My subscriber asked a series of questions about God. These are the next two.
People who never heard
Does a remote tribesman who never heard of Jesus, God, or the Bible go to hell?
People before Jesus
Did everyone who lived before Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible go to hell?
Almost nothing in Scripture answers these with a single sentence. What you have are texts about accountability, light already given, and faith before the cross.
Here are some verses that address people who never heard
Romans 1:18–20 — What can be known of God is plain from creation; they are “without excuse.”
Romans 2:12–16 — Those without the Law perish without the Law; Gentiles who do not have the Law may do by nature what it requires; God judges the secrets of men.
Acts 17:26–31 — God determined their times and boundaries “that they should seek God”; the times of ignorance he overlooked; now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
Luke 12:47–48 — The servant who did not know receives fewer blows; to whom little is given, little is required.
Matthew 11:21–24 — Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom would have repented under greater light; judgment is heavier where more was shown.
Romans 10:13–18 — “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” Paul then quotes Psalm 19: the voice has gone out into all the earth (creation again).
John 1:9 — The true light “enlightens everyone.”
John 3:19–21 — The judgment is that light came, and people loved darkness rather than light.
Genesis 18:25 — “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”
There are limits:
John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 no one comes to the Father except through Jesus / no other name by which we must be saved. They do not say how that reaches someone who never heard the name. Romans 2 and Acts 17 are the closest you get to a mechanism.
People before Jesus
You have to understand that before Christ came, man was under the old covenant with different rules. The fact that the Bible says no man comes unto the Father except through Jesus, does not address those who died before Jesus was born. The Bible calls David “a man after God’s own heart”. A man after God’s own heart is not someone God is going to reject because he died before Jesus was born.
Romans 3:25–26 — God put Jesus forward as a propitiation, “to show his righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”
Romans 4:1–8, 16–22 — Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness; the promise is to those who share that faith.
Galatians 3:6–9 — Those of faith are sons of Abraham; Scripture preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham.
Hebrews 11:1–16, 39–40 — Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah… “these all died in faith, not having received the things promised”; they are not made perfect apart from us.
Hebrews 9:15 — Death for the redemption of the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
John 8:56 — Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’ day.
Acts 17:30 — Times of ignorance overlooked (same verse serves both questions).
Romans 5:13–14 — Sin was in the world before the Law; death reigned from Adam to Moses.
Matthew 8:11 — Many will come from east and west and sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
1 Peter 3:18–20 and 4:6 (preached to the spirits / to the dead) get used here but they are disputed.
So, the bottom line is, only God knows the status of someone who has never heard the gospel, but God looks on the heart of man and knows what’s in him. So, those who have never heard are not automatically condemned to hell.
And those who died before Jesus was born were held to a different standard and will be judged by that standard. But God has not changed.
Scripture never says “every unevangelized person is automatically lost” or “automatically saved.” It says God has not left himself without witness, he judges by the light given, he passed over former sins in view of the cross, and the faithful before Jesus are gathered with those after. The tribesman and the patriarch are not the same case, but both sit under the same Judge who does right.
God has always used the same standard for judging men. Do they believe in Him? Do they worship Him? Even the stars proclaim His name, so we are without excuse.
Malachi 3:6 — “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”
Numbers 23:19 — God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
1 Samuel 15:29 — The Glory of Israel will not lie or change his mind; he is not a man, that he should change his mind.
Psalm 102:26–27 — The heavens perish; “you are the same, and your years have no end.”
James 1:17 — The Father of lights, “with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”