I believe this. However, I do not believe this includes all Jews.
“I believe this. However, I do not believe this includes all Jews.”
Even this, however, is a horrible error, though born from good intentions. But that doesn’t make it good, since it proposes, essentially, salvation by works without faith in Christ. These people are “virtuous,” and therefore they receive grace as a reward for this virtue.
Rom_4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
But the error does not end there, because it proposes that this grace, or, rather, the Holy Spirit working on the hearts of men, still does not bring them to Christ. Yet no one can be saved by grace “without conscious knowledge,” since the scripture is quite clear that no one stays aloof from Jesus Christ who has been given to Him by the Father.
Joh_6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
“But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”
(Joh 6:64-65)
Notice that belief is equated with coming, therefore, all those given by the Son to the Father do believe. And anyone who does not believe is justly condemned, no matter how “virtuous” they seem to be. Neither is ignorance an excuse for their unbelief.
As the scripture says, all men are guilty before God, regardless of how much “light” they have received (Rom 3:19). As all men have received, to a certain extent, the law of God imprinted on their hearts, as well as the light of nature revealing the existence of God, therefore they are summarily rendered “without excuse,” (Rom 1:20, 2:14) and “as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law (Rom 2:12). And again, “for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God”(Rom 3:9-11).If any man is in the world who never heard the Gospel, it was by the infallible power of God, and not by random chance, that he was left so abandoned. And, therefore, it was one of those whom God chose not to have mercy on, in accordance with His almighty sovereignty (Rom 9:18-21). Salvation is through Jesus Christ only, and whoever does not believe in Him is damned already (John 14:16, 3:18).