Salvation, as laid out in the Bible, has a general and a specific component:
- GENERAL: God loves you and wants to have a relationship you
- SPECIFIC: Professing Jesus Christ is the only way to have a relationship with God and be saved
This creates a problem for the Exclusivist and the Inclusivist. Both must answer how / if a person can have a saving relationship with God apart from specific knowledge and profession of Jesus Christ. Or as the Philippian jailer asked,
“…what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30)
I have argued that that question must be approached with nuance. In our Judeo-Christian culture, most adults have a rudimentary understanding of who Jesus claimed to be and what the Bible requires of them to be saved. Even then, there’s often much baggage you must unpack in presenting Christ to someone. Misconceptions about who Jesus is or what the Bible teaches often clutter ones approach — or resistance! — to the Gospel. So simply saying, as Paul and Silas did to their potential convert,
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31)
is often not enough. Even those with a basic knowledge of Christ and the Gospel still bring inexact, erroneous ideas about God and Christ into a relationship with Him. No one who comes to Christ brings a perfectly accurate, highly refined, understanding of the Savior with them. We all come as we are and start where we’re at.
Question: Do wrong beliefs about Jesus keep one from being saved? If so, what specific things must one believe about Jesus to be saved?
Requiring a perfect understanding of Christ for salvation is like requiring the one year-old child to perfectly articulate everything about her mother in order to be in relationship with her. If coming to Christ involves a perfect score on a theological quiz, most of us are in trouble. At some point you must concede that an inexact, even completely wrong, understanding of Christ may not prevent someone from a relationship with Him.
I want to suggest that a saving relationship with God / Christ always moves from the general to the specific. In the same way that general revelation paved the way for special revelation, a more basic, simplistic, imprecise understanding of God / Christ paves the way for a potential relationship with Him. Where one officially crosses the line and gets saved, we can’t always say. But like Cornelius (Acts 10), it appears possible for a person to be “a righteous and God-fearing man” (vs. 22) BEFORE they hear and respond to the Gospel. In this sense, a general, sincere quest for God can lead one to a specific relationship with Him.
Square one begins with a belief in God and a desire to seek Him. This is true in both the Old and the New testaments.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jer. 29:13).
God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27).
And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6).
Again, if Christ is God then seeking God IS seeking Christ. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the person who genuinely seeks God is on the road to finding Christ(like Cornelius).
Nevertheless, there’s lots of wiggle room in these types of verses. For instance, is seeking God with all our heart the only prerequisite for finding Him? What about those who “seek” God in non-traditional, even non-biblical, ways? For instance, if a person seeks God through alternative religions, mystical practices, or cultish institutions, can they still find God? If not, then this biblical promise is moot.
Point is: Seeking God implies not knowing how or where to seek Him.
If everyone knew exactly how to get to God, there wouldn’t be much mystery to the search. In fact, it would be more of a formula than a quest. Everyone starts seeking God at the place they are most comfortable, through the form they most associate Him with, whether or not that place / method is completely orthodox. Where else would a Hindu or a Buddhist begin seeking God but where they are at?
According to Jeremiah 29:13, it doesn’t matter WHERE a person starts seeking God, but HOW they start seeking Him. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” The writer of Hebrews builds upon this saying that “he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” In other words, a “faith hurdle” has been crossed involving an elementary belief in God and His character — He exists and . So if someone is serious about this search, if they seek in faith, with all their heart, believing that God will reward their search, they will find God.
This principle riddles Scripture: God is not a respecter of persons; if anyone, anywhere at any time seeks Him with all their heart, they shall find Him.
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.” The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:11-13 NIV)
Everyone? Shouldn’t there be some qualifiers to this? It seems far too . . . liberal.
Pascal suggested that there are only three kinds of people in the world:
- Those who have sought God and found Him
- Those who are seeking Him and have not yet found Him
- Those who neither seek Him nor find Him
Pascal called the first class reasonable and happy – reasonable because they seek and happy because they find. He calls the second class reasonable and unhappy – reasonable because they seek and unhappy because they have not yet found. He calls the third class unreasonable and unhappy – unreasonable because they do not seek and unhappy because they do not find. As Peter Kreeft summarizes,
The greatest difference is not between those who have found God and those who have not. This is only a temporary difference, for all in the second class will get into the first; all seekers will find. The greatest difference is between the seekers and the non-seekers, for that is an eternal difference.
If this is true, it means there is hope for people wherever they are at, whether in a cult, pagan religion, or of secular upbringing. For as they seek God, God will guide them to truth and away from error. This is also a promise of Scripture.
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth… (John 16:13 NIV)
The fact that we must be guided into truth implies a process. We do not get an instantaneous brain dump. At some point, even devout seekers do not possess the entire truth. No matter how long you may have been a Christian, you still only “know in part” (I Cor. 13:9). Your knowledge of God / Christ is incomplete, perhaps even terribly flawed. Yet Christ promised that all who seek, find (Matt. 7:7-8). Which would mean that all those who are truly seeking will not reach a dead end, even if their earthly journey is cut short.
I realize it is bothersome to suggest that salvation and seeking God might look different for different people, and that God can potentially be “found” in false religions and pagan cultures. But it’s a possibility we must consider. The only other option, which the Exclusivist makes, is to concede that only those within geographic earshot of the Gospel have a shot at eternal life.
C.S. Lewis, towards the end of The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia, wrote about the young Calormene Emeth, a lifelong devotee of the demon-god Tash, who found himself to his great surprise in the Narnian heaven. Aslan the Christ-Lion explained to him:
“Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me… For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him…
But I [Emeth] said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.” (bold mine)
Can the one who seeks Tash, find Aslan? Can someone who seeks truth, justice, goodness, beauty, mercy and love, and seeks it with all their heart, find God? Whatever your answer, salvation seems to exist on a spectrum — a spectrum that moves from the general to the specific. The main difference between the Exclusivist and the Inclusivist is where they draw the “line of salvation.” (The Pluralist / Universalist does not draw ANY line.)
So the question “What must I do to be saved?” requires more than just a pat answer. Like the apostles, we must proclaim “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” But believing in Jesus is very much a process, a process that starts with faith in God and seeking Him with all our heart. And if all who seek, find, even a servant of Tash might be on the road home.
“I realize it is bothersome to suggest that salvation and seeking God might look different for different people, and that God can potentially be ‘found’ in false religions and pagan cultures. But it’s a possibility we must consider.”
This is troubling. Do you mean they find God by realizing their current belief system is errant? In other words, God leads them away from their false religion and toward Christianity. Or, are you saying they can find God within their religion, never coming to the knowledge that their religion is false?
Honest question, just trying understand your thought process…what are you hoping you and others will get out of this discussion? (What fruit do you potentially see it producing?) I’m seeing some potentially bad fruit…a type of legalism or spiritual bondage wherein the person never knows if they are saved. At what point, based on the inclusivist understanding of salvation (as you are putting it forth here) does a person get to rest in Christ, knowing they are truly saved?
Re: False religions. Let me quote Lewis first: “If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth…being a Christian does not mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic — there is only one right answer to the sum, and all other are wrong: but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.” MERE CHRISTIANITY, Book Two, Ch 1
If this is true, then I’d say that it’s certainly possible that God can be found in other religions. However, the fullness of the truth and revelation of God can only be found in Christianity. Also, if the Spirit’s job is to lead us into truth, then I think that would also mean leading us OUT of false religion. What this doesn’t answer, for me, is all the myriads of places people find themselves along the way. How orthodox must we be to genuinely be seeking God? And does finding Him mean we automatically jettison false systems?
What am I hoping myself and others will get out of this discussion? Hm. This is something I’ve been pondering for a long time, Jessica, and I felt like articulating my thoughts would help me better understand what I’m thinking and allow me to field some objections. I’ve never felt it’s my place to say who’s in and who’s out of the kingdom. Yet the Exclusivist’s position seems to do just that. God’s love is so much greater than I realize, as I believe is its scope. I just have so many problems with those who proclaim to definitely know who’s saved and who’s damned. Jesus seemed to turn that type of judgment on its head, suggesting that heaven will be quite a shock. Anyway, thanks for asking… and please feel free to warn me if you think I’m off the rails.
If God exists, he certainly does not require the process you describe for salvation. Each step in the process you describe requires belief on the basis of weak or insufficient evidence. Being perfectly moral, God would not require that kind of belief.
You talk of salvation. But salvation from what? Annihilation? Eternal torment? Or something else?
Gary, if God exists, He’s free to require what he wants. You said, “Being perfectly moral, God would not require that kind of belief.” Are you suggesting that you know what a “perfectly moral” being would think? How could you know this?
Also, when Christians speak of salvation, it is salvation from sin, our moral incapacity, our desire to usurp God’s authority and make ourselves gods. It is a spiritual death sentence that, if not revoked (through appeal), will land us in eternal isolation.
Mike, I agree that if God exists, he is free to require what he wants. But, he would not want what you say he wants. He would not require what you say he requires. Why? Because he can’t want or require something which is contrary to his nature of being perfectly moral.
You have already suggested that YOU know what a “perfectly moral” being would think, want, and require. So, how could you possibly know this?
Neither you nor I really KNOW what God thinks, wants, or requires, if he exists, but we have different opinions. So, who has the best foundation for belief on this? From what you’ve written here, I suspect that you do not.
So you are talking about three different salvations — from sin, from spiritual death, and from eternal isolation. If a spirit exists and then dies, then it doesn’t make much sense to talk about isolation. There is nothing left to isolate. You seem to prefer the doctrine of annihilation of the soul rather then eternal torment of the soul. Is that correct?
But still, if God exists he would not require belief on the basis of weak or insufficient evidence, as implied in your process, in order to gain salvation from any of these things. In fact, he would require just the opposite — belief on the basis of strong and sufficient evidence.
Gary, I’m basing my opinion on what I believe the Bible teaches about God and salvation. You’re free to disagree with that. But Scripture is clear that God has requirements for entry into heaven. So I think you’re argument is with the Bible. If you don’t believe in God or that the Bible is His word, then that’s a different conversation. Regarding both, I think there’s plenty of evidence.
Mike, you started with a premise that I don’t think is accurate. You said: “This creates a problem for the Exclusivist and the Inclusivist. Both must answer how / if a person can have a saving relationship with God apart from specific knowledge and profession of Jesus Christ.”
Actually, I don’t think I do need to know how. I simply need to trust that God tells the truth. As it turns out, other passages say the same thing. Take for instance the response to Peter’s first sermon. The people asked virtually the same question: “What must we do?” Peter answered, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” (Acts 2:38-39)
You said that such a confession of faith is “not enough,” but the point is, Mike, it’s the starting place. The first thing is to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior. From there the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth.
The idea that “seeking God” is supposed to be a mystery and a quest is a man-made idea. God says just the opposite—that seeking results in finding, that God has revealed the mystery—“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Mike, you say, “Requiring a perfect understanding of Christ for salvation is like requiring the one year-old child to perfectly articulate everything about her mother in order to be in relationship with her. If coming to Christ involves a perfect score on a theological quiz, most of us are in trouble.” I agree completely. Nevertheless, as imperfect as our understanding may be, we must still come to Christ. Coming to idols is condemned throughout Scripture! Hindus do not believe in the “Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” Nor do Buddists. Muslims? Their own scriptures reject Christ. Pagans worship the very things the Bible says we are not to worship—created things.
To use your own analogy, a child may not know all about her mother, but she does know her mother. She isn’t looking to the nurse or babysitter or a stranger and learning about her mother.
At their foundation false religions are opposed to God who wants no other gods before Him. How can seeking God by worshiping a different god possible be something prompted by the Holy Spirit?
You’re right about the Holy Spirit guiding us into truth, but the John 16 passage, reading it in context, specifically says that truth is Jesus: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you” (13, 14; emphasis mine).
Mike, this is where I think the inclusivist view seriously limits God’s power. It’s a joke to think God is not big enough to overcome the distance of a person’s place of residence and the nearest preacher. God can send a preacher to them (see Philip going to preach to a single Ethiopian eunuch), he can send His angels to rescue them (see the angels who took Lot away from Sodom), He can send a vision (see Cornelius), He can personally appear to someone (see Paul), he can miraculously engineer events (see Paul and Silas in prison at the time of the earthquake), He can send a person to a preacher (see Nicodemus coming to Jesus).
He simply does not have to work through idols. He hates idol worship. That is as far from seeking Him as a person can get.
Becky
Becky, not sure I disagree with much of this.
I think we disagree about the starting place. You said, “The first thing is to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior.” However, there’s SO MUCH more that must precede that. First, a general belief in a God or Supreme being. A sense of moral failure and a moral law that one has broken. How else would one even feel a need for a Savior? This all is packed in an awareness that we are not cosmic accidents, but that there is some greater purpose or reason to our existence. Perhaps this falls under the “general revelation” category, but I wouldn’t say believing in Jesus is square one. If so, then what about all those Old Testament believers who sought God and still died in faith? (Heb. 11) Furthermore, this still leaves the question of infants unresolved (which you still haven’t spoken to).
You said, “How can seeking God by worshiping a different god possible be something prompted by the Holy Spirit?” In the same way that serving Tash led Emeth to Aslan. Ultimately, it’s not Tash (or any other false god) who saves. They don’t have that power. But because we “see through a glass darkly,” it is possible to be following good impulses and desires — like a conviction of sin, a need for spiritual answers, a hunger for God — and get mixed up in bad religion. So I would agree that a person who’s really come to know the Living God will eventually abandon false idols. What this doesn’t conclude is whether all those who worship false idols are not genuinely seeking God.
Also, I don’t think the Inclusivist view “seriously limits God’s power” at all! On the contrary, it assumes God is at work in every human heart, tribe, nation, from time immemorial to now, to save souls. The Exclusivist is the one who sees the power of the Gospel limited by its geographical spread. That, to me, “seriously limits God’s power.”
Mike, that’s fiction! It’s not Scripture. There’s no place in Scripture that talks about people coming to God through an idol. Rather, the Bible is filled with condemnation for idol worship. Surely, you must agree with that.
Becky
Well, of course the story is fiction! The principle, however, is not. Which is why C.S. Lewis has been accused of advocating Universalism in The Last Battle.
I don’t see why you persist to believe this in light of Scriptural evidence to the contrary, Mike.
Through history we know God can save the Auca people of Ecuador or people in a Nazi concentration camp or a native American Indian on a continent without any churches or missionaries. He can send David Livingston to Africa or the apostle Thomas to India or visions to Muslim people in various countries today. God can reach people throughout the world because He is mighty to save. If, as Scripture says, He calls all the stars by name and “because of the greatness of His might, and the strength of His power/Not one of them is missing,” how much more so will an omniscient God be able to insure that not one of those whose heart is His will not be missing?
Inclusivism basically says, God is too weak to reach people with the truth about Christ apart from their own efforts to find Him. This is Man-centric thinking.
God is not relegated to the use of idols He hates. He is not so weak that He can only act through those He forbade people to worship.
In the inclusivist’s view, as you’ve described it in these posts, Mike, God is too small. Rather than working in every tribe or people group throughout the world, God, according to this view, can do nothing apart from the false worship these people have relied upon. He is unable to show them His true nature, which can be clearly seen in Jesus.
This idea is without support in Scripture–God saving through belief in Baal? In Molech? Or in any of the idols the people made that are chunks of log, part of which they burn up, part of which they worship. God ridicules this idea. In Isaiah, He describes the scenario:
“18 To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare with Him?
“19 As for the idol, a craftsman casts it,
A goldsmith plates it with gold,
And a silversmith fashions chains of silver.
20 He who is too impoverished for such an offering
Selects a tree that does not rot;
He seeks out for himself a skillful craftsman
To prepare an idol that will not totter.
“21 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
23 He it is who reduces rulers to nothing,
Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.
24 Scarcely have they been planted,
Scarcely have they been sown,
Scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth,
But He merely blows on them, and they wither,
And the storm carries them away like stubble.
“25 ‘To whom then will you liken Me
That I would be his equal?’ says the Holy One.”
There is no equal to God. There is no “finding God” in the idol that will, at best, not totter. There is no finding God apart from His revelation.
“Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the LORD,
And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God’?
28 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable.” (Emphasis mine).
Becky
Sorry. I bowed out of the last post before I read this one. Hope you don’t mind if I answer.
You said:
Misconceptions about who Jesus is or what the Bible teaches often clutter ones approach — or resistance! — to the Gospel. So simply saying, as Paul and Silas did to their potential convert,
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31)
is often not enough. Even those with a basic knowledge of Christ and the Gospel still bring inexact, erroneous ideas about God and Christ into a relationship with Him.
Are you saying that conditions are different now than they were when Paul and Silas spoke to the jailer? I don’t think the Philippian jailer knew more about Jesus Christ than the average Muslim knows today. Paul and Silas were speaking to a man who was going to bring inexact, erroneous ideas about God and Christ into his relationship with God. And they still said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Why would we give any different answer today?
You say:
God is not a respecter of persons; if anyone, anywhere at any time seeks Him with all their heart, they shall find Him.
As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.” The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:11-13 NIV)
Everyone? Shouldn’t there be some qualifiers to this? It seems far too . . . liberal.
It’s not liberal at all. It’s scriptural. God is there for the Chinese man and for the African man and for the tribesman in South America. He’s there for the Muslim and the Hindu and the Buddhist. He’s there for ANYONE. I don’t know a Christian on the face of the earth who doesn’t agree with this.
There is a qualifier there in that passage though. God put in his own qualifier. They have to trust in him and call on the name of the Lord. If this is what you believe, we are in complete agreement.
ANYONE who trusts in him will not be put to shame. ANYONE who calls on his name will be saved.
That’s not liberal. It’s God’s word.
You seem to be saying, though, that anyone who doesn’t trust in him, or who has never heard of him, or who has heard of him but still serves Buddha, or who has never called on his name…will be saved.
That’t not in scripture.
“Are you saying that conditions are different now than they were when Paul and Silas spoke to the jailer?”
No. As I’ve said, the Scripture is clear that none can come to the Father except through the Son. But you would agree that not everyone possesses the biblical worldview necessary to even begin to compute the Gospel message, no? A belief in God, conviction of sin, etc. Point being that everyone is on a different theological / philosophical timeline in understanding the Gospel, thus requiring nuance in our approach.
“You seem to be saying, though, that anyone who doesn’t trust in him, or who has never heard of him, or who has heard of him but still serves Buddha, or who has never called on his name…will be saved. ”
We keep covering this same ground. I HAVEN’T said that everyone who serves Buddha or whatever, will be saved. I’ve suggested that God loves everyone, even those who worship idols, and that without an explicit witness of Jesus Christ, He may judge them by their witness of general revelation. Does this mean ALL Buddhists are saved? No! But it also doesn’t mean ALL Buddhists are damned, which is what I believe you are saying.
I’m sorry for exaggerating your point.
I really did think you were saying that all GOOD Buddhists were saved, but I left the “good” out accidentally. And, I think I did that because it seemed to me that by quoting Kreeft, you were saying you had come to believe that only those who choose hell of their own free will–only those who consciously choose hell over God, will go to hell.
So the person who studies several different religions and comes to embrace Buddhism as the right path to God, and who dies believing that he was right and Buddhism is the right path, is saved along with the one who suffers for his faith in Christ.
I would love for that to be so. I’d love every Buddhist to be sitting his right mind at Jesus’s feet in heaven. Only that’s not what the Bible teaches.
Yes, I am saying that all Buddhists, who die clinging to their faith in a false god, are damned.
You start this post saying what the bible says:
Salvation, as laid out in the Bible, has a general and a specific component:
GENERAL: God loves you and wants to have a relationship you
SPECIFIC: Professing Jesus Christ is the only way to have a relationship with God and be saved
This creates a problem for the Exclusivist and the Inclusivist. Both must answer how / if a person can have a saving relationship with God apart from specific knowledge and profession of Jesus Christ.
There is no problem for those who believe the Bible.
It says professing Jesus Christ is the only way to have a relationship with him and be saved. So I believe that. I don’t need to ask if a person can be saved without profession of Jesus Christ.
Why are you asking that question when you’ve just said the Bible has answered it?
“There is no problem for those who believe the Bible.
It says professing Jesus Christ is the only way to have a relationship with him and be saved. So I believe that. I don’t need to ask if a person can be saved without profession of Jesus Christ.
Why are you asking that question when you’ve just said the Bible has answered it?”
Because the Bible also says things like whoever seeks God with all their heart, find Him. And that if those who don’t have the law do the things contained in the Law, it becomes a law unto them. So while the Bible is clear that Christ is the only way to God, it’s not as clear, at least to me, how that specificity relates to different groups of people. I’m just not prepared to state with any confidence that all infants, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Scientologists, Urantians, animists, Mormons, Jews, and the unevangelized dating all the way back from prehistory to the present, will automatically go to hell. I don’t think the Bible is clear about that at all. So in part I’d have to admit that the certainty of Exclusivists regarding who’s going to heaven and who’s not is quite off-putting.
You can’t lump infants and retarded people in with idolators. I never said all babies go to hell. Clearly babies can be filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb. This is why John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb when Jesus, in Mary’s womb, came into the room. So I would never say that all babies go to hell.
However, good Muslims and good Buddhists, who do not repent and embrace Christ, do go to hell, according to scripture.
You started laying your beliefs out here without saying that people who have heard the gospel and still reject, get to go to heaven. But you ended up here. Good Muslims can be saved without their knowledge.
Muslims certainly believe in Christ. They believe he was a minor prophet. Jews believe in him, too. They believe he was a blasphemer. Hindus believe in him–they believe he was a yogi.
I’m sorry if it’s off-putting for me to say that these false beliefs about Jesus are not going to get people to heaven. I can’t lie and say it’s safe for them to continue to say the Bible is full of lies.
Does God love these people? Yes, he does. Will he save them? Maybe. I hope so. If he does, we may be sure that they will joyfully find Jesus. They will be moved out of the kingdom of darkness into his marvelous light. They will be born again, made into new creatures. The old will go and the new come. They will no longer live, but Christ will live in them. The life they live in the body, they will live by faith in the Son of God who loves them and gave himself for them.
For however long their lives last, they will live by faith in the Son of God who loved them and gave himself for them. This is God’s word, as off-putting as you may find it.
Maybe they won’t articulate all that before they die. Maybe all they will have time for is, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” But they will know that Jesus is holy and that they are unholy and that they need Jesus to save them. They will know that much because the Holy Spirit will tell them that much.
When anyone I love dies, having never professed Christ, I say to myself, “God loved that man more than I did. I am sinful and my love is always selfish. But God is perfect. His love is perfect. And I can trust that he loved that man and did what was right. I have no way of knowing that that man wasn’t saved in his last moment of life. I have no way of knowing that the Holy Spirit didn’t give him faith to call out to God in his heart. I have no way of knowing how John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirt in the womb and I have no way of knowing that the man I loved who died in a coma, wasn’t saved the same way. So I trust that the man is in God’s care and he is exactly where he’s supposed to be. I can rest.
It is not my burden to carry people to heaven or hell. My job is to preach Christ and him crucified. It is not for me to save people or damn them to hell.
I have stilled and quieted my soul. Like a weaned child with its mother. I do not concern myself with things that are too lofty for me.
If you think that when I say idolators go to hell that means I believe God hates Muslims and Jews, you are wrong. Or if you think that it means I hate Muslims and Jews, you are wrong.
“You can’t lump infants and retarded people in with idolators.”
If you’re saying that infants and retarded people can go to heaven, then we agree that there are categories of people who don’t have explicit knowledge of Jesus and confess him, but are saved. All I’m doing is adding another possible category.
“You started laying your beliefs out here without saying that people who have heard the gospel and still reject, get to go to heaven. But you ended up here. Good Muslims can be saved without their knowledge.”
Sally, I’m assuming you keep saying this because you’re missing my point, rather than misrepresenting it. 1.) I absolutely DO NOT believe that a person who’s heard the Gospel and rejected it goes to heaven. Not sure where you’re getting that. I don’t believe Good Muslims, or Good Anyone, are saved because of their sincerity. Good Muslims, like Good Baptists, may indeed go to hell. It’s where their heart is at with God, which I can’t make pronouncements on.
“If you think that when I say idolators go to hell that means I believe God hates Muslims and Jews, you are wrong. Or if you think that it means I hate Muslims and Jews, you are wrong.”
I don’t think that at all! What I think is that rigid Exclusivism forces one to make broad judgements about people’s eternal destiny. Kind of like the Jews believing that they alone were God’s people and all Gentiles were damned.
For someone who bowed out of the conversation, you still have a lot to say. 😉
I bowed out yesterday, before I read today’s post.
You keep posting and I’ll have to keep answering. Early tomorrow morning I’m leaving for ten days–two conferences back-t0-back, so you should be safe for a while.
Well, I am confused. I really thought you were saying that Hinduism could lead them to Christ without their knowing it. That they could, in fact, die while still embracing Hinduism (like Emeth serving Tash), and discover, “We were serving Jesus all along without knowing it.”
If you believe that Hindus who have heard about Jesus and choose to stay with Hinduism are not saved, we are in agreement on that point, at least.
Is that what you believe?
Ot do you believe that choosing to serve Vishnu or Mohammed or Buddha is not a rejection of Jesus Christ? Do you believe that people can worship God in their hearts without knowing it? Can they worship God in their hearts while they are worshipping Vishnu or Buddha with the bodies?
and I should add: I’m sorry for misunderstanding you. I am NOT purposely misrepresenting you. I am trying to argue with the points I think you’re making.
(“Retarded” is considered a derogatory term nowadays. Ya’ll are making me cringe.)
Sorry, I had a sister who was retarded–Downs Syndrome. And I would never, ever call someone a retard or use “retarded” as a derogatory term. However my sister really was retarded and that was not a bad thing at all. It was merely how God made her.
I was married to a man who was quadriplegic and he was a Native Alaskan. So I always said I married a crippled native. He didn’t care if people called him handicapped or disabled or crippled or native.
The only term I hated was invalid because I don’t think anyone is invalid.
I still man for mankind, too, and say he instead of they when I’m speaking of a singular person of unknown gender. My own war against the idea that we need to change words because they hurt people’s feelings when it’s really evil hearts that hurt people. If you love a retarded person you may call them what they are without injuring them.
And may I just add–80% of babies with Down Syndrome are aborted now. And I bet they are aborted by politically correct people who would never use the term “retarded.”
However, I will stop using the term here, out of respect for you, Jessica. Sorry I made you cringe.
I didn’t think you were being malicious. Just a fair warning. It may be different in different parts of the country. Here, I know it’s not appreciated.
God is a jealous God.
His church is his bride.
When his bride engages in idol worship he doesn’t like it.
If you came home and found your wife in bed with another man but she sincerely thought she was in bed with you, you might not hate her and throw her out, but if you are any kind of a decent husband, you would throw the impostor who has tricked her, out of your bed.
Why would God leave his bride in bed with Vishnu? He is a jealous God. He does not allow his church to worship any other God before him.
I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.
I think Sally and Rebecca make some really good points here. They highlight a central challenge to the inclusivist which is God’s antagonism for idolatry. It is hard to conceive of a trajectory toward the One true God through Baal, Molech and Wicca. Being without information did not stop God from wiping out the Canaanites, let alone “the earth/land” in Noah’s day. God Himself reflects “exclusivist” traits! However, it may still be that the Holy Spirit does work through the testimony of creation in order preach “the gospel” as Paul seems to imply in Romans 10:18. If this is so, there may be places where missionaries find believers waiting to hear about the God they already know.
Mark, do believe that someone can be sincerely seeking God and ensnared or raised in a false religion?
Mike, the language you use tends to imply innocence while doing things false religions endorse that God abhors, like temple prostitution or child sacrifice. Or attributing to the natural world divine attributes. If there are people who “seek God” from general revelation, it seems to me that seeking would line up significantly with the moral law written on the heart and with an implicit knowledge of personal sin that needs covering. These people would chafe at the idolatry in their midst as Socrates chafed, and died for his protest of Greek religion. I agree with you, the possibility is there for those not exposed to “special revelation” to have an immature hope in “the gospel”- this is what I think Paul is referring to in Romans 10. God’s love and kindness is expressed through the bounty of creation, and God’s wrath and justice is expressed through the tragedies of creation. The cross is an explicit expression of the same; love and justice. From this it is possible that mankind without Bibles are able, by the Spirit, to have an inarticulate sense of God’s love, justice and personal guilt that needs mercy. For the reasons that Sally and Rebecca point out, I think a “sincere seeker” would make a break with idolatry and look to the heavens for the “Unknown God” he desperately longs to know and knows must be. That gods of stone don’t suffice. Those ensnared in false religion would really be no different than Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. We would not consider them to be saved while on the way to knowing better, but needing to know in order to be saved. A Mormon who is saved, would need to believe there is a better way, that Mormonism won’t suffice. I cannot conceive of a saved person happy in their Mormonism waiting to get happier in Christianity. I hope this makes sense. Mike, I appreciate you taking on this challenging topic!
I pretty much agree with everything you say here, Mark. I think where we may differ is that I believe people can be in all different stages of the process of seeking God and remain enmeshed in various systems. Frankly, I think that’s part of the job of evangelism, to call those out. But can a person be saved while they are WITHIN some false system? Why not? If they’re not on a trajectory out of it, that’s where I’d begin to ask questions.
Mike I really am bowing out now–have to catch a plane in a few hours. Just wanted to say, “Sorry for posting fast today and not using smiley faces and not asking you questions instead of answering before I fully grasped your position.” I was jumping in here in between trying to get ready for my conferences and I posted fast. But I want you to know that I really appreciate that you were discussing all this with me–even though I was posting loooonngggggg comments. I think it’s important and appreciate you letting me have my say.
Sally, thank YOU for commenting. I value your opinion very much and appreciate you pushing me to clarify my thinking. God bless!
I don’t feel worthy to participate, but if I may make a quick observation —
The Exclusivists keep trying to deduce something definitive from Mike Duran’s theories — wondering whether he means that all good Hindus/Muslims are saved, etc.
I’m open to Inclusivism because I don’t understand salvation in my own life, and the indisputable uncertainty regarding salvation in the Bible (such as the negative aspect of “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven”) makes me think that we can’t identify what salvation looks like in specific, objective terms.
Of course, there is also objectivity in the New Testament, as much as it makes me uncomfortable.
Maybe Inclusivism is something that personality along with life experiences predispose us toward or against. Both groups find support in Scripture for what they’re more predisposed to find.
But if we believe that God created all types of personalities and has a purpose for the experiences that shape our views, both Inclusivists and Exclusivists have legitimate truth. The incompatibility of the two views is due to the fact that no one has perfect theology, I’m sure.
Thanks for chiming in, bainespal. It really is incredible the depth to which others, mainly academic types, can go to discuss subjects like this. It makes me wonder how Christianity ever thrived amongst the common folk. I do think in these discussions, there’s misunderstanding between the two camps and that Exclusivists and Inclusivists share far more together than they differ. And remember, I’m only speaking from my own POV. I am not representing the “official” Inclusivist position. Really, the main difference between the two positions seems not whether salvation is exclusive through Christ, but how that exclusivity relates to different people groups and how hard we should apply it to those groups.
“It makes me wonder how Christianity ever thrived amongst the common folk.”
Why? Because all it takes to be saved is faith (like a child) in Jesus Christ. This is my main issue with this whole train of thought. We like to over-intellectualize, “What do I do to be saved” when God intended it to be quite simple. The Pharisees over-intellectualized. They thought they were so much “smarter” than the common folk… (I’m not calling you a Pharisee, I’m just seeing some parallels, which again, is troubling.)
Jessica, you misunderstand my point. I also said, “It really is incredible the depth to which others, mainly academic types, can go to discuss subjects like this.” Meaning that we end up straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Over-intellectualizing salvation occurs on every level of this discussion.
Mike, I don’t think it’s “over-intellectualizing salvation” to say we ought to trust God when He tells us to believe in Jesus. His statements about salvation are so clear and plain that a young child can understand: whoever believes in [the Only Begotten Son of God] will not perish but have everlasting life.
Becky
Becky, you’re right in that the Exclusivist may “over-simplify” the discussion: “It says Jesus is the only way, people must hear and believe, therefore ANYONE who doesn’t hear and believe isn’t saved.” It’s a letter of the law approach. Their “over-intellectualization” comes on the other side, explaining away or justifying what happened to OT saints and infants and such.
So you’re saying if a person believes what God says in His word, they’ve oversimplified?
Why not apply that same idea to the fact that Jesus and only Jesus redeems from sin?
Becky
The more I think about this, Mike, the more it bothers me. Would Eve have been oversimplifying to have believed God when He said, If you eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, you’ll die? Actually, had she believed He meant what He said, she would not have been susceptible to Satan’s deception.
Would the disciples have been oversimplifying to believe Jesus was going to rise from the dead? Or would the lame man have been oversimplifying to pick up his bed and walk when Jesus told him to do so? Or how about the centurion whose son Jesus healed from afar–was he oversimplifying to believe Jesus when he told him his son was well?
The point is, at what point ARE we supposed to believe God means what He says?
Becky
I haven’t commented much on this series because it’s a deep subject. I think though you have to be careful to mark the boundaries of inclusivism, namely that God will not let people go to hell who have no physical chance to repent through the Gospel. When we talk about infants, we are talking about people who have no capacity at all to repent. In history, there were also people unable to do so due to geography.
I think it’s okay to be inclusivist on them, but this is more of a negative view. I don’t think we can move to positive statements where we can truly say God is leading them to repent or to a saving knowledge of Him purely through devotion to other religions. It’s okay to say that God doesn’t damn, but saying that He can save brings up thorny questions about a man’s works and their role to salvation.
You’re kind of making positive assumptions that I’m not sure you can back. The thing about Tash is that he is a stand in for Allah, and the Calormenes Muslims. Lewis’s statement becomes a lot more problematic when you think on that, and its hard to know how he viewed the afterlife given The Great Divorce.