Salvation and world religions
1. Judging by the biblical witness when our first parents rebelled against God the rest of us were drawn into that rebellion. One doesn't need to develop a hyper-Calvinistic slant on that to know that it makes sense. One doesn't need to be conceived and born a rebel against God; we become that soon enough—all of us, with a single exception.
2. Our rebellion affected us in a thoroughgoing way. We were guilty, of course, but our rebellion corrupted us and in all phases of our living we became polluted. This corruption affected our way of thinking as well as our deeds so it's no surprise that we became darkened in and alienated from God in our minds. Our corruption didn't mean that truth was utterly obliterated from the earth nor did it mean that the human family became incapable of rational reflection; but it did mean that even truths were made to serve in evil purposes and agendas.
3. A major expression of our sinful rejection of the one true God was the way we invented substitutes for God. A whole world of idols was manufactured. The idols took material form and were set up at shrines and worship centres and wherever, of course, but at the heart of it, idolatry was a mental restructuring of the world with the true God excluded. The teaching about these new gods was developed and systematised, cultic forms and liturgies were constructed and hymns and prayers were offered in accordance with the nature of the god. The will of that god, what pleased and displeased him was worked out and the now well defined religion had its rules and regulations.
4. All this to say that our religious systems—without exception—were worked out as part of our sinfulness so that our religious thinking and creativity was polluted as truly as our social, political and personal behaviour was. Romans 1:18-32 makes that very clear.
5. Let me repeat, this is not to say that truth had completely vanished from the earth but it does mean that truth was suppressed as we pursued our sinful agendas; it means even the truth that remained with us was used to further evil ends and it means that even our capacity for rational thinking and moral behaviour became building materials for shrines of apostasy.
6. God purposed to remain faithful to his creation purposes despite our sinfulness so his work had to include his redeeming us from our false imagining as well as our brutal, cruel and licentious appetites. His eternal purpose for us was that humans were to live with him in joy-filled holy fellowship in truth and righteousness. To that end he revealed himself in special ways to various individuals in various ages (Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham would illustrate). In generous grace he kept alive the truth he had already taught the world and had it spread from parents to children from generation to generation (Wisdom literature illustrates this well. See Proverbs in the Bible and see the sources on Ancient Near Eastern Texts for "wisdom" in other nations.)
7. "Special" revelation (by which we usually mean the kind of communication from God that we hear about relative to Noah, Abraham and Moses) didn't exclude the issue of moral behaviour—in fact it was often in the light of sin that special revelation was triggered (see Genesis 6:5-14 as illustration). But special revelation was more about God and what he was doing to redeem a human family that had suppressed truth in unrighteousness than it was about telling the human family more moral truths they should live by.
8. Special revelation included more than words from God—it included God's actions as well as the interpretation of those actions. God actually brought plagues on Egypt and gave a verbal context and explanation for those actions. Special revelation was not confined to matters of redemption—we're taught that God's redeeming activity is in support of his eternal purpose to bless. The Exodus was certainly redemptive but it was redemption to fulfil promises made to Abraham centuries earlier, concerning family and land. [The cross of Jesus Christ is redemptive, of course, but it is in confirmation and reaffirmation of God's creation intention purposed before the world began.]
9. Special revelation (that is, God revealing himself in peculiar ways to certain individuals) resulted in covenants and in the OT with the establishment of God's truth in Israel.
10. God's move toward Abraham and consequently Israel lightened the darkness into which the human family had hurried (Abraham's family included—Joshua 24:1-2). This truth of which Israel was made the trustee kept a light burning before the nations of the earth (compare Isaiah 49:1-6). The truth God revealed to Israel, his servant, was a gift to the human family that, at its best, stood opposed to the developed religions of the rest of the nations. But it was truth that was to be mediated through Israel.
11. That God chose Abraham and consequently Israel as his instruments of blessing is God's own sovereign grace and right and it had nothing to do with Israel's moral superiority or any other such thing and that choice did not automatically damn all other humans on the planet.
12. Nevertheless, the truth of God expressed in God's covenants with Abraham and Israel was—among other things—an indictment of polytheism, idolatry and all the moral corruption that led to and was expressed in these established religions. The religious systems of the nations could not and did not bring salvation. Where remnants of truth remained or were uncovered they were not to be denied but these did not alter the truth that the religious structures were corrupt at the core. If there were individuals who would be "saved" (approved by God) it would be in spite of their religious setting rather than a result of it.
13. The truth that God revealed to Israel was truth but it was truth that lacked full development. The Hebrew writer said that God spoke to the fathers in many and varied ways through prophets but finally through a Son (Hebrews 1:1-2) and throughout the book he stressed that while Israel had truth it was always truth waiting for the full delivery (compare Hebrews 11:39-40 with 12:23). The OT truth is part one and the NT is part two; neither is the complete truth without the other. Without the truth of Jesus the OT cannot come to its destined place (see Galatians 3:23-25, though we must allow for Paul's specific purpose when reading those verses).
14. I need hardly more than mention that even a religion without idols can be false to the core. It is part of our sinfulness that we bow before idols in worship but it is part of our sinfulness that we can bow before a God shaped in our own image in the absence of idols. It generates interesting questions when someone says that some Pharisees did not worship the true God. It's certainly the case that the true God revealed himself in the Jewish Torah but by the time some Pharisees were done they couldn't recognise the true God when he showed himself as a human (and compare John 5:38-40). Taking it to be true that some Pharisee types made a real mess of things, was their religion less corrupt than say the religious system of the ancient Moabites or Philistines with their images? Jews no doubt, like the rest of us, needed to be forgiven of injustice and immorality but did they not need also to be forgiven of false views of God? Didn't Paul say that that was part of his business as an ambassador of Jesus—to tear down false views (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)?
15. Focussing particularly, then, on the existence of various world religions; world religions have many facets and a few of these would be:
a. They exist as one manifestation of our sinful departure from God.
b. They embody some truths but they are essentially forts of folly.
c. They are not to be judged as on equal footing with the Judaic/Christian religions.
d. A Judaism that insists on severing itself from Jesus as the goal to which it was to point becomes one more world religion rather than the bearer of the truth of God.
b. They embody some truths but they are essentially forts of folly.
c. They are not to be judged as on equal footing with the Judaic/Christian religions.
d. A Judaism that insists on severing itself from Jesus as the goal to which it was to point becomes one more world religion rather than the bearer of the truth of God.
16. Since it's true (at least in my judgement) that world religions despite their embodying some truths, despite their having sincere and devoted adherents are structures that have risen out of our sinfulness those of us who embrace them and engage in them need to be forgiven of that engagement.
17. Since I do not believe that God confined his generous grace to sinful Israel when he made a covenant with them in Abraham I do believe that saving grace was available to people outside Israel. Let me repeat, I believe that God's grace would be extended to people outside Israel not on the basis of their religious systems but despite them for these were barriers to the only God who can save.
18. To say that God cannot grant forgiveness to people because of their religious ignorance is essentially to say he cannot grant forgiveness to people because they sin—their religious ignorance is part of their sinfulness. Their sinning is not in doubt! The question is can their "religious" sin be forgiven as truly as their "moral" sin can be forgiven? (Abraham's family sinned "religiously" and God reached out in forgiveness to them and nurtured them to a fuller understanding of himself.) I believe that Romans 2:6-16 comes in at this point.
19. Who will be forgiven God will determine but I don't believe that not having been given the truth of the Christian faith automatically damns the non-hearers. Those who have heard and will not obey the gospel are lost—that we're plainly told but Arminian types will have to make up their minds here. Hyper-Calvinists like Packer, Piper, Geivett and T.R Phillips at least have a clear stance and it's this: If God doesn't grant you special revelation concerning himself and bring you to himself by it then he doesn't want and never meant to save you—you're lost, whether it's an individual or all the nations of the world. Arminians bob and weave all over the place, claiming that God wants everyone saved but yet they say he withholds from a countless host the means and opportunity to be saved—the gospel.
20. I'm persuaded that the business of Christians in the world is to live out the truth that God has given us in Jesus Christ in the presence of the entire world, to confront error and bring it into subjection to Jesus Christ; we're to tell the world that Jesus is Lord and is returning to right all wrongs and make this world right and we're to live the kind of life he lived and is coming back to bring.
21. I'm persuaded that we are not to conclude that because God has called us to this privilege and salvation in Jesus by the gospel that that means all who have not been privileged to hear that invitation are automatically damned. See what you think of the various pieces on election on this site.
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