Those Who Never Heard

by Tim Isbell, March 2018

The Noah story

People ask, "What about those who've never heard of Jesus? It doesn't seem fair that God would send them to hell!" It's a good question that keeps many people from seriously considering Christian faith. A few weeks ago, a church invited me to preach. The pastor there is a lectionary preacher, and my Sunday fell on the first Sunday of Lent, which includes the Noah story. Preachers take the Noah story in many directions and I organized my sermon around four questions. The third was, "Suppose you get to heaven. What are the chances you'll meet any of Noah's neighbors?" 

I'll leave it to you to read the Noah story in Genesis 6-10. But I'll tip you off about what the Bible says about Noah's neighbors: everyone was "corrupt and filled with violence," which is why God sent the flood to exterminate them. Except for Noah, who the Bible describes as "a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God." So, God made a plan to save Noah, his wife, and their three sons, along with their wives - and a pair of each animal. 

Setup

We'd be in theological trouble if all we knew about God came from this story. There are more Old Testament stories that bring up the same question. And then there's the Jesus story and many other stories in the New Testament. So, before we judge God on his fairness, let's take a look at what the Bible says about God's personal characteristics. Here's Millard Erickson's list  from his Christian Theology (chapters 12 & 13):

Greatness, two elements of which are:

Goodness, four elements of which are:

I've been a Christian for a very long time. Early in life, I read scripture to judge God’s greatness and goodness for myself. But later, I experienced enough life with God to give him the benefit of the doubt. So, now I read Scripture assuming his greatness and goodness. Let's do a thought experiment where we look at the Noah story while presuming that God is great and good.


But what about Noah’s neighbors?

There is a set of Christians who will answer this question immediately by saying that Noah's neighbors are already in hell or will certainly go there in the final judgment. People base this on such New Testament scriptures as: 

But hold on a minute. On the basis of those 5 scriptures, Noah also would be in hell along with everyone else who lived before the incarnation of Jesus. Yet Hebrews 11, a book that was written after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, lists Noah among the “Great Examples of Faith!” I expect to see Noah in heaven along with all the other Old Testament characters listed in Hebrews 11. So, how does Noah get into heaven without believing in Jesus? 

Or consider John 10:14-16, in which Jesus says to Jewish listeners, "I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, 15 just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd." The most obvious group fitting the description of "other sheep" are Gentiles who would come to know Jesus starting in the first century. But the term also applies to those who never heard a clear version of the gospel of Jesus in their lifetimes.

Suppose, just for a moment, that when Noah died, he didn't go directly to hell for not believing in Jesus. Further, suppose that God could get the Jesus story to Noah centuries after he died. I'm sure Noah would immediately believe, confess his sins, and receive God's forgiveness. The New Testament gives us an example of this sort of event when Saint Paul met some Ephesian "believers" in Acts 19.1-7 and told them about Jesus for the first time: 

Saint Paul traveled through the interior regions of Asia Minor (Turkey) until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. He asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”.

“No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

“Then what baptism did you experience?” he asked.

And they replied, “The baptism of John.”

Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.”

As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then, when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.

Now, what if I told you that there’s a pretty good hint in the Bible that God arranged precisely that for Noah? It's in 1 Peter 3.18-20, where Peter describes what Jesus did between the cross and the resurrection:

Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit.

So he went and preached to the spirits in prison— those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood.

Also see Revelation 20.11-12, where John describes his vision of the final judgment:

And I saw a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books...

So we can see how Noah and the Hebrews 11 people can show up in heaven, even without any knowledge of Jesus when they died centuries before. 

But what about Noah’s corrupt neighbors? They never heard of Jesus either, but even worse, they weren’t even trying to follow God. The Bible says they were "utterly corrupt."


A way to think about these things:

Some Christians believe that to go to heaven, we must know the Jesus story, believe certain things about Jesus, and specifically ask him to forgive us. I agree that knowledge, beliefs, and confession are important. However, in the grand scheme of things, God primarily wants us to get to know him personally. He isn’t just interested in us knowing that he exists, he wants us to experience his personality and nature to a depth where we begin to share in his characteristics. So, God communicates in ways that reveal himself most fully. We may wish God would speak differently and that the Bible didn't have so many apparent contradictions, but I’ve come to assume that God's ways are optimal for his purpose. To judge otherwise is above my pay grade. 

The Bible teaches that God is just and merciful to all, inviting even the most corrupt of us into a transforming relationship with himself. So if God judges on the basis of knowledge that wasn’t available to the sinner, we could conclude that God is unjust - in violation of what systematic theologians tell us is his nature. Instead, I choose to give God the benefit of the doubt and look deeper into how God may navigate through this problem. Decades ago, I concluded that God will judge people according to what they do with the resources they have at their disposal. Before anyone finds themselves eternally in hell, God will make sure they have sufficient knowledge of salvation through the crucifixion of Jesus and an opportunity to decide whether to confess and receive Jesus as Lord or not. 

Condemnation to hell arises when people become aware of God’s truth and respond to it with hatred and contempt, twisting themselves out of shape rather than admitting its claims on them. In a relational world such as God designed for us to share the Good News of Jesus with people all around us, there is no reasonable way for God to give each person an equal chance to be saved. However, God will give each person a genuinely sufficient chance to be saved—consistent with his justice and mercy.

Eventually, God will judge all of us as individuals on the basis of the person we have chosen to become.

So, are people better off not hearing the Gospel at all? 

No, for several reasons. 

I began this post with this question, "What about those who've never heard of Jesus? It doesn't seem fair that God would send them to hell!" 


Blessings,

Tim


Notes & references:

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