Romans (An Interpretive Outline)

p.88 “Since the heathen sin against God by breaking the law written on their hearts, they will perish unless the message of Christ is carried to them. There is not justification for sinners apart from faith in Christ! Those whom God has chosen to save He saves through the means of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; He calls them outwardly by the message of the Gospel and inwardly by the Holy Spirit who enables them to believe the message. ‘But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ (II Thessalonians 2:13-14).

There are some who believe that those who never hear the Gospel cannot be damned. They argue that ‘God would not be so unjust as to condemn to hell those who have never been given a chance to accept or to reject Christ.’ Yet they advocate the sending of missionaries to those who have never heard and who, therefore, according to their view, could not possibly be lost. It seems contradictory to hold that the heathen are safe because they have never heard of Christ, and yet to support the missionary movement. For if the heathen cannot be lost without first hearing the Gospel and if after hearing it some of them reject it, then, would it not follow that missionaries, instead of bringing the possibility of salvation to the heathen are, in fact, bringing only condemnation to those who reject Christ after hearing the message? But, as Paul shows in Romans, men are lost, not by their rejection of the Gospel of Christ which frees them of the guilt of their sins, they must first hear it. Thus, the sending of missionaries is absolutely imperative if the heathen are to be saved.

As to the question of the salvation of those incapable of understanding and believing the Gospel (i.e., infants, the mentally incompetent, etc.) the Scriptures are silent-it is enough to know that the Judge of the world will do right. That they stand in need of salvation is clear from the fact that Adam’s sin has been charged to all the race (5:12-19); but we are given no information as to what provision has been made for them. This much is certain: if they enter heaven it must be through the merits of Christ, and not because they are innocent or free from guilt. When considering such matters we should ever keep before us the words of Deuteronomy 29:29, ‘The secret things belong to the Lord our God;’ but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever…’”