Few questions evoke as deep emotions as the one that titles this article. The ones asking might wonder why a good God would allow those who have never heard the gospel to face his wrath. “It isn’t their fault that they never had the opportunity to hear the gospel,” they may claim. Perhaps if they had, they would have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. In short, there is no reason for those who have never heard to be punished for not believing.
To help address such concerns, we’ll look at what Paul said to the Romans. We’ll get to see why no one has an excuse. I’ll conclude by showing why the question shouldn’t even be about those who don’t hear.
No One Has An Excuse
Paul in Romans 1:18-23 explained what every human being, apart from the grace of God in Christ, is subject to. In Romans 1:16-17, Paul proclaimed that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Let’s break these verses down.
Salvation, Only By The Gospel
Firstly, Romans 1:16-17 should disprove those who might argue that, because they never heard the gospel, they could be saved by other means. Paul’s statement is clear: only the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to save. He builds on this further in Romans 10:9-17. Faith only comes when one hears the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). Salvation is only possible when one confesses the Lordship of Jesus and believes in his resurrection (Romans 10:9). That needed to be highlighted, as some might argue that Romans 1:18-23 can be used to highlight how those who didn’t hear the gospel can be saved.
Creation Doesn’t Save, It Condemns
Yes, while general revelation (Romans 1:18-23) is of importance, it doesn’t save. What general revelation does is condemn those who say there is no God (Psalm 14:1). Getting back to my throughline, what Paul is getting at is that if you don’t believe in the gospel, everything around you stands to condemn you. This was especially necessary given his audience. The Romans were not subject to the law of God as the Jews were. However, Paul was telling them that even if they weren’t subject to specific revelation, they couldn’t escape how God has revealed himself generally. As Paul said to those in Lystra, God didn’t leave himself without a witness (Acts 14:17). Therefore, whether with the law or without, no one has any excuses for not knowing the Divine Creator.
Such knowledge would have become the providential means by which God could use to plant the seed of the gospel. As I argued earlier, nature has an evangelistic awe. Therefore, by not seeing God at work in his creation, it might be impossible to see his work through Christ. Thus, even if you haven’t heard about him, creation will condemn you because you didn’t honor him and chose to exchange his glory for another.
The Condemnation Our Conscience Brings
However, it isn’t just creation that’ll condemn you, as Paul continues, so does your conscience. In Romans 2:12-16, Paul wrote to the Romans that while the Jews had the law, the Gentiles had the conscience. For the conscience is a law unto itself. The conscience is essentially a barometer for what is good and what is wrong. As GotQuestions puts it, the conscience is a God-given capacity for human beings to exercise self-evaluation. Therefore, if you go against your conscience, it will become your accuser. This is why scripture shows that sinning against one’s conscience is sin (Romans 14:23).
However, just as nature cannot save, the conscience also cannot save; it only condemns. That is especially true if your conscience becomes seared. This is when someone has become so hardened by sin that they don’t listen to the promptings of the conscience. Just because you didn’t listen to your conscience doesn’t mean it won’t accuse you. It was meant to be a barometer to make one realize they cannot do what is right on their own. If we listened to our consciences more, we would realize how much we need God. We would be prompted to go out of our way to seek the only one who can save us. To our relief, he readily avails himself to be found (Isaiah 55:6-7). However, the sinfulness of sin bars us from seeking our Savior. As Paul wrote, quoting Psalm 14:2-3, “…no one does good or seeks after God…” (Romans 3:11-12). Therefore, by that metric alone, we are subject to God’s wrath (Romans 8:31).
The Best Answer to Give
However, instead of asking “What of those who never hear?” we should be asking “What are we doing to ensure that they do hear?” We have been tasked with the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20), that we, as the body of Christ, should be going out of our way to fulfill. Going back to Romans 10, Paul asks this in Romans 10:14-15: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”
The only way those who have not heard the gospel can hear it is if we take it to them. The best answer to this weighty question is this: “How can I go out of my way to make sure they hear the gospel?” Might God, through this question, be asking you to find those who haven’t heard the gospel and go to them? You don’t even need to go to them, necessarily. You can be either part of those sending others or supporting those who are being sent.
Proclaim Christ at Every Opportunity
In other words, we as Christians are called to be missional and evangelistic. An exhortation to us is to take every opportunity to proclaim the gospel that God has entrusted to us. That is the only way many will get the chance to hear the gospel. If we stay behind, let us support those who strive to reach the unreached, to declare to them the gospel, God’s power unto salvation. This way, God’s Great Commission will never fail. Therefore, we shouldn’t be looking for the perfect words, tone, cadence, or posture when presenting the gospel. We should simply preach Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23). We do it knowing that the one who tasked us to do so will be with us to the very end (Matthew 28:20). It is one of the reasons Paul leaves no stone unturned when writing on the gospel to the Romans. He does that to propel them toward missional living.
Therefore, while it is easy to answer this weighty question with they will have no excuse. The best answer we can give is by doing something about it. Let us make it our ambition to proclaim Christ wherever we may find ourselves, and especially where he has not been named (Romans 15:20).