(Ask Anything Friday is a series that I try to get to each Friday… if you have a question, submit it HERE. No subject is off-limits! Questions can relate to the church, theology, personal life, etc.)
Sorry for the delayed “Ask Anything Friday” post… we’ll consider this the “Ask Anything early Saturday” post. We’re going to try a new format where I’ll be giving a video answer… So, drumroll… Here is our 1st one.
The question reads: “What insight can we glean from the Bible about those who have never heard about Jesus? How can God hold someone accountable for something they never heard?” Here’s an attempted answer (let me know what you think about this new format!)
Ask Anything Friday from The Summit Church on Vimeo.
I preached a whole sermon on this issue last summer from Acts 4 at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. If you’re interested, click here!
I have been struggling with wrapping my mind around this over the last few months. This, together with some Piper teaching, has been really helpful! Thank you and I will be passing this on!
Thanks for tackling this question.
So, suppression of the innate knowledge of God is the damning factor, not the lack of knowledge of Jesus Christ? That’s very interesting to me, if I heard correctly. What then was the purpose of sending Jesus? If knowledge of God and lack of suppressing that knowledge is enough to remove damnation, why then is the gospel necessary? Or, does this apply strictly to those who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? Either way, this is somewhat of a new thought for me. I appreciate the insights. Thanks Pastor.
J.D., I am a big fan of the new blog design and think the AAF design on video is great! Well done and appreciate the insight.
Thanks,
Blair
JD,
Definitely not an easy question to answer in a five minute video blog. I believe I am following your train of thought re: the suppression of the knowledge of the divine, but what about the particularity of Christ? Knowledge of an abstract divine, does not seem to account fully for the incarnation of Jesus.
I really like your link to the book of Acts.
I, too, am a pastor. Honestly, I don’t think men like Paul and Peter would have asked such a question. I believe they thought of the world as much smaller so a vision of everyone hearing the good news was their goal. They wanted people to know and honestly believed it was a goal they could accomplish. So what did they do? They stopped asking questions and they went out to fulfill the Great Commission. While I do believe some very genuine followers of Christ ask this question, I often wonder if the underlying reason for this question is driven by our own unwillingness to go and tell. The task seems too immense so we are overcome with fear and we never go. We just ask questions like these, in hopes that we can remove the onus of discipleship and disciple making.
What even seems most clear in Scripture is that followers of Christ have a task, so we better get about the business of the kingdom.
Parke:
J.D. was saying that suppressing our knowledge of God is what damns us. That is the reason we have no excuse for denying God and sinning. We sin against God who we all know is there whether we ever hear of Jesus or not.
Jesus is what saves those who believe in Him. We aren’t capable of following God without the work of Jesus. That is why Jesus was necessary for salvation.
While the sacrifice of Jesus was necessary for salvation, I think it is quite controversial that the knowledge of the person Jesus is necessary for a person to be saved. If everyone knows God (Romans 1) and if everybody who calls on the name of the Lord is saved (Joel 2:32, Romans 10:13), then it is at least logically possible for everyone to be saved.
J.D. raises the point that perhaps everybody who truly seeks God will have a missionary or some revelation of the person Jesus so that that person can believe and be saved. The problem for that view, I think, is that it seems to fly in the face of history and experience.
I read the account of an unreached South American people group who had never heard of Jesus. The tribe believed in God and passed down by oral tradition a story very similar to the biblical account of Adam and Eve. In addition, their ancestors told of a prophesy in which white men (the tribe had never seen white men) would bring them a book to teach them about the son of God. Understandably when the missionaries got there the tribe was very sympathetic to their message, and I believe nearly all of them or maybe all of them were converted to Christianity.
Now under the view that knowledge of Jesus is required for salvation, the conclusion would be that all of their ancestors are eternally damned when surely they would have also believed the gospel had they heard it.
Also I would have to question at what point in history did knowledge of the person of Jesus become a prerequisite to salvation, much less a relationship with God. Would it be the precise moment of his birth? His death? His resurrection? Or perhaps when he started his public ministry? Or maybe when he made his post-resurrection appearances? Or maybe when the early church started in Acts?
Many people before Christ had a personal relationship with God. I would think many such people would have been around in Jesus’ day without ever hearing about Jesus. If such a person died one minute after the moment in time when knowledge of Jesus suddenly became a prerequisite for salvation is that person now damned when he would have been saved under Old Testament standards? It seems completely absurd to me. The standard now is likely what it was in the Old Testament: that your response to what you know determines your salvation.
I have been struggling with wrapping my mind around this over the last few months. This, together with some Piper teaching, has been really helpful! Thank you and I will be passing this on!