Mulling over Issue of Salvation for Sinners Unreached by Gospel

 

As declared by the Son of Man, “I am the way … [and] no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).  Additionally, believers have been specifically taught that “a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16).  Given that these oft-quoted verses appear in the New Testament, the query that springs to mind is whether both of them are retroactively applicable to all who lived prior to the Messiah’s earthly ministry as well as those uninformed about God’s offer of salvation relayed since then by evangelists commissioned to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature [and] he who believes and is baptised will be saved but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16).

 

Available in another New Testament book is the divine assurance that “God our Saviour … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:3-4).  This Pauline verse is certainly not intended solely for post-Ascension sinners privy to the gospel message.  In any case, all others in the pre-Incarnation era might nevertheless have drawn comfort from what God asked an Old Testament prophet: “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die … and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23).  That the answer to this rhetorical teaser cannot be in the negative is obvious from the numerous instances of His mercies being extended during Old Testament times to, for example, the stiff-necked Hebrews (throughout the book of Judges) as well as the wicked Ninevites (narrated in the Jonah 3 chapter).

 

It will be expedient to proceed by branching off the present discourse to dwell separately on two categories of sinners in turn since different background circumstances have to be taken into account:

●     Hebrews accessing only the Old Testament books (even after the availability of the New Testament gospels and epistles)

●     non-Hebrews unapprised of God’s love for all human beings and/or unaware of Him extending mercies to those repentant among them.

 

(I)  Hebrews accessing only Old Testament

 

The starting point when considering the salvation issue from the Hebrews’ perspective must be the following Pauline assertion: “that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith’ [but] yet the law is not of faith …” (Galatians 3:11-12).  To be read in conjunction with this authoritative statement is the learned apostle’s question-with-answers follow-up: “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions till the Seed should come” (Galatians 3:16) as well as “hence the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).

 

What then is the salvation implication for Hebrews relying on the Old Testament prior to the Advent?  The clue intimated by Paul is that “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham” (Galatians 3:8) — indicating that Abraham had already known the gospel contents despite having lived many centuries ahead of the Incarnation (but the mechanism for accomplishing retrospective evangelism remains unspecified).  Did Abraham thenceforth receive salvation as promised in the gospel for all sinners accepting the Saviour through faith?  Practically all children attending Sunday School have learned that God offered various promises to Abraham but there is additionally the need to mull over the not-commonly-taught verse (concerning him with his family) that “these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them …” (Hebrews 11:13).  In other words, this man of faith died with assurance of one more promise — not recorded in the Genesis passages as having been offered directly by God Himself but noted in a New Testament book as having been conveyed via the gospel which had somehow been foretold to him.  Lest any promptly points out that this particular verse in the book of Hebrews does not allude to Jesus at all, the so-called Hall of Faith chapter contains another riveting verse that talks about “Moses … esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt” (Hebrews 11:26) where here the reference to the Messiah is not at all implicit.

 

By extrapolation, the following representative selection of Hebrews must likewise have been saved (although whether they had any inkling of Jesus the Christ or the ensuing gospel is not disclosed in the Bible):

(a)   Jacob who had “seen God face to face” (Genesis 32:30) and of whom God affirmed, “Yet Jacob I have loved” (Malachi 1:2)

(b)   David whom God testified as being “… a man after My own heart who will do all My will” (Acts 13:22)

(c)   Elijah who not only “went up by a whirl-wind into heaven” (II Kings 2:11) but also appeared with Moses during the transfiguration of Jesus.

 

As for non-Messianic Jews still not embracing the gospel since the Ascension, mention must be made of Paul’s musings on whether “God cast away His people” (Romans 11:1) and the accompanying conundrum that apparently “Israel has not obtained what it seeks” (Romans 11:7) as “Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness” (Romans 11:7).  This topic falls outside the ambit of the present discussion and readers whose interests have been piqued should turn to Romans 9-11 for a full-length exposition.

 

(II)  non-Hebrews without access to Gospel

 

Equally important to consider is the issue of salvation for non-Hebrews oblivious of both God’s love for human beings and His mercy for seekers among them.  There is the necessity at the outset to make inquiry into the peoples’ awareness of God’s existence.  Can hardcore sinners indeed fall back on the defence of ignorance for not having sought Him?  It is possible to postulate, by reason of the ancient races’ fascination with how celestial bodies traverse the sky, that they ought to have at the very least known “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork; day unto day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2) with the psalmist thereafter adding that “there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard; their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world” (Psalm 19:3-4).  Since these first four verses of Psalm 19 are couched in poetic imagery, looking at Paul’s plain-language exposition is a helpful alternative: “what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them [and] since creation … His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made … so that they [i.e. all human beings] are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).

 

Although many are generally of the understanding that the Old Testament’s focus is on the chosen race, God’s intention to reach out to others has in actual fact been unmistakeable from the very first biblical book onwards: at the point of receiving the divine call to depart from Haran and head for the Promised Land, Abram was already notified that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).  A quarter-century later, God re-named him as Abraham “for I have made you a father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5); as explicated by Paul, the inference to be drawn is that Abraham “might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also” (Romans 4:11).

 

Contained in the Old Testament are the following accounts where there is no doubt whatsoever that God extended His offer of salvation and/or mercy to non-Hebrews:

(1)   according to what the Lord told Satan, “there is none like Job on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8) — assuming here, as commonly held, Job lived long before Abram’s time and could not have belonged to the Hebrew race

(2)   Melchizedek “was the priest of God Most High” (Genesis 14:18) “to whom even the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils” (Hebrews 7:4) — with the post-Ascension Saviour thence “called by God as High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:10)

(3)   although a Canaanite woman, Rahab was selected for the Hall of Faith because “by faith she did not perish with those [in Jericho] who did not believe when she received the spies with peace” (Hebrews 11:31) — with her thereafter included in Matthew 1:5 among the genealogy of Jesus

(4)   although a Moabite woman, Ruth was blessed with “a full reward given you by the Lord God under Whose wings you have come for refuge” (Ruth 2:12) after she steadfastly followed Naomi to Israel and readily accepted “your God [as] my God” (Ruth 1:16) — with her thereafter becoming the great-grandmother of King David

(5)   scriptures refer to Cyrus as “His anointed … whose right hand I have held” (Isaiah 45:1) but whether salvation had been extended to this king is uncertain for the Lord pointed out repeatedly that “I have named you though you have not known Me” (Isaiah 45:4) and “I will gird you though you have not known Me” (Isaiah 45:5)

(6)   in comparison with King Cyrus, God interacted more with King Nebuchadnezzar who had been cautioned to “break off your sins by being righteous” (Daniel 4:27) before undergoing the divinely-ordained humbling period which resulted in him realising that “those who walk in pride He is able to put down [and] now I praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all of Whose works are truth and His ways justice” (Daniel 4:37)

(7)   after “God saw … that the Ninevites turned from their wicked way, He relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them and He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10) but then this is in all probability a case of temporary reprieve — perhaps not dissimilar to what happened for King Ahab after having “humbled himself before Me” (I Kings 21:28)

(8)   to be added to this list is the well-publicised example (but not from any Old Testament book) of “wise men from the East” (Matthew 2:1) but once again there is no hint whether the magi were saved after recognising His star and travelling all the way to worship Infant Jesus.

 

(III)  ancillary thoughts

 

The intriguing question that nonetheless remains — given the lack of unambiguously explanatory details in the Bible — is how the all-inclusive offer of salvation (followed by repentant sinners’ acceptance) had been conveyed in some reverse-time manner prior to the sacrificial Lamb paying the penalty of sin for all human beings and thenceafter becoming “the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9).  In an effort to shore up their hypotheses, commentators are wont to bank on the following verses:

●     “for this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead …” (I Peter 4:6)

●     “… also He went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient …” (I Peter 3:19-20)

●     “… He also first descended into the lowest part of the earth” (Ephesians 4:9)

●     “… so will the Son of Man be three days and nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).

 

However, what the Son of Man did during the three-day-and-night interim between death and resurrection has not been spelt out clearly in the Bible.  Many interpretation attempts have already been put forward but it is prudent to err on the side of caution and so adding to the speculation is not going to be particularly productive at this juncture — bearing in mind the futility of all human beings (with their limited faculties) in fathoming “the depth of … the wisdom and knowledge of God [for] how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out” (Romans 11:33) as well as His rebuke against Job’s friends that “My wrath is aroused against you … for you have not spoken of Me what is right” (Job 42:7).  The bottom line is that it remains God’s prerogative whom and how He chooses to save — even and especially when His created beings are unable to grasp why that is so.

 

 

After-Note:

This is not the appropriate platform to launch into another discourse regarding the controversy on whether the sacrificial blood shed by the Lamb on the cross is of avail to all sinners or merely the elect.  Those toying with this issue are advised to read the companion blog-article entitled “Addressing Certain Concerns Associated With Limited Atonement”.