Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well. When talking to other people that don’t believe, they may bring up multiple arguments against Christianity. Some are more complicated than others. Some are ‘how would God allow evil if he’s a good God?’ While others believe he doesn’t explain how the world is created through science. No matter what, they will have arguments.
One of the arguments will be ‘what about those who have never heard the name of Jesus?’ They misunderstand the process to be saved. Though knowing Jesus name is important and we should know it as his followers, it’s technically not an exact requirement in order to be saved. We see this in our passage today.
“What then can we say that Abraham, our physical ancestor, has found? If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to brag about—but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.”
Romans 4:1-3
Hcsb Bible
Though Paul is still focusing on the point that we are saved by faith and not our good works, we can still pull another principle from this passage. We learn that it’s not technically necessary to know the name of Jesus to be saved. The only thing we need to do is to have faith in God that he will save us and repent.
We know this because Abraham was never told to believe in Jesus but rather have faith in God. He most likely never heard the name Jesus. So this tells me that this is even less requirements to get into heaven than even other religions as well.
Again I say that it is important to know Jesus name because of several reasons. We pray to God through him, he is the reason why we can go to heaven and we need to grow closer to him each and every day.
This tells us that someone on an island could get a message in a bottle with John 3:16-18 in it and trust God and be saved. Even though Jesus is speaking in this passage, he never once brings up his name but rather points out the path to salvation.
Now this is not to say that we shouldn’t read more of the Bible and grow closer to God accordingly, but this only points out that the most important point of the gospel is the faith and trust that we put in the true God for our eternity.
Now this also doesn’t say that we shouldn’t be sharing the gospel with every single person we meet. The reason being, even though they only need to have faith in God and repent like Abraham did, they still need to know which God is the true one. For that to happen, they need to hear it from us as Christians.
And for those that never hear the gospel in any form, God will judge them based partially on what they know and are aware of. (Romans 2:1-16). I believe we can apply this to infants, mentally handicapped people as well to an extent. God is a just and faithful God and will love us how we should be loved.
So when going into the world, spread the Gospel everywhere you go. Know that you don’t need to know everything before sharing, but rather the true Gospel which has the power to save anyone. As you share it and live, continue to grow closer to God, but remember the basics by which we are all saved.
I hope you have a great day and if you have any questions or disagreements, comment below and I’ll respond when I can.
The Bible Life 