One of the difficulties of a message like last Sunday's is all that couldn't be said in the time we had together. As I try not to think of all the things that we didn't have time for (I could drive myself crazy!), I want to encourage you to study the topic of heaven and hell for yourself. There is much to learn, much to consider, and a lot at stake.
As mentioned, I borrowed heavily from the book Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. I am going to use this resource one more time to respond to one of the questions I hear a lot but couldn't tackle on Sunday: What about the person who has never heard the gospel?
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want to talk further. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments!
Pastor Tracy
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Excerpt from Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, p.158-160.
What about the person who has never heard the gospel?
This is a tough one. It comes up in almost every Bible study I've ever taught. What about the man in the jungle who has never heard the gospel and therefore never has the opportunity to accept Jesus? What if he simply responds to the light he's been given? He lived as best he could, and if he had heard the gospel, he probably would have believed it. Will God save such a person?
Everything in me wants to say yes. Because saying yes makes sense. Yes seems fair. But here's the problem: There's nothing in Scripture that says anyone will be saved apart from faith in Jesus.
Scripture also teaches that the so-called "light" we've all been given through creation, what theologians call general revelation, is sufficient to condemn but not sufficient to save. In other words, when people look at creation and see that there must be a God, and yet have no way of knowing His name or the plan of salvation, the Bible says that these people do not respond positively to such "light". Paul addresses this directly in Romans 1:18-22.
This passage says that all people have been given light - general knowledge that there is a God - and yet all people reject this knowledge and are therefore without excuse. Even though I have theoretical stories in my mind of a person living in the jungle who responds positively to the light he's been given, Paul argues otherwise. This passage teaches that all people are condemned not for rejecting the gospel but for rejecting the "general revelation" that's given to all people.
Scripture teaches that a person must come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ to be saved. However, God can reveal knowledge through many different forms: dreams, visions, or divinely given thoughts that penetrate the mind of the person living in the jungle, or whomever. I've heard countless stories, maybe you have too, of people living in places thick with Islam, or other religions, where there is little or no exposure to the gospel, and yet people come to Christ. They have a vision or dream in which Jesus appears to them, and they respond. God can save whomever He wants, however He wants, but He always does so through the one avenue He Himself paved: His Son Jesus Christ.
I must mention, however, that in Scripture, people are normally saved through a human messenger. In fact, Romans 10:13-15 indicates that preaching the gospel is the prescribed means through which God saves people. While God has used dreams and visions to reach people (see Galatians 1:12-16), we should not depend on such means to reach the unreached. There are still billions of people who have never heard the gospel. God makes it clear that it is our responsibility to go to them.
Everything I've said thus far seems clear to me from Scripture. There are heaps of important follow-up questions that should be asked, but at the end of the day, we have to simply believe what Scripture says and not go beyond it. With all these tough questions, it's best to let God be God and believe that the Judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:25).
