Do you know Jesus?

With billions of people in the world from countless religions, is there really only one way to be saved? As a non-believer many years ago, I had asked that very question to a young woman who had recently become a Christian. I said to her, “What about Buddhists in Asia who never even heard of Jesus? Are you trying to tell me that they are going to hell just because they don’t know Jesus?”

The new Christian looked right through me with an uncanny confidence and replied, “Look here; Buddha didn’t die for anybody’s sin. But Jesus was crucified for your sake. He died for your sin. Now as for people in Asia, I don’t know them. But if I did meet them, I would tell them the same thing: that Jesus died for their sin too, and the only way to get to heaven is through Jesus Christ. But I’m not talking to them now; I’m talking to you. You need to seek God with all your heart. Your very life depends on it.”

That conversation so stirred my soul that after deeper study, I ended up getting baptized and becoming a Christian. The icing on the cake is that the young woman later became my wife. So now as members of the Chicago International Christian Church, we live by this conviction: that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father in heaven except through him (John 14:6).

But still day after day around the world there are people asking those same questions; “What about people who never heard of Jesus or the gospel?” It is such a common thought that in the past few months, I’ve been asked that very question by a stranger, a friend, a family member and even a fellow Christian. There is something universal to each of these conversations. If not properly addressed, the question of what does happen to people who never heard the gospel could easily fester into a doorway for doubt and indecision to reign in the lives of non-believers and believers alike.

If Christians are right about only Christians being saved, then the stakes are as high as heaven (salvation) for the Christians and as low as the grave and hell (torment) for those who reject Jesus. But if Christians are wrong, and a person can get to heaven without Jesus, then Christians are living a lie. Answering the question, “What about people who don’t know about Jesus?” is essential to the Christian faith. It influences our urgency to reach out to the lost and it forces us to look very closely at Jesus’ words and ask, “Do we really believe? Is Jesus really Lord of all?”

The Global Importance of Jesus

Thankfully, the Bible gives us an inspiring picture of all that God is doing to address the manmade confusion around those who have never heard of Jesus. One of the first concepts about God to keep in mind, and it should give us all comfort, is that God is a just judge (Psalm 96:13 ). He has all of the information to make the right judgements about our lives. As written in Psalm 96:10, “…he will judge the peoples with equity.” In other words, when God makes his judgements, the actions of all people in all nations are taken into account. There is equity: fair, equal treatment, even for obscure nations that we may never know ourselves. But God knows them.

Evidence of God is available to those obscure nations as well. Psalm 19:1-3 makes this very clear. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.” This shows that God creates opportunity for all people, everywhere in every language, to learn of his glory.

Not only does God want knowledge of him available to all, God also wants all of us to know the truth and be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4). There is a false assumption that many people have about pagans (worshipers of false gods). It is assumed by many that if a group of foreign peoples do not know God, then this proves that God has not been involved in their life or that God is an uncaring God who shows favoritism. But this is unbiblical because “…God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35).

God is involved in all people’s lives from the very beginning. He makes our individual spirit that we are born with (Ecclesiastes 12:7). And God doesn’t just stop with our spirit, as seen in Psalm 139:13. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Not one person was created and given life without God. This is clarified even further in John 1:4 and John 1:9. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men… The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.”

We see that Jesus actually lights up everyone that comes into the world. Think of a baby, any little baby. I think of my one year old daughter Anna. She is super-cute. People are drawn to her. All babies have that quality. They are pure, innocent and radiant. Have you ever wondered why that is? It’s because babies have the light of Jesus.

At some point in our development though, we lose that light due to the sin in our lives, since sin inevitably separates us from God, as put plainly in Isaiah 59:2. “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”

Thankfully, this grim reality is not necessarily the end of the matter. God always has a plan. During childhood, the plan for all kids includes the following from Matthew 18:10. “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” So angels are assigned to look out for kids. This angelic protection is not exclusive only to kids of Christian parents. Understand that you have had this protection in your youth and so will your children, whether you’re a Christian or not. God’s watchful plan is for all children. However, do not interpret this to mean that nothing bad can ever happen to our kids. (Don’t we wish?) But know that those children who do pass away go to heaven. Jesus teaches this in Matthew 19:14, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children.

Eventually though, these children grow up to join the crowd where “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The majority grow to reject God even though the Bible explains that God’s qualities are made known in creation, yet people reject God due to wickedness and their own suppression of the truth.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:18-21

This principle, of course, is for everyone, not just foreigners in remote pagan nations. If you reject God, your foolish heart is darkened and wrath comes to you. Asking a sincere question about people who never heard the gospel can be constructive, but it should not be used as an excuse to avoid following God. No one will have a valid excuse when God judges because God has made himself known through the very world we all live in. God is so evident that even birds, fish and animals know of God and that our life and breath is in his hands. Not only that, but these creatures would actually tell us so, if only we could understand them.

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” Job 12:7-10

People who have never cracked open the Bible actually have more truth at their disposal than most people can imagine. Romans 2 explains that basic right and wrong (the Law) is written on the hearts of all people and that at the very least, we are judged according to the light that we have been given in our conscience.

“All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.” Romans 2:12-16

God gives us many tools so that we can be respectful of his judgement. “…He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This concept of eternity set in our hearts is a built in radar sense that echoes in each of us something like, “I had better seek God and be good because forever is a long time, and my body won’t last forever but my soul will. And I don’t want to be punished for all the bad stuff I have done.” That last thought is a killjoy. All of us deserve to be repaid for the evil we have done. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking you are a good person because “…No one is good–except God alone.” What payment is due to us for our sin? Romans 6:23 states that “…the wages of sin is death…” and if not for the grace of God, that would be the end of the story. We sin, our sin separates us from God, and then we die… game over.

Thank God that there is a way out and that he does not want us to go our own way, as exemplified in Acts 14:16-17. “In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

It is so encouraging to learn that while we are learning about God, no matter what stage in the understanding we’re at, God is providing for us in multiple ways. He provides even for those who reject him. That is love which only a true father can demonstrate. He wants a relationship with us, not just any old relationship, but the best relationship at the best time and place. This is revealed in Acts 17:26-28. “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”

It takes faith to believe this: that God operates within our life so that we will seek him and best come to know him. All aspects of our life include what period we are born into, the exact places we live and our very movements and existence. None of these features are unknown to God. He is active in the entire human race, sustaining us and hoping that all the opportunities that we’ve been given to find him will not be wasted due to our own selfish, ungrateful and sometimes dull attitudes.

Think deeply about that last verse quoted; “For in him we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 27:28). According to this, it is impossible to survive, exist and move around without God. Yet how often do we operate as if we are independent and running on our own power? Such thinking is foolish and unbiblical. Human beings would cease to function without God.

To illustrate this point, imagine the coolest, latest mobile phone with all the latest features, including a built in MP3 player, camera, video recorder, email, long distance calling and even international calling. Now what good would that phone be if the power (battery) and the communications network (Verizon) were taken away? It would no longer operate. It would be useless. It is the same with you and God. You are the phone. God is the power and the service provider. “…Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought…” (Romans 12:3).

Unlike a phone provider who operates under the motto, “Pay us or no service,” God knows exactly how to balance mercy with judgement. Speaking of idolatry in Acts 17:30-31, Paul verifies God’s will. “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

Obvious in this passage is that the entire world will be judged through Jesus: not Buddha, not the multitude of Hindu gods, not the multitude of other invented pagan gods, not your family, not your friends and certainly not you. Only Jesus will be the judge of us all. Favorable judgement from Jesus and only Jesus means salvation. This is consistently stated in the scriptures. Peter lays it out in Acts 4:12, referring to Jesus. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

The narrow path to God’s kingdom has a very specific plan to follow. “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit’” (John 3:5). This paper is not an exhaustive study on conversion, but from the above verse, it is clear that Jesus considered the specific details of how to get to heaven as non-negotiable. Therefore, if through the Scriptures, God says repent (Mark 1:15), deny yourself (Luke 9:23), have faith (Colossians 2:12), be baptized (Acts 2:38), make disciples and teach them to obey (Matthew 28:19-20), then those who want to be with God in heaven must take God’s commands seriously. (For a more in-depth look at conversion, ask a member of the church to take you through our First Principles Study Series for Making Disciples.) Do not cut corners with God. Cutting corners may work at the office or with your household chores, but not with God. We must obey God’s plan of salvation.

Lingering Questions: Are You Still Doubting God?

After digesting and applying these life-changing truths, some lingering questions may pop into your mind. Herein, a few of the common ones will be addressed.

1. “Why doesn’t God just force us to always seek him and love him? Then everyone would love him and no one would go to hell, right?”

   The logic of this question is flawed; if someone is forced to love, then it’s not love. Also think about the nature of a great father. A great father wants a freewill relationship with his children. And that’s what God is: our Father (Luke 11:2). He doesn’t force us to be with him. If God wanted that, he would just make a bunch of robots who would coldly obey his commands. But who would take pleasure from such a relationship? Rather, God wants us to choose to be with him out of our own freewill. Think also of a marriage. If you were forced to marry a person that you had no desire for, where would the joy be? This would be a relationship of strife and oppression. Nobody wants that. Imagine what heaven would be like if it were full of people like that; it would not be a heaven. Rather it would be a population of depressed slaves still in bondage. That’s not worship. Worship involves adoration. Healthy relationships must include seeking and choosing the one you love.

   God knows this and shows it in John 4:23 where he is seeking true worshipers. “…A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” This mutual relationship is explained in Psalm 119:2 where we should be seeking him with fervor. “Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.” It’s a two way street. God is looking for people committed to him and we need to be looking with all our heart for God. If we do so, great promises await us, as described in Jeremiah 29:11-13. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’”

2. “If God gave people free will, how can his disciples be predestined as it says in Romans 8:29-30?”

   “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

   The key to understanding this passage in Romans is grasping that God knows all things and he is bigger than time itself. That is why “…with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). From God’s point of view, the beginning and the end are seen with the same ease that we might flip through the channels of a television. Therefore God knows who ultimately chooses him and who doesn’t. From God’s almighty angle, it is predestiny because he can exist outside of what we know as the passage of time. However from our viewpoint, we have no idea what will happen next. Be grateful that God is the beginning and the end (Revelation 21:6), and within that unfathomable time span, he is not merely watching from the sidelines and eating popcorn. “For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him…” (2 Chronicles 16:9). He is active in this life, and for the fully committed, an incredible destiny awaits you in a future that to God is simply another point in time.

3. “Why does God say that he hated Esau before the man was even born? And why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart (Romans 9:10-18)? Doesn’t that show God as unloving and not allowing for freewill?”

   As with the previous answer, much of this issue lies with the fact that God is not bound by time. He knows what choices you will make in the future. That’s God’s foreknowledge. For Esau and Pharaoh, too many of their choices later in life must have gone against God enough so that bitter consequences resulted.

4. “The gospel has never been preached in all the remote corners of the world so God doesn’t truly care for other nations since they never got the chance to hear the message, right?”

   Wrong… The gospel actually does go out all over the world. Colossians 1:23 makes this very clear. “…This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” See also Romans 10:17-18 where Paul writes, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: ‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’” This message does indeed go out to all the nations, as shown in Revelation 7:9. “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” This is a scene from heaven and it should build your faith that there are saved followers from every nation and tribe there.

   People making uninformed assessments about who has or has not heard the gospel over time are merely guessing based on their extremely limited points of view. Only God has an accurate picture of who has heard the gospel throughout the ages. His command is to “…Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Jesus wants the gospel to go global and we need to obey that. Some Christians get confused when they are challenged by non-believers to prove that the gospel has indeed gone global in the past. But there is no need to fall into this trap. We are commanded to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19), not investigate historical conversion rates or past missionary migration patterns. While the latter activities may be fascinating, this is not our responsibility and is best left up to the only writer powerful enough to know: Jesus Christ. He keeps the names written in the book of life, not us (Revelation 21:27).

5. “Why didn’t God just create and keep everyone in heaven to begin with and not even have an earth where people end up suffering?”

   This sounds like an easy plan on the surface, but how quick are we to appreciate things that come easy? I frequently find myself acting ungrateful even for people in my own family because I assume (falsely) that they will always be there. This is sin and God can’t have sin in paradise. Heaven wouldn’t by its very nature be a heaven if it were a place full of sinful activity.

   Think also of stereotypical rich kids who have everything but are still unhappy and/or total brats. They (and we) get that way due to their lack of gratitude for what they have. Not so with heaven, those in heaven will be grateful to be there because they have known suffering and appreciate that Jesus was sacrificed for them to have access to heaven. Jesus calls for persevering followers (not spoiled brats) who rise up for what is right to be with him in heaven. In Revelation 2:7 he says, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”

6. “Aren’t many remote jungle tribes closer to God since they live in nature and are less corrupted by the world?”

   The concept of the “noble savage” has been made popular by the entertainment industry, but the reality is that these peoples sin and fall short of God’s glory just as all people do and so need forgiveness from Jesus (Romans 3:23).

Conclusion: The Bottom Line about People Who Never Heard of Jesus

Therefore, in thinking about those who have never heard of Jesus, be assured that they have been given so much by God, as we all have. Those that never heard of Jesus have lives crafted in order to have opportunities to seek Jesus and be saved through him. Even in the most remote island, if there is someone seeking God, then surely God can do whatever it takes to get that person to the gospel. He can allow an earthquake to stir the inhabitants to evacuate to new lands and in the process, meet faith-sharing Christians. God can do anything: in fact, more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20) to get people saved.

But God’s plan is an interactive process. He entrusted his followers to take that message to the ends of the earth. If you claim to be a Christian, this means you. Get this message out; the words of Jesus (the Bible) will be the judge of all. Nothing but condemnation awaits those who reject Jesus, as his own statements confirm. “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day” (John 12:48). These are strong statements. If you are hearing this message, don’t delay to obey Jesus just because of unbelievers in a remote country that you don’t even know. The call rather is to get broken about your own sin, get faithful, get committed, get baptized, get forgiven and get on board with Jesus’ plan to get trained and get fishing for lost souls. This way, the gospel gets out and many get saved.

Once you join the daily battle to make disciples of all nations, the question, “What about people who never heard of Jesus?” will not be a burden to you. Your own conscience will be clear in knowing that God is using you to seek and save the lost. If you really care about people who have never heard of Jesus, do something about it! Don’t be a dead end for the gospel or you’ll wind up dead spiritually. Get on the narrow road that only a few find because it leads to eternal life (Matthew 7:14). You will meet people who’ve never heard of Jesus along the way, so take the initiative. Show them the way, the truth and the life. After all, no one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ.

Joe Chiappetta, Chicago International Christian Church, 2007

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