The purpose of God’s revelation
The primary purpose of God’s revelation to humankind is to acquaint them with the plan of salvation. While here on earth, Jesus preached and taught the plan of salvation to all who were willing to listen. After His ascension, the disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, carried on the work that He had begun. Within a few decades, the preaching of the gospel had reached tens of thousands of people throughout the Roman Empire, and less than three hundred years later, Christianity became the dominant religion of the then known world.GP 14.3
But what about the millions and billions of people who have never had the opportunity to hear the gospel of God’s love for them? Will they all be lost?GP 14.4
That knowledge of the gospel is necessary for salvation is the general teaching of Scripture. Jesus declared that no one can come to the Father but by Him (see John 14:6). He also stated repeatedly that ” ‘he who does not believe will be condemned’ ” (Mark 16:16; cf. John 3:18), and without some knowledge, faith is impossible. In Romans 10, Paul first states that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (verse 13), and then he argues, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? . . . So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (verses 14, 15, 17).GP 15.1
John Stott observed that “the essence of Paul’s argument is seen if we put his six verbs in the opposite order: Christ sends heralds; heralds preach; people hear; hearers believe; believers call; and those who call are saved.” The opposite, of course, is also true: if no one is sent to preach, people cannot hear, they cannot believe, hence they cannot call, and therefore they are lost.GP 15.2
The apostle John wrote, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12), and Paul said that to be without Christ is to be without hope (see Ephesians 2:12). According to Peter, salvation is possible only through Jesus Christ (see Acts 4:12). So, the general teaching of Scripture seems to be that unless people hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are lost. But what about Romans 2? Does it show another possibility?GP 15.3