There is a question that is often asked concerning the validity of Christianity, which is bandied about now and then by both believer and non-believer. And that question has to do with those who die who have never heard the Gospel message. The problem that those asking such a question believe they have identified is that if salvation is, as the Baptists might say contingent on us accepting Jesus Christ as Savior in our hearts, what happens to those who have never heard of Jesus and are therefore unable to accept him? For it would seem unfair that those who have never heard of Jesus to then be condemned before the great judgment seat of Christ. I have to say that for some reason this question has never really troubled me a whole lot for at least two reasons. The first reason is not terribly pastoral – well actually it’s not pastoral at all but rather has more of a Mr. Spock like quality to it. And that answer is what does it matter. The truth of something is not dependent on how many people have heard it. In other words if you have never heard that Canberra is the capital of Australia is does not mean that there is something iffy about the proposition. Canberra being the capital of Australia is not dependent on a 10th Grader in New Prague, Minnesota being aware of that fact. But of course that reasoning is not warm and fuzzy especially for those who have never heard the Gospel and it does not solve the seeming unfairness of the impetuous behind the question. But the other reason this has never bothered me a whole lot is more warm and fuzzy. If someone is saying that there is inherent unfairness in the way God has ordered the universe than it sets up a scenario where we feel that God might need a little instruction from us on how things should work. But since we worship a God who sent his son to die for us miserable sinners why should we be worried that God might not be sympathetic to someone who has never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. It seems our concern is that God would suddenly start acting like a midlevel bureaucrat who has discovered that you did not check box 3c/a on your building permit and now you will now have to live in a house without toilets. If the crucifixion shows us nothing else it is that God goes to some very extreme measures to be in communion with us. How exactly salvation works out for those who have never heard of Jesus I do not exactly know and fear that speculating too much might bring me into some sort of heresy, but I do think that Paul’s discussion with the Athenians from this morning’s reading in Acts reveals something of how this all occurs for those who have never heard the Gospel.
Paul this morning says to the Athenians, “I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” Paul then goes on to give a description of who God is and gives a brief overview of the God’s interaction with humanity. He ends it all by saying, “From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” It is a rather interesting discussion. Paul starts by saying that the people with whom he is talking have a concept of God, but do not know who he is. He then proclaims who this unknown God is and then appears to say that part of God’s plan was that certain people would not know him but would “grope for him” almost like trying to find a light switch in the dark. Or put another way Paul is saying that God has given us clues of his existence in the world and a drive to find him. Those in Athens today had gotten to the point of realizing that there was something more, there was a God they could not identify who undergirded the universe, but that is all they knew. And so Paul comes along and proclaims the identity of this unknown God. The way Paul explains things is somewhat akin to how an archeologist might work. For example let’s say an archeologist is digging in Peru and unearths something like a vase or a drinking vessel. From that bit of knowledge they begin to construct a narrative about what the people who produced such an object were like. Similarly God has produced a world and through clues left here, people begin to construct a story of what this God must be like. Which gets us back to the original question of those who have not heard about God.
Paul argues and I would agree with him that the world is filled with evidence about the existence of God or as the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins put it, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.” Reflections of God’s nature are everywhere in this world. We might see it on a walk through nature, or in the faces of our children or in a benevolent act. God is everywhere if we just look. But in many ways this can be a difficult task because our God is the God who as the Prophet Isaiah tells us was not in the earthquake or the fire but rather in the still small voice. God is everywhere, but he is not always the brightest and shiniest and so it takes deliberate action. But let’s return again to those who have not heard the Gospel message – can they also hear the still small voice? And the answer to this question is yes. Paul today recognized in the Athenians that they were desperately seeking God, but did not have the God revealed knowledge to grasp what they were seeking and so Paul names it. Now just to be clear this is not universalism which posits that all people go to heaven but it rather demonstrates the wideness of God’s grace. If God can forgive us sinners who should know better, it seems that there is also room for those who are seeking the goodness that is God, but have not heard the Gospel. God has placed signs of his existence into the very fabric of creation. People are of course free to ignore it just as those who have heard the Gospel message are free to ignore it, but what Paul suggests that those who have not heard the Good News are still capable of having at least a rudimentary understanding of God.
But I don’t think we can leave it at just that for there is also something that this understanding requires of us. You notice that when Paul discovered that the Athenians were earnestly seeking God he did not walk away and tell them to keep up the good work, but rather invited them into a deeper relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ. If we look at people being unaware of the Gospel as God’s problem it sort of lets us off the hook, but it begs the question about what the point of being Christ’s body if spreading the Good News is not in there someplace. For those of us who have found the truth we should want to bring others into that truth. And I know this wounds an awful lot like evangelism, which scares us Episcopalians, but Jesus did kind of tell us to “Go therefore and make Disciples of all nations.” And so while there is room in God’s grace for those who through no fault of their own have never heard the Gospel that does not allow us to ignore them. Our charge just as it was two thousand years ago is to spread the Good News of God in Jesus Christ so that we may know him and make him known so that we all may be his now and forevermore.