The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Justification

Thank you very much Machaira,

You had obviously taken some time with your reply and I appreciate that very much. There are a lot of good scriptural references here. But I would like to explore this a little further.

1. I can not use the W.C.F. as an authority in this matter.

2. A lot of these scriptural versus don't exactly deal with God's Spirit working in people whom have never heard the gospel.

My main concern here with this doctrine is one of practicality. It seems to me that if people preach that God can regenerate whom ever He wants without the aid of the gospel or the church, and if this starts to become a common doctrinal understanding, then that will totally strip the importance of the Bible and the Church away from a local assembly.

So to put it in simpler terms, my question is, can people be saved without the preaching, teaching or reading of the gospel of Jesus Christ? (look at examples in my initial post)

Or.....

Can a part of the elect actually be people whom God has chosen as His adopted children without the means of hearing and being convicted by the gospel message? Can someone who has never heard the gospel and doesn't have any idea who Jesus Christ is or someone who has not chosen to follow the Bible still be regenerated by Gods Holy Spirit and have Christs' righteousness imputed to them?

You see, there are tons of versus that tell us we need the righteousness of Christ, that our works or righteousness is as filthy rags. That our salvation comes by Gods grace alone. But the problem here is that God can simply impute the righteousness of Christ to anyone He wants, regardless, whether or not such individual has ever heard the gospel or not.

Here is the problem. People in my congregation tell me that people don't need to hear the gospel to be saved. When I share the gospel with people in my congregation and I say that evangelizing is absolutely essential to bring people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, they don't agree with me.

They tell me that God can do whatever He wants... and I ask them... oh really? Can God lie? Can God hate? Can God go back on His promises?

They say "we He could if He wanted too." --- I say, "No He can't and He won't, because it's against His nature."

So we are told in the New Testament that the only way to restore a right relationship with God the Father and be saved from eternal judgment is to put our faith and trust in the promise of salvation brought through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, or faith in Christ alone without any works. The only way that we can put faith in Christ is by the proclamation of the gospel.

So again, I'm a little at a stand still here, because people just don't want to believe that a loving God can send "undeserving" or "good" people to hell.

This is the basic issue at hand. It's the Loving God won't send good people to hell problem really.

Anyway, if a few others could comment here, I would appreciate it, thank you.

Dave