Posted on 07/08/2023 12:29:30 PM PDT by JAG 5000
Question: How is God good or just to abandon to Hell those who have never even heard the gospel?
JAG Writes:
Consider the following:
First, we Bible believing Christians start with the true proclamation that God always does that which is right.
This means that the God who always does what is right, world-wide and history-wide, is never going to abandon one of His elect to Gehenna, but will find a way to save them and give them the gift of eternal life as per John 3:16's "shall not perish but have eternal life."
Second, we Bible believing Christians MUST stay within the confines of doctrinal orthodoxy and so we hold solid and fast to John 14:6 that correctly teaches: no man can come to the Father except through believing in the Lord Jesus as his Savior.
Third, none of the above prevents us from considering the following:
Eternal Now. With regard to God's knowledge there is no past. present and future. God sees everything in the Eternal NOW. God's Omniscience demands this position. God now knows all that can be known, God does not learn new information and new truths.
So?
So the Eternal NOW knowledge is God's reality. And God's reality IS REALITY.
What YOU (we) can see is very limited and what YOU (we) can see IS NOT REALITY.
God has Middle Knowledge -- what that means is that God sees and knows fully what every human being would choose to do under all possible sets of different circumstances.
Let us take for an example a man named Akua Adisa, born in Africa in the year 1600 A.D.
Akua lived and died never knowing a single word of the gospel message.
God's Middle Knowledge knows precisely what Akua Adisa will choose to do in all possible sets of circumstances --
-- for example if Akua Adisa had been born in, say, South Carolina in the year 1990 A.D. and had traveled to hear Franklin Graham preach the gospel.
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HOW IS THIS ↓ CONCLUSION NOT COMPELLING?
If the Sovereign God knows that Akua Adisa would
have accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior if he had been born in the year 1990 A.D.
in South Carolina when he heard Franklin Graham preach the gospel then in God's
reality Akua Adisa has accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior and has therefore
fulfilled the requirements of John 14:6 no man can come to the Father except through faith in the Lord
Jesus.
ARE WE NOT COMPELLED TO REACH THIS ↑ CONCLUSION?
Thoughts?
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PS God's Omniscience demands we hold that God has what the philosophers call Middle Knowledge.
JAG
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Starlink provides the gospel globally
There’s no longer any excuses for the damned
We are judged by what we know.
God will find His own and keep them always. No matter the circumstances.
To your primary question, the answer is, “We don’t know.”
In this life, we must accept that there are questions which have no answers. There is plenty in God’s universe that we will simply never know.
The scripture says that the day will come when “we shall know, even as we are known.” Until then, we have no choice other than to simply say that we don’t know.
I was thinking the exact some thing as what you wrote. I agree.
Here it is in my words:
We know that God is just and righteous. We also know that He made everyone so they belong to Him. The Word says that He so loved the world…..
I do not know the mind of God since His thoughts are not my thoughts. So in matters such as this, I leave it with Him.
There are some issues about Christianity and God that I can honestly say “I don’t know.”
He is the eternal and all powerful Creator God. We are mere humans with limited understanding.
“God will find His own and keep them always. No matter the circumstances.”
Yep, that’s why he’s letting thousands of Christians to be slaughtered around the world.
And what’s this about “His own”? I thought we were all “His own” after all he created all of us. No?
I am reminded of chapter 10 in the book of Acts where God provided salvation for Cornelius. How? Cornelius had never heard of the saving grace of Jesus Christ but because he was a devout man, and gave to charities God provided a way.
If God can do that for Cornelius, can he not also provide salvation for anyone else he chooses?
I understand.
The OP raises the question about a man born in 1600 A.D
Best
JAG.
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``I understand.
The OP raises the question about a man born in 1600 A.D
Best
JAG.
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That claim can not be harmonized with what the Bible actually says in John 14:6 and elsewhere — but I think the OP solves the problem.
Best
JAG
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That’s true, but the OP offers a HOW God goes about doing that.
I think the points in the OP solves this problem.
Best
JAG
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God gave us his Son to live and suffer as a man. He took His Son home and every Christian who ever suffered the injustices of their fellow man home.
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I love Deut 29:29 “The secret things belong to God.”
and
Now we see through a glass darkly
and
“It is not for you to know”__The Lord Jesus
I think in Acts 1:11
Best
JAG
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Good point.
God bless.
JAG
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Ever read Psalm 116:15? or Revelation 6:9-11? I have to presume not, given the misunderstanding of the phrase “His own”.
Think of the reverse.
If people were saved outside of the gospel being preached to them:
it would be better to leave them in their sins! Why would we send missionaries?
How can God allow sin?
He commands his followers to go into all the world and preach the gospel. His followers disobey that command.
“13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”
Romans 10
Why would God tell us to go out and preach to everyone if they are just fine without hearing and repenting?
Keep it biblical.
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