John 14:
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
C.S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity:
We do know that no person can be saved except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him.
Right, what about those who have[never heard of Jesus?
They may not have heard of the
name Jesus but everyone has heard of the way, or the truth, or the life, somewhere. E.g., an ancient Chinese philosophy called Taoism literally means
Way. The founder of Taoism, Laozi, never claimed to be the Way but he pointed people to the Way which according to John 14:6 is Jesus himself.
Revelation 20:
13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
If they pass judgment, Jesus will welcome them to eternal life.
Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Really?
Yes, really, if you know the way, the truth, or the life, you indirectly know Jesus. If you directly know Jesus now, you have the Paraclete dwelling in you while alive.
The simple answer to the question is that we don't know, we don't have the answers to questions like this.
We can't say that those who never heard of Jesus are saved because X, Y, and/or Z.
Neither can we say that those who never heard of Jesus aren't or can't be saved.
I believe that this is best addressed in the distinction between God's ordered means and power, and God's absolute means and power.
Luther gives an excellent example of what these ideas mean by speaking about fire. Under God's ordered power and means, fire burns. That is what fire does, it's what fire was created to do. Yet in the story of Daniel's three companions in the fiery furnace the fire in the furnace doesn't even so much as singe the hairs on their head. By God's absolute power He prevented the fire from burning them.
Scripture shows us the ordered means of how God saves. Jesus told His Church to go and preach the Gospel, to baptize and make disciples. That through these precious means of grace God works faith, that faith which cleaves to Christ, trusts in Him, and which passively receives God's gifts. These things are written for our comfort, that we should know that all who trust in the Lord shall not be put to shame, that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, that God has loved us, chosen us in Christ from before all ages.
Conversely, the Scriptures give stern and serious warnings about rejecting God's gifts. That since God desires to save us, wills that we be saved, and here grants to us freely that very salvation; if we refuse it, resist it, reject it, and abhor it, then we wallow in our own self-made destruction.
But between those two things is a massive gap of the unknown. What happens to the child who dies in a miscarriage? What about the millions, or even billions, of people who were born, lived, and died without ever even having the opportunity to hear the Gospel?
Scripture doesn't answer these questions for us. We know the assurance we have in Christ because of what God promises us in the Gospel. We also know the seriousness of what living in our sin will do to us in the end without the hope of God's grace in the Gospel. And yet, we also know that God's will isn't that only some be saved, but that all be saved. So what of all those people?
We don't know. We can't know. But we can trust God. We can trust that no matter what God is always good, always merciful, and always just. Nothing will happen concerning anyone that is outside of God's tender care and His generous justice.
That should fill us with hope, rather than fear. Hope that God's grace is always bigger than what we might imagine. God's goodness is deeper than what we ourselves might conceive.
God is not limited or bound. That is why we can know, in confidence, that what God has given to us in our baptism is faithful and true, God's indelible promise to love us, save us, forgive us, and unite us to Christ Jesus (Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3-4, Colossians 2:12-13, Galatians 3:27, 1 Peter 3:21, et al); but we can't say that the mere fact that one has not (yet) been baptized means one is outside of God's saving mercy. The unbaptized child isn't hellbound because they aren't yet baptized. The person who has not yet confessed their faith, or received baptism, though the work of the Spirit is planting the seeds of faith when they heard the Gospel, is not condemned simply for lack of baptism or because they have not yet come to grips with the faith being formed in them.
We have a great big God who wills, truly desires, that all be saved. Salvation is not a lottery, where it depends on when you were born, where you were born, or what circumstances into which you were born. Salvation is not a cosmic accident that happens to some, it is not a lottery; neither does God choose to save some and reject others. The Gospel is for all, is meant for all, because God wills that all be saved. And yet, we know not all will be saved; not for lack of God's goodness, or based on unfortunate circumstance, but because some tragically will, till the bitter end, insist on hell rather than love. To lock themselves up in the prison of their own making.
There is this problem, this theological burden, that Lutherans call the Crux Theologorum ("theologian's cross" aka the burden or problem of the theologian). It's in this difficult, hard, burdensome question, "Why some and not others?" Why do some believe when they hear the Gospel, but not others? Why does the seed of the word sprout and flourish for some, but is plucked away by birds or baked in the heat of the sun for others?
And along with that is, "What about those who have not heard?" "What about those who couldn't hear?" It is a burden, a problem, a cross. We can't do anything else except say, "I don't know, nevertheless, thanks be to God" And put our trust in the God of all mercy. The God who truly does love the whole world, who sent His Son for the whole world. Christ who died not for some, but for all.
-CryptoLutheran
