What About Those Who Die Without Hearing of Christ?

Blog Series

Why Believe in God?

If You Reject God, You’ve Only Done Half the Job.

  We’re in a blog series sub-titled, “If You Reject God, You’ve Only Done Half the Job.” In these last few posts we're looking at difficult apologetic issues that often tempt people to reject God in the first place, and today we look at one of the most common and vexing challenges to belief in God, which is “what happens to those who die without ever having heard of Jesus?” Ephesians 2:8 tells us that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. Further, Jesus said, “no one comes to the Father but through me” (John 14:6). So, the question is, if a person never has the chance to believe in Jesus, is he condemned forever? On the surface, it seems unfair and unjust if people are condemned who have never even heard of Christ. What about those who die without hearing of Christ? To answer this question, we will look at several Bible passages that address this issue.

1. No one is ever condemned for not believing in Jesus if they have never heard of him.

Rather, people are condemned because they have “sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and because “the wages of sin is (spiritual) death” (Romans 6:23). To start with, we are all cut off from God because of our sin.

2. God reveals Himself to everyone.

Romans 1:20 says, “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...” God created the universe as he did so that when we look up at the moon and stars on a clear night, we say in our hearts, “there must be a God!” So, creation tells us that there is a God, and we either accept that revelation or reject it. Further, Romans 1:18-19 says that unbelievers “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” God has also written his moral code on our hearts so that we inherently understand things to be right and wrong (Romans 2:15). Our sense of right and wrong is given to us to draw us to Him. So, all unbelievers are condemned, not because they never heard of Jesus, but because they suppress the truth that God made clear to them through creation and their conscience. If someone rejects the revelation about God in nature and conscience, there would be no need to give them further revelation to reject, by letting them learn about Christ.

3. God has made it possible to be saved from this fate.

God sent Jesus to die for our sin so that if we believe in Him and receive Him as our God and Savior, He will forgive our sin and reconcile us to Himself (John 3:16). This is wonderful news, of course! It is the solution to our great problem! Then, God instructed His followers, in His "Great Commission" to "make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:191-29). 4. But what about someone who hasn't heard of Jesus, but would have believed in Him if they had heard of Him? The challenge with the Great Commission is that we have never been able to go to everyone in the world to tell them about Jesus. So, what is the fate of people who, through no fault of their own, have never heard of Jesus? Well, there are a number of passages of Scripture that help us draw some conclusions. Not all Christians agree on all details regarding this issue, but I will take you through some passages that seem enlightening to me. None of these passages delivers a knock-out blow, but taken together, they can offer some comforting conclusions. Deuteronomy 4:29 says, “… you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.” There are those who dismiss this verse because they say it is dealing specifically with Israel. And that is true. But it does seem to me that it might give us a hint as to God’s protocol with people. We might also draw that inference from Jesus when He said, “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself” (John 7:17). Finally, the apostle Peter wrote that God is not "wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) As a potential example, in Acts 10, we see Cornelius, a religious Gentile who prayed to God and served Him as best he knew, but had not heard of Jesus. God gave Peter a vision to go talk to him, and when Peter preached to him, Cornelius believed in and received Jesus as His Savior. This is an example of God’s sending a gospel messenger to someone who believed in God and was ready to receive Jesus if he just knew about Him. Some possible modern-day examples of this are:

1) Shortly after becoming a Christian as a college student, I heard a missionary tell of going to a remote and primitive tribe. When they were finally able to learn the language well enough to tell the people about Jesus, the villagers replied that they already knew Him. They just didn’t know His name. Jesus had, according to their testimony, revealed Himself to them without a missionary.

2) Later, I heard another story from a missionary who had a similar experience, except that when they told the tribe about Jesus, they learned that the tribe had already learned about Him in a very roundabout way. A young man from that remote tribe in South America had left the tribe and migrated to a city some distance away. There, he learned Spanish, got a job and worked for some time. Later, he returned to his tribe. On the way back home, he came across a Spanish New Testament that had mysteriously been lost in the jungle, and read it to the tribe when he returned home. As a result, the entire tribe had accepted Christ.

3) Another example might include the dramatic things currently going on in closed Muslim cultures, in which individuals are having dreams and visions that lead them to Christ. I have heard story after story from missionaries of such experiences.

4) Still others build a case from the Old Testament that if Abraham believed God, and his faith was counted to him as righteousness even though he had not heard of Christ (Romans 4:3), that a believer in a remote place in the world might do the same. If his faith was in the God of creation and he was following Him as best he knew, God would accept that faith as righteousness. Theologians do not agree on this conclusion, but it is something that we ought to at least know about.

Conclusion

In the end, we don’t know all the answer(s) for sure. But we can see enough potential and likely answers that we can rest in the fact that, one way or another, God will deal with the situation in a way that reflects His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, along with His holiness, justice, goodness and love. We can have the confidence that, though we may not know exactly how, God is dealing with all humanity in a way that is consistent with His character. We will not go through eternity in heaven with doubts in the back of our minds about God’s fairness or goodness. The fate of those who have never heard of Jesus is not a reason to reject God.

In case you're new here

This blog post is part of a series titled "Why Believe in God? If You Reject God, You've Only Done Half the Job.", introduced on January 5, 2022. As the series continues, each succeeding post will be added to and available in the blog archives at www.maxanders.com.

If you know anyone who you think might enjoy joining us in this study, please forward this blog to them and encourage them to go to my web site (www.maxanders.com) and sign up for the free video, “Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You”, available there on the home page. This will put them on my regular mailing list and they’ll receive my weekly blogs on this subject.

I look forward to going through this faith-affirming journey with you.