Will God consign people who have never heard of Jesus Christ to eternal punishment? If so, where is his sense of fair play? Where is his love? If not, how are they saved?
I disregard both the doctrines of universal salvation and of the annihilation of the wicked. The former answers the question, but without considering certain biblical texts (see, for example, Matt. 25:46; Rev. 14:11; 20:10, 15). The latter does not answer why does God not give everybody an equal opportunity to be saved.
Evangelicals have considered three other possible solutions. The first says that people may be saved through the revelation of God in the visible creation and in the human conscience. People who respond to this general revelation receive the benefits of Jesus’ redemptive work without their hearing and believing the Gospel in their lifetimes. The second answer argues that people hear the Gospel at death. Then they have the opportunity that they did not get while alive. The third is a variation of the first two. Only those people who responded well to general revelation have an opportunity to hear the Gospel after death.
Proponents of these views appeal to Scripture. Noah, Melchizedek, Balaam, and Job are examples of salvation through general revelation. But this overlooks the possibility that their knowledge of God came from the original special revelation to Adam and Eve, a revelation that started the practice of religion. (See the old, but still valuable book by Samuel M. Zwemer, The Origin of Religion, Loizeaux, 1945.) Yet by the time of Jesus the special revelation of God at the dawn of human history had long since suffered dysfunctional corruption—thus the need for missionary activity.
Matthew 25:31–46 says that all nations will receive judgment according to the amount of charity they had toward the wretched of the earth. Jesus identifies these people as his brothers. Matthew does not mention the Gospel here, it is claimed. But this interpretation, which has proved irresistible to many a humanitarian, counters Jesus’ definition of his brothers as those who do the Father’s will (Matt. 12:50), revealed specifically in his teaching (see Matt. 7:21 with 7:24–27 and 28:20). Such a view also ignores the parallelism with Matthew 10, where the persecuted people who need shelter, food, and drink are not the world’s needy but Christian missionaries. When viewed in context, the passage does not support the view for which it is cited. “One of these least brothers of mine” (25:40) is a messenger of the Gospel.
John 1:9 says that the Word enlightens every man. But the context deals with the incarnate ministry of Christ as providing that light. John later shows that the disciples need to be sent for the saving effects of that light to be felt (John 20:21–23). Furthermore, the gaining of Christ’s light is connected with believing in him (John 1:9–13; 3:16–21; 8:12–30). John jumps from the old creation at the beginning (vv. 1–3) to the new creation, dating from the incarnation (vv. 4–18). He does not write about a general ministry of the Word through the light of reason and conscience. Therefore, John 1:9 means that Jesus as the Word brings the light of salvation to everyone who hears and believes.
Some people appeal to God’s acceptance of Cornelius, his household, and others like him (Acts 10:1–2, 34–35). But Luke and Peter are not talking about heathen people deficient of special revelation, but about God-fearers, Gentiles who know and follow the special revelation of God in the Old Testament. Such Gentiles frequented the synagogues, where they regularly heard the Scriptures read. Furthermore, God sent Peter to preach the Gospel to these people. They do not support the possibility of salvation for the unevangelized.
According to Acts 18:9–10, the Lord said to Paul, “I have many people in this city [Corinth].” But in view of Acts 13:48b (“and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed”), we cannot assume that the Lord’s statement refers to ignorant but acceptable heathen rather than to those people foreordained to salvation. The very fact that God sent Paul to preach the Gospel to the people in Corinth weakens the case of salvation through general revelation and of post-mortem belief in Christ.
Yes, the heathen understand general revelation (Rom. 1:19, 20), but the thrust of Romans 1:18–3:23 is that the heathen, along with the Jews, stand under God’s wrath because of their sin. Paul mentions general revelation to show that mankind has rejected it. If Romans 2:14–16 described the good works of conscientious heathen, the context would only permit that Paul recognized that people could be moral without being saved. However, the statements in Romans 2:14–16 could refer to Christian Gentiles (the view favored most recently by C.E.B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Romans, T. & T. Clark, 1975).
Paul in Romans 10:18 quotes Psalm 19:4. The psalmist is talking about general revelation, but Paul reapplies the phraseology to “the gospel … the word of Christ.” Reapplications of Old Testament passages typify Paul’s style.
If we assumed that Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Pet. 3:18–20) offered salvation to deceased human beings, it would still not solve the problem of ignorant heathens. The text limits that proclamation to the spirits who were active during the antediluvian generation of Noah and then confined to prison. Moreover, these were disobedient spirits. And disobedient to what? General revelation alone? Can we be sure that the special revelation of a destructive flood formed no part of Noah’s preaching of righteousness?
But First Peter 3:18–20 probably does not refer to an offer of salvation to deceased human beings. The context favors a proclamation of triumph over hostile powers of the underworld. Just as Jesus gained vindication before them, at the last day his persecuted followers will gain vindication in the presence of their persecutors. (When lacking qualifications to the contrary, the term “spirits” refers to spirits of an angelic or demonic kind, not to the spirits of disembodied human beings.)
First Peter 4:6 indicates that the people are deceased Christians who heard and believed the Gospel prior to suffering martyrdom. During the interim between their martyrdom and resurrection they enjoy a disembodied life with God (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23). Peter designs all of this to steel his Christian readers against the possibility of their own martyrdom. The passage does not afford good grounds, then, for believing in conversion after death.
Those who see an out for the unevangelized heathen want to avoid impugning the justice of God and sacrificing his love. But do the suggestions of salvation through general revelation and of conversion after death in fact do the apologetical job they were intended to do? No. Does the preaching of the Gospel give them a better opportunity to be saved than they would have had apart from such preaching? If it does, God remains unfair and unloving to let some hear while others do not. On the other hand, if for the sake of equal treatment God does not allow the preaching of the Gospel to enhance the opportunity for salvation, we have no reason to preach the Gospel.
And what of the many who have heard the Gospel, but only from those whose conduct does not recommend the message or only from those who in other ways have failed to make it clear and convincing? Or what about people whose backgrounds make them less susceptible to evangelism? The list of inequalities could go on and on. If we demand equal treatment for people who have never heard the Gospel, others cry out for equal treatment too. The attempt to justify God’s ways cannot stop with the ignorant heathen. The facile solutions I criticized rest on a philosophical view of the problem that is far too simplistic and restricted—and on a theological view of our ability to justify God’s ways that is far too inflated.
Given the complexitites, we might not be able to recognize perfect equality. Who knows? Anyway given our limitations and the complexities of the question we should hesitate to either accuse God or apologize for him. We can hardly improve on Paul’s statement that the fate of the lost demonstrates the wrath and power of God, just as the salvation of believers demonstrates his mercy (Rom. 9:22f).
The Bible is our only source of information concerning the status of the unevangelized heathen. The notions of salvation through general revelation or after death find no solid footing in Scripture. In fact the Bible indicates that apart from hearing and believing the Gospel the heathen are hopeless. All men stand condemned under Adam. They have rejected general revelation and God’s wrath remains on them apart from belief in his Son. Now is the day of salvation. Paul puts all of the pieces together by writing about the necessity of confessing Jesus as Lord. And for that to happen someone must preach the Gospel, and someone needs to send the preacher. Without the human witness here and now, an essential link is broken; the chain of salvation will not hold.
Scripture says that the preaching of the Gospel is necessary to save the lost. Those who propose contrary views need better biblical evidence. Otherwise our view of the Bible is threatened. Staying within Scripture, however, we discover behind the great commission a reason to evangelize the heathen more compelling than the desirability of bringing them into the joy of salvation a little earlier than they otherwise would enter it. Apart from our preaching to them the word of Christ, they have no hope. Let us rescue the perishing.
D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.
