Questions I’m asked: What about those who haven’t heard?

video image still captured by logger of previously uncontested Amazon tribesperson.

Question: If someone has not heard the Word, i.e., in a remote country, are they still going to hell?

Answer: It probably won’t surprise you that this is not an uncommon question, and it will hopefully encourage you to know that there is a good, biblically reliable answer to it. What’s important to remember first is that God is good and loving, all the time. When this question of “What about those who haven’t heard?” is asked, it almost comes with an implied conjecture that the relative ignorance of the people in question somehow indicts God for being “less good” to them than He has been to those who have, in fact, “heard.” I’m not getting the impression that you or your friend actually think that…just cautioning you to guard your thinking against that fallacy.

SO….God is good.

The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. (Ps. 145:9)

God is love.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

God is truth.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

These are fundamental realities that undergird the phenomenon that people in the world, throughout history, have had relatively different access to the Gospel.

We have a tension because we know that some people (most people) have had less access to God’s Word than what is available to us, and we have this Scripture in Romans 1 that is given in the context of judgment that is foreboding:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

To be clear, this warning is presented negatively, and we should not disregard the cautionary message communicated here. This passage gives us valuable insight on a couple important reminders:

All of humanity is born alienated from God, in rebellion to him. Regardless of whether our access to the Gospel is high or non-existent, every single person is born in sin and in need of a Savior:

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, ¹⁰as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; ¹¹no one understands; no one seeks for God. ¹²All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:9-12)

Because of this universal state of fallenness, even those who have not heard/will not hear are born in their sin, with a most serious consequence:

For the wages of sin is death, (Romans 6:23)

This Romans 1 passage is quite sobering because it shows that the problem is not that they haven’t heard, but that they have rejected God inasmuch as He has revealed Himself to them in creation. They, therefore, are guilty before God for their sin, and stand in judgment. They stand guilty apart from the Gospel the same way we who believe stood guilty in judgment before we believed. They aren’t guilty because the freedom-bringing Gospel hasn’t arrived to them. They are guilty because they have rejected God in how He has revealed Himself to them.

It is tempting for we who have had ample access to the Gospel to be inappropriately sympathetic to those who have little or no access to the Gospel. But to do so requires us to wrongly exaggerate the inherent goodness or worthiness of those people to “deserve” heaven and to grossly distort or even slander God’s holiness and goodness in His determination to withhold heaven from anyone who doesn’t trust in Jesus. It would be tragic for us to do this, because this isn’t some hypothetical question. We are dealing with real people in the world, with real souls and whose eternity is at stake. It is vital, therefore that we get our theology right about this because it absolutely shapes our sense of responsibility and purpose as Christ’s agents on earth to carry out His assigned mission.

The biblical message of salvation is articulated clearly by Jesus and His Apostles:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9-10)
“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” (Acts 4:12)

In the Old Testament, we see that God specifically rescued people out of their universal unbelief by revealing Himself and/or His plan to redeem the entire world through a Messiah. We know this to be true because we have a “Hall of Faith” recorded in Hebrews 11 of the litany of Old Testament Personalities who existed long before the time of Jesus and they, too, trusted in the eternal power and divine nature of God…people like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, Daniel, Samuel, David…they all believed God and believed in God, trusting in Him, and their faith was credited to them as righteousness:

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, (Romans 4:5)

It is important to understand that their faith was in the promise of looking forward and trusting in WHO God was providing for them later in history in the person of Jesus. Now that Jesus has come and been revealed as God incarnate, there is no other name by which a person can be saved. And we know that it’s not enough to “just be godly.” Acts 10 records the story of a truly godly man named Cornelius who had not heard the name of Jesus. He would be one of the few people we might identify from Romans 1 who had believed in God as revealed in creation, and truly sought him (rather than rejecting him, as do all those who are under this indictment). Because this man truly believed and sought God, God directed Paul to him as a holy messenger with the Gospel, where he shared the message of Jesus (Acts 11:4).

In this, we see God’s goodness:

I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. (Proverbs 8L17)

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

The simple reality is that there is nobody…anywhere…who will love God before or more than God loves them. There will be nobody…anywhere…who truly seeks God and not be able to find Him (as though God is hiding).

But because God is good, and loving, and true…those of us who have heard and have believed are now being commissioned to take the name of Jesus to everywhere in the world, so that all the world may have the opportunity to believe upon the name of Jesus and be saved:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14)

God’s call to share with the unreached people groups is going. What is your part in this effort?

Paul’s questions here (Romans 10:14) illustrate the importance of the work we all who believe have in front of us. To those who haven’t heard, we are being sent. May we agree to pray for each other that we will both/all be faithful to share the name of Jesus with those in our lives who we encounter who haven’t heard and haven’t believed. May we all be “preachers” who faithfully communicate the good news of reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus.

While I recognize this doesn’t answer all the questions related to the matter, I hope this is helpful to you.

Questions I’m asked: Healing & Demons

3 Questions: Regarding Mark 8:22-26:

Why did Jesus take the man out of the village?
Why did it take Jesus two efforts to give the man sight?
Why did Jesus forbid the man from returning to the city?

Answers:

We don’t have a clear explanation of why Jesus withdrew the man. Some assume that he did so because the people of the village didn’t believe. This is possible. It could have also been simply to remove the man from the chaos of the community.
This two-stage healing is interesting, to be sure. It’s important to see that healing did actually take place in the first instance…but to a greater degree after the second. It could be a reflection of the man’s faith. It’s also been suggested that it may be a picture of the disciples’ own experience. They had a “general” understanding of Jesus in their time with him, but their vision of him as the Son of God was much clearer after the resurrection.
Generally, scholarship agrees that Jesus’ forbidding a return to the town was a pronouncement of judgment against Bethsaida (see Luke 10). Because of the town’s (spiritual leaders’) unbelief, the good report was not allowed back into the city, thus keeping the city in spiritual darkness.

2 Questions: Regarding Mark 9:14-29

Jesus rebukes
the tik-tok skull breaker challenge demons

Where did Jesus send the spirit that he cast out of the boy?
What did Jesus mean when he answered the disciples’ question of why they were unsuccessful by saying, “This kind can only come out through prayer?”

Answers:

We don’t have any clear information of where the demons were sent. It appears that where they were sent was far less important than the simple fact that they were cast out of the boy.
It’s probably best to interpret these events through the lens of the dad’s experience. He was a man of a simple faith, allowing the disciples to minister to the boy. However, it was the disciples’ lack of belief (or really more of a belief in themselves than in the God who empowered them) that resulted in the failed effort to deliver the boy. That failure, understandably, likely negatively affected the dad’s faith. So, when Jesus says, “this kind can only come out through prayer,” he’s reminding the disciples that ministry (and miracles) are the fruit of what is established beforehand in prayer (given by the Spirit, and not originating in man). To this point, everything that Jesus accomplished had already been established in his preceding conversations with the Father. In this regard, miracles were simply the fruit (or the result) of what had already been established in prayer. So, ministry that precedes prayer and dares to ask God to bless what was attempted prayerlessly in the flesh is ministry that is done “out of order,” and of which God does not obligate himself to bless.

Questions I’m asked: Catholic stuff

From a series of emails I’ve received this week:

Questions (set 1): Catholic Churches have “holy water” fonts for people to dip their fingers in and make the sign of the cross as they enter and leave church. At the local Catholic Church, when a person wants to bring some holy water home, he takes a bottle of water out of a case of water, makes the sign of the cross over the bottle of water and hands the bottle to the person to take home. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where holy water is used. Am I missing something? Maybe the Catholic Church has a “Catholic” Bible? Or, is the holy water something that the Pope started on his own years ago? Is what the Pope decrees considered to be equal to God’s authority?

Response: Holy water is water that has been blessed (as the object of a sacramental ceremony) by a spiritual leader. It is common in Catholicism and some other main line Christian denominations. Its origins are not biblical, but in extra biblical texts that date to CE 400 (c.), attributing the Apostle Matthew as one who used it. This is credible rationale, given Matthew’s Jewish heritage and interests; as the precept of holy water could have roots in Jewish ritualistic cleansing. Interestingly, while holy water is a component of baptism in these denominations, the biblical examples of baptism are consistently in rivers, ponds, and other pools of water that have no indication of being ritualistically blessed/cleansed prior to the ceremony (or would be impossible to do so because of the nature of the moving water).

Some of the practices associated with holy water are problematic, biblically. Namely, the practice of making the sign of the cross associated with fingers dipped in holy water renews baptism and forgives venial (but not mortal) sins is not biblical. Evangelicals teach that the waters of baptism (and accordingly, any holy water used in this way) are neither salvific (able to save) nor cleansing, but are symbolic of the saving and cleansing accomplished by the atoning death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

As for your final question of papal decrees, I offer a slightly complicated response. Official statements known as papal decrees (or a papal bull) are historic and today are rare. Instead, papal briefs (less formal) are more common. They can cover a range of information and are considered official statements of the Roman Catholic Pope. There is a relationship between these declarations and the dogma of papal infallibility, which asserts the pope is preserved from the possibility of error when articulating faith or morals. To be fair, this is my layman-esque defining of the dogma, and may lack nuance or refinement in how I’ve shared it. So, to your question, it could be indirectly argued that “yes,” a papal decree could be equal to God’s authority, since it is believed that the Pope is protected from the possibility of error. However, there are limits to this, as decrees must agree with established doctrine.

Questions (set 2) Does your church acknowledge Ash Wednesday in any way? The reason I ask is that I know various denominations of churches recognize it in some form. I don’t see anything in the Bible pertaining to Ash Wednesday. Am I wrong?

Response: Our church does not recognize Ash Wednesday. It is a practice common to Catholics and some main line denominations, but largely not evangelical ones. While the commemoration of Ash Wednesday is not biblical in its origins, neither is it unbiblical. In this, it is extrabiblical, meaning that its practices are formulated outside the Bible, even though many aspects are rooted in the Bible. Ashes are a symbolic picture of grief or repentance. Ash Wednesday is the inaugural event of the season of Lent, culminating of course with Holy Week and Easter (comprising of approximately 40 days, commemorative of the 40 days of fasting of Jesus in the desert temptation).

Question (Set 3): Are Catholics Christians?

Response: My best response to this is, some are and some are not. That same thing is true at our church, too, and in every Christian Church across the world. The Scriptures make it clear that trust in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God is the only means by which a person is able to truly identify as a Christian (see John 14:6 and Romans 10:9-13). Religious affiliation and denominationalism is not salvific. Catholics and Protestants tend to have disagreement of the role of works in the Christian life, as well as the role of the church (or Church) in salvation. Simply stated, a Catholic can be a Christian (just as a Protestant or Evangelical can) if that person’s faith for salvation is in Christ alone. Apart from this saving faith, though, a person’s Catholicism, Protestantism, or Evangelicalism is ineffectual to rescue a person from the judgment of their offenses against God.

I hope this helps!

Questions I’m asked: Abiding

Question: Can you explain to me more specifically what Christ meant when repeatedly said abide “IN?” He did not say abide with, abide for but, said abide IN. I have never known the Lord to us a word without having specific meaning attached to it so, I was hoping that you could help me understand the specifics as to the word “in”, in this circumstance.

Answer: The idea of “in” communicates the concept that for the Christian, personal identity and experience exist solely and wholly in the person of Jesus. It means that I don’t do things “for” Jesus, or even “with” Jesus, as you mentioned; rather, everything that I do is done because the totality of my being exists because Christ dwells in me (actively and in an ongoing way). The Scriptures reiterate this truth – your body is the temple of the living God (1 Cor. 3). His Holy Spirit seals you and is the guarantee of your future inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-14). You can do all things *through* Christ who strengthens you (Phil. 4:13). Paul articulated this idea of living in Christ when he said, “ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, (Gal. 2:20)” and “to live by the Spirit. (Romans 8:13)”

To live “in” Christ, then, is to live in constant, continual relationship with God by giving deliberate attention to your ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. This is one reason why you are exhorted to pray without ceasing…for it is the reminder that God is ever-present, and you are ever in His presence. So you benefit by staying in continual conversation with Him, seeking His will, submitting your will to His, and surrendering yourself to Him so that you may join Him in His unending, unhindered, unceasing work to draw people to Himself. You are His ambassador, His minister of grace and peace, and as a communicator of the Gospel, you offer the hope of the unbelieving world. That you enjoy these privileges and responsibilities as His adopted child through the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus, and empowered by His indwelling Holy Spirit is an amazing testament to His goodness, grace and sovereignty.

I hope this is helpful to you!