Recently I saw a YouTube video of a man asking a very prominent Bible teacher about those who have never had the opportunity to believe in Jesus; he wanted to know whether they will all go to Hell. I was truly shocked when I heard the Bible teacher affirm that, yes, “they will all perish in Hell,” even though they never had the chance to believe in Christ as their Savior! (You can see the short version of the clip for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IcQj6imVG1A.)

Yet, while it may be shocking to some, including me, this view is actually quite common among Bible-believing Christians today. Their understanding is that, because Jesus is the only way to God, unless someone specifically believes in Him as their Savior, he has to be condemned by God in Hell. It is even the reason so many missionaries have gone out over the last few centuries; they wanted to save people from such a fate.

So, on the one hand, it must be said that this teaching has spurred Christians on to preach the gospel, and thank the Lord for that result. On the other hand, however, we must also be faithful to say that this teaching in itself is a profoundly false, and frankly quite shallow, view of the New Testament gospel, one which utterly misrepresents God’s heart towards fallen sinners.

Moreover, it has done a great deal to undermine faith in the Bible as the word of God among the public at large; people ask, and rightly so, How could I possibly believe in a God who would create so many billions of people only to send them straight to Hell, with no chance of being saved?

How truly evil is such a teaching! How greatly it maligns the genuine New Testament gospel! And yet, this is indeed what so many Christians today teach and believe about the Bible. (See also the most recent edition of the podcast, “Shall They All Be Damned Who Never Heard?”)

I would ask such ones, Have you never read the story Jesus told of the tax collector who went up to the temple to pray? All he did was cry out,

God be merciful to me, the sinner!
— Luke 18:13

He offered no sacrifice to be forgiven, as required by the Old Testament economy, nor did he believe in Jesus, as required by the New Testament economy. Thus, according to your understanding of the New Testament gospel, you would say he has to go to Hell. Yet, the Lord says of him:

This one went down to his house justified.
— Luke 18:13

You may disagree with the Lord, based upon your theology, about his fate, but Jesus nonetheless says his sins are forgiven and he is now justified, that is, considered righteous before God.

How can this be, if Jesus really is the only way to God?

The answer is that, in the New Testament, there is not only the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24), which is the gospel we have received as the believers in Christ, by which our sins are forgiven and we are born anew in Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4, John 1:12-13, 3:3-7); there is also, in addition to that gospel, “the eternal gospel.”

This eternal gospel (Rev. 14:6-7) is for all those throughout human history who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. While it does not bring man into relation with God, as the gospel of grace does, it does give God a righteous basis for determining whether or not to forgive the sins of such ones apart from the question of whether they have specifically believed in Jesus.

To be clear, that forgiveness must still be based upon the death of Christ on the cross for our sins, because the holy God surely must judge and deal with all sin. But, through the eternal gospel, God may, as in the case of the tax collector above, apply the payment Christ made for our sins to the account of those who have never directly believed in Him.

For us to properly present the gospel of Christ today it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the eternal gospel. And so, in the upcoming Notes in this series, we will consider the preaching, extent, nature, and result of the eternal gospel.

Read the next Note
in this Series

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—  19 February 2025 —