Yes. God judges man, man does not judge God.So I’m in an online discussion/debate with a Mormon. And he has raised an interesting question about salvation and justification.
The dilemma is…well, I’ll just quote him:
**"If the law makes salvation easier, then the problem of God’s justice comes into play. Why make it easier for some people based on accident of birth and history (i.e. those who were given the opportunity of hearing the Gospel)?
The alternative is that it’s a wash (i.e. it doesn’t matter if you were born in Alaska around 100 A.D., you will be judged according to what you knew and understood God’s law to be). In which case it gets hard to justify the urgency of spreading the Gospel since it has no net impact on the safety/difficulty of the path to salvation."**
Reformulated he puts it this way:
**"Either
1: the amount of law you have helps (Gospel is necessary but God seems unjust)
or 2: you are judged “based on the Law they had” and thus the amount of law you have is rendered immaterial because it’s how you act based on whatever Law you have that matters (thus the Gospel is not necessary but God seems just)
There’s no way to have the Gospel necessary (or even beneficial) AND have God seem just at the same time. None."**
My question is, does anyone have a great answer for this?
Found it. My copy was published in 1991 by InterVarsity Press.Scott, thanks so much for the recommendation. I do plan to read the book.
In the meantime, could you elaborate at all on your post and/or summarize the answer provided by J.I. Packer?
The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the necessity of evangelism. Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that evangelism is necessary, because no man can be saved without the gospel. ‘There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek,’ proclaims Paul; ‘for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whoseover shall call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus Christ) shall be saved.’ Yes; but nobody will be saved who does not call upon the name of the Lord, and certain things must happen before any man can do this. So Paul continues: ‘How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?’ [Romans 10:12] They must be told of Christ before they can trust Him, and they must trust Him before they can be saved by Him. Salvation depends on faith, and faith on knowing the gospel. God’s way of saving sinners is to bring them to faith through bringing them into contact with the gospel. In God’s ordering of things, therefore, evangelism is a necessity if anyone is to be saved at all.
[end quote]
Then one asks, well, only the elect are going to heaven, so why preach to non-elect? Packer continues:
.We should not be held back by the thought that if they are not elect, they will not believe us, and our efforts to convert them will fail. That is true; but it is none of our business, and should make no difference to our action. In the first place, it is always wrong to abstain from doing good for fear that it might not be appreciated. In the second place, the non-elect in this world are faceless men as far as we are concerned. We know that they exist, but we do not and cannot know who they are, and it is as futile as it is impious for us to try to guess. The identity of the reprobate is one of God’s ‘secret things’ into which His people may not pry. In the third place, our callling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbor, irrespective of whether he is elect or not.
[end quote]
And then Packer reminds us of what salvation does for us, and how desperately all people need it.
There’s 100 pages more, but that there is the seed which Packer grows into a mature doctrine of evangelism. He’s a Reformed theologian, yes, so now and then he assumes something in Reformed theology that might conflict with Catholicism, but look at the final product, the finished work. I haven’t found anything objectionable in his final product