I’d like to try something out on you. As most readers know, a majority of Christians thing there’s a possibility of salvation for non-Christians. But normally this is justified by saying that they are somehow saved by Christ even though they don’t know it.
I’ve had a problem with this. It seems artificial. I’m also thinking that it may be unnecessary. After all, while most Christians will tell you that the primary purpose Jesus came was to save people from hell, it doesn’t appear that Jesus actually said that. So let me look at an alternative.
* People are obviously imperfect, and need God’s grace.
* But God doesn’t demand perfection. He does demand repentance and forgiveness. Contrary to classical Protestant theology, the Bible does not say that no one can be righteous (except one proof text, which I think it taken out of context). Lots of people are called righteous in the Bible. Righteousness means being accepted by God, and living a life that is accepted by God. It means one is committed to doing the right thing, and repents when they fail. It does not mean moral perfection. While it will be judged in the end by our lives, it’s not a matter of keeping score, and according to Jesus’ various accounts of judgement, it seems to be more a matter of showing that we mattered to others than of showing that we didn’t sin.
* Salvation, for Jesus at least, seems to mean two different things: Being accepted in the final judgement, and changing ones’ direction from being opposed to God to being a follower.
All of this together seems to say that Jesus wasn’t needed to save people. And in fact Paul says that Abraham was justified on the basis of faith, which clearly was not faith in Christ. Many who believe in the salvation of non-Christians will say that Christ saves everyone who is (in the sense defined above) righteous, because they are all virtual Christians. I’ve said that in the past, but I don’t think there’s any real Biblical basis for it, and it seems to demean the nature and effects of faith as described by Paul.
Jesus says primarily that he came to establish the Kingdom. This seems to be essentially eschatological, a fulfillment of Israel’s expectations that the world will be put to rights. There’s no sense in the OT that everyone then living was damned because they weren’t living in the that perfect future time. Jesus speaks of the new covenant in the Words of Institution. This is normally taken as a reference to Jer 31:31. But there’s no sense in that passage that everyone living in the current one was damned.
Therefore I think Jesus was both telling people what they needed to do, just like any prophet did, and establishing the beginning of the new covenant / new Kingdom. But I don’t think he saw himself as providing the only way for people to avoid hell, although he certainly did see himself as saving people. I think he primarily saw himself as bringing something new, a new and more radical way of following God, a foretaste of how it will be in the end. (I’m not dealing with John here. That sees people who reject Jesus as condemned. But it’s different for one to be confronted by Jesus and reject him, vs being part of the old covenant.)
Did Paul think Jesus was needed for salvation? Rom 2 seems to envision people who wouldn’t have known Jesus and maybe not even Israel’s God as being saved. He certainly saw Abraham as justified. Certainly for him Jesus dealt with sin. Rom 6 says that we die with sin and rise to new life. Does this mean that everyone who doesn’t is damned? I don’t think so. Rom 5:12ff is the strongest support for that idea; see below. You can reasonably read Rom 3:25 ff as saying that God forgave people before Christ. What Christ changed was that, in accordance with Rom 6, he now actually deals with sin. This would then be consistent with Jesus’ idea that he’s bringing a new covenant which changes the heart.
What about Rom 5:12 ff? The passage as a whole contrasts two ages, the one brought in by Adam, of death and condemnation, and the new one of Christ. This is much like Jesus’ Kingdom and new covenant. But just because those before Christ were ruled by death doesn’t mean that they all went to hell, unless we reject the OT. Note that Paul emphasizes that in the first age death spread to *all* because all sinned. And in fact all died (and do still die). Nothing about it spreading only to those who didn’t have faith.
I’ve had a problem with this. It seems artificial. I’m also thinking that it may be unnecessary. After all, while most Christians will tell you that the primary purpose Jesus came was to save people from hell, it doesn’t appear that Jesus actually said that. So let me look at an alternative.
* People are obviously imperfect, and need God’s grace.
* But God doesn’t demand perfection. He does demand repentance and forgiveness. Contrary to classical Protestant theology, the Bible does not say that no one can be righteous (except one proof text, which I think it taken out of context). Lots of people are called righteous in the Bible. Righteousness means being accepted by God, and living a life that is accepted by God. It means one is committed to doing the right thing, and repents when they fail. It does not mean moral perfection. While it will be judged in the end by our lives, it’s not a matter of keeping score, and according to Jesus’ various accounts of judgement, it seems to be more a matter of showing that we mattered to others than of showing that we didn’t sin.
* Salvation, for Jesus at least, seems to mean two different things: Being accepted in the final judgement, and changing ones’ direction from being opposed to God to being a follower.
All of this together seems to say that Jesus wasn’t needed to save people. And in fact Paul says that Abraham was justified on the basis of faith, which clearly was not faith in Christ. Many who believe in the salvation of non-Christians will say that Christ saves everyone who is (in the sense defined above) righteous, because they are all virtual Christians. I’ve said that in the past, but I don’t think there’s any real Biblical basis for it, and it seems to demean the nature and effects of faith as described by Paul.
Jesus says primarily that he came to establish the Kingdom. This seems to be essentially eschatological, a fulfillment of Israel’s expectations that the world will be put to rights. There’s no sense in the OT that everyone then living was damned because they weren’t living in the that perfect future time. Jesus speaks of the new covenant in the Words of Institution. This is normally taken as a reference to Jer 31:31. But there’s no sense in that passage that everyone living in the current one was damned.
Therefore I think Jesus was both telling people what they needed to do, just like any prophet did, and establishing the beginning of the new covenant / new Kingdom. But I don’t think he saw himself as providing the only way for people to avoid hell, although he certainly did see himself as saving people. I think he primarily saw himself as bringing something new, a new and more radical way of following God, a foretaste of how it will be in the end. (I’m not dealing with John here. That sees people who reject Jesus as condemned. But it’s different for one to be confronted by Jesus and reject him, vs being part of the old covenant.)
Did Paul think Jesus was needed for salvation? Rom 2 seems to envision people who wouldn’t have known Jesus and maybe not even Israel’s God as being saved. He certainly saw Abraham as justified. Certainly for him Jesus dealt with sin. Rom 6 says that we die with sin and rise to new life. Does this mean that everyone who doesn’t is damned? I don’t think so. Rom 5:12ff is the strongest support for that idea; see below. You can reasonably read Rom 3:25 ff as saying that God forgave people before Christ. What Christ changed was that, in accordance with Rom 6, he now actually deals with sin. This would then be consistent with Jesus’ idea that he’s bringing a new covenant which changes the heart.
What about Rom 5:12 ff? The passage as a whole contrasts two ages, the one brought in by Adam, of death and condemnation, and the new one of Christ. This is much like Jesus’ Kingdom and new covenant. But just because those before Christ were ruled by death doesn’t mean that they all went to hell, unless we reject the OT. Note that Paul emphasizes that in the first age death spread to *all* because all sinned. And in fact all died (and do still die). Nothing about it spreading only to those who didn’t have faith.
