What happens to people who never hear the gospel?
This episode tackles one of the most difficult and emotional questions in Christian theology: What happens to people who never hear the gospel?This is a thoughtful, honest, and hope-filled conversation about God’s justice, God’s mercy, and the confidence we can have in His character.
Scripture says salvation is only through Christ, but millions of
people have lived and died without ever hearing his name.
What happens to them? It doesn't seem fair for them to
just go to hell. But if we see someone can be
saved without Christ, then is Christ really the only way, or
just one of many? In fact, one might even ask
whether his coming was necessary in the first place.
Hi, welcome. Welcome back to Rooted with
Nathemi Here, timeless biblical truth is brought into everyday
life in a way that's clear, real and grounded.
And I'm happy to have you here whether it's your first time or
you're returning. In fact, if you could see me
now, you see, I'm blushing, right?
I'm, I'm blushing. Yeah.
So before we dive into the question I want to answer, I
want to get some things off my chest.
There's an ongoing Christian genocide in Nigeria, and it's
heartbreaking. Many, and I mean thousands of
Christians in the north have been killed, kidnapped, maimed
and had other horrific things done to them and their loved
ones. And the crazy thing is it hasn't
stopped despite how people have cried out while at church.
And Sunday my pastor told us about a church in the north that
had been attacked 4 different times by bandits. 4 different
times they were attacked the first time, the second time, the
third time. And even after the all of these
attacks, it didn't stop them from still meeting at the
church. Like some I call it crazy, some
I call it mad, but it's inspiring faith.
Their reverend was first kidnapped and leader killed
after they paid the ransom. It's as much as, you know, it's
quite stirring and you know, it really inspired me hearing about
their feet. It also broke my heart.
It broke my heart so bad. They paid the ransom and they
still killed the reverend. So it only makes sense that we
express our feelings towards everything that's been happening
to our brothers and sisters. Like, it's OK if we go on social
media and call the government out to do something about it,
hold them accountable, but it's not OK if we stop there.
It's not OK if that's all we do. I shared something, my status
yesterday about how the Israelites were in captivity for
decades longer than Nigeria has been a country.
And they cried out to God. And for many years, it might not
have looked like God was hearing.
It might have looked like, oh, maybe he doesn't exist.
Or maybe the tales and the stories that are forefathers
because some of them, you know, grew up hearing stories about
this good and cried to this good boy.
It just was like, oh, maybe this God doesn't hear us, but surely
God delivered them. He might not have been how
exactly they expected. He might not have been when but
God gets his promise. You remember this covenant with
them. Think of the early church under
the Roman Empire. Brutal persecution, public
executions, violent oppression. Yet today, Christianity is not
only legal in Rome, it flourishes like it flourishes.
The gospel is preached openly where Christians wants hid.
And I can feel frustrating and discouraging to continue praying
when it doesn't seem like anything is happening.
In fact, one of my friends who is a firm believer, like a very
solid believer, texted me as I'm just open up about how it's
frustrating praying for Nigeria. It's tiring.
Seems like nothing is happening for praying and all of a sudden
because I texted her I think on Monday or Tuesday, like, oh, can
we have a call later this week to just pray about persecuted
for our brothers and sisters. And all of a sudden, and I think
Wednesday news is coming out. There was a live shooting.
It's just really heartbreaking. But as believers, we must trust
the one who holds the word in his hands.
We must get on our knees before the one who created all that we
see today. All things were created by him.
So we must kneel before this crate or this all powerful God
and trust that he will intervene.
Pray for Christians facing persecution in Nigeria free,
knowing God hears you and surely answers your prayer.
Pray with our understanding. Pray with our confidence that
God hears you and that he answers your prayers.
And don't just stop there, right?
Pass this point along to somebody else.
Like let it be part of you praying for your brothers and
sisters in persecution, and not just in Nigeria, not just when
it's on the news every time. Pray without season for your
brothers and sisters in the North.
So yeah, now that I have that off my chest, let's dive in.
And to begin, I want us to move from what we know to what we
don't know. Before we talk about the fate of
the unriched, we have to start with the 1st and most undeniable
reality. And I've, I've kind of said it
before in the previous episode. What is that?
Creation itself bears witness to a creator.
Long before anyone hears A sermon, reads a Bible and meets
a missionary, the world around them is already preaching.
So there's this funny joke. It's like a guy, you know, like
pick up lines. A guy walks up to a guy and it's
like, oh, is your dad a pastor because your body is preaching?
Yeah. Then when I got it.
Well, anyway, as funny as it might seem, that's actually
true. And I'm not just talking about
the daughter of a person. I'm talking about human beings.
Generally, you look at the body of a human being and it points
to an intelligent designer. Like you think of your body.
I never really liked biology much in secondary school.
I feel like some of my secondary school friends listen to this.
We even know I wasn't a fan. But you know, I remember a few
things like this. I know we have a brain, we have
a heart. We have so many things that are
working. Like we give out oxygen, sorry,
we take in oxygen. We give out carbon dioxide.
Please ignore that. And then plants give out oxygen
and taking carbon. Like when you think about how so
many things work, you have cells, you have organs, you have
systems in your body. When you think about how
everything works together, it points towards it's too
intentional. It's like you're walking on the
road and you see a stone. You just think, oh, it's a
stone. But if you see a wrist watch,
for example, you know that that belongs to somebody because it's
too well crafted. So I've just gotten there.
So I've just been lying around as opposed to a rock.
So when you look at the order, complexity and beauty and
intentionality woven into the universe, it's not random.
Basically, Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens declared the
glory of God and disguise proclaimed the works of his
hands. Paul echoes the beginning Romans
one that God's invisible qualities, his power, his divine
nature, his awesomeness essentially are clearly seen
through what has been mean through all around us.
So the starting point is there's no one live in the world where
God is completely silent. Creation itself is a witness.
It is a witness, it tells us that there is someone greater
than us. And the second thing I want us
to understand, what I explain to you is something called the
teleological arguments. So maybe if you care about the
terms, like it's just an easy way of like remembering these
things. The argument of intelligent
design, that's what it's called. And 2nd I want to introduce you
to is that when God created us, he placed immoral compass inside
every human being, something that we call a conscience.
Even in places where people have never heads detained
commandments or opened a Bible, there is still an inner sense of
right and wrong. There is something within us
that celebrates honesty and condemns betrayal, that that
values justice and feels guilty. That is happy and kindness.
But it's kind of unsettled when you see wickedness or cruelty,
that inner witness, and so many people argue about this, but
that inner witness is actually not cultural at its core.
At the very core, it's not cultural.
It is divine. It is divinely put.
It's not just about cultural. No matter where you go, you
won't see a place where it's fine to kill.
Like there just has to be some sort of justice, some sense of
justice. Paul is telling the Gentiles or
Paul is telling, yeah, the Gentiles and the Jews, cause the
Roman church was a mixture of boots.
And he's saying that what the people without the law.
So the Gentiles were the ones who did not have the law.
And he says that they show that the work of the law is written
on their hearts, their conscience, bearing witness when
by nature they do the things that the law says.
So he's like, wow, they did not have the law telling them thou
shall not kill not I didn't know killing is not.
Of course, they're still the same problem and a lot of people
still give in to these issues, but in their weather it ought
not to be like this. So just like creation points
outward to a creator, conscious sort of points inward to immoral
lawgiver. And this matters because it
means no human being is in total darkness.
There is a God speaking through creation.
And as in God speaks within the conscience or through the
conscience. And every person, no matter
where they live, has some sort of awareness of right and wrong
and the reality of code of a supreme being.
I hope that makes sense. Yeah.
So after establishing these two truths, our creation points to a
creator and that conscience points to a moral or giver, we
have to move to the most important truth of all, which is
that Jesus has always been the only way of salvation, not just
now, not just in the New Testament, but even in the Old
Testament. There's actually for Hindus of
you who might, you know, maybe Bible net or you're just really
interested, you can say something called theophanies.
There's appearances of God in the Old Testament.
There's also something called Christophanies.
Those ones are appearances of Christ in the Old Testament.
We're not going to be launching that much more.
Point is, even in the Old Testament, we see Christ in the
New Testament. That's the Internet version of
Christ. But make no mistake, they are
pre Incarnate versions or appearances.
Let me use the word appearances of Christ in the Old Testament.
You see in Colossians that He's the first one of all creation.
Right from the very beginning He was there.
And this is something that so many people don't realize.
Even in the days of Abraham, Moses, David and the prophets,
salvation was never by keeping the law.
I think it's Genesis 15 verse 6. It is such an important verse of
scripture that sets precedent for so many things that you
later see in the Bible. Faith was never by sacrifices.
It was never by trying your best. faith in God was.
What if defeating God, who saves through Christ, was what saved
the person. faith in God through Christ was what saved them.
They didn't know Christ's name. They did not know the details of
the cross. They didn't have the full
picture. But their faith was still
anchored in God's promise, and Christ is the fulfillment of
that promise. Romans 3 explains it
beautifully. Says God passed over sins
previously committed, not just because these people didn't need
forgiveness, but because the sacrifice of Jesus was coming
for them. In other words, the cross walked
backwards as well as forwards. Like Jesus didn't just die for
the people after him, he died for the faithful people before
him as well. So the Old Testament sins were
saved the same way we are through Christ, not by knowing
his biography, but by trusting God's revealed way of salvation.
In fact, Hebrews 11 shows it says Abraham believed God and it
was counted to him as righteousness.
Moses chose God over Egypt by faith, he chose Jesus.
Rahab believed in the God of Israel.
All of them were saved because of Jesus, even though they
didn't yet know Jesus. So the point is, whether someone
lived in 1000 BC or 2025 AD, whether they were an Israelite
or a Gentile, whether they had seen Jesus physically or only
believed the promises of God, the Savior has always been the
same. Christ has always been the only
way. This matters because it frames
our entire conversation for today when we ask what about
those who never heard the gospel or who never get to hear the
gospel before dying? We're not asking a question
about human goodness. We are asking a question about
God's gracious provision through Christ and how he applies the
work of Jesus to people across history, different cultures, and
different levels of revelation understanding essentially.
So now here's where I personally land.
I believe God is infinitely wise, he's infinitely just and
he's infinitely loving and that he judges every person based on
the revelation that the did have or do have access to another
revelation they couldn't have received.
So if someone dies without hearing the gospel for reasons
beyond their control, maybe it's location, like geography, maybe
it's a disability, you know, so like some people who are
mentally impaired, maybe it's age like before a child, which
is the age of what theologians call the age of accountability,
where we can see who they can understand the gospel and its
implications and things like that.
Like if someone dies without hearing the gospel, I trust
God's character enough to believe he would judge him
righteously based on the testimony of creation and the
testimony of conscience. Some people who are more
exclusive in their belief believe that, you know, it's
strictly by faith in the message.
You must understand in three cases of the message and for
good reasons as well. But personally, I lean towards
the more inclusive side if salvation is extended to anyone.
Like this is a disclaimer. If salvation is extended to
anyone, it will still be because of Jesus because he is the only
savior. But God applies Christ's work
with perfect fairness and perfect justice.
So I can trust that the same way how he applied fairness and
justice to the patriarchs, to the likes of Moses, Rehab, and
others who did not know Christ the way we know him the OR the
way we've heard the gospel. I can trust that because God is
infinitely wise and God is good, God is kind, God is loving, God
is trust. I can trust that for people who
do not categorically hear the message of the gospel, God can
judge them fairly based off of, again, the testimony of creation
and testimony of conscience. Sometimes I think about Solomon.
Solomon was such a wise man. Like I know he had his flaws.
I think his reason was particularly as regards
leadership or ruling over people.
I don't think it's extended towards his relationship aspects
cause anyway, I remember the story where 2 ladies come and
they're arguing over who the baby belongs to essentially.
And before I heard what Solomon did, I never would have thought
of this. It just amazes me how Solomon
thought of doing that. And this is the wisdom that God
gave to Solomon to preside over situations and things like that
or over problems and just to be a good king to God's people.
How much more the one who gave that wisdom to Solomon.
So I can trust that no matter how tricky, like you can think
of so many weird cases. What if this happened and that
happened and this and that. Like you can think of so many
scenarios where it's like, how about this person, this person
is mentally impaired. This person was never got to
hear the gospel. Maybe the person that I haven't
preached the gospel preached the wrong thing.
So they never actually still go to hear the gospel.
You can think of so many scenarios.
For some you might, you might have an answer.
For some, you might not have the best answer, but we can trust
and no matter how tricky the scenario is, if God can give
wisdom to Solomon to handle a tricky scenario, and we know
that God's wisdom is far more than what Solomon had, we can
trust. We can definitely trust in the
character and the nature of God. I know some of you myself even
have questions about whether God is actually just.
And in some episodes, I don't know whether it's going to be
soon or later, but we will, you know, visit and investigate the
goodness and the justice of God. But based off of what the word
of God said, let the word of God be true and all main liars is
that God is just, God is faithful, God does not change.
So we can trust that for these ones while we don't know or we
cannot see as human beings because God is your turn judge,
we cannot see this person is going to hell or this person is
going to heaven. We cannot tell for some of these
cases. All we can do is we can trust in
the character of God and we can trust that he will preside over
these cases fairly. So I hope this helped.
I hope this brought a bit of light to the question.
It's really tricky question. It's largely debated differing
views and things like that. But I hope this helps.
And most importantly, I hope you just get to understand that God
is very wise and God is very just.
I don't just want this to be head knowledge for you.
I want it to actually affect your heart.
Like the God you serve is wise. He's wise.
So when you're in situations when it seems like, how will I
get out of this, you save a wise God who can pave a way for you,
who can provide you with all that you need.
And you save a just God who will not see you being cheated, who
will not see you going through a tough time.
I will just look at you, but will actually walk towards
saving you his child. And so that's a wrap.
I hope you enjoyed the episode. Share, leave a rating, leave a
comment. I think I was speaking with a
friend. I think for for now, I think
Spotify disabled comments in the Afghan region.
I'm not sure but I think so. But read the show.
Please share this with someone. A lot of people usually have
these questions so you can just share.
Share this with them and hopefully it blesses them as it
blesses you. So bye for now, stay rooted.
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