ANNOUNCER: Is belief in God’s general revelation enough to be saved? If not, how does God get special revelation to those who only have general revelation? This is Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, and we thank you for being here today. Our website is faithalone.org if you want to learn more about us. There you’ll find many of our hundreds of articles that you can read and research, and you’ll find our book store as well. Oh, and details about our upcoming National Annual Conference, May 18th through 21st at Camp Copass. You are invited. We want you to be there with us, and all of the details are found at faithalone.org. 

Now for today’s question and answer discussion, here is Bob Wilkin, along with Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we’ve got a question from Jeff, and this is about general revelation. He’s asking, if someone truly believes in general revelation, which in the context of his email, he’s talking about the beauty of nature, the beauty of the natural world, things like that, if you believe, if someone believes in general revelation, can they also believe in Christ, even if they don’t know that name, or they don’t have Scripture attached to that belief? 

BOB: Okay, so this is the kind of question that I heard a lot when I was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, and we’ve all heard it over the years, and that is, what about the person who’s never heard the name of Jesus, but they have responded to God, at least the revelation they have? And the response we were taught with Campus Crusade for Christ was, look, whatever God does for them, He’ll be fair, He’ll be just because that’s what God is, He’s fair and just, but you have heard about Christ, so you need to believe in Jesus, so let’s not just get off into the weeds on this other person, and I used to use that approach. 

I now say, no, the principle is real clear in Scripture that no one can have everlasting life apart from believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for that life. It’s whoever believes in Him, it’s not whoever believes in general revelation. But I might clarify that and say to Jeff this: in my view, anyone who is open and receptive to general revelation will then receive special revelation. So if there’s a person on planet Earth from some tribal group that’s never heard the name of Jesus, but that person recognizes what Psalm 19:1 says, the heavens declare the glory of the Lord. Well, if that person is believing that and is reaching out to this creator, this God, then God is going to send someone to give them special revelation, and ultimately they will hear the name of Jesus, and ultimately they will hear the promise of everlasting life. 

And there are untold millions of examples of that throughout church history. The mission field has lots and lots of examples of people who prayed that God would send someone to tell them about Him, and then missionaries came and evangelized them. We have, for example, in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 16, Paul experiences what’s called the Macedonian vision. And he sees a single man in Macedonia and he was saying, come over and preach to us. And so God sends Paul over there to preach to the people in Macedonia. And that’s been true in all of church history. 

So I don’t buy the view that there’s a single person who has responded to general revelation, who is not going to receive further revelation. And by the way, Romans 1 talks about this too. Could you turn to Romans 1:18? I think it’s around verse 22. God is revealed in the creation, and even some aspects of God’s nature are evident in the creation. 

SAM: He says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.” 

BOB: And also look over at John 16, I think it’s verses 8 through 11, where the Lord Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is convicting the world of three things. 

SAM: Yes, John 16:8 says, “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin because they do not believe in Me. Of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more. Of judgment because the ruler of the world is judged.” 

BOB: Right. And notice about the sin. The issue in sin is not that they need to confess their sins or turn from their sins. They need to believe in Jesus. So the Holy Spirit is using the cross of Christ to lead people to believe in Jesus. And he says righteousness, of course, God is righteous, we’re not. And then judgment, there is a coming judgment. And the idea there would be is, if we don’t believe in Jesus, we’re not going to stand in this judgment. And that’s the Holy Spirit doing that for everybody. Does he use the word world? 

SAM: The world. 

BOB: That same word “world” we have in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” or John 3:16. 

SAM: It’s very hard for people to grasp a concept like this and be assured that God is in control and that what He’s going to do is just, because to us it seems like, oh, it’s an easy solution, God just do this. All you got to do is just make anyone who’s never heard Jesus’ name, just let them into heaven. It’s easy. And so we put our human morality and human sense of justice on God and when it doesn’t match, we say, okay, well, that means God must be unjust. So many people in the world must be going to the lake of fire. And that’s not fair because God only sent Jesus to Jerusalem. He didn’t send Him to every land. And if you’re not resolute in your faith, then this is a kind of question that can shake people. 

ANNOUNCER: Did you know that the Grace Evangelical Society offers an MDiv degree through our online seminary and tuition is free to those who maintain a 3.0 grade average? It is a three-year degree program and you could submit your application now to gain acceptance. Then stay apprised of our registration periods for upcoming semester terms. Program and application details can be found at GESSeminary.org. Have a look at our MDiv degree. Become an approved workman. Find out how GESSeminary.org.

SAM: But I think what you said should be encouraging to people that if people respond to general revelation, then God is going to be fair. He is going to be just to respond to their seeking of Him. And so it’s, I don’t think this is a question that should shake Christians to the point where you start questioning your faith. I think this should really be a good time to pray and be thankful of God’s sovereignty, that He is in control and that we wouldn’t do a better job if we were in His place. 

BOB: Yeah, that’s a good point. I mean, that’s obvious. Yeah, right? But the other part of it is I think is, there’s a certain mystery. We all know Jewish people, for example, who are believers in Jesus Christ, Muslims who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, Buddhists who have come to faith in Christ, atheists who have come to faith in Christ, right? And we meet all these people and you wonder, well, why is it that these Muslims came to faith, but not others, these Jews, but not others, these atheists, but not others. The answer from the Bible is because those who are willing will come and those who are unwilling will not. 

The fact that someone doesn’t hear the name of Jesus ultimately means they have not been willing to respond to the revelation they have. They have not been responsive and they’ve not been willing. Jesus said in John 5:39-40 to some Jewish legalists, “You search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life.” And what they were doing, of course, is going to the Old Testament, looking for the commandments and trying to see, “how am I doing?” The two big questions they were always asked, Jesus, what are the greatest commandments? And he said, love the Lord, your God and love your neighbor as yourself. And they say, oh, you’ve answered well, they recognize those are the two great commandments. But they also knew that they couldn’t have a claim on God if it required perfection in that. So what they would have to do is make that a little bit easier, like God grades on a curve. And a lot of people do that in Christianity too, right? They say, well, as long as your good works outweigh your bad works or whatever.

But this idea of what God’s going to do with people who’d never heard, I like your point, it really comes down to is, God’s just. And the answer is yes. And then the other problem is, is God big enough that he’s able to get the saving message to a person out there in a tribal group that’s never heard the name of Jesus? A lot of people don’t have a big God. So they think, well, God couldn’t do that. Or God wouldn’t do that. Well, do you remember in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter eight, Philip, the evangelist, speaking to the Ethiopian eunuch and suddenly God just catches him up and moves him somewhere else. He moves him a great distance. God was able to do that. 

And God could certainly have the apostles spread all over the world in the first century. Who’s the great apostle that went to India? A lot of people say it was Thomas. And if you know people from India, there’s a lot of Christians in India who have their last name of Thomas. And I believe God would have either sent apostles or people they discipled to North America, South America, Africa, Australia, the whole planet. And people who say, well, God couldn’t do that. Well, you must have a real small God then, right? 

SAM: Yeah. I mean, He drew the wise men from afar. He appeared miraculously to shepherds, even though that was local, there wasn’t a person involved in that. It was angels direct to humans. And those are just the accounts that we have. If you think everything God has done is confined to this book, then you are way off. 

BOB: Yeah, look at the gospel of John where he says if everything was written, the whole world couldn’t contain enough paper and ink to contain it. And think of this way too, Saul met the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Well, there are lots of people in the Old Testament that met the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. We have example, after example, after example, well, what about after Saul of Tarsus? Could Jesus have done that? Could he have gone to North America? Could he have gone to South America? Could he have gone to Australia? Sure. It’s possible. We don’t know if the Lord Jesus appeared to people in the first century or in subsequent centuries, but that’s certainly possible. He’s certainly capable of sending his messengers anywhere He wants on the planet. Remember, He sent an angel to Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 and said send to Joppa for Simon Peter, so He can even use angels too. We need to realize we have a big God. And like you said, we have a just God. 

SAM: That’s the most important thing to remember i,s don’t let your doubt and your issues about fairness challenge your understanding of God that the Bible has given you. Let your Bible, Scripture, your living Word,  determine your view of the God that we worship. 

Amen. And Jeff, we want to thank you so much for your question. Keep sending your questions and keep them short. Keep them simple. Send them to radio at faithalone.org and we’ll try to answer them on the air. And in the meantime, what are we going to do, Sam? Keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Read many from our library of thousands of free magazine and journal articles online at faithalone.org/resources. That’s faithalone.org. Did you miss an episode of Grace in Focus that you really wanted to hear? Just come to faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. We have all our past episodes right there on the site. Our team is really great about answering questions, comments, and feedback. If you’ve got some, we hope to hear from you. Let me give you our email address so you can do just that. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org.

Now we thank you for being with us all this week. We wish you a very pleasant weekend, some time for rest, restoration, and fellowship with others of like precious faith in a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church. Let’s meet again on Monday and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.