11. Salvation: What About Those Who Never Hear About Jesus?
According to the Scriptures, salvation is a gift of God’s grace, is based upon the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and comes through an exercise of faith in God (Romans 3:25; 2 Corinthians 5:18–19, 21; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). Salvation is totally the work of God’s grace and is not the result of human effort or good works (Ephesians 2:8–10). The Bible maintains that Jesus is the unique, only Savior for all of humankind; no one is reconciled to God except through Jesus Christ (John 3:16, 36; 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5).
The emphasis upon Jesus Christ as the only Savior naturally raises questions about the scope of salvation and the destiny of those who do not hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. While this is a sensitive issue, we must form our conclusions on the basis of what Scripture clearly teaches and be careful to avoid unhealthy speculation beyond what Scripture affirms. Evangelical Christians generally agree that the Biblical witness is clear on the following points:
1. All peoples in all cultures, including sincere followers of other religions, are sinners and face God’s just condemnation for sin.
2. Salvation—that is, forgiveness of sin, justification and reconciliation with God, and all that this implies—is available only on the basis of the sinless person and atoning work of Jesus Christ. All who are saved are saved only through Jesus Christ.
3. No one is saved merely by being sincere, or by doing good works, or by being devout and pious in following a particular religion.
4. Salvation is always only by God’s grace and must be personally accepted through faith.
5. Ultimately, not everyone will be saved. Some, probably many, will be eternally lost.
6. God is entirely righteous, just, and fair in his dealings with humankind. No one who is condemned by God is condemned unjustly.
7. Both out of a sense of obedience to her Lord and compassion for the lost, the church must be actively engaged in making disciples of all peoples, including sincere adherents of other religions. Moreover, most agree that the clear pattern in the New Testament is that people first hear the gospel and then, through the work of the Holy Spirit, respond in faith to the proclamation of the Word and are saved.
But is it nevertheless possible for some who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ to be saved? There is some disagreement among evangelicals on the question of the unevangelized, with evangelical responses falling into three broad categories. The differences between these positions does not concern the means of salvation (grace versus works) but rather the amount of knowledge necessary for a saving response to God.67
1. Many evangelicals hold that only those who hear the gospel and explicitly respond in faith to the name of Jesus in this life can be saved. Explicit knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ is thus essential for salvation, and there is no hope for those who die without having heard the gospel.68
2. A rather different perspective is that of the “wider hope,” which maintains that we can expect that large numbers of those who have never heard the gospel will nevertheless be saved. Although Jesus Christ is the one Savior for all people and salvation is possible only because of Christ’s atoning work on the cross, one need not know explicitly about Jesus Christ and the cross to be saved.69
3. Many evangelicals, however, find themselves somewhere between these two positions, convinced that each of the above views goes beyond what the biblical data affirm. Those in this group are willing to admit in principle that God might save some who have never explicitly heard the gospel, but they add that we simply do not know whether this occurs or, if so, how many might be saved in this manner. John Stott, for example, states that on the basis of Scripture, we know that
Jesus Christ is the only Saviour, and that salvation is by God’s grace alone, on the ground of Christ’s cross alone, and by faith alone. The only question, therefore, is how much knowledge and understanding of the gospel people need before they can cry to God for mercy and be saved. In the Old Testament people were “justified by faith” even though they had little knowledge or expectation of Christ. Perhaps there are others today in a similar position, who know that they are guilty before God and that they cannot do anything to win his favour, but who in self-despair call upon the God they dimly perceive to save them. If God saves such, as many evangelical Christians believe, their salvation is still only through Christ, only by faith.70
Those embracing this view maintain that some knowledge of God, our sinfulness, and our inability to save ourselves is necessary, but they hold that such minimal knowledge may be available through general revelation to those who have not yet heard the gospel.
Perhaps the wisest response to the issue is to acknowledge the possibility that some who never hear the gospel might nonetheless, through God’s grace, respond to what they know of God through general revelation and turn to him in faith for forgiveness. But to speculate about how many, if any, are saved in this manner is to go beyond what the Scriptures affirm. Millard Erickson observes, “There are no unambiguous instances in Scripture of persons who became true believers through responding to general revelation alone. Scripture does not indicate how many, if any, come to salvation that way.”71 The pattern in the New Testament is for people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and then to respond by God’s grace to the gospel in saving faith.
12. Living Among Religious Others
We must remember that in theology of religions we are not dealing merely with abstract systems or beliefs but with real people who live in certain religious ways. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in a world of religious diversity? How should followers of Christ respond to religious others? How do Christians acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord of all of life in modern, democratic societies increasingly characterized by religious diversity and that are committed to protection of freedom of religious and non-religious expression? The issues here are complex and require proper navigation of two sets of obligations: our responsibilities as disciples of Jesus Christ and as good citizens.
The Great Commission: Make Disciples
It is helpful to approach these questions in light of two specific instructions from our Lord. The first is the so-called Great Commission, given just prior to Christ’s ascension:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18–20).
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are to “make disciples” of all people. Faithfulness to our Lord and compassion for the lost requires that we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all people—including sincere followers of other religions—urging them to embrace Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Disciple-making thus includes evangelism, although it involves much more than just sharing the gospel with others.
Evangelism is controversial today, as many Christians feel that there is something inappropriate about trying to persuade sincere followers of other religions to change their commitments and embrace the Christian gospel. This is often linked to a certain embarrassment over the modern missionary movement, which is often dismissed today as simply the religious side of Western imperialism. But the Christian gospel is inherently missionary. It is good news of reconciliation with God that must be shared with a world that is desperately lost. The missionary statesman Lesslie Newbigin correctly links the recent discomfiture over missions with a lack of confidence in the biblical picture of Jesus Christ:
The contemporary embarrassment about the missionary movement of the previous century is not, as we like to think, evidence that we have become more humble. It is, I fear, much more clearly evidence of a shift in belief. It is evidence that we are less ready to affirm the uniqueness, the centrality, the decisiveness of Jesus Christ as universal Lord and Savior, the Way by following whom the world is to find its true goal, the Truth by which every other claim to truth is to be tested, the Life in whom alone life in its fullness is to be found.72
Similarly, the Dutch missiologist Johannes Verkuyl remarks, “The subversion of the missionary mandate one encounters in various contemporary missiologies and models of theology of religion must simply be called what it is: betrayal of Jesus Christ.”73 The issue, then, is not whether we engage in evangelism with religious others, but rather how we do so.
The Great Commandment: Love God and Your Neighbor
This leads us to the second of Jesus’ instructions for his followers, the so-called Great Commandment.
And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:35–40; cf. Deuteronomy 6:4–5; Mark 12:28–34; Luke 10:25–37).
As Christ’s disciples, we are to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbor—including religious others—as we love ourselves.
What does it mean to love our neighbor? How do we love religious others with whom we come into contact? Among other things, surely this means accepting Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists as fellow human beings created by God and bearing the divine image, treating them with dignity and respect, and seeking their welfare. It includes building relationships with them and, to the extent that we are able, meeting their needs. On occasion it might also mean defending their rights and ensuring justice on their behalf.
Part of what drives the agenda for religious pluralism in the West today is the widespread perception that any form of “religious exclusivism” undermines harmonious religious coexistence. Only ideological pluralism, it is said, can provide the framework for peaceful religious diversity. Monotheistic religions—especially Christianity—are regarded as contributing to the problem of religious tensions, not part of the solution. The church must take these perceptions seriously and show a skeptical world that Christians can be strongly committed to Jesus Christ while also working to promote peaceful relations among religions. Christians must take the lead and demonstrate through concrete actions that we do accept in appropriate ways the ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity in the West. But at the same time, we cannot abandon our commitment to Jesus Christ as the one Lord and Savior for all peoples. So even as we accept Buddhists and Muslims as fellow human beings created in God’s image, we must also urge them to be reconciled to God by acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.