Baptism/Amazing Grace: A Conversation Over Lunch, Part 6.5

Maybe the Jews were subject to a stricter rule because they had God’s word. What about the pagan? Maybe N. T. Wright isn’t right, you know!

Let’s turn back to —

(Rom 2:6-8 ESV)  6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;  8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

Some argue that righteous pagans (those who’ve never heard God’s word) can meet this standard, but that’s a works salvation argument. Paul says “according to his works.” His point is that the standard is the same for Jews as for Gentiles. God isn’t being a respecter of persons. They are stand before God under the very standard.

But the standard for salvation is not just doing good deeds, but seeking glory (the presence of God), honor (from God), and immortality (from God). These are gifts that can only be sought from God himself. And we can’t seek them merely by being good in hopes of achieving Nirvana. This is for those who seek God’s good pleasure.

Those who are damned are those who “do not obey the truth,” and “truth” is the gospel — the truth about God as revealed through Jesus. (Compare Rom 1:18, 25.)

Paul is not carving out an exception. He’s setting up the rest of what he says — all the way through chapter 11. Context matters.

And we can hardly claim, in light of the rest of Romans and the rest of the New Testament, that works salvation is possible. After all, Adam and Eve had but one command to obey, and they failed even that test. Who among us could do better? Why romanticize the pagan world as capable of doing what we can’t even do? (Compare Romans 7!)

Okay, you’ve made your point. I concede that those who’ve never heard about Jesus can’t be saved by their works, but maybe they can be saved by their faith. Maybe they can discern enough about God from his revelation — per Romans 1:19-20 that you quoted to me. Maybe a wise pagan could truly learn enough about God to come to saving faith without having heard about Jesus or even the Scriptures. Why not?

History is, always, a great instructor. Plato — a genius for the ages — studied enough of nature to conclude that there is but a single god. But Greek monotheism is very different from Jewish monotheism. And when the two worldviews collided on Mars Hill, Paul told the Greeks,

(Act 17:30-31 ESV)  30 “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,  31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

“Righteousness” in Acts 17:31 can be equally well translated “justice” (as in the NIV). Righteousness and justice are overlapping concepts in Hebrew and the same word in Greek.

This passage parallels Paul earlier speech at Iconium, also a Greek city —

(Act 14:15-17 ESV) 15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.  16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.  17 Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

Plainly, Paul — the apostle to the Gentiles — is announcing that God is going to judge the nations with perfect justice and the only escape is repentance through the gospel — that is, through faith in Jesus.

Or consider Cornelius — a truly good Gentile and a God-fearer. He wasn’t saved until he believed the message preached by Peter (Acts 11:13-14). Peter preached “a message by which you will be saved.” Obviously, Cornelius was not yet saved, even though he was “a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (Acts 10:2).

If Cornelius was not saved without hearing the gospel, why would we imagine that anyone else would be? How much more holy would they have to be? This Gentile was already a God fearer! All he lacked was belief that Jesus is the Messiah.

Remember: Peter’s sermon to Cornelius ends, not with a demand for greater morality or for more intense faith, but —

(Act 10:42-43 ESV)  42 “And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he [Jesus] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.  43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

And this makes perfect sense in light of the overarching theme of Acts and the rest of the Bible. It’s not faith in faith or faith in love or faith in baptism or faith in goodness — or even faith in God — that saves. It’s faith in Jesus.

Cornelius received the Spirit not because he grasped baptismal theology or believed in God for the first time. He was already a God-fearer. He just didn’t yet know about Jesus. And he was lost.

Well, maybe he wasn’t so much “lost” as not as saved as he could have been. Maybe Peter merely allowed him to have a closer relationship with God than before! Perhaps he still would have gone to heaven!

There comes a point where we have to decide whether we know God better than the authors of the Scriptures. I find zero evidence in the Bible that faith in Jesus only make us more saved or closer than before. All the evidence points the other way.

Is it harsh to say that Cornelius was damned before he came to faith in Jesus? It was just.

After all, God also damned the majority of the First Century Jews, because Paul testifies in Romans 9 – 11 than only a “remnant” believed and were saved (Rom 11:5).

(Rom 11:20-21 ESV)  20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.  21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

How could it be that God would save the righteous pagan and damn the righteous Jew? A recurring theme of Romans is that the standard is the same. Cornelius needed to hear the gospel to be saved for the same reason that the Jews and Samaritans before him needed to hear the gospel to be saved.

Finally, we read in Acts about the debate over whether Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved. James said,

(Act 15:10-11 ESV)  10 “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?  11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Salvation is by grace, for both Jews and Gentiles. But no one argued that the Gentiles were already saved by their faith in one god as taught by Plato and other philosophers. Rather, even those worshiping an unknown god and even those worshiping the Living God were lost until they came to faith in Jesus.