The Real Issue

Anyone seeking God in truth will find Him and be accepted by Him. The heathen of any land – even ours – will seek his Creator only if God has already moved in his heart to do so. If God is moving in that person’s heart, nothing will keep him from the content of the Gospel necessary to complete his work of faith.

However, this isn't the real issue for you and me. When each of us faces God, there will be no discussion about the heathen who never heard. Instead, the question will be: What about those who have heard? What about you and I? Did we bend the knee and ask Jesus to forgive us?

God does not condemn us for rejecting a Jesus of whom we've never heard. We are held accountable for our own moral crimes against God, and for rejecting the Father, whose voice is heard everywhere.1

Stand firm in Christ,
Chase

Footnotes:

1. Koukl, Greg. Worshipping the Unknown God:  The Heathen and Salvation. Clear Thinking. Vol. 1 No. 2. Page 14.

Comments

Anonymous said…
God doesn’t want us to bend a knee; neither does Jesus, at least not to them. I fail to understand the fear concept anymore. I used to think I understood it, and I even followed it for a time believing I was being more God like and a minion of Jesus. I found a big problem with the concept though, when my 17 year old son was killed going to get gas in his mother’s car. Why was I the only one to pray for my son at the accident site, no one else would, and there was plenty of Christens at the accident site? Why was my son taken from us, we had always bent a knee to Jesus and God, but now we were the brunt of this accident, and the death of my son, do you know how hollow it rings to be told he’s in a better place, slap in the face to his family and friends. The bent knee is a sign of extortion, control, and bullying. If all we have to do is bend a knee to get to be with Jesus in the afterlife, then is not as much of a paradise as Jesus exclaimed to the man hanging on the cross with him. There are a lot of souls in hell who fear God and Jesus if your statement is correct. Gandhi or Buddha may not have believed in Jesus, but I for one won’t commit myself to judging them or myself. Your thought follows Paul, but Paul’s arrogance betrays him in understanding Jesus and God in so many ways. When we go to God through Jesus we don’t discuss the heathens, you are correct; we lay our relationships with others at the feet of God, and Jesus examines the relationships we have put there and judges us on those relationships, not wealth, not station, or knowledge, or knee bending only relationships.
Chase said…
Anonymous,

I am truely sorry for the loss of your son. As a father of a two year old son, I can only begin to understand the pain you feel and quickly find myself unwilling to entertain thoughts of my son's death in my mind and heart. God's understanding of your pain infinitely surpassess mine as He did lose a Son to death and was willing to lose Him. And the Son was willing to die. All for the purpose of redeeming mankind to the triune God out of the love He has for us. It is for this reason that I, and the others involved with this blog, bow the knee to Jesus. Not out of fear, but out of love, respect, and awe that He would die for ones so undeserving. Amplified all the more by His resurrection from the dead. For this reason, we look to Jesus and what He said regarding eternity and our relationship with Him. We point you to Him as well for He alone holds the words of eternal life (John 6:68) and is aquainted with sorrow and suffering (Isaiah 53:3-4).

Respectfully.
Anonymous said…
With respect it is not true loss if the subject "losing" the person has the power to bring them back. It's insulting to compare the loss of a person's child to that of God's. God can and did bring Jesus back from the dead. I think this is one of the weaker/thinner arguments that apologists have to face when dealing with those of us who don't have the power to resurrect those we love and lose.
Chase said…
Anonymous,

If this is the same anonymous, and also if it is not, I meant no disrespect as I was not comparing the lose of your, or their, son to God's lose of His Son. I was pointing you, or them, to the triune God revealed through Christ as His understanding of your, or their, pain infinitely surpasses my own.

Respectfully.