Many people will rightly say that in order to be saved (meaning to have your sins forgiven and to avoid spending eternity separated from God) one needs to believe in Jesus. They might quote Romans 10:9, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” However, what this verse demonstrates is a sufficient way to be saved, but it’s not a necessary way to be saved. For example, Abraham never did this, and neither did Joseph, David, or countless other believers who lived before Christ who were saved by their faith. Even since Jesus’ ascension up into heaven, over 2,000 years ago, there have been countless believers who have never heard about Jesus. So, the question that this essay aims to address is, “How can someone be saved if they’ve never heard about Jesus?”
We live in a world where theism, deism, and atheism are held beliefs. Atheism is easily defeated by logic, and I’ve addressed that in a separate essay called, “Prove it, and I’ll believe!”, so I won’t speak on that here. Theism and deism are the more commonly held beliefs. Deism is the belief that there may be a god, but if god exists, then this creator-being had long ago set the universe in motion but detached from it and does not interact with it. Theism, on the other hand, is the belief that God is certain, that He created the universe, interacts with His creation, reveals Himself to all of His creation, and seeks an active relationship with His creation. If theism is true, then deism by default cannot be true. This is one of the problems that I have with those who claim that they hold to both Christian and Buddhist beliefs, as Buddhism is deism, and Christianity is theism. In this essay, I’m going to attempt to expound some Scriptural teachings about how God interacts with us, pursues us, and makes Himself known to all mankind.
Christians believe in what’s called general revelation. This refers to the common way that God has, and continues to, reveal Himself to all people, in all places, in every part of human history. God generally reveals Himself to mankind through nature and conscience, so that all people know He’s real and sense their moral responsibility and accountability to Him. Romans 1:18-27 describes how the Lord has made himself known to all people and how wicked are those that have turned away from God to pursue their own false deities and passions, despite knowing His truth.
Romans 1:18-21, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
These verses begin by saying that God’s wrath against man’s unrighteousness is justified because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident. Man doesn’t seek God, or pursue God, but God pursues us. It’s God’s effort to reach man that initiates the relationship between man and Creator. So, how has God made Himself known and evident within man? The passage goes on and tells us, “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen.” Since Adam, until today, despite being a spiritual and thus invisible Being, God’s been clearly seen, or clearly demonstrated and knowable, by revealing certain attributes of His to all people. What attributes has He revealed? His eternal power and divine nature. These things are known by all. This means that all people, when we get down to it, cannot honestly deny that an eternal divine God exists. That much is clear. But, how is this reality made clear to all people? By someone telling them? By reading a book about it? By God spelling out things in the stars? No, these things have been clearly revealed by simply encountering the natural world around us. This is explained as the verses continue. The realities of God are, “…being understood through what has been made.”
So, how does nature reveal that an eternal and divine being must exist? Let’s start by using simple logic – From nothing, nothing comes. This truth is self-evident, meaning that even the simplest mind can understand that all things that come into existence have a cause. The marvelous natural world that we encounter insists upon the realities of an intelligent mind, but also a Creator that must be outside of His creation. One who creates time, space, and matter, must logically be outside of, and unaffected by, time, space, and matter. Being outside of these things, God still interacts within them in order to engage us continuously. God’s making His reality known to us is evident throughout history. In fact, if you were to make a time-machine and go to any point in human history, anywhere in the world, you’d find a people group worshipping a deity, a higher being. They may not all worship the true Creator, but there’s an innate truth in all people that know that someone not visible is the author of life and creation. So, God’s existence is demonstrated by nature. But, so much more than His existence is also shown!
God’s wisdom is demonstrated in nature. The intricate design of animals, plants and the order of the natural world and solar system are obvious evidence that an intelligent mind created all things. Our design and complexity cannot be denied. Therefore, God’s omniscience, meaning the all-knowing nature of God, is revealed in His creation. Even the hard-nosed atheist Francis Crick, upon discovering D.N.A., had to admit that the theory of evolution cannot be true when faced with this new scientific evidence. He admitted the reality of an intelligent designer, yet still denied God as that designer, choosing instead to invoke the fantasy of unevidenced aliens. For more on this, read my essay about Creation versus Evolution.
Creation still goes further to reveal God’s goodness. How so? Nature is full of balance and protection for all species, weak and strong, large and small. There’s a divine balance that allows life to co-exist with such a vast multitude of other competing species of plants and animals. Not only this, but God creates pleasure for pleasures sake. For example, food that is needed to sustain us, is also pleasing to the taste. This isn’t necessary, but it’s to the delight of God and man that food is this way. Even before food was a necessary sustainer for mankind, pre-sin, Adam and Eve enjoyed food for pleasures sake, just as the Bible says food will be enjoyed for pleasures sake in heaven. Smells are another example. We have smells that warn us of danger, but we also have smells for the sole purpose of delight. And what about beauty? God’s created beauty, not because the world needed beauty to exist, but because God is good and wants His creation to enjoy what He’s made to the fullest.
Lastly, we can go on to say that creation also reveals the moral realities of God. Even in nature, there is an objective moral absolute. In the animal kingdom, animals kill to eat, not to wipe out other animals. For example, there’s never been a lion who has a “Hitler” complex that has sought to wipe out all the antelope in Africa. On the contrary, lions live amongst their prey and only kill when hungry. Mankind too has an innate moral code that reveals the realities of a moral law-giver. One could travel to any society in human history and there are objective standards that are clearly wrong; murder, stealing, etc. Man didn’t need to be told these things, it’s innate in him, meaning having in him without external influence. In the theory of evolution, life is arbitrary and has no objective purpose, no intelligent origin, no objective right or wrong, and no existence after death, while nature reveals that these beliefs are unfounded and logically absurd.
Stepping aside from the Romans passage for a moment, we find Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament where verse3:11says, “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has set eternity in their heart; so that no man can find out the work which God has done from the beginning to the end.” Eternity means – forever, always. God has rooted the reality of eternity in every human heart; and when a man considers these things, he sees that the works of God refer to God’s endless operation and duration. The meaning is, that God has set before our minds the whole world of nature which reveals His power, wisdom, goodness, and eternality; but yet the knowledge and works of God is so abundant, and there is so much presented to us, that in our limited capacity and such short lives we cannot in all our days figure out or discover all the works of God, but only a small portion of it. Yet this small portion is sufficient for saving grace. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”, Romans 11:33. And though “everything is appropriate in its time”, yet they will not be perfectly/fully understood by man.
Lastly, Romans 1 goes on to say that man cannot rightly say, “I didn’t know?” It says that God has so sufficiently revealed Himself to mankind, “so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” This part of the text is so straight forward. No one will be in hell who will be able to justly say that he shouldn’t be there. These verses clearly state that everyone knows God. Even those who might claim that they don’t. They may not know the name of Jesus, but all mankind is without excuse about the realities of the existence and nature of God. Here it adds that though knowing God, wicked people turned away from truth in order to pursue their own selfish interests. This is magnified when you continue to read verse 22-27, “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, meaning they knew God, but put aside that truth in order to pursue immoral selfishness and attempt to avoid the accountability that comes by accepting God as real.
The Name of Jesus & Special Revelation
Can someone in hell claim, “I had never heard of Jesus, so how can I be justly condemned for my choices?” No. One doesn’t need to know the name of Jesus in order to make a faith decision in God. Don Richardson writes a book called, Eternity in Their Hearts, which magnifies this truth. Don was a missionary in the mid 1900’s who was the first to reach certain very remote tribes of people. Using a translator, upon arriving at one of the villages, some of the people there said to Don, “Have you come to tell us about the God who died for us?” Now, how could these people know this sort of thing without some special revelation from God?
Special revelation is where God reveals Himself to mankind beyond the general revelation given to all. Special revelation is unique and not common to everyone. For example, God sending an angel or a prophet to someone, God talking to Moses through the burning bush, or someone getting a Bible in their own language. God also uses man’s conscience to speak realities to them, or He will use visions or dreams. In recent years many reports have come to the United States that testify of the Christian church growing in closed Islamic nations, where Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus by way of dreams and visions from the Lord.
Handicapped People
What about people that have severe mental disabilities, that we can’t seem to truly communicate with? It’s important to understand that God is not limited by the barriers that man is limited by. God can reach people even when there is no man-to-man communication that seems to work. Hellen Keller was born blind and deaf. Amazingly, she was able to eventually learn how to communicate and even went on to become a school teacher. When she did learn to communicate with others, she was famously noted as saying, “I always knew God, it’s just now that I know His name is Jesus!” God is busy reaching and pursuing His creation no matter how far out of reach they may seem to us.
“What about babies?”
What happens to little ones when they die? It certainly wouldn’t seem just to condemn a little one to an eternity separated from God when he was too young to comprehend God or put faith in God. I believe the Bible speaks to this in at least three areas. In 2 Samuel 12, David is facing the death of an infant son that he had with Bathsheba. While the sick child is facing death, David is busy fasting and praying and petitioning God for the babies life. However, the Lord sees fit to allow the sickness to end the baby’s life, at which point King David gets up, washes and dresses himself, and calls for food. His servants are confused and ask him why isn’t he now mourning and fasting, since his son has died? David replies, in verses 22-23, “He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” David is declaring that the child is in heaven and that he himself will someday see his son in heaven. The Bible assures us that David was a real man of faith, and is in heaven. But, was David right in his assumption about the baby? Perhaps he was just wishfully thinking. Is there a passage that confirms that what David suspected was true? I think there is.
In Isaiah 7:14-16, the king of Judah is given a prophecy by Isaiah. The king is in fear of two kingdoms that are threatening his kingdom. Isaiah says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.” The baby Jesus is in view in this prophecy, and twice it reiterates a truth that applies to children, even the child, Jesus. When Jesus starts to eat more solid foods, he’ll be at a unique place in His life to have cognitive discernment. The truth claim here is that children will reach an age where they are able to discern truth from untruth, and thus be accountable for that choice. This insists that before that age, one is not accountable as one cannot make such a discernment. In the Christian Church we call this the “age of accountability”. This isn’t an exact age, like 3 years and seven months, but rather I assume it varies person to person. God knows when an individual is capable of making such choices. Lastly, in Genesis 8:21, God proclaims, “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” I notice here that He doesn’t say from birth, or from conception, but from his youth, which further supports the “age of accountability” reality.
Conclusion
General revelation has sufficiently revealed the reality of the Almighty Eternal God to you. The Bible is a tool, a form of special revelation, for you to know Him more intimately. I hope that you are saturating your mind with God’s Word, and that you can appreciate how some people around the world are dying to have such a privilege.