085. Can the heathen be saved by following the best light they have?

Can the heathen be saved by following the best light they have?

God will judge the heathen in righteousness, according to the light they have had. Those who have sinned without knowing the law revealed to Moses will also perish without the law, and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law (Romans 2:12). The heathen are not without light. The fact that they do by nature the things required in the law shows that they have a law, though not the law revealed to Moses (Romans 2:14). If any heathen should live perfectly up the light he has he would doubtless be saved by doing so, but no heathen has ever done this. Romans 2:12-16 is often taken as teaching that the heathen are to be saved by the light of nature, but any one who will read the passage carefully in its connection will see that Paul’s whole purpose is not to show how the heathen are saved by keeping the law written in their hearts but to show that all are under condemnation—the Jew because he has not lived up to the law given by revelation, and the Gentile because he has not lived up to the law written in his heart. The conclusion of the matter is given in Romans 3:22-23, R.V.: “For there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In the verses that follow the only way of the salvation is pointed out, namely, free justification by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus on the ground of His propitiatory death, the value of which each one appropriates to himself by faith in Him. No one will be saved except through personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. There is not a line of Scripture that holds out a ray of hope to any one who dies without accepting Jesus Christ.

There are those who hold that those who die without hearing of Jesus Christ in this world will have an opportunity of hearing of Him and accepting Him or rejecting Him in some future state, but the Rible docs not say so, and this is pure speculation without a word of Scripture to support it.

There are also those who hold that those heathen who would have accepted Christ if He had been presented to them will be treated as if He had been presented to them and they had accepted Him, but this is all pure speculation.

All the Bible teaches is that no one can l>e saved without personal acceptance of Christ, and the part of wisdom on our part is to do everything in our power to see the heathen have the opportunity of accepting Christ in the life that now is, for we have not one word of Scripture to support us in the hope that if we neglect our duty here the heathen will have an opportunity to accept Christ in some future age or state.