It’s a question every Christian is asked to consider at one time or another: Is God fair to punish those who have never heard of Jesus Christ? There are many ways to consider the issue and many ways to answer. Here is just one of them.
Lying behind the question is almost always an erroneous assumption—that people are condemned only (or primarily) for rejecting Christ. If this is the case, those who explicitly reject Christ have knowingly turned their backs on him and invited God’s wrath, but those who have neither known nor rejected Christ are in a state of innocence toward God.
This is where we need to turn to the first several chapters of Romans where Paul tells us, beyond any doubt, that all men are under the just wrath of God. It is not their rejection of God’s special revelation of Jesus Christ that is at the heart of their condemnation, but their rejection of God himself, even despite his natural revelation. General revelation communicates truth to everyone— truth that ought to lead each of us to turn to God. And yet nowhere in the Bible is there record of anyone turning to God on the basis of general revelation alone. This shows a problem with neither the revelation nor the Revealer, but rather, with the human being. All men reject this revelation of God. A good person who obeyed all of God’s commandments—were that even possible—would have the right to plead his case before God, but there are none who can do this. Therefore all people are under God’s condemnation for their hatred of him and their rejection of him. Those who explicitly reject Christ further their punishment but do not in that act instigate it. Anyone who wishes to be saved without placing his faith in Christ ought to have lived a sinless life.
We can argue from a slightly different angle and say that no one is in a state of innocence before God. God owes salvation to no one. This is not a question of fairness, but a question of justice. All men have accrued a sin debt, and all thus stand guilty before God. We argue here from human depravity. There is only one kind of man—the man trapped in the total depravity of his sinful nature, inherited from his father Adam (Rom. 5:18). And since there is only one kind of man, there is only one kind of salvation-faith through the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
Anyone who wishes to be saved without placing his faith in Christ ought to have lived a sinless life.
So is it fair for God to punish those who have never heard of Jesus Christ? Yes, it is, for all men are sinful to the core. All people have a sin nature, and all continually defile themselves with sinful acts. Though we hope and pray that everyone would hear the good news of Jesus Christ and respond to it in faith, we know that all men need to hear that news only because they are already dead in sin, condemned to an eternity of justice.
(Excerpted from Don’t Call It a Comeback)
