#STRask - What About Those Who Never Heard the Name of Jesus?

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Questions about what will happen to those who never heard of Jesus or were brought up in a different faith, whether there’s biblical warrant to think a humble, repentant attitude can save people who don’t know Jesus, and where the souls who lived before Jesus go.   We’re taught that the only way to Heaven is through belief in Jesus, but what about those living on this planet who never heard of him, those brought up in another faith, or those of a Jewish faith? Is there any biblical warrant for thinking that those who haven’t heard of Jesus will nevertheless be saved due to a humble, repentant attitude? Where do the souls who lived before Jesus go since they couldn’t be baptized or saved?

Welcome, friends. We have another episode about Jesus today. Since we're so close now, we're just a few days away from Christmas. So let's talk about Jesus. And this question comes from Jeff. We are taught that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ or belief in Jesus. My two brothers and I were exposed to a Christian church as kids. How about those living on this planet that have never heard the name of Jesus? There are many. How about those brought up in another faith? How about those of a Jewish faith? Could you read the first line again? I missed a detail.

We are taught that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ or a belief in Jesus. Okay, right. Okay, that view is called exclusivism, by the way, which means there is an exclusive way for people to experience. the forgiveness that is necessary to spend eternity with God. Go to heaven, if you want to put it that way, but that's what it amounts to. Because right now, human beings are in a position of enmity with God because of their sin. And before I even get into any theology, this is a foundational concept that needs to be taken into consideration. And sometimes when questions are asked like this, these are details that are forgotten.

Everybody has fallen short of the glory of God. That's, well, actually, that's from Romans chapter, what, three, all of sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. And that concept of sin, the Greek word Hamartia, means missing the mark. and it isn't just referring to a casual miss. It's referring to this notion that Paul describes there in Romans that God is holy and we are not. And it's not just that we make a few mistakes. We are in complete rebellion to God.

That is our natural state of affairs. That's what we are born into. David says that in sin, my mother conceived me. That's Psalm 51, and it seems to coincide with other passages that indicate, and this is a classical Christian doctrine, even though some are taking exception with it today, we are born in a fallen state because of our parent's action and their fall and the corruption of their nature, they reproduced after their own kind, so that we are like that now. What this does is it puts humanity at, I won't say at large, because that sounds like the majority, all of humanity at odds with God. Now, in the midst of this, God responds, and God's response is to send his son a rescue plan to rescue us through his son giving his life for us. no greater love has any man than this than he laid down his life for a friend. And also in Romans, it says that even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

He made a way. Now, why am I talking about all of that stuff right now instead of just answering the simple question? And the reason is, is the answer to the question that's asked only makes sense if you have a certain foundation in place in which you understand the nature of the problem. And the biblical understanding of anthropology or the doctrine of man, which turns out to comport with common sense. And this is one of the things that I think is so compelling about the Christian worldview, the biblical worldview, as so many points of it makes so much sense to us. We don't even have to read it to know it, okay? And one of them is the fall on this of man. I think it was

who wrote the book, Everlasting Man. Chesterton. Yeah, Chester, G.K. Now, why wouldn't I remember G.K. Chesterton, that's my initials. G.K. Chesterton wrote that there's one doctrine, biblical doctrine, that is empirically proven, and that is essentially the fallenness of man or the sinfulness of man. And so we all know that human beings are sinful. And not just human beings writ large, but we as individual human beings were sinful, which

accounts for our universal feeling of guilt, or at least universal, and people who are psychologically healthy occasionally have somebody who doesn't experience guilt or remorse. But that's, we all acknowledge, there's something wrong there. We have this universal sense that not only is something wrong with the world, but the thing that's wrong with the world and includes things that are wrong with us, and the things that are wrong with us are moral, and we are culpable for those blameworthy, and therefore we feel guilt. That's the human condition, and that's a condition that any worldview that seeks to bring a solution regarding the problem has to confront. And one of the things

that's compelling to me about Christianity is that it takes the problem seriously, and provides a serious solution. And the problem isn't just like a disease we have, like we're sick and we need to be healed. That metaphor works a little bit, but it can only be taken so far because disease doesn't entail culpability and blame. We are to blame before a holy God. And if that holy God were to condemn every single person who is guilty of sin, which would be every single person, he would be completely just to do so. There would be no fault in God for doing that. It turns out God has made a provision, and that provision is through

his son to be rescued from our guilt and restored in friendship with God. And the challenge here is, of course, that he is the true and only antidote. So anybody who does not take the true and only singular antidote does not benefit from the antidote. And this is where sickness is a good analog analogy, because if we are dying of a disease, unless we get the right medicine, then we're going to be taken out. The notion shouldn't be strange to us. And in this particular case, we are heading towards a death, not just physical, but eternal separation from God unless this problem is dealt with. And singular, and I write this in the story of reality, it's a line that just stands out so much for me once I wrote it, because it captures,

in a very few words, a very important principle. Singular problems often have singular solutions. Let me say it again. Singular problems often have singular solutions. The fall of man and human culpability before Holy God is a singular problem. Therefore, it turns out, in God's economy, there is a singular solution, and that is a substitute is offered. I've often said it this way, either Jesus pays or we pay. Either Jesus pays or we pay. The debt must be paid. That's justice. And so this is one of the reasons that I am exclusivist when it comes to salvation. Not a pluralist. Oh, all these other religions, well, they'll all find their way to God eventually.

Really? How do they deal with the problem? That is the problem, which is sin. If they don't have an appropriate proper answer for that, then there's no solution through those other religions. If they mischaracterize the problem, and therefore I don't get that. the solution right, people are going to die of the malady. They're going to suffer the loss as a result of the malady that's real. So we can't just say, well, all religions, since they've got God involved, which actually

isn't true of all religions, but nevertheless, this is the way people think of it, they're all kind of doing their best or taking a shot or whatever, then they must be okay with God. No, it's not the way it works. just like all doctors don't have the right antidote to a particular disease. You've got to get the diagnosis right before you can get the prescription right, the solution right, the RX. And that's what we're talking about here. If everybody is lost in virtue of their own crimes against God and if forgiveness is available that God makes possible through Jesus, then you must, and Jesus is rather God's criterion is putting our trust in that which he's provided, then there is no other way.

Now, that's a claim about a matter of fact, and that needs to be determined. Is that what the Bible actually teaches? Is this what Jesus actually said? The answer is yes, in both cases, and unambiguously so. I'm the way, the truth in the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Exactly. The most profound example of that statement.

John chapter 14, verse 6. However, that notion is throughout the entire text, the gospel from top to bottom, every single gospel. And all of those Jesus trained to follow after him, they all said the same thing. And whether it's Peter in Acts chapter 4 or Paul later on in Romans 10, I bear them witness, they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. they're putting their faith in the wrong thing, and the right thing is Jesus, and apart from that, they're going to be lost. Exclusivism is taught throughout the text. And by the way, it's not just in the Gospels.

It starts way back, you could look at, you could go all the way back to Genesis 4. Cane and Abel, one sacrifice satisfied God, another sacrifice didn't. And then you could look at the Mosaic Law. You know, have no other gods before me. Well, that's what I was going to say, that God had a covenant with one nation. He didn't have a covenant with every nation. And Ephesians 2 says that, you know, before we were in covenant with God, we were excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. So this isn't anything new.

God has always had a covenant with a particular people. Right, right. And so I say all of that because if I just immediately start with trying to answer the question, it sounds severe. It sounds extreme because that's like somebody saying, hey, I feel great. But you're telling me, you're my doctor, you're telling me I've got to have my organs cut out. That's ridiculous. However, when the patient has an opportunity to look at the serology, the blood tests, the x-rays, the CT scans, this, the that, the everything, they go, oh, my goodness, I'm in trouble. Now they see, and now they're willing to surrender to radical surgery to save their lives.

And so this is what we must see before we can even approach the answer, the accurate answer to this question. We've got to see the problem. What about all those other people who never heard? What are all those good people is the way it's often characterized? And my response is good. Are they good? They're really good. Oh, well, then they go straight to heaven.

But where is such a person? In other words, why would they be judged if they're good? If they've never done anything wrong, then there's nothing to judge them for. They die go right to heaven. Oh, they have done things wrong. Oh, they are part of the problem. Ah. Now, what is required by God?

Now, this is a place where some people disagree. More, I think, recently than historically, but some will say that God is obliged to do everything he can to save everyone, and that his love obliges that. I don't see that in Scripture, frankly. I think that's a foreign notion that's important. If he really loved, he'd want to save everybody. But that isn't what the text says. The text says that some he loved and some he didn't.

Or more famously, Isaac I loved and Esau. Jacob I loved. Or Jacob, I loved and Esau. I had those all those guys mixed up. There's a bunch of patriarchs. Say it for me. Jacob, I loved, but Esau I hated. Yes.

And, of course, it's not speaking of utter animosity towards Jacob, but a willingness to leave him out of the promise that was given by grace to one line of patriarchs, okay? And that's the point that's being made there in Romans 9. Is that where that is? Or 10? I think it's 9. Yeah.

So the point is that God has, he can distribute grace however he wants. He is not obliged. And therefore, if he wants to give grace to some and not to others, he is not doing anything inappropriate. And Jesus gave a parable to this effect when all these workers went out of various stages of the day into the field, but when they came back, they all got paid the same. And the person who'd worked the longest was disgruntled that the person who worked the shortest amount of time got the same pay. And the landowner said, well, I gave you what you deserve. What's your complaint? Are you bugged because I'm gracious to somebody else?

Basically, the point there is, God's grace is up to him to distribute as he wants. He has no obligation to do the same to everybody, okay? And I think all of these factors bear on a simple answer to this question. If the Bible teaches, and it does without equivocation, that faith in Jesus is the only thing, the only way that since Jesus, time, since the advent of the Messiah, one can be saved, then that's the fact of the matter. And if a person, for whatever reason, doesn't exercise faith in Jesus, then they are judged on their own merits. Now, that's not going to be a pretty picture. But God is not without, he's not bearing any, in a certain sense, moral responsibility because no criminal is due an offer of a pardon

before he can be sentenced for a crime he actually committed. Nobody's due a pardon. Now, much more can be said about that, how God works in other cultures and through natural means and supernatural means sometimes to draw people to him that don't have any exposure to the written word, to the message or whatever. There's a lot that can be said about that.

So I'm not just writing off all of those other cultures, but what I'm saying is the answer is not something, corner of pluralism or some kind of inclusivism, that, yes, Jesus was necessary to die to be saved, but you don't need to believe in Jesus in order to benefit from him. That is the Roman Catholic view regarding other religions, by the way. And there are more and more Protestants that seem to be adopting that view. That is not the view of the scripture. Simply put, it is not.

And so the view of the scripture is those who believe receive. Simple as that. I think you've hit on, I think is the key thing people have to understand in order for this to make sense. And that is our sinfulness and the justice of being punished. A good, just justice punishes evil. There's nothing wrong if God doesn't save someone out of grace. And I think people have this idea that somehow we let, well, two things. One, that if they just heard, then they would come to him. And two, that we're really not that bad. And God owes us all this chance to be pardoned. But he really doesn't. If you have to grasp his holiness and his justice in order to understand how amazing his grace is. And that's actually what Romans 9 says is part of the reason that there are. those who don't hear because God is revealing his grace by revealing his justice. So for those who

receive his grace, they're understanding better what they deserved and then giving something they didn't deserve. What they escaped in this sense. And got to remember, and romance goes through all of this, even those who have any sort of, like everybody has a witness within themselves to the existence of God and to the existence of morality. And we still fail. So everyone has broken that. It's not that they're going to hell because they've never heard of Jesus. They're going to hell because they have broken God's law and they deserve judgment. And that's another thing that I think people miss. So even those who never hear are still breaking the bits that they know, they're still going against those things. They've still rebelled against God. And, you know, Paul goes through this,

even in 9 through 11, he's answering the question, well, why haven't the Jews believe? Why do some believe and some don't? And has God's word failed? And then he explains, no, God has always saved some and not all. He saved the ones of promise, as you mentioned Jacob and Esau. And he says, even those who heard, you know, think about the first of the Israelites in the wilderness, they didn't join what they knew with faith. So even those who hear reject God. So all of this, God goes way above and beyond when he shows anyone grace. And this is all to the praise of the glory of his grace. This is all so that his people will see him as he is. and know him for who he is and know his love that he has that he didn't owe us, his love for

enemies that he had. So this is all playing into that. This is all playing a part. None of this is random. None of this is ruining God's plan. This is all playing apart in showing us the glory of God so that we will know him better for eternity and all to the praise of the glory of his grace so that he can show his grace to us in kindness in Jesus Christ, as it says in Romans. That phrase you repeated twice. I'm sorry, that was Ephesians. Sorry, go ahead. But that's what I wanted to know to the praise of the glory of his grace.

Is that Ephesians, yeah. Yeah. All right, Greg. So there are a couple questions that go along with this, and I want to get through them now, even though we're at 20 minutes, just because they, I don't want to have. have to go through the whole background again. So this is a related one from Niggle. Fasten your seatbelt, in other words.

Here we go. Is there any, this is from Niggle, is there any warrant from the Bible for thinking that those who have not heard of Jesus will nevertheless be saved due to a humble, repentant attitude? Here's the difficulty with answering that question. If God identifies the means of salvation to be a conscious trust. in His Messiah, and there is somebody that's out there that has a humble attitude of repentance that doesn't know about Jesus, at least on my theology, the only way they're going to have a

humble attitude of repentance is if the Holy Spirit is working on them to bring them to that repentant point? Why would the same Holy Spirit that brings them halfway with the repentant heart not take the extra step and give them the rest of the information that they need to be saved? Now, somebody might say, well, just because I can't answer that doesn't mean it's not true. Well, and there's a point there, but it just, there does seem to be, there are a number of cases where the Holy Spirit does intervene with people. who have the repentant heart and gives them the rest of the information. So you have, in the book of Acts, for example, you have Philip talking to the Ethiopian

eunuch. He says, who's this in Isaiah 53? He's reading out of the book of Isaiah as is referring to the author or someone else, and he preaches Jesus. So this is a person on the way, a God-fearer from Ethiopia, for good to say, coming to Israel to honor God of Israel. but it's confused, and so then additional information is given. Think of Acts chapter 10, where Peter speaks with Cornelius, the centurion.

And there you've got, you know, a guy who's got all kinds of spiritual credibility. His cred's credentials are great. As he's being described, this Gentile. Centurion, nevertheless, he still is not saved. He's on his way. And so what do you do with the person on his way? God gives him the information that he needs to be able to trust Christ. And so that's really clear there, too. So there's two, I think, fairly vivid examples from the Book of Acts that people who are in this humble state understand their need are given what is necessary for them to finish the course, so to speak, to connect the dots and then put their

trust in their Messiah. I think, frankly, that we overestimate human nobility. And so we look at all these people, well, they really do the best they can. They really love God, or they're trying, or whatever. Paul says in Romans 1, I made a reference to this earlier, I make that Romans 10, And speaking of the Jews, I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. But it's not in accordance with knowledge. We're not seeking, knowing about God's righteousness, seeking to establish their own, in other words, their own ways, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God, which is Jesus.

And he has more to say in that passage about this, but it just makes the point that sincerity isn't going to deal with sin. And false beliefs, there are all kinds of false beliefs. that people suffer from, and this is what we're warned against many times in the scripture about the deceptive nature of the devil that captures people with lies and false beliefs. And I would ask the question, they have a humble, repentant attitude, but towards whom? Who are they repenting to? Do they have some other God? Well, God is not going to share his glory with another and save someone through another God. That would be, that would

be actually evil to do. So you have to be humble towards God. That matters. So let's see here. Okay, let's do one more here. This one's from Eddie. Where do the souls that lived before Jesus go to since they couldn't be baptized or saved? Well, that presumes the sense that if a person isn't baptized, he's not saved. That's not my view. If a person isn't baptized, he's not saved. Baptism plays an important role in the New Testament, but it's a sign of the new covenant. Clearly, people that were not part of the new covenant, not yet participated in that period of God's working, but died before them, Abraham. Abraham, but there's certainly candidates for heaven. Abraham rejoice to see my day and was glad that Jesus says, John chapter 8, well,

Abraham never was baptized. There was no baptism back then, as far as we know, certainly not related to anything spiritual because it's not talked about or mentioned. So I don't think that baptism is a requirement for salvation. There are some verses that seem to say otherwise, but you have to look at the full, all of the passages that speak to that issue. I mentioned Cornelius in Acts Chapter 10. Cornelius and his whole group get the Holy Spirit the same way that Peter and the apostles received it. That's what Peter says. And then he says, wow, they've got the same spirit, just like we got it. How can we withhold water for baptism? So baptism comes after the salvation. It isn't a prerequisite of salvation. That's a larger discussion, but I just use that as one

example. So Eddie's question, since it presumes salvation requires baptism, is easy to answer. Those who died before Christ and before baptism are still saved the same way anyone after Christ, and after baptism was a practice, and that is by their faith. and their trust in God's provision. That was expressed in different ways in the old covenant, the old days, as it does in the new days. Now it's in the person of Jesus before it was in a broader provision that God offered. I've written some pieces on this. We might put them in the show notes.

Actually, two iterations of the same article. The first one, one is one way the only way, I think, is the first way it was characterized. And that's like a leader. than a more recent one, it's titled... No, it was no other name, one way or any way. Those were the two different titles. Oh, okay, all right. And each one is two parts.

Okay, no other name or... One way or any way, I think. One way or anyway, okay, so there you go. And I think that's the second one. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. But I cash out all of these points that we're making collectively in those two articles. So Hebrews explains that it was never the case that the blood of bulls and goats was taking away their sins. That was a shadow and type of Christ. But as they were engaging in that, as they were engaging in that, they were trusting in God, you know, even though they didn't understand how that was going to play out, they were still trusting in God by being part of that covenant and engaging in that shadow for a time. And I just want to say to go back to the first question for just a second, and he, Jeff asked about how about those of a Jewish faith?

And I encourage you to go and read Romans 9 through 11 because Paul is so clear about this, because people were asking him, well, does this mean God's promise has failed if all the Jews aren't coming to Christ? So he carefully goes through everything to any, one of the things he talks about is, don't you remember in the passage about Elijah? When so many people, had walked away from God, but God, and Elijah gives up and says, oh, nobody's following you know. And he says, no, I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the need of bail. So God has, there's always, there will always be a remnant of those who are Jewish in the Covenant of the New Covenant. And this is what Paul explains.

And then he talks about how because of their disobedience, God is bringing the Gentiles in now so that eventually because of the mercy he's showing to the Gentiles, then the Jews will repent and God will show mercy to them. And it says, God has shut them all up under disobedience so that he can show mercy to all. So this, again, this is all playing a part in a very particular plan for God to reveal the glory of his grace. And so I recommend you read through 9 through 11 because Paul anticipated this very question. Most of the time he does. There are so many times when there are questions, and Paul literally will say, well, what about this? And then he answers it. So that's what I would recommend for all of you who have this question. All right, we're way over. But I had to include those other two questions. I'm glad you did, Amy. So thank you so much, Jeff and Niggle and Eddie. We really appreciate hearing from you. And we hope to hear from you with your question on X with the hashtag STR Ask or on our website at STR.org.

This is Amy Hall and Greg Cogel for Stand to Reason. Thank you.