How are the Lost Saved?

I once asked my pastor what exactly someone needed to do to be saved from his sin.  His response was “Why don’t you look into it and get back to me.”

This wasn’t a harsh remark.  He knew me pretty well and knew if I did my own research it the result would be more meaningful and more memorable.

I spent a week or so considering some problems with my question.  “What of people who can neither speak nor hear?”  They may not know an actual language.  Can they be saved?  What of people who lay dying, slipping away and at the last moment decide to give their lives to Christ without being able to speak?”

I finally settled on the thief on the cross as my primary example.  He didn’t say a “Sinner’s Prayer.”  He just asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom.

There are three facets to the thief’s request, though.  He knew he was a sinner and needed to repent, so he recognized Jesus as Lord and knew He would rise to set up His kingdom.  But, I don’t think the thief’s statement saved him.  I believe he was saved before he said it.  It was his acceptance of the truth and change of heart that opened heaven’s gates to him.

Romans 10:9 says “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  The thief did both of these.  His repentance is implied.. 

Jesus said we also need to repent in Mark 1:14,15 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

So, most adults need only repent, confess Jesus as Lord, and believe God raised Him from the dead.  But what about others?

For children, I believe there is an age of accountability.  Isaiah hints at this in chapter 7, verse 16: For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.  Many believe Paul also hinted at it as well in Romans 7:9: ^“ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.”

So, it may be we are not responsible for our sinful acts before we are old enough to recognize them as sin and as rebellion against God.  At what age might this be?  I don’t think there is a specific age.  I think it’s just a matter of how conscious the individual is of sin.

The next point I’d like to address follows naturally from this: what about special needs children and adults.  What if they cannot understand the concepts of sin, salvation, repentance?  I believe the same rule of accountability applies no matter what the age. 

And what about people who’ve never heard the gospel?  What about them?  Paul addresses this in Romans 1:20 :For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Those who have never heard the Gospel are still accountable for what they can see in creation.  From creation we can recognize God as greater than this universe, a God of order and beauty, a God who provides and thus cares for us, and much more.  Salvation is available to those who would only look.

Why is this important?

The requirements for salvation are dependent on if the individual is capable of understanding the Gospel or if they have ever heard the Gospel.

When it comes down to the absolute essentials, Romans 14:11,12 brings the message home.  We are all responsible to God and will be required to give Him an account of ourselves for what we know:  “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.”

We can’t let people fool us into believing in an unloving god who rejects those who haven’t heard or haven’t understood.  Our God loves us all.  It is our hearts which need to turn to Him.  He is already reaching out to us.