Does Ignorance Trump Accountability?

I received several email responses to last week's post, but I wanted to respond to two of them because I believe they summarize the heart of the evangelical instinct, and provides the impetus for a where a more Reformed hermeneutic would help the church provide a cogent and consistent message about the necessity of faith in Christ for personal redemption. These comments were made by my good friends Mark and Barry, shown as responses to the previous post, and each are faithful to a good reading of scripture...though I humbly believe they've fallen a bit short.

Mark: General Revelation & Spiritual Accountability
Two very provocative points were made in Mark's response, specifically concerning the sufficiency of general revelation and what some call "concurrent dispensations", i.e. that the Lord deals with those who have been exposed to the gospel based on their acceptance or denial of it, and for those who are ignorant of it, based on their moral conformity to the law and the judgment of their conscience. Let's first deal with the sufficiency of general revelation.

We should be clear that NO revelation, general or special, is sufficient to save without the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. Lionel has begun an interesting discussion on a related thought in his blog, but it is important to underscore that even when God's requirements are clearly enumerated in the law beyond general revelation, our hearts are incapable of responding in an obedient and righteous way: Romans 3:20, 8:3-4; Ephesians 2:1-3.

Further, Paul states rather clearly that gentiles outside the gospel message "have no hope" (Ephesians 2:12 & 1 Thess 4:13), and it is fairly clear from the biblical witness that the natural religious impulses of the pagan heart and mind are toward idolatry and the exaltation of lusts. This is a byproduct of a sinful heart and occurs 100% of the time. I think the challenge for those who seek to make ignorance a defense against accountability is to deal with the sin problem of those who have not heard of Christ: are their sins forgiven apart from direct faith in Christ? The real question is, however: is there a regenerative work of the Holy Spirit apart from the message of the Lordship and work of Christ?

Biblically, I believe there is not. But, I am not ashamed to confess a fear of God in this and yet I know He knows my motive is only for integrity to His word as revealed. Our God is a consuming fire and the eternal destiny of souls is among the gravest concerns in all the universe, and only He has the authority to make these pronouncements...and I believe He has spoken accordingly in his revealed word. This is also why I believe the missological and evangelistic mandate is of great importance...Lord, please forgive my not making it the highest priority of each day!

On to Mark's second point...

Concurrent dispensation: The Lord judges those who know the truth by that standard, and those who don't know the truth are judged by their conscience. Probably the most commonly cited passage that supports Mark's point is Romans 2:12-16. Many, I believe, are misled in this text because they connect Paul's parenthetical statement in verses 14 & 15 to the last sentence in this paragraph in verse 16. But it is really verses 12 & 13 that are connected to 16 which really establishes that accountability DOES exist outside the revelation of law (all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law). Verses 14 & 15 in this passage do not mean that the conscience of those who don't have the law is capable of leading them to righteousness, but that the conscience serves the function the law does for those who have received it, namely the highlighting of sin. Neither law nor conscience has the power to overcome sin's effect on the human heart...nor the human condition!

Paul makes an interesting point to the people of Athens in Acts 17:30 - In the past God overlooked...ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Is this repentance possible without the preaching of the word of Christ? Some might suggest that God worked in this vein in OT times before the incarnation, i.e. that he worked among non-Jewish gentiles outside the old covenant and direct influence of the law, e.g. Nebuchednezzar (Daniel 4:37) and Neco of Egypt (2 Chr 35:21), and that he can do the same thing among those who have not heard of Christ.

Touche; God can do and does what he wants...who can stay his hand? (But no one would suggest that God is random or capricious!) However, should the fact that Enoch walked with God, never tasting death, or that Elijah was carried away in a chariot fire give us reason to suggest that death is likely to miss some today? Should the fact that there will be one generation that will be alive when Christ returns and accordingly not experience death, nullify the truth of the biblical statement: man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment(NIV)?

Biblically at least, it is clear that humanity has inherited condemnation from Adam, Romans 5:12-21. Another good friend has suggested that a God of perfect love would not condemn humanity for the actions of an elder brother. But, we all die because of the actions of that elder brother...moreover, we should not forget that we are made righteous, not by our own actions, but by the righteousness of a different elder brother, namely Jesus Christ.

Barry: The Soul Who Sins Shall Die
This statement from Ezekiel 18:20 reminds us that "generational sin" is not a curse as some suggest it is, a son will not be condemned for the sins of his father. I believe the core message here, this side of the fall, is that each of us are individually accountable before God. We are not in the same state that Adam was in, who was completely morally innocent before God. David said very clearly in Psalm 51:5 - Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me...this tells us that our sin situation is pervasive and precedes any choice on our part. We are not sinners because of bad choices, but make bad choices because we are sinful...

Closing Thoughts...
What strikes me about the responses to this question is the hearts and minds that produced these and others that I heard: all of them were from individuals who have hearts for God and love for the saints. None of them would argue against the core message of the gospel...intentionally. However, I believe that in many ways that the lessons of the European Reformation are being lost on the church today, namely that a reliance on convention and intuitive reason apart from the guiding light of scripture will lead the church into confessional compromise. The fact that most good Christians will allow that salvation is possible apart from faith in Christ, under any contemporary circumstance, suggests that much of what the bible teaches about the bad news portion of the gospel is lost on the church today.

It is no surprise that most public preaching and teaching centers on the practical urgencies of individual life circumstances...making the Lord sovereign over them (a good thing) instead of the larger soteriological imperative: imploring natural born sinners to embrace God's merciful act of love or remain the object of his judicious wrath. Here is an experiment to attempt today: read Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of Angry God to a congregation and judge the response...

Are these people lost?

The National Indian Foundation in Brazil published this picture on its web site on May 29th as evidence that this tribe exists and that the dangers of illegal logging may drive these and other marginally-contacted peoples into extinction. The tribe shown here is thought to have had no direct exposure to the modern world prior to this feaful and alien encounter with a helicopter.

There are literally hundreds of uncontacted or marginally contacted people groups living in what can only be described as an aboriginal state, organized as hunter-gatherer societies, most with no form of agriculture and some, such as the unwelcoming and violent Sentinelese off the cost of India, even lack the know-how to produce fire, instead relying on lightning strikes to provide this helpful "technology"!

The concern of anthropologists is that inevitable extinction awaits these tribesmen in the wake of extensive contact with outsiders who will certainly bring disease which these people, living in prolonged isolation, undoubtedly lack the immunity to resist. But there is a more basic and plaguing question that confronts the Christian community, one that gets at the heart of the Christian mission and very basic doctrine: are these people lost?

Let me begin by saying that no one can speak with absolute certainty about any individual's eternal destiny, fingering a person for heaven's pleasures or hell's horrors...even those shown in the picture above prompting our saying "lost" is beyond the scope and authority of the church and any pastor, theologian, or writer. BUT, can we biblically answer important questions concerning the basis of condemnation and the imperative for evangelization and missions? More simply: why are people lost and is evangelism necessary [or hurtful!]...as far as the Bible is concerned? Let's take these two very briefly and attempt a simple and concise anwer on each of them.

Why Are People Lost?
Fundamentally, the bible does not teach that people are lost BECAUSE they reject Christ as savior. It is not the act of rejecting Christ that results in one being lost, the Lord's response to Nicodemus in John 3:17-18 helps us tremendously on this:

• 3:17 - For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

We can easily and incorrectly draw from this that Christ does not bring a "judging" mindset to the world but only a tolerant, accepting approach in dealing with us. If we aren't careful we can somehow draw from this that we should not speak to the worldy patterns and conduct that warrant condemnation; sinful conduct and sin-loving hearts can and must be condemned, and Christ showed us this by example (Sermon on the Mount, dealing with Pharisees, etc.). But what this passage is stating is that Christ does not introduce condemnation into the world, but that God actually injects salvation into the world through Christ. The next verse makes this even clearer:

• 3:18 - Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

This is similar to what the Lord said in John 8:24, that if his hearers did not believe in him that they would die in [their] sins. We must remember that bibically, condemnation does not occur because of anything that we did or do, but is something that we inherit from Adam, Paul helps us here in Romans 5:18 & 19 -

• ...as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men...through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners...

So no one is lost because they reject Christ...nor is anyone not lost if they have never heard of Christ; if one is a descendent of Adam then that one is a sinner deserving God's righteous condemnation. This is a harsh and stern truth, and we have our ultimate patriarch to thank for this...but except one be oustide of Adam's descent and curse, then Adam's condemnation remains on any human being ever born. We are a condemned race; please contemplate this grave reality.

Is Evangelism Necessary [or hurtful]?

Of course evangelism is not hurtful, I only ask this because many suggest that an individual can only rightly be condemned if they've heard of God's "offer" of salvation, otherwise it would be patently unfair to hold them to the impossible standard of needing to know of Christ in order to be saved. It is often said, will any be able to stand before God in the day of judgment and say "Lord, I didn't know about Christ, why would you judge me for something I didn't know about?!" Yet, what we see in the Bible is that all those who are sinners [born in sin] actually merit God's just condemnation. Again, this is a hard truth, but it is a biblical one.

If ignorance of Christ excuses one from accountability before God, then indeed evangelism and missions would bring eternal risk to some who had not heard of God's "offer", as it is often referred to. However, biblically we have every reason to believe that evangelism and missions are necessary if one is to escape the condemnation that has come to the world because of Adam's disobedience.

Again, Paul helps us in Romans 10:13-15 -

• Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?

Hearing the gospel is necessary for salvation...nowhere do we see, at least in scripture, that eternal life is attainable outside of a knowing and active relationship with Jesus Christ. We are told that many know and reject, and still others fake it...but there is no biblical latitude provided that salvation is somehow applied to those ignorant of either their need for salvation or its availability. I welcome any insights from those who think differently, because this is not a point to be argued, but simply a doctrine for us to be clear on. So, I stand ready to hear from brothers or sisters who have greater insight and biblical clarity on this...

• Aside: The Lord does make it clear in Luke 12:48 that the one who does not know but does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.... I think we see a principle of mercy here that the Lord gives to the ignorant, but I don't think it means they are saved only that their punishment is less harsh. It should be clear that only God knows what this means in actuality. Eternal life is his gracious gift and eternal condemnation is a right only he has as the righteous judge of "the great and the small"...only let us live up to what we know and be true to scripture with integrity.

Why does this matter?

First of all, this is not a hypothetical, these tribes exist and we need to pray fervently that the gospel reaches them, indeed I sincerely hope missionary organizations are contemplating ways to reach them without putting these people and their small societies at the risk of extinction

Secondly, this is important for clarity sake even as we evangelize in our own communities, especially in an increasingly culturally pluralistic society. For example, we are hard-pressed to say that muslim women living in Pakistan are knowingly "rejecting" Christ when because of their muslim heritage they have a completely different understanding as to who he is; I frankly don't see their situation as being any different from the uncontacted Indians of South America...this is why many missionaries are risking their lives to do missions in muslim countries, so the people in those lands can receive a true understanding about Christ, his lordship and God's plan of salvation.

Lastly, we must maintain a biblical basis for what we believe as Christians, especially when so much of what we hold to in the church today is of a spurious biblical basis. As mentioned in my previous posting, the beginnings of a Reformation movement in the African American church must rest on a rediscovery of the bible and its core message...and then living by the same! We have some work to do in this effort, but it's necessary and will return to us many dividends of God-glorifying living, Christ-exalting preaching, and true Christian fellowship across all cultures and peoples who comprise the wonderfully mosaic body of Jesus Christ. To him be the glory!