From our Executive Director:
In response to a recent devotional, a dear friend wrote requesting that I address a related issue. I will share a part of his email and my response as this week’s devotional. I hope you will find it helpful.
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There is a lingering question for me. If Abraham received the gift of faith (in Christ) before Christ’s first advent to Earth, and before there was the written Word, and without knowing his name, then is it possible for a person from an isolated culture to receive this same gift today? To a merciful and loving savior is their situation not like that that of Abraham’s? I understand the danger in this type of thinking but could the Father still not draw that person to Christ as he did many of the individuals described in Genesis? For example, without ever reading or hearing the preaching of the gospel could an American aborigine 1900 years ago and therefore after Christ’s coming, have received the gift of faith, believe, and even walk with God (Christ) as did Abraham or Melchizedek or Job, etc.? Is that possibility directly addressed and eliminated by Acts 4:12 or John 14:6? I am not asking if they can worship a false God and somehow that can be construed to be Christ. I am asking if they could find our Jesus, the real and biblical Jesus before somebody finally comes and presents the gospel to them.
You are probably familiar with the book Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson. He describes a tribe in Myanmar whose prophets predicted for centuries that one day a white man would bring them a book in which they would learn about the Supreme God, Y’Wa who would forgive them for their sins. They resisted the local religions for centuries and put their hope in Y’Wa although they were otherwise largely ignorant of him having not yet received access to the written word. To whom were they praying when they requested the soon coming of that white man with the book? Is this tribe really different from the faithful in Israel awaiting the coming of their Messiah? Two thousand years ago Christ came to Israel and the early gentile believers. Did he not come to these people in Myanmar in 1795, and were those who hoped for a savior but died before that time not like the ancient Jews hoping and awaiting the same Messiah?
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You have asked an excellent question and framed it well. Ultimately I can only offer my opinion because I must recognize that God is the Sovereign One. He can do whatever He chooses and while He will never contradict His word or violate His nature, He does indeed surprise us at times by doing things we would not expect.
That said, Cornelius could have been presented with the Gospel by the angelic messenger (Acts 10). God chose instead to use the angel to direct him to the Apostle Peter, a human messenger. No doubt this was in part to prepare Peter and the Jewish believers to accept the salvation of the Gentiles. But it is also representative of how God has chosen to spread the Gospel throughout the earth.
How much easier would it be if the unreached with difficult languages were simply visited by angels who proclaimed the Gospel to them? I would vote for that approach! But instead, even in the remarkable accounts from various continents where God has chosen to prepare the way with angelic messengers and with visions and dreams, He repeatedly entrusts the proclamation of the Gospel to humans. (Romans 10:14-17; and 1 Corinthians 1:18-25) The accounts I am familiar with involve God going to great lengths to connect His messengers with those who are ready to hear.
Of course whatever the outcome, no one will be able to say that God has treated them unfairly. In Romans 10, the verses that follow those listed above remind us that people who have not yet heard the Gospel, who have not heard what they need in order to be saved, have heard enough to stand condemned.
All of us have violated as much law as we knew and thus the only hope for any of us is God’s unmerited favor. I would be thrilled to find that God has placed some of His messengers in places where they could proclaim the word, as He did with Philip the evangelist in Acts 8. Having hiked a long way down the desert road so that He could share the Gospel with the Ethiopian, he appears to have been instantly transported (verses 39 & 40) to his next assignment. This sometimes happened in the Old Testament with prophets like Elijah. (1 Kings 18:11-12 and 2 Kings 2 especially verse 16) Perhaps when we get to heaven we will find that the folks in Myanmar had a very special visit from a human messenger in 1795. Until then, I believe we must focus on obedience to the Great Commission.
Thank you dear brother for your partnership in the Gospel!
