As Christians, we know how to come into a right relationship with God – whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. However, the Bible is also clear that whoever rejects Jesus will not see life, because God’s wrath remains on him (John 3:36; also 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).
But what about those who never hear the good news about Jesus? Can they be saved without knowing Jesus?
Can people come to know God from what is seen in our world? We all know how a beautiful sunset, or a perfect wave crashing to shore, or the still silent bush at sunrise can tug at our hearts – and the Bible tells us that God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – can be clearly seen and understood from what has been made (Romans 1:19-20).
People can see creation, and realise that there is a God – but do they? According to the Bible, they don’t. This passage goes on to say that even though people can see God in creation, they still refuse to respond to him as God – they don’t glorify him, or thank him (Romans 1:21).
The Bible says that God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done’ (Romans 2:6). In Revelation, the apostle John has a vision of the future judgement – all people standing before God’s throne, being judged by God according to what was written in the book, i.e. by what they had done (Revelation 20:12).
The problem is that ‘there is no one righteous, not even one… all have turned away… there is no one who does good, not even one’ (Romans 3:10-12). We all need saving; and this is the very reason Jesus came into the world – to die for our sins. We are told that ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’ (Romans 10:13), so clearly, the teaching of the Bible is that all people need to hear about Jesus to be saved, since they cannot believe in him if they haven’t heard about him (Romans 10:14-17).
That’s what’s on my mind.
What do you think?
The Rev 