Can those who have never heard the gospel or read the Bible be saved? Or does their chance for salvation pass them by if no one brings the gospel to them? Does another person, or a church, have the power to keep people out of heaven, by not preaching the gospel to them? Or is the decision to choose Christ something God guarantees to every person, regardless of their location, time in history, and the faithfulness of Christians or churches in preaching the gospel to them?
Paul describes just such people – Gentiles who have not heard the law, and yet are judged. He tells us that when the Gentiles who know not the law do the works of the law, because the Spirit is convicting their hearts, that they will be righteous in God’s eyes – they possess the new heart, which is the indicator that they have been justified (This is found in Romans 2:11-15).
“14(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)” (Romans 2:14-15).
The creation testifies of there being a God, so that those who deny him are without excuse. Even people from ancient China, who have never heard the gospel, can be saved and be in heaven, because they had the witness of the created world, which the Bible tells us is sufficient to convince anyone from any time period and location that there is a divine God.
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” (Romans 1:20)
We are also told that the Spirit convicts all people (again read Romans 2:11-15). The Holy Spirit speaks to every heart, convicting them of wrongdoing and of their need for a divine God. Everyone has a conscience. While they may not know it’s wrong to break the Sabbath, because they do not have access to a Bible, they will know things like it is wrong to lie to your parents, and that one should obey and respect their parents. This convicting voice all people can respond to. What this means is everyone – whether they have heard the gospel or not – has evidence of their being a God through nature and through the conviction of the Spirit upon their conscience. All people who reject God will be without excuse. However, nature doesn’t convict as strongly, clearly, or in as compelling a manner as the gospel does.
“Nature is filled with spiritual lessons for mankind. The flowers die only to spring forth into new life; and in this we are taught the lesson of the resurrection. All who love God will bloom again in the Eden above. But nature can not teach the lesson of the great and marvelous love of God. Therefore, after the fall, nature was not the only teacher of man. In order that the world might not remain in darkness, in eternal spiritual night, the God of nature met us in Jesus Christ. The Son of God came to the world as the revelation of the Father. He was that “true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” We are to behold “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” . . .
“Those who think they can obtain a knowledge of God aside from His Representative, whom the Word declares is “the express image of his person,” will need to become fools in their own estimation before they can be wise. It is impossible to gain a perfect knowledge of God from nature alone; for nature itself is imperfect. In its imperfection it can not represent God, it can not reveal the character of God in its moral perfection. But Christ came as a personal Saviour to the world. He represented a personal God. As a personal Saviour, He ascended on high; and He will come again as He ascended to heaven—a personal Saviour. He is the express image of the Father’s person. “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
EGW, Review and Herald November 8, 1898
God guarantees all can be saved. Your location and time in history can never take away your opportunity and choice to be saved. No person can ever by their neglect to share the gospel with you take away your chance and opportunity to be saved.
But those who hear the gospel have a strong advantage over those who do not hear it – they are more likely to respond because they can see more clearly the love of God than can those who have never heard the gospel. This is why sharing the gospel with the world is so important – to give them every advantage in accepting Christ. We ought to care enough about lost souls to desire to give them that picture of the Father’s perfect love in Christ on the Cross, sacrificing himself out of love for them.
And Christians can make things harder for people by not sharing the gospel. While the Bible does not support the concept that anyone can take away another’s opportunity to be saved, it does support the concept that we can put obstacles and stumbling blocks in people’s way and make it harder for them to choose Christ. The Pharisees did this to the Israelite people. Evil always operates this way. It always hates the truth and other people, and it always persecutes, and endeavors to shut out the truth from people and to put obstacles in their way to make it harder to find and obey the truth.
“But woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.”
Matthew 23:13
“It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble.”
Romans 14:21
…it would be better for him if a millstone were to be hung around his neck and he were to be cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”
Luke 17:1-2
“We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.”
2 Corinthians 6:3
Jesus died for the whole world.
“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only our sins, but also the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 2:2
There’s no way every person on earth won’t be given a chance to accept Him. And I believe people who are born without the mental capacity to understand sin (extreme cases of autism, schizophrenia, brain damage from birth, etc.) will go to heaven because they haven’t committed sin. The Bible doesn’t state this directly and absolutely, but it gives us principles to understand how God deals with fallen man and the principles behind why He does what He does. I personally believe such people will be in heaven because of the following texts….
Sin put us under the power of death (Romans 6:23), but in order for something to be sin by the Bible definition a person has to “know to do right and do it not” (James 4:17). God says “come and let us reason together” showing that reasoning ability is required (Isaiah 1:18) and that “by the law is the knowledge of sin”. Romans 3:20.
This shows the principle behind this subject is that of choice and free will. One cannot be said to have sinned if they have not chosen sin of their own volition and free will.
Thus people brain-damaged from birth with an inability to tell right from wrong cannot choose to sin. If they can’t reason well enough to understand the law, they aren’t sinning. Someone without the mental capacity to know right from wrong can’t sin by this definition. I believe all such persons will go to heaven.
This would not apply to someone who once had the ability to reason, but then lost that ability. They had a period of time where they could tell right from wrong and being a fallen human being, they sinned during that time. It was during that time that they had to recognize their sin and seek the Savior for forgiveness and a new heart. It’s a solemn thing, but I believe our probation can close if we lose our ability to reason – Say we get dementia, or are in a car accident unexpectedly and have severe brain damage, or suffer a stroke. Since we never know when something like this may happen (or even unexpected death), it’s important we are daily walking with Christ and surrendering to Him.