Stand Strong in the Word

#320 “What About Those Who Never Heard?” (Romans 2:12-16)

• Jason Jimenez

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Have you ever wondered what happens to those who’ve never heard the gospel—are they still accountable to God? In Romans 2:12–16, Paul addresses that very question, showing that God’s judgment is fair and based on the truth that each person has received from Him. Today, we’ll look at how conscience, morality, and divine justice come together—and what it reveals about God’s perfect righteousness.

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Have you ever wondered what happens to those who've never heard the gospel? Are they still accountable to God? In Romans chapter 2, 12 through 16, Paul addresses that very question. Should we think God's judgment is fair and based on the truth that each person has received from him? Today we'll look at how conscious reality to money messes come together. So turn to Romans chapter 2 and let's stand the strong number together. And the title is What About Those Who Never Heard? Now, as a pastor apologist, I definitely have gotten this question from all ages, and it's a very important one. And I don't want to say as we dive into this passage that I'm going to lay down the answer to this question in a way that no one's ever done. No, but what I do want to look at as we look into the context of what Paul says here is how this can be used to walk someone through this discussion, whether they are a believer or perhaps you have a friend who's a seeker or they are a skeptic and they want to know. I'm also going to refer to a book that I wrote called The Bible's Answers to 100 of Life's Biggest Questions that I wrote with Dr. Norman Geisler. And I think it came out about 2015. And this is the question that we answer in that book that I also want to include in this episode. And that title, or that question, I should say, in the book is what about those who have never heard the gospel? And so we'll look at that and give an apologetic response. So today we'll have a biblical text that we can use, and then we will also look at the book that I mentioned, the Bible's answers to 100 of life's biggest questions. So to bring up to speed, let's just go back a ways. We looked at verses five through eleven in the podcast last time, and we've been talking about God's righteous judgment. And this is very important because when we left off in verse 11, this is a powerful verse where it says, For God shows no partiality. And that is actually a very interesting way in the Greek, that it literally means to accept uh the look of the person. That is, remember, God sees completely and he knows fully. And we have to keep this in mind as we do go in verses twelve through sixteen, which says, For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. And then we'll continue in the next episode, verses seventeen and following. So let's break this down. Let's first look at verse twelve and thirteen. Now, this is the third and final thing that we have to understand that Paul has reinforced ever since he laid out this indictment in chapter one, verses eighteen through thirty-two, where he's talking about God's judgments. And what we have to understand here now in his third part regarding God's judgments is it's placed on Jesus Christ. That means it's absolute, that it's infinite. So when you and I look in at verses 12 through 16, Paul is demonstrating here, and it's it's interesting because he has this like this neutral courtroom language that he's using. And he's using this so he can convey or write or make his point to his readers, to the Romans, that God has chosen his people according to his law, and that's not enough for them to be saved or to inherit eternal life through the law. So the law is a standard by which they are to live, but it doesn't save them. So when Paul says there in verse 12, he says, For all who have sinned, and this is interesting because when you think of the famous passage in Romans 3 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, this is when he's starting that, right? And he's kind of leading into that. And what he's demonstrating is that God is not partial, meaning his law is not partial. No matter if you're a Jew or Gentile, right? No matter how God has poured out his favor on mankind, God is not showing partiality for one over the other. If you break God's law, you break God's law. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or you're a Gentile, all people, whether you're Jew or Gentile, have sinned. And the Greek word for law here is gnomos, and it's actually referring to the law of Moses. And what Paul's pointing out here is that the Torah was given by God to the Israelites, and even the Israelites who were chosen by God, they failed to fulfill the law. So when you read this in proper context, when he says, For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. F. S. Bruce put it this way, he says, People will be condemned, not because they have the law or do not have the law, but because they have sinned. So we can't look at it in that sense of saying, Well, I didn't get all of those laws, therefore I didn't commit any sin because I didn't know those laws existed. No, by being born into this world, we're born into sin, the transmission again from Adam and Eve. And so whether you do a better job following certain laws than others, or certain laws are given to you and not to others, doesn't mean that we negotiate with God or say, Well, I'm better at following the law, or there's certain laws that I didn't know that existed, therefore I can't be condemned by not obeying them because I didn't know they existed. Paul's saying here is that no matter if you have some law or no law, you are a sinner. So when he says here, doers of the law who will be justified, this is interesting because now he's speaking to an audience of people who say, Well, we have the Torah, right? We are God's chosen people. And he's mentioning this word justified or being declared righteous, which is something, again, that he will explain in further detail in chapter three. And this is actually something that James and some people in the commentaries, I thought this was fascinating. Of course, I don't want to explode on this and go in a rabbit trail and disregard the text itself. But a lot of commentators are debating whether or not Paul knew about James's letter and was utilizing some of that from James chapter 1, verses 22 through 25, where he's talking about being a doer of the word and not a hearer only. And that's interesting, but that's just something that you can maybe look in on your own time. But for our purposes, when you look at verse 14 now, you know, with this language of doers, uh the doers of the law who will be justified, and then he says, for when Gentiles, so notice he's getting specific, he's now speaking of non-Jews who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires. They are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. And he says, and they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness in their conflicting thoughts, accuse or even excuse them. So Paul made the logical argument with the framework, right, with a with a with a biblical understanding that God exists and he has instituted the law to man, and it's written on our hearts. So whether you're a Jew and you have the law, you're condemned by it. If you're a non-Jew, that is a Gentile, and there are certain laws that you did not have, like the Torah, that doesn't mean that you can escape certain judgments. Now, obviously, God's not going to condemn you for something you don't know, but this is the point that Paul's making now is going outside the Torah, but there is a law that's written on our hearts, and he talks about the conscience. And this is when we start talking about morality and we start talking about ethics. Now, it's not clear if Paul is referring to unbelieving or believing Gentiles, but either way, the Gentiles didn't have the law, right? Like the Jews, but they did have a conscience. We all have a conscience. And God made himself, or told, if you go back to chapter 1, 19 through 20, he made himself plain to them through creation, intelligence, and morality, and also sin when you feel bad about something. And so through their intermittent obedience to God's law, the Gentiles demonstrate an innate moral awareness that goes beyond formal revelation, indicating that God's moral standards are accessible to all humanity through general revelation. So keep that in mind when we're talking about whether or not there are people in this world who go without hearing the gospel. Are there such people? But what we're seeing already from Romans chapter 1, 19 through 20, that God has made himself plain through creation, through intelligence, through morality, that God says that he has given us, and this is what Paul's declaring in scripture, that we all have this innate moral awareness. And it goes beyond just this formal revelation that there's something within us that we're a body and a soul. And so that we are in tune with something that's beyond the physical. So this phrase here they says, even without the written law, emphasizes that this moral understanding is not only transmitted through scripture, but it's also embedded within the moral conscience of each and every human being. And again, this acts as an innate divine spark, if you will. So when somebody feels bad about something, or there's guilt or there's shame or there's remorse and they ask for forgiveness, even if they're a seeker and they're not a believer, or they see a sign or a particular thing that they know that they broke and they trespassed, or they come up to a fenced area and it says no trespassing, and they jump the gate or the wall, and there's that adrenaline inside of them. It's not just this dopamine, you know, kick that they're having because they're being rebellious, but that's the point. It's like when you know you're doing something you shouldn't be doing versus something that you are doing that is good to do. That's that moral conscience. And we sometimes people refer to them as this moral compass. Why do we know that it exists? How do we even know that it exists? We can't scientifically determine that it exists, it's just innate in us. And it's this prompting, if you will, of this recognition of God's universal and his righteous standards. You go all over this world and you see that there are things that are universal, that transcend you and me. And this is something Paul says here in the Greek. He says it's this conscience that also bears witness, it's synidiasis, and it's Paul describing the conscience that's bearing witness with thoughts, it's accusing and excusing. And so, in context, we actually, when it says the conscience also bears witness, it's where we get the word uh apologami. And so in this context, it shows the law's work in Greek it's ergon doi nomoi, it's written on our hearts, and it's making Gentiles accountable accountable through general revelation. So notice a question if someone says, has anybody ever is does everybody hear the gospel before they die? Or you phrase it this way, is like, what happens with those who've never heard the gospel? We gotta understand in context with scripture, the Bible says that every person is accountable, that God does not show partiality, so he's not gonna show favor over one ethnic group or nationality or region of the world and neglect another. God doesn't do that. God has full and complete and infinite love for his creation. And so through general revelation, people know that God exists. And if they know that God exists, they know there's something holy beyond them. And when they don't live according to those standards, there's gonna be conviction in their hearts. Now, what they do with it, as we saw in Romans 1, they suppress the truth. That's gonna be up to them. That's their free will. They can claim to be wise in Romans 1.22, but but in and in fact they're being foolish because they exchange the glory of God for creation, for idols. So they're pursuing something, they're still worshiping something, it's just not God. So when you look around the world, you think about, well, what about all these people that are worshiping things instead of worshiping the true and living God? Well, that's the point, is they freely chose to use their bodies to worship something, thinking maybe perhaps that it is the one true God. You talk to other religions as I've done for many, many years in ministry, and there's this reverence that many people have for what they believe, whether they're uh somebody who's who's Buddhist or a Mormon or is is is a Muslim. So we have to understand in this context that the conscience functions as this internal moral compass, and this is a way to guide individuals to God. And obviously, our our internal faculties and the way that which we're able to understand truth and live out proper morality that is good and avoid the evil, we know that there are times where we see things imperfectly because we are imperfect beings. But that doesn't mean we get it wrong all the time. But as we learn, as we make mistakes, if you will, as we choose to walk in sin and deal with the consequences because we sow to the flesh and we're going to reap corruption, hopefully through that remorse, through that time of learning, that we align ourselves with God's will. And every time that we do and we hold to his standards, we realize that we're reflecting this shared human capacity for not just moral reasoning, but the capacity through general revelation to spread that truth to others. And this supports Paul's broader theological argument that I'll actually tap into when I read a portion of my book to answer this question. What about those who've never heard? But this is important because this theological argument Paul's laying out, going back to Romans chapter one, shows God's moral law. That's what he's now doing in chapter two. And then he's in chapter three, he's gonna say, if you look at universal sin, you look at evil, that in and of itself is compelling to point to God's existence. So where the atheist says, no, if evil exists, it can't go coexist with God because if he's all powerful, he would remove it. If he's all good, he he wouldn't with he would not stand it. He'd he'd he'd remove it as well. But we don't know God's timetable. We don't know when he's gonna restore all things. So we have to be a part as a witness of his justice and advance it and not show partiality, knowing that God is sovereign. And we have to do that, especially among those who have not received explicit revelation of the law. When I was traveling with a colleague friend of mine not long ago when we were in Nepal, they were the mountain people, people that come from remote parts of their country, and you know, they they come from tiny villages. And so for them to interact with people, and and you know, they obviously some of them have seen, you know, vehicles, but it's a third world country. And so that they live in this remote place, and it's a word of mouth. It's people that travel hundreds of miles to convey messages to these people who live out there in the mountains when something's gonna happen. So some people who came to these conferences that we were teaching, we call them conferences, you know, clearly for them, it was just a gathering at a church, right, to have a Bible study. But, you know, they shared to my translator that, you know, a distant cousin or a friend, you know, from another village that's 25, 30 miles away from them, traveled to their village to convey to them that we're gonna be meeting at this time. And that was, of course, the last time they saw that individual until months later, they came to this church in voila, there we were. And it was just amazing. A lot of them don't have cell phones, they're not texting, communicating to one another. It's just word of mouth. And if you go even more remotely around the world, we have to remember that when God does send us to be his hands and feet, which Paul will talk about later in Romans chapter 16, that we have to be faithful. Now, one last thing that I want to point out obviously is here in verse 16, where it says, On that day when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. So again, what I was just alluding to, we're looking at this theological argument that God's moral law is universally acceptable, that's written on our hearts, that the day will come according to, notice what Paul says, my gospel. So when when Paul was discussing God's temporal judgment, right, going back to chapter two here, verses two and three, he's now concluding in this section by affirming that the gospel that he preached wasn't his gospel, but it was given by Jesus Christ, right? That it is in accordance with God's ultimate judgment to come. And that's important for us to understand. So we have that over each one of us. When our conscience weighs on us, we know that someday, just like when you were a kid and you did something wrong and your parents are not home, and it's just a matter of time when you you hear their car pull up, you see the headlights flashing through the windows, and your heart starts racing, judgment's coming, and that is innate in all of us. And so after highlighting that humans are moral and that we're intellectual beings, that we possess a conscience, and that we have this instinct ability to understand the truth, and again, when we see the vastness of God's general revelation about God, Paul still here is emphasizing the importance of sharing the gospel. And we when we're we're attempting to answer this question, what about those who've never heard? Well, what are we doing about those who have never heard? What are places around the world right now? What are areas? I was just talking to friends of our a friend of mine in the ministry, and they were talking about how he was a part of a banquet that was raising money through this organization that translates the Bible. And they were expecting to raise a f just a few million, and when I say just a few, I mean it was a it was an audacious goal. They tripled it. And the reason being is because he says the way that they just came in the power of the Holy Spirit and they convey, like, look, we are the organization to make this happen. This is what God has called us to do. And there are people out there who don't have the Bible in their language to help us do this. And that right there is just a sign of what we're seeing in verse 16 that God's judgment is coming one day, and there are people who don't know Christ, so we have to get out there and get the Bible into their language. I like what the ESV study Bible says. It says, quote, Christians ought to be careful to reflect the character of God in their lives and not to become a stumbling block to the gospel. God uses individual believers to point sinners to the God they inherently perceive. And then he goes back to all the way back to the garden where we reflect the image of God and we're not to lose sight of that. Now, one thing that I want to point out though, this term secrets of men, this literally means the hidden things of man. And what we have to understand something is that a lot of times people think, well, this doesn't matter. Nobody knows what's really deep in my heart. God does. And that's one thing when I've done evangelism or I've talked with people is to convey, to tap into that level, if you will, of their life about what what's hidden there. Because nothing remains hidden from God. God knows everything. And you can I may not know, I don't need to know, but again, going back to God's sovereignty, God is sovereign, he knows, and God will judge that person according to his truth. And we cannot defend ourselves because his rulings are just and righteous. In fact, listen to what 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 5 says. Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart, then each one will receive his commendation from God. My friends, I believe, according to Scripture, as we've been studying the Book of Romans, that every single person on planet earth that come and go, born into this world, live a life, and that day that comes when they die, they know, they know according to what Paul says, that God judges the secrets of men. And it's by Christ Jesus. It's not Muhammad, it's not Joseph Smith, it's not a good angel and a bad angel that weighs how you lived your life and to see if Allah is going to accept you. It's by Jesus Christ, and that's why people are drawn to Jesus, whether they hate him or they love him or they're curious about him. Now, as I promised, I do now want to transition as we looked at the text in Romans 2, 12 through 16. Let's go a little deeper in this question. What about those who never heard the gospel? Now, what I write here is that it's a difficult question. It's one of the top questions asked by unbelievers and implies not only a level of unfairness, but also an uncomfortable feeling of injustice. Now, this is what Paul's dealing with, you guys, in the text that we were just looking at. So I encourage you if you missed in the beginning of this chapter in chapter two to go back to, you know, because I we cover that about about injustice, when in fact Paul's arguing that God is not an injustice. Remember, he doesn't show partiality. I go on to write, the argument often goes something like this. Suppose there's a remote tribe deep in the Brazilian rainforest that never hears the gospel. What if no missionaries are ever successful in sharing the gospel with them? What happens to them when they die? Do they go to hell, even if they never had the chance to hear and receive the gospel? If so, that's unfair. This argument is often hurt hard to refute. You can plant doubt in people's minds, causing them to walk away from the faith. So what we do, you guys, is we have six important things to consider when answering this question. And it goes along the lines of what we've been studying here in Romans 2. The first one is that God is holy and he is just. Remember in Exodus chapter 15, verse 11, Moses says, Who is among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? Or as Abraham declared in Genesis 18, 25, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? So God would never condemn someone to hell without giving him or her the chance to hear the gospel. So that's what we believe about who God is. He's holy and he's just, as we read in Romans 2.11, he doesn't show partiality. Number two, God is all powerful and he's all knowing. Remember what Paul preached at Mars Hill in Acts 17, verses 26 through 27? For one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. So in our mind, we're limited, we think, what about those remote parts of the world? The fact that we cannot even that we can even identify that they're remote remote parts of the world. Why? Because there's, you know, satellites can't get to them, or you know, boats can't get to them, or airplanes can't get to them. We think that, again, they're hidden from God. When we saw the secrets of men will be revealed, because God knows everything that goes on in his creation. As creator of the universe, God has absolute authority over and knowledge of the whereabouts and the activities of his people. No one is beyond his power to reach and to save. So that's the second point. Number three, God has revealed himself in nature. We've talked about general revelation in this passage, going back to even chapter one. That's or we refer to as natural revelation. So remember, God's invisible qualities, these eternal powers, divine nature have been clearly seen. So people that are living in this world, and there's no technology that has reached them, doesn't mean that they don't have the ability or there's no evidence that points them to God. They have it written on their hearts that we saw in Romans chapter 2, verse 15. Or literally in one translation, says the requirements of the law are written on their hearts. So we can we can not just reasonably, but we can conclusively say that no one's without an excuse before he or she dies. Number four, God has also revealed himself through special revelation, that is, through the Bible, which goes back to why translations matter. We got to get God's word into other people's language. Going back to Acts chapter 17, 30 and 31, Paul says, In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. So notice what it says here in Scripture, he commands all people everywhere to repent. Everybody who who has the law written on their hearts, that have con that have the they have a conscience, right? They have the moral innate ability to do right and wrong. And when they do the wrong, there's something in them where they feel like they need to be atoned for that, or they don't want to continue to commit themselves to that sin, that wrong. And so they repent, if you will. They they look to atone for that. Now, obviously they can go to different religions, or they can look to somebody, they become codependent, but the point is they have this ability to do that and to want that. And so Paul is pointing out that God calls people to repent to him. Number five, Jesus made it clear that he's the only way to God, and without him, no one could be saved. So Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross as payment for the penalty of sin. And he offers this. We're told in 2 Corinthians, or excuse me, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 8, he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. So notice people will reject it. They won't believe in it. It goes back to Romans 1. They knew plainly that God exists, but they chose not to follow him, not to actually personally believe in him. They had belief that he existed, but they didn't want him to exist in their life. And that's that's obviously reality, and we don't like to hear that when it comes to some of our loved ones, because then it makes it so fine, you know, um definite that there is a heaven and there's a hell. Notice in Second Thessalonians chapter one, verse eight, as I just read, there's everlasting destruction. They will be removed from the presence of God. That's what hell is. It's a place where God does not dwell, he resides over it because he's control of all things, and he's a just God. But if you don't want to if you don't want him, he can't force you to follow him. And lastly, the Bible makes it clear that all who seek God will find him. You and I don't know, again, the secrets of man, we don't know what's hidden in their hearts. And we we are told in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, that without faith it's impossible to please God. So when people understand, as Peter said in Acts chapter 10 to Cornelius, that he says God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. It is a simple cry to the Lord, realizing this religion isn't the answer, this relationship isn't the answer, worshiping nature isn't the answer. I've been pursuing something of meaning, but ultimately it's God, it's the creator of the heavens and the earth, the God that's revealed in Scripture. So, my my friends, in answering this question, we don't have exhaustive knowledge, we don't know all things. That's not how we're made. But God does, and we trust him. So when you when you look at the the scriptural arguments, every person on the planet who truly seeks God will be given the message necessary to save him or her. While God's choice uh to give the truth through a missionary is how he acts sometimes, that's up to him, according to Romans chapter 10, verses 14 through 17. God's not limited to that and that only. There are people who have dreams, there are angels everywhere that are ministering from the spiritual realm that come into the physical realm, whether they manifest themselves in physical bodies. God is not limited, my friends. He has revealed himself through the Bible, through tracts, through dreams, visions, and even an audible voice in Hebrews 1, verse 1. And he promised that he will reveal the truth to all who seek it. Remember, he says, You will seek me and you will find me when you seek with me with all of your heart, Jeremiah twenty nine, verse thirteen. So I pray, my friends, when we deal with this question in the text here in Romans chapter two, twelve through sixteen, I also encourage you to do some research and apologetics. Not just to have the biblical understanding and the theological understanding, but the apologetic way to convey reasonably, logically, truthfully to those people who are seeking. So thank you guys for listening. Until next time, keep standing strong in the Word of God.