Sometime back I did a series on a fine book by Terry Tiessen called Who Can Be Saved?: Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions
. The book is a good one, but it was not easy to blog about. But, Terry has come to us with a question, and I'm hoping we can help him. He wants to know how folks understand the "exclusivist" position when it comes to "who will be saved?" So, let's try to help get the best definition he can get.Here's Terry's post:
I want to describe the position of gospel exclusivists as accurately as I can. Below is a statement of what I take to be the fundamental principle at work in gospel exclusivism. If you are a gospel exclusivist (i.e. believe that the unevangelized can not be saved) does this correctly state your position? If not, how would you revise it to represent your position more accurately?
If you are not a gospel exclusivist yourself but have friends or colleagues who are gospel exclusivists, I'd be happy to have you run this statement by them for their editorial critique.
Statement of the Gospel Exclusivist Principle
At various points in human history, God revealed himself and his purposes in the world more fully, culminating in the incarnation of God the Son. Everyone has some knowledge of God through divine self-revelation and, in God's justice, people are judged only according to the revelation they have received. Therefore, no one is condemned for not believing in revelation which they have not received. But, in God's grace, he only saves people who believe in him according to the most complete revelation that he has given to human beings. At each point in human history, therefore, knowledge of the latest and fullest divine revelation is necessary for saving faith.
Please observe that I am not looking for debate about the validity of gospel exclusivism I simply want to be sure that I represent it accurately when I speak of it.
Thanks for your help,
Terry Tiessen
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Without claiming to be any kind of expert, it seems to me that an exclusivist wouldn't frame her position quite the way Tiessen does. Particularly, saying that people are judged only on the basis of the revelation they've received, but then saying that saving faith can only come with knowledge of the full and latest divine revelation sets up an inherent tension than most exclusivists would deny they hold.
I expect most exclusivists would say that people are judged based primarily on their behavior/sins, and that whatever amount of revelation a person has received, it's sufficient to let him know right from wrong. Therefore, people have no excuse.
On the other side, I think exclusivists would differ on how much of the full divine revelation must be known in order to exercise saving faith--perhaps that's the difference between Piper and Stott noted in one of the previous comments. Some exclusivists would say a full presentation of the Gospel is needed; others might say that merely calling out to Jesus or to the Creator God is enough. In my experience, virtually none would claim that a completely perfect theology is needed, because it's understood that God accommodates Himself to humans' ever-limited and imperfect understanding.
As I said, I have no expertise here . . . but what I've described does seem to be what I heard growing up in conservative Christian circles.
Terry Tiessen (#37),
Thanks for the expansion of Newbigin's quote in GPS. I was also thinking of Andy's citation (#13) in "Signs Amid the Rubble", in which Newbigin directly responds to D'Costa in an overlapping way as in GPS.
Newbigin having said that, however, does not necessarily make it so. If I understand your category, then, yes, Newbigin would be an "accessibilist". My reading of several other texts from Newbigin leans more toward his humble assertion of being a bearer of salvation, not merely a beneficiary, and that Jesus himself frequently mentioned the surprises that await everyone once presented before the throne: and therefore, we cannot assume that, although bearers, that we have some kind of privileged and secure relationship with God. But...
Newbigin would then speed toward the responsibility of being elected as a bearer of salvation to the nations. This elaboration of his generates my comment about being an inclusivist- the salvation we have is from Christ from first to last- but that fond look at the exclusivist position connotes a God-given desire of Newbigin's that the nations would know the Lord's salvation and rejoice.
No Expert (# 39), I’m intrigued by what you heard “growing up in conservative Christian circles.” You said: Some exclusivists would say a full presentation of the Gospel is needed; others might say that merely calling out to Jesus or to the Creator God is enough.”
It would be interesting to know whether the “others” were in the pulpit or in the pew. By definition, gospel exclusivists deny that “calling out to the Creator God is enough.” That expresses the sort of “general revelation accessibilist” belief that gospel exclusivists are committed to exposing as erroneous.
What your experience may illustrate, however, as surveys have also revealed, is that gospel exclusivism is frequently not affirmed by church members, even in congregations that make a formal commitment to it. This may indicate a general decline in knowledge of the faith, within evangelical circles, but it might also derive from a biblically informed sense of God's graciousness that the proponents would be unable to unpack systematically.
Beware of gospel exclusivism! A good lesson can be drawn from the close parallel of "Joshua and the Man Holding a Sword" (Josh. 5: 13-15). It seems that there are three sides to the issue. Rather than debating, therefore, whether God is either on the side of the evangelized or unevangelized, let us be double sure that we are on His side!
@Scott Eaton #10 - Because you consider this point important I would add: When Paul expounds justification it is not certain whether it is the believer's faith, his faithfulness or the faithfulness of Christ.
Aside from that, Scripture is far from "clear" on justification as evangelicals understand it (i.e. avoiding hell). According to Jesus you can be saved simply because you are poor (Lazarus), by being merciful and not judging others, or, even more clearly by caring for the poor and outcast (Sheep and Goats). Even Paul says every man will be judged by their own deeds (2 Cor 5:10) so Justification by Faith is far from clear, biblically.
I think a much better case can be made from the Bible as a whole that a person is saved by being judged faithful by God on the last day (salvation by faithfulness) than for all this Salvation by Faith (read 'Beliefs') tripe we have today.
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