Seekers Past and Present

From the sermon suggestion box.

Long ago my family learned the way to block me from always winning Trivial Pursuit was to ask me the sports questions. It's one area of pop culture that I'm really not into. So I rarely watch things like the Olympics. But my wife and I do enjoy the gymnastics and some of the skating events. That's because these sports are not so much about things you can measure, like if someone's the fastest, or the highest, or the strongest, or the most accurate, or the first. But gymnastics and skating are also about grace. Because of that they are notoriously the hardest to judge. Certainly there are rules and standards for judging the techniques displayed. A misplaced foot, a hesitation, or some imprecision will cost an athlete. But there is room for the intangibles that really count, like a certain spirit or elegance that distinguishes the merely competent from the extraordinary. So a lot depends on the judges. You don't want them favoring people merely because of their nationality or what team they are on. You want the judges to be both perceptive and impartial.

Speaking of judging people, “What happens to the people that died in B.C. [?] Will they not go to heaven?” The question from our sermon suggestion box touches on what seems to be a problem if salvation comes only through trusting in Christ. In today's passage from Romans, Paul says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Using that standard alone, how can those who lived before Jesus possibly make it to heaven? Remember: that includes not just pagans but the faithful in the Old Testament.

A lot of people say that it doesn't matter what you believe so long as you are sincere. Really? According to his letters to the San Francisco police, the Zodiac killer believed that the people he killed would be his slaves in the afterlife. So if he was sincere about that, then he's saved? Sincerity is important but the content of your belief is crucial. When you switch from religious beliefs to political beliefs this becomes obvious. We would never say that a sincere communist was interchangeable with a sincere Republican. We would never equate a sincere belief in the principles of Nazism with a sincere belief in the principles of libertarianism. Going back to religion, a sincere Quaker would not wear a ceremonial dagger though a sincere Sikh would. Nor would the traditional treatment of untouchables in Hinduism find a place in the Unitarian Universalist faith.

Obviously sincerity is an asset. There are a lot of people who call themselves Christian who show little or no evidence that their so-called beliefs affect their actual behavior. Their sincerity is doubtful. On the other hand it's undeniable that the extremists who flew planes into buildings on 9/11 were sincere. However, had they been mainstream Muslims, who sincerely followed the Quran's prohibitions against killing non-combatants, they would not have committed terrorism in the first place. So what's important is people who are sincere about the right beliefs.

But if the belief in Christ is the right one, how can those who lived before his incarnation be saved? For much of my discussion of this matter, I am indebted to Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli and their Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Kreeft and Tacelli point out that Christ existed before being born around 4 to 6 B.C. He is the second person of the Trinity, the eternally begotten Son of God. Through him, everything was created. (John 1:1-3) So when you are dealing with the one true God, you are dealing with Christ. That's how the Old Testament believers were saved. They trusted in the same God, though if you asked them if they trusted in Jesus, they'd say, “Who?”

There is a scene in the movie The List of Adrian Messenger that illustrates how this would work. A British detective and a French witness make a startling discovery. During the Second World War, one was in British Intelligence and the other was in the French Resistance. The British supported the French Resistance in fighting the Nazis. It turns out these two men had spoken to each other frequently over the radio but at the time each used a codename. When the title mystery throws them together, they realize they had in fact worked together for the same cause during the war. They simply didn't know each other's true names. In the same way, the prophets in the Old Testament were serving Christ, though they did not know him by that name. They do now, of course.

However there are some who object to this, saying the name of Jesus Christ is vital to salvation. In Acts 4:12, it says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Putting aside the fact that Jesus is the anglicized version of the Greek version of a Hebrew name, we know that the mere name of Jesus Christ is not magical. In Acts 19:13-16, some non-Christian exorcists trying driving out evil spirits invoking the name of “Jesus whom Paul preaches.” One demon says, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” Then the possessed man beats up his would-be exorcists. So the name doesn't work if you don't trust in the person who happens to have that name.

Let's consider a hypothetical case of the opposite situation. Let's say a deaf man in a foreign country sees a film about Jesus. He doesn't know the name of the person he is watching but he gets enough sense of the what the film is about so that he decides to trust the divine person the film is about. Could this man be saved, even though he cannot find out the name of his savior nor say it with his lips? Most theologians would say “Yes” because the man's faith is in the person of Christ and it is the person, not the name, who saves us. In Genesis 32, nowhere is the person who wrestles with Jacob explicitly called God. That person refuses to name himself. Nevertheless Jacob is renamed and blessed. The person, not what we call him, is the source of the power. (In fact every time in the Bible you see the word LORD all in capital letters it is following the Jewish tradition of not using the divine name lest you violate the commandment about using God's name wrongly. What's more we are not entirely sure the exact pronunciation of that name because the Hebrew text just had the consonants:YHWH.)

So those who believed in the true God were saved by Christ even before he was born as Jesus of Nazareth. Now what about the pagans who lived before Jesus was born? Kreeft and Tacelli point out that there are 3 things necessary to salvation: a person must seek God; that person must repent of their sins; and that person must put their trust in God. Can these be applied to pre-Christian pagans?

In the first chapter of Romans, Paul says that God's power and divine nature can be seen in creation. (Romans 1:20) And sure enough, you would have to look really hard to find any society that didn't believe in a creator God until very recently. But accepting the existence of God is not enough. We've already pointed out that a lot of people call themselves Christians who don't seem to let it make much difference in their lifestyles.

So a person must actively seek God. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find.” (Matthew 7:7) But how do we know the seeker won't find something other than Christ? In John 1:9, Christ is called the light who enlightens everyone. That's because he is not a God but the God. So whether they know it or not, Christ is the ultimate truth who is sought by all seekers, provided they aren't actually looking for comfort or novelty or personal vindication instead. If a person truly seeks God, they will find him. Or rather, they will be found by him. God is not an abstraction that can only be deduced but a person who can respond to us. He doesn't force himself on anyone but he does come to those who really seek him.

So why hasn't every person who sought him come up with something recognizable as Christ by whatever name they called him? I think it is human pride. Not only is the creator God's existence obvious so is the puzzling fact that the world he created is not perfect. The typical explanations most religions give is that evil is an illusion or ignorance or a consequence of our being finite or that evil is a necessary part of the cosmic balance. People tend to blame the state of the world on anything but their own sins.

We find it hard to accept that we fall short of the divine splendor mostly because of our deliberate choices. And it is difficult for us to accept that it is necessary for us to repent and turn our lives completely around. But that is an essential step. If you truly seek and find God, it should result in humility, a realistic appraisal of yourself. And if you aren't appalled by some of the things you notice about yourself, you aren't being honest with yourself. Yes, some of the harm we do is through ignorance or stupidity but most is done with full knowledge that we are violating a universal moral rule: that we are doing something to others we would not want done to ourselves. We put our own welfare ahead of others' wellbeing. We don't make sacrifices for the greater good if we can possibly avoid it. We judge others on the results of what they do rather than on their intentions. (We do the reverse when it comes to ourselves: “Don't blame me! I didn't mean to do that!') Sadly, a lot of churches and so-called Christians are trying to cut out the concept of repenting and having to change your life. So it's not so surprising that repenting doesn't figure into most pagan belief systems.

The pre-Christian pagan who truly sought God and repented would then have to put their whole trust in God's justice and mercy, according to the knowledge he possessed. Again, in Romans, Paul says people are judged according to their response to their own knowledge of God. (Romans 2:14-16) And while a pre-Christian pagan would not know everything about God, what he did know would be sufficient for him to seek God, repent and trust in God. He might wonder how God could undo all the damage sinful humanity has done. He might wonder on what basis God could possibly forgive him. He might, like the early Hebrews, have only a shadowy idea of the afterlife. In these areas he would have to live in hope, the future tense of faith.

There are those who object to the idea of the possibility of anyone being saved without explicit knowledge of Jesus Christ. But as we said, the faithful of the Old Testament were. (Hebrews 11:1-2, 13) If God is just, he won't condemn those who had no chance of hearing of Jesus and being saved. He will provide a way. Kreeft and Tacelli propose one possibility. But another one is based on a curious comment in 1^st Peter. It says that Christ “was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, through whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who disobeyed long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah as the ark was being built.” (1 Peter 3:18-20) While Bible scholars and theologians have different ideas about exactly what that means, it does seem that the gospel was preached to the spirits of those who died before Christ's birth.

In the end, just like in the Olympics, it comes down to the judge. If we trust in God's goodness, then we can count on him to be just in his judgment. But more than that, we can trust him to be merciful. The Bible tell us that God searches and judges the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7; Jeremiah 17:10) Nothing escapes his gaze. That's why an attitude of trust and humility are essential. (Micah 6:8) And that is where we must leave this question of what happens to those who died before Jesus' birth: in God's just and merciful hands.

But what about people today? If God judges people based on their response to their knowledge of him, then the fuller knowledge of Jesus Christ now available must be factored in. Aside from some very remote tribes, the knowledge of Jesus and the clearer picture of God's incredible love and forgiveness and transformation available though his Spirit has spread throughout the world. True, in some countries such knowledge might be harder to come by but it is available for those who seek it. It can be found on radio, TV, the internet and through people's phones in countless videos and free Bible apps. And, sure enough, some people in tightly controlled Muslim or Hindu countries do become Christians, even though they may risk their earthly lives to do so. Although a tame official Christian church exists in China, underground home churches are burgeoning. For God all things are possible.

The rules are the same. People must seek God, repent and put their trust in him. It's just that in Jesus they can see what the God who is love is really like. Which should spur us on to keep spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. And part of our task is to correct the distortions that some people have transmitted about the gospel. One time I had a patient who was refusing his pain meds because he thought his illness was a punishment from God. Going all the way back to the book of Job, the Bible refutes that narrow interpretation of sickness and misfortune. So I shared some powerful verses about God's forgiveness. The whole purpose of Jesus' suffering on the cross for our sins was so that we don't have to suffer that punishment. It was encouraging to see the good news of God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ free this man from his sense of guilt and self-loathing.

Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...” (Romans 1:16) Our job is not to pass final verdicts on people. (Matthew 7:1-2) Our mission is to make available the power of the good news to those seeking God. As Kreeft and Tacelli point out, the true divide is between those seeking God and those who aren't. There's little anyone can do for those who refuse to seek God. For the rest, we can help by pointing the way to God not only with our lips but with our lives. Not all of us can be eloquent or explain every nuance of the gospel. But all of us can tell others how God has helped us and changed our lives. We can say, “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Join me as we follow Jesus together.” (Psalm 34:8)