What Happens To People Who Have Never Heard
The Gospel?
If Jesus is the only way to God, what happens
to those who've never heard the gospel, but follow their own religions?
Can they be saved?
"Isn't it unfair for God to send people to
hell even if they've never heard about Him or His Son, Jesus Christ?"
Whether it's asked with the utmost sincerity or used as a convenient
excuse to reject God, we must realize that Christianity's truthfulness
depends not on how this question is answered, but upon the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:13-19).
While the Bible affirms that Christ is the
only Savior (Acts 4;12), it also states that God is truly just (Gen.
18:25; Job 34;12; Acts 17:31) and he loves us with an everlasting love
(Jer. 31:3; John 3:16; cf. 2 Pet. 3:9). He continues to demonstrate
this by making Himself known through His handiwork in creation (Rom.
1:19-20), but he also inscribes his knowledge on the very tablets of
our hearts, or conscience (Rom. 2:14-15). Because no one has been kept
in the dark about God, we're all accountable to Him (Luke 12:47-48).
In spite of this, man has answered God's love
with rebellion, repeatedly rejecting what God has revealed (Rom. 3:10-18).
All of us deserve to be sentenced to hell. But despite our depravity,
God has mercifully chosen to provide a way to save us.
Although God is sovereign and he can deal
with individuals in extraordinary ways, He tells us in the Bible that
there's no other way to reach Him except through His one provision -
the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
They're lost as a result of their own actions,
and not because of God. People don't end up in hell because of what
they haven't heard; they get there because of their failure to act responsibly
on what God has already revealed to them - whether through creation
in Romans 1, through their conscience in Romans 2, or through the light
of Christ in Romans 3. Let us, therefore, labor all the more to bring
God's message to a world in desperate need of salvation (Rom. 1:16;
10:13-15).
And remember that if those who've never heard
the gospel are indeed going to go to heaven, why should we even be involved
in foreign missions? Let's just keep everyone in the dark. In fact if
you really draw this argument out to its logical conclusion, Jesus Christ
did not come to seek and save those who are lost, he would have come
to seek and lose those who are saved. He would then not be the great
saviour of the world, he would become it's great destroyer.
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