The Bible claims that the only way to be saved is through faith in Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). This means that for a person to have eternal life, they must know Jesus. There is no other path to eternal life. The apostle Paul explained the logic of this to the Christians in Rome:
For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Rom. 10:13–14
To be saved, a person must believe Jesus died for their sins and rose from the grave. To believe in Jesus, a person has to know about him. To know about him, a person has to be told about him. These simple facts lead us to ask, what about those who never hear about Jesus? Do they have a chance to be saved?
While God is all powerful and can call sinners to Christ in extraordinary ways if he chooses, the Bible teaches that, ordinarily, the gospel message must be preached for sinners to repent and believe in Jesus. The Bible is clear about these two things: everyone knows they deserve God’s wrath for their sin, and salvation is only possible through Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:18—25; 2; John 10:14). The important question for Christians to ask themselves is not so much about what the Bible teaches about those who don’t know Jesus. Rather, we should ask: “What will we do about those who don’t know Jesus?” I would suggest there are at least four things we ought to do: Pray, Preach, Send, and Go.
Pray
We should pray for the salvation of sinners. When we pray for the lost, we express and share in the desire of our heavenly Father: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). Pray for those you know and pray that strangers around the globe would become brothers and sisters in Christ. When we pray for people to be reached by the gospel, we echo the prayer of Jesus himself:
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him… I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them.
John 17:1–9
If Jesus prayed for sinners, how can we refrain from going to the Lord on the behalf of the lost? It’s what he commands his disciples to do: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38). We should pray specifically that God would raise up missionaries to reap a harvest of souls for the kingdom of God.
Preach
I sometimes hear the saying, “preach the gospel always, use words if necessary.” The idea is commendable: our actions should flow out of our faith, and our lives should show Christ to unbelievers. Jesus even said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). However, the fact remains that the gospel must be preached with words if a sinner is to repent and place their faith in Christ! So, look for opportunities to share your faith. Try to talk about Jesus regularly with all sorts of people, believers and unbelievers alike. One of the simplest—but most often overlooked—ways to share Christ is by inviting friends and family to church. At church they will hear the gospel preached and see the body of Christ in action. Jesus calls his church to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19), sending his ambassadors to tell the world who he is and what he has done.
Send
To obey Jesus, the church must send out missionaries. Paul writes, “how are they [preachers] to preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:15). For the church to grow, people must be sent to the lost and supported in their work. That support includes prayer; caring for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of missionaries; money; and the allocation of other necessary resources. This is essential to God’s plan. It’s through missions that God causes the church to grow. In his infinite wisdom, he has chosen to use weak and sinful creatures to offer salvation through Christ to those who are dead in their sins. The church must look outward towards the lost and invite them in. In fact, Jesus tells us that he will not return until the gospel is shared with all the world (Matt. 24:14). This should motivate us to send as many as we can to mission fields around the world!
Go
Every Christian is called to share the gospel, but some are called to leave family, friends, and home behind to tell those who have never heard of Jesus the good news of the gospel. If the question, “Does everyone get a chance at salvation,” bothers you, if your heart aches for those who are dying without hearing the name of Jesus, perhaps God is calling you to be a missionary. This is no small thing to consider. There is a reason Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matt. 9:37). Not many take up the burden of the call to the mission field. Whether it excites you or scares you, if you sense that God is calling you to go, remember that Jesus has promised to “be with you always” and that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matt. 28:20; 19:29). With promises like these from the Lord of the universe, missionaries can go boldly wherever God calls them!