Some people say “Can God rightly hold people responsible for their sin if they have never heard the gospel? How would it be fair for God to judge them when they never had a chance to hear?” Or “Is it possible that those who have never heard of Christ or the gospel might be accepted by God some other way? Maybe God knows that their hearts are seeking him, and so he will save them. It just doesn’t seem fair that people must hear about Christ in order to be saved since so many never do.” As we will see, these questions come out of a framework of God that misunderstands the mercy and love of God, and the nature of our sin as the bible reveals it.
Here are 13 points I have put together to help respond to these objections.
1) God has made it so that everyone can know his divine qualities through the world He has created which reflects them. (Romans 1:18-20)
2) The bible does not present us with a God who chances upon neutral men and women and arbitrarily consigns some to heaven and some to hell. Every single person on the earth has suppressed this truth in their own wickedness and not given thanks to the God who created this world. (Romans 1:18-20). We are born dead in sin (Psalm 51:5). Why? Because we part of Adam's fallen race, who as our representative waged war against God through His claim for autonomy from him in the garden. As Romans 5:18, 19 says: "therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men...For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners". No man is an island. "For as in Adam all die" (1 Cor. 15:22)
3) In not giving thanks to God and acknowledging God and living for God all now live a life of rebellion against their creator.
4) Therefore every single person deserves, not heaven, but death and the wrath of God for their rebellion.(Romans 6:23)
5) “We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one...there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:9-12) We are all judged based upon our works, therefore all are judged guilty and deserving of God’s wrath.
6) God is righteous, he is morally perfect and Holy, and no one can enter his presence, no one can enter heaven, unless they are Holy and righteous. Not only that but God is perfectly just and cannot just forgive us of our sins without bringing justice on them- his justice must be satisfied by people receiving the punishment that their sins rightly deserve.
7) In Romans 3:21-25,28 Paul reveals the only way that people dead in their sin, awaiting the judgement of God, can be made righteous. And it is through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And this faith justifies/declares someone right before God, apart from any good works they do. “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood…For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.“ In God's mercy He not only he, through Christ makes the way of salvation available to the gentiles who previously were "at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." (Ephesians 2:12-13)
8) Through faith in Jesus, people are credited/given the perfect life of Jesus ( which is his righteousness) which God requires from us to enter heaven, and Jesus is credited/given our un-righteousness/our sinfulness and at the cross he took the punishment that this un-righteousness deserves in our place. Martin Luther called this the great exchange. (Romans 4:5) There is a second category apart from works that we might be judged, and that is by the gospel of grace. Faith in Jesus means we are judged based upon Christ’s merit which is perfect, and therefore, by God’s grace, we can enter heaven not based on our own works.
9) “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
10) Paul goes on to explain the logical implications that people must preach the message of the gospel for it to be heard so that people can put their faith in Jesus.” How then shall they call on the one they have not believed in? And how shall they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”’ (Romans 10:12)
11) Conrnelius was known as a devout non Jewish person who feared God, gave generously and even prayed to God regularly. Acts 10 shows us that even he needed to hear about Christ and believe in Christ to be saved. Cornelius was not saved until Peter spoke the words.The angel that had appeared to Cornelius had even said to Him that Peter “will bring you a message through which you an all your household will be saved.” (Acts 11:14). Peter responds by saying that "everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”(Acts 10:43) and “while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all those heard the message.”(Acts 10:44).The hearing of the message by Cornelius and his family saved them as God “purified their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9).
12) You cannot separate the saving work that Jesus accomplishes for us on the cross from the actual person of Jesus who accomplishes. What the New Testament calls for is faith in (en) or into (eis) or upon (spi) Christ Himself – the placing of our trust in the living Saviour, who lived a righteous live and died for sins. The object ofsaving faith is thus not strictly speaking the atonement but the Lord Jesus Christ who made the atonement. For the persons to whom the benefits of Chist’s death belong are just those who trust His Person. People must put their faith in the name of Jesus to be saved. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12).”Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). 'Come unto me… and I will give you rest,’ said the Lord in Matthew 11:28.
13) After death those who didn’t put their faith in Jesus will continue doing wrong. They will not change. “let those who do wrong continue to do wrong; let those who are vile continue to be vile; let those who do right continue to do right, and let those who are holy continue to be holy” (Rev 22:10-11). After death we are judged based upon what we did whilst we were alive, there is no second chance. “For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”(2 Corin. 5:10) All have done bad and therefore unless we have faith in Christ, and he has become our goodness, our perfect life, then we shall receive God’s wrath.
Q and A
Question: What is the present condition of people, as Jesus describes them here.
Answer: unforgiven and unrepentant sinners. And since they are still in their sin, they are not saved.
Question: What must happen for them to be forgiven(saved)?
Answer: they must repent of their sins.
Question: What is needed for them to repent of their sin so they can be forgiven and saved?
Answer: a proclamation is needed that calls them to repent.
Question: What is the content of the proclamation?
Answer: they are to hear a proclamation “in his name”; so the content must be about Jesus who suffered and rose on the third day.
Question: Finally, to whom does all this apply? That is, who are these unrepentant and unforgiven sinners who need to repent to be saved but who can only repent as they hear a proclamation of Christ and the gospel?
Answer: “all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Jesus does not consider the vast numbers of people making up the “nations” as already having saving revelation available to them. Rather, believers must proclaim the message of Christ to all the nations for people in those nations to be saved. And thus God’s Great mercy will be extended to all the nations in the entire world. The responsibility is on us to bring this gospel to the nations so that they can receive the salvation God has planned to bring to them.
The Urgency of the preaching of the gospel
Where does this leave us as Christians? It leads us straight back to Jesus great commission. That we are to go out into all the nations of the world teaching them the gospel. And it places immediacy on this because without the gospel being preached to people they have no chance of being saved.
This understanding should make us urgent. Without Christ are lost, and going to hell. “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:3,5) And we who are Christ’s are sent to tell them of the only One who can save them from perishing. It should also make us bold We should not be daunted when we witness apathy or even contempt in people’s reaction to the gospel? No we should expect it. For we have no hope in ourselves of converting any sinner toward God. No hope of giving life to the spiritually dead, no hope of breaking the power of Satan over a mans life. For regarded as a purely human enterprise, evangelism is a hopeless enterprise. However, God can give His truth an effectiveness that you and I cannot give. If God is sovereign over the election of people then there is assurance that God will be saving people through his word being preached. For this is what he promised.
They must be told of Christ before they can trust Him, and they must trust Him before they can be saved by Him. Salvation depends on faith, and faith on knowing the gospel. God’s way of saving sinners is to bring them to faith through bringing them into contact with the gospel. Knowing all of this should bring us back to a prayerful dependence on God to work through sinners like us to bring His gospel out into the world. The knowledge, then, that God is sovereign in grace, and that we are impotent to win souls, and that people would never turn to God in their sin, should make us pray, and keep us praying. In God’s ordering of things, therefore, evangelism is a necessity if anyone is to be saved at all. We must realize, therefore that when God sends us to evangelize, He sends us to act as vital links in the chain of His purpose for the salvation of His elect. The fact that He has such a purpose and that it is a sovereign purpose that cannot be thwarted, does not imply that, after all, our evangelizing is not needed for its fulfillment. In our Lord’s parable, the way in which the wedding was furnished with guests was through the action of the king’s servants, who went out as they were bidden into the highways and invited in all whom they found there. Hearing the invitation, the passers-by came. It is in the same way, and through similar action by the servants of God, that the elect come into salvation that the Redeemer has won for them. God has told us to love our neighbor. Now, the nature of love is to do good and to relieve need. If, then, our neighbour is unconverted, we are to show love to him as best we can by seeking to share with him the good news without which he will perish. And so we sing in the words of Edward Mote:
"On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand"
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