Denver Seminary

have changed. People espousing these objections say, "I've met some of these folks, and they are nice, moral, sincere people. I can't believe God would condemn them." It was easy enough to imagine their need for salvation when they were heathens and barbarians who lived in inaccessible places far on the other side of the world. But now the nations have come to us, and these unbelievers may be our neighbors and coworkers. It's harder to picture them as lost when we drink coffee with them. The book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes tells the story of the Pirahã, a small tribe of Amazonian Indians in central Brazil. According to the author, a former Wycliffe Bible translator who gave up his faith as a result of working with this people group, the Pirahã are the happiest people on earth. The gospel doesn't have anything to offer them. He says that, instead of him converting them, they converted him. (I recently spoke with a former colleague of the author who says that, in contrast to what the book portrays, the Pirahã people are haunted by demons, and their lives are characterized by fear.) God desires all to be saved, but only those who have heard and call on His name will be saved. How can we reconcile these two statements? A final set of objections is theological. We believe, or we want to believe, that the God we serve is a particular kind of God. For many people, the basic issue is one of fairness. It just doesn't seem fair that God would judge people when they haven't had a chance. They say, "A loving God couldn't do something like that." The idea that God could act in a way that, in our estimation, isn't loving or fair doesn't square with what we want to think about God. We say, "God must be like this," sharing images of what we want Him to be like. In some ways, we want to make God in our image, and that image is tolerant. A TENTATIVE ANSWER So how should we answer these objections in light of our understanding of the mission of God? The Bible speaks of God as both merciful and just. If He were only just, no one would be saved. We all deserve condemnation (Rom. 3). But God is also merciful. In His grace, He chooses to save some (Titus 3:4–6). Our difficulty is understanding the balance between mercy and justice. We want God to be merciful; we aren't so sure about justice, or at least judgment. But God is both, and we need both. Regardless of whether we are convinced that those who have never heard of Christ and received Him will suffer for all eternity—or whether we are agnostic about their ultimate fate, hoping that God will choose to save them in the end—we have to affirm that any salvation must be based on the finished work of Christ on the Cross. Whether people explicitly know that name is an open and ongoing discussion. Why should we care if people perish? If we don't settle this issue, eventually our missionary motivation will die. We may continue to do good deeds—fighting for justice, feeding the hungry, working to pull people out of poverty, freeing young girls from sex trafficking—but we will not share the complete good news of the gospel. And when that happens, we will miss out on the joy of seeing women and men come to Christ from all peoples, languages, and cultures. Charles Spurgeon was once asked, "Will the heathen who has never heard the gospel be saved? It is more a question with me whether we—who have the gospel and fail to give it to those who have not—can be saved." Sharing the gospel with those who have never heard it is both an act of obedience and a necessary result of our salvation. We don't know absolutely whether God in His mercy will choose to save some who have never heard the name of Jesus. What we do know with certainty is that He has called His people to participate with Him in taking the gospel to the whole world so that those who have never heard will have the opportunity to hear and respond to Him. ENGAGE 9 Scott Klingsmith, PhD ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF INTERCULTURAL STUDIES AND MISSIOLOGIST-IN-RESIDENCE Dr. Klingsmith has served at Denver Seminary since 2009. He's been married to Carol for 36 years, and together they served for more than 20 years with WorldVenture in Central and Eastern Europe. They have an international family of three married kids and three grandkids. And, of course, Sophie. vmake/iStock

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