The passage we examined last week in Rom 1:18-23 also helps us to answer this question:
Can a person who has never heard the gospel go to heaven?
After all, would a loving God send someone who never has a chance to hear the gospel to hell?
Those who hold to the position that God would not send a person who has never heard the gospel in his entire life to hell are called inclusivists because they claim that God would include those who have never heard the gospel for salvation.
Those who reject that view and hold to the position that only faith in Jesus Christ saves and that those who never heard the gospel will be condemned are called exclusivists because they claim God excludes those who have not placed their faith in the finished work of Christ.
As in every case, we have to begin by asking, “What does the Bible say?”
If the Bible is God’s authoritative, inerrant, and inspired Word and is sufficient for all of our faith and practice, then that must be the first question we must always ask.
This passage helps to answer this question.
I. The God of Love is also a God of Wrath (Rom 1:18).
I mentioned last week that we have often emphasized the love of God and ignore that the very same loving God is also angered by the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom 1:18).
We dare not ignore this particular attribute of God.
The wrath of God is shown very clearly in both the OT and the NT.
This seems inconvenient because anger conjures up images that we would rather not have.
I have clarified last week that the wrath of God is totally different from man’s anger.
God displays righteous anger while man tends to display unrighteous anger.
We have so emphasized God’s love that we neglect to note that He is currently unleashing His wrath on man.
God is not adopting a neutral stance about the people in the world.
You may remember that Jonathan Edwards, the preeminent theologian from 18th century America, preached a famous message entitled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Reverend Stephen Williams was in attendance at the Enfield sermon, with his diary entry for that day containing the following account of the congregation's reactions during and after the sermon:
[B]efore the sermon was done there was a great moaning and crying out through the whole house — "What shall I do to be saved?" "Oh, I am going to hell!" "Oh what shall I do for a Christ?" and so forth — so that the minister was obliged to desist. [The] shrieks and cries were piercing and amazing. After some time of waiting, the congregation were still, so that a prayer was made by Mr. Wheelock, and after that we descended from the pulpit and discoursed with the people, some in one place and some in another. And amazing and astonishing: the power [of] God was seen and several souls were hopefully wrought upon that night, and oh the cheerfulness and pleasantness of their countenances that received comfort.
As a result of God’s righteous anger, He will carry out His righteous judgment on men (Rom 2:5).
Just because God is loving doesn’t negate all the other characteristics of God.
II. The point of the passage in Rom 1:18-3:20 is that man needs the righteousness of God because man is universally condemned – both Gentiles (1:18-32) and Jews (2:1-3:20).
Man is unrighteous because even though God reveals Himself through natural revelation, man has suppressed the truth about God and instead of glorifying God, he has turned to worshiping idols.
In other words, this passage doesn’t teach that man can be saved by natural revelation, but rather, man is condemned because God revealed Himself through natural revelation and man suppressed that revelation.
The tribesman in the deepest, remotest region of Africa is worshipping some animal or stone or tree; that is why they are called animists.
He does not honor or give thanks to God.
He is guilty of exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images resembling moral man and birds and animals and creeping things. The remote African tribesman is not innocent; rather, he is guilty.
As v. 20 says, they are without excuse.
III. Once again, we must get at why God is angry.
He is angry at sin.
Sin unleashes God’s fury, and sin is what condemns man.
Ps 7:11 says that “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.” Paul uses very plain language regarding how many people are in the category of sinner (Rom 3:10ff).
The reason for the judgment of God is sin.
IV. The whole Bible tells one major overarching story:
The Bible is about how God is redeeming sinful creation for His glory.
It begins in Gen 1 and 2 with the creation, and then the fall in Gen 3, and the rest of the Bible unfolds God’s plan of redemption, culminating in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That is the climax of the redemptive story and that is the heart of the Gospel.
To claim that man does not need to know the Gospel in order to be saved is to reduce the importance of Christ’s climatic redemptive work on the cross.
V. There are verses that clearly speak of Christ as the exclusive way to heaven.
John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
1 John 5:12 “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
VI. We need to consider the reason why evangelism and missions is necessary.
If the premise is that those unevangelized souls will go to heaven, then it would be detrimental to evangelistic and mission efforts.
These gospel outreaches should be discouraged, because if it is true that unevangelized people will go to heaven, then we should leave these people in their ignorant state.
The reason is because if these people hear the gospel presented to them and then reject Christ, they will go to hell.
The evangelists and missionaries are now actually guilty of sending people to hell. They spread the gospel and the people reject the gospel and now they are going to hell for rejecting Jesus.
Better that they have never heard the gospel so that in their ignorant and unevangelized state, at least God can give them a chance.
This runs counter to the evangelistic and missional passages of Matt 28:18-20 and Rom 10:9ff.
The reason why we send out missionaries is because there are people who have not heard the gospel and the only way they can be saved is that they receive the good news of what Christ has done for them.
Conclusion
From these points, what can we conclude from the Bible about people who have never heard the gospel?
The Bible is quite clear that the only way to get to heaven is to have the righteousness of God. And the only way to get the righteousness of God is to believe in what His Son Jesus Christ has done on the cross.
Is God unfair or unloving in doing that?
This passage argues that God is neither unfair nor unrighteous in unleashing his wrath on man.
They have all suppressed the truth. God would not be a just judge if He lets them off because of their ignorance of the gospel.
We should marvel that God would save anyone at all!
Now, we know that infants and those with intellectual disabilities would not be included in this category because of their inability to know the truth and be held accountable.
The fact is we need to let God be God and trust that God will make the perfect decision.
Isa 55:8-9 says,
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Paul would say later in Rom 11:33-34
33 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
And here is a rhetorical question from Abraham (Genesis 18:25):
“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
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