our own standard of morality. God’s standard is infinitely higher than ours. The Bible says even the good things we do are stained by mixed motives so that creates a problem. Only perfect people are allowed into heaven and the Bible says none of us is perfect. But God wants to spend eternity with us and so he devised an amazing plan that can open the doors of heaven for us. He sent His only Son Jesus Christ to live the perfect life and then to die on the cross in our place to pay for all of the wrongdoing we’ve ever done. The Bible says his cloak of perfect righteousness can be put on us with our sins forgiven. Then we can enter into heaven for all of eternity. All of this the Bible says is a gift, which you’re free to either reject or to accept in humility, faith and repentance, a gift you can accept right now by saying a prayer in which you confess your wrongdoing, turn from the path you’ve been walking and receive Jesus Christ’s free gift of forgiveness, and then follow him all the days of your life and into eternity.