As it is a hypothetical that would never happen because of the promise of Christ in Matthew, I don't know if the hypothetical is truly worth discussion.
Seeing how Churches/their memory physically has been wiped out in many places and others not even aware of the Gospel or its roots in the culture for ages (including places never reached with the Gospel at all/closed off), it's not really 100% hypothetical in actuality - the focus is simply on the dynamic of what would occur from a Global perspective - and on the issue, what is beyond question is that God would win when it comes to spreading His truth.
How that occurs is a different issue - the promise of Christ in Matthew 16 isn't something I'd see at any point as preventing the situation of a physical wipe-out of the Church since it is victorious in CHRIST ...who is beyond the reach/control of those in the world wishing to eradicate Him - He's outside of their jurisdiction and so is His ability to provide the memory of what His Church is about even when they try to wipe it out.
However, I hypothesize that those who came after would be utterly confused. Sola Scriptura would predict that they would come to the truth, but this means simply that Baptists would think they would come to Baptist theology, Methodists would think it would be Methodist Theology.
In a world where there was Sola Scriptura as the sole focus, I could definitely see that - although there'd be no guarantee that you'd end up with the same theological systems developed today to make Baptist culture or Methodist since both of those groups had political/social realities that helped shape them into where they are today (from the Radical Reformation with the Anabaptists/Baptists to the Great Awakening/Second Great Awakening ).
And as times change and the events surrounding people have altered, the catalysts for developments would be different as well - so who knows what other groups would come up.
However much we claim to worship the same God, with no offense intended, we do not. We can all claim to be Christians, but many of us, when asked to describe God, would describe God in a way differently than others here.
This is not to say that we do not WISH to serve and follow the same God. But we describe God differently, and, in effect, therefore follow different God and gods.
And this is true even for people within the boundaries of the same creed. We Orthodox, together, may be worshiping the same God in practice. But when we sin, we sometimes say to ourselves, "God didn't really mean it when He commanded us to pray, or fast or _____". By thus doing, we replace God with a more palatable fantasy deity.
This is intentional idolatry.
However, there is unintentional idolatry, which, more often than we would like to admit, is the reason for so many schisms that we have lost count (well...Someone probably counted, but it wasn't me).
Here is an example:
John describes God as an all-powerful being Who controls the destiny of every person. John's theology is described by Jacob and Jingleheimer-Schmidt, behind his back, as God the Micromanager. John says that there is literally nothing he can do, or should do, for salvation, but that God has already decided. As a result, rather than evangelize, John logically decides that he should stay at home, rationalizing that God wants him to do that or else he wouldn't do that.
Jacob Describes God as an all powerful being Who gives salvation to those who only ask. He also states that after you ask, nothing more is necessary for this salvation. John and Jingleheimer-Schmidt describe this theology as "The benevolent Contract-Writer". Because of this, Jacob is faithful to come to visitation and is active as a teacher in Sunday School. However, when not in the presence of church members, he continuously sins, never looking to defeat sin, because he needs not worry about that since his salvation is secure forever.
Jingleheimer-Schmidt describes God as an all powerful being Who gives salvation in reward for obedience. He believes that his good works are necessary to complete salvation. John and Jacob describe his theology as the "cruel Taskmaster". Jingleheimer-Schmidt is as outwardly religious as some monks, and more so than others. He is involved in 15 different ministries, and he is always found working for one of them. Because of this, however, he is stressed and burning out, as he does not see God as a Gracious Lifegiver, but as a Judge only.
These three men claim to be worshiping the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and the Apostles. They can even be found, in a lot of cases, in the same parish (or congregation). There are a few Jingleheimer-Schmidts in my own parish. John and Jacob are very frequent visitors, too.
However, If you were to put these descriptions of God on a paper side by side, nobody would say they were the same. They may intend to worship the same God, and God certainly has mercy on those who try to worship Him. But the God they individually view is different, because the very nature is different from the nature of other views of God.
If one was going to go with the understanding that having differing perspectives equates to having differing gods, one would logically have to apply that same concept to the history of the saints throughout Scripture - as those in the OT era didn't understand the name Jesus nor what he was doing in His time....and their practices differed from era to era based on what God had said.
But we see His grace on the issue - and our understanding alone is not the same as God's Mercy or Grace. One of the reasons why (no offense) I don't see where those in the Church ever have grace to go past the concept of "We know where God is - we don't know where He isn't" when it comes to salvation/his working in others. To do so would be an act of idolatry in/of itself since it is us exalting our own perspective as to who is or isn't in the kingdom based on the level of understanding they have - when God alone can see the hearts (which we cannot) and even others without ANY knowledge of the Kingdom of God as fully as another will make it before others having all of the answers INTELLECTUALLY and yet having hearts full of pride (I John 2:19-20) that we'd not know about.
The John - Jacob - Jingleheimer-Schmidt analogy is similar to the old parable of t
he Elephant with the three blind men all seeing something different with the body of a dead elephant, even though the person saying all three are off is not guaranteed that his vision is accurate
God never shows us ALL of the sins we commit daily or the sins we've all committed - as no one would be able to handle it......
And the same concept was shown throughout the OT when it came to GOD working with others who had MANY issues within their lives which were sin and yet the Lord only later confirmed it to future generations - for He understood men at certain times were never ready to handle seeing the fullness of all things he'd see as a sin or a problem and thus he worked with them where they were at. From
Jacob/his two wives and the things that happened with them in favoritism tearing up his family ( ) to Judah (as
it concerns the Tamar incident in Genesis 38 when sleeping with his daughter disguised as a prostitute ) to
Levi/Simeon being cursed by their father for being violent to avenge the rape of their sister - a daughter of Leah whom Jacob SHOULD have defended and not given to people he wasn't meant to be in covenant with ( ) and yet still being blessed by the Lord later.
As said before elsewhere with the sins being covered dynamic, we can see this with the formation of the Torah. One does not need to look at the actions of what would be sin according to ADDITIONAL LAW through Moses, nor even our modern views of right and wrong. A reason for considering this is because there was discrepancy between the common views (interpretations) concerning Abraham and Sarah, and statements made about them in scripture itself. Without going into detail concerning various scripture and what brought me to this APPROACH to Genesis, I will sum it up instead. I believe Genesis is a book showing "faith", "The law of faith", as it operated in a certain time in history, the beginning. What this approach does is leaves off the normative ideas of cause and effect. Namely, things we perceive as sin, being the cause of "problems" later on. Such is the case with Sarai, Abraham, and Hagar. Many look at all that they perceive as "problems" being the result of not having faith. Yet many only see it as sin because they find polygamy repugnant. But nowhere is polygamy a sin in scripture. And nowhere does scripture say Sarai, or Abram acted in faithlessness. Scripture says they were faithful according to Hebrews 11.
The actions we clearly find "WRONG", Somehow are made acceptable if we do not acknowledge them as binding on Abraham etc. But, ALL ACCEPT JUST THAT WHEN ABRAHAM OFFERED ISAAC UP AS A HUMAN SACRIFICE. We do not fear, that somehow we today need to think of this as anything than what it was. DISTINCT for its own purpose, distinct for its own time, distinct for an idea. You certainly may disagree with this approach, and it may even be wrong. But so far I have not found it to be so. Instead of looking for "SIN" in Genesis, I look for faith in the actions of these individuals. For sin is not reckoned to them, and faith was. Which faith there was no law against. So what do I do with LYING, etc? The same thing you all do with HUMAN SACRIFICE. What was Gods purpose in it, in a DISTINCT TIME, WITH DISTINCT INDIVIDUALS, FOR A DISTINCT PURPOSE?
There are multiple other examples of this.... polygamy BEING one of them. As it concerns the subject of polygamy, its error for others trying to say others were "wrong" for condoning it. It was a cultural practice of the time, as it still is in some nations like West Africa for example. Even in the time of the Mosaic Law, it was not explicitly condemned except in the case of those who were kings...and even that had exceptions at times. God made rules for polygamy just as he did with divorce, as seen in Deuteronomy 21:14-16. ..and others with the Law still did so ( Judges 8:29-31 , 1 Samuel 1:1-3 , 1 Samuel 25:42-44 , 1 Samuel 27:2-4 , 1 Samuel 30:4-6, 2 Samuel 2:1-3, 2 Samuel 12:7-9 , 2 Samuel 19:4-6 , 1 Chronicles 4:4-6, 1 Chronicles 14:2-4 , 2 Chronicles 13:20-22 , 2 Chronicles 24:1-4, etc ). Though Jesus says that God's best/ideal was ONE spouse (Matthew 19:1-14) as Genesis 1, he still made clear God allowed it to occur.
Another example would be prostitution. Scripture RECORDS events that may not always be an indication of something being right. That'd be like one reading of what happened with Judah marrying the daughter of a Canaanite man in Genesis 38:1-2 was "God's Best" since God still blessed his inheritance/the fruit of his loins and tribe----never mind that there was already NUMEROUS instances where the Canaanites were not favored by the patriarchs and told to be AVOIDED in marriage (Genesis 24:1-14, Genesis 26:34, Genesis 28:1-3, Genesis 28:6-9, etc). For all of the times where God told His people to avoid mixture with the Canaanites, its interesting enough already how the very Sons of Judah were mixed in with that already....and the line continued with them in it (I Chronicles 2:3-
It is from here that the story of Judah/Tamar in Genesis 38 (Genesis 38:1-20) is relevant...as it concerns assuming that the methods Tamar used to gain a son through her father-in-law and God blessing the birth was all justified. Indeed, there's a law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 about marrying a widow in the family...with the purpose intended to ensure that a childless widow would have a son who would recieve her late husband's inheritance and who, in turn, would care for her. Judah's sons were killed by the Lord for wickedness....and at one point, Judah would not give up his son to Tamar to have children. Because Judah's son (Tamar's husband) had no children, there was no family line through which the inheritance and the blessing of the covenant could continue. Judah lacked SUBSTANTIAL integrity when examining how he went to prostitutes....and then tried to discuss how his daughter was in "sin" for showing up pregnant. Its amazing seeing how Judah was so open about his relations with a prostitute, yet ready to execute his daughter-in-law for being one (Leviticus 21:9, Deuteronomy 22:21-22). Some of the dynamics are due to culture, of course. For in the land of Canaan, a woman's most important function was bearing children who would perpetuate the family line. To ensure that children belonged to the husband, the bride was expected to be a virgin and the wife was expected to have relations only with him. If a wife committed adultery, she could be executed. Some women, however, did not belong to families. They might be shrine prostitutes supported by offerings or common prostitutes supported by the men who used their servuces. Their children were nobody's heirs...and men who hired them adulterated nobdy bloodlines.
Judah saw no harm in hiring a prostitute for a night....but he was ready to execute Tamar because if she was pregnant as a result of prostitution, his grandchild would not be part of his family line. Sadly, the question of sexual immorality never entered Judah's mind as his concern was for keeping his inheritance in the family. ...
Ironically, it was TAMAR, not Judah, who acted to provide him with legal heirs. By seducing him, she acted more in the spirit of the law than he did when he refused to send his third son to her. The story in no way winks at prostitution since throughout scripture, prostitution is condemned as a serious sin. But it does show how even mistakes can be utilized of the Lord as apart of his plan. Incidently, Judah and TAMAR are listed as direct descendants of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1-6).
But all of that is to say that God is faithful working with others where they are at - we don't know His full works and it'd be dishonest to say otherwise as if we were on His level.
But in teaching, preaching, studying together, and so on, we are able to sharpen our own skills and knowledge - iron sharpens iron.
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