The Kerygma - God's Requirement for Salvation

God’s plan of salvation is the same for everyone since Jesus’s death on the cross. God is no respecter of person. He doesn’t require one thing of me and something else of you. We have the answer to your question in Acts 8. The Ethiopian eunuch had never heard of Jesus. He was reading the Old Testament and happened to be reading a prophecy about Jesus. The eunuch had no idea who the writer was talking about. That’s why he asked Phillip the question, “Who is the writer talking about? Himself or some one else? Phillip began with that scripture and “PREACHED JESUS” to him. We are not told Phillip’s exact words but whatever he preached it included the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, because later The eunuch made the confession that he believed Jesus was the Son of God. And we know Phillip had to have preached baptism, and he must have taught how important baptism was because as soon as the eunuch saw some water, he wanted to be baptized. That’s how people after Jesus died on the cross were saved. The blood that Jesus shed on the cross not only teaches forward to save everyone on our side of the cross, but it also reaches backward to save all those who lived before His death on the cross. We all know that the law changed when Jesus died on the cross. Col. 2:14, Hebrews 9:16-17. The people before the “cross” were saved by keeping the law that they were living under; which for the Jews was the law given by Moses at Mt. Sinai. They were not responsible for anything under the new law of faith given by Christ in the New Testament if they died before that law came into effect. 2 Tim. 2:15 we must know how to “RIGHTLY DIVIDE THE WORD OF GOD.”

The Bible Way to Heaven

I think most of the posts summed up the basics of grace through that faith in Jesus Christ.

Yet there is a giant hole in this thread.

You just became a Christian so what do you do now that your are saved?

We must obey His commandments!

John 13:34-35
I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you,
that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples:
if you have love for one another.”

1 Corinthians 13:3
And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory,
but do not have love, it does me no good.

1 Corinthians 13:13
But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 16:14
All that you do must be done in love.

1 Corinthians 16:22
If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha!

God is love!

So we avoid the deeds of the flesh and concentrate on bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

It's all part of a very simple gospel.

Correct, Beckworth, and most Christians are not taught Scripture that answers the question about how those who have never heard of Jesus may be saved, since God loves and wants to save them, too (2TM 2:4). Learning all scriptures that pertain to a subject and then harmonizing them is called systematic theology.

Three ways God/Christ is encountered include:

1. general revelation, which includes meditating on the natural world or God’s supernatural work. Paul says men are without excuse, both because God’s eternal/supernatural power and divine nature (love) are manifested by creation (RM 1:20), and because a proto-gospel has been proclaimed to everyone under heaven implicitly or in pre-NT foreshadowings (CL 1:23, RM 10:13-18, GL 3:8).

2. the inner conscience, a natural or “common” sense (RM 2:14-16), which manifests morality or a moral Authority/God in every culture.

3. special revelation (1PT 1:8-12), which refers to the biblical and especially NT teaching regarding God’s history of salvation. (BTW, Kerygma is the Greek word for preaching the Gospel of salvation.)

Jesus taught that souls are saved via faith in God/ Christ as revealed (MT 25:14-29, cf. 1CR 10:1-5). Truthseekers around the world in all times are pilgrims at various places along the road of life, and all true roads eventually lead to the Way to eternal life in heaven (JN 14:6, ACTS 9:2, 24:14, PHP 2:10-11). All truth leads to One Way.

I completely agree, Inquisitor, and although "obey" is certainly a biblical word, I think "cooperate" better expresses the voluntary decision to accept God/Jesus as Lord. God operates; people cooperate--or not!

Obey the gospel means to BELIEVE that gospel.

Romans 10:16
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?

Don't let anyone complicate it by sneaking in the rest of the commandments. That is what most preachers do. They apply the law of the OT or the mandates of the New and make void the salvation by free grace through faith. They will doubtless by the end of the day make insufficient the work of Christ by their own petty efforts. Galatians 1

Amen! We obey the gospel by choosing to believe the gospel. The gospel is the "good news" of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) and is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that BELIEVES.. (Romans 1:16) To "believe" the gospel is to trust in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ as the ALL-sufficient means of our salvation. The gospel is a message of grace that is to be received through faith. The gospel is not a set of rituals to perform, a code of laws to be obeyed or a check list of good works to accomplish as a prerequisite for salvation.

AMEN!
☕🙂👍📖

The word says that Jesus became the author of salvation for all those who obey Him. (Heb. 5:9) It is through obedience to His word that one's true faith/belief in Jesus is revealed. Without exception all those living since the Holy Spirit was poured out are required to repent, be water baptized in the name of Jesus for remission of sin, and receive the Holy Ghost. (Luke 24:47, Acts 2:4-41, 8:12-18, 9:17-18, 10:43-48, 19:1-7, 22:16)


"Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine..." Acts 2:36-42

You make good points about equating faith and works and also about too many preachers sermonizing on OT rather than NT teachings.

I think some things are being conflated here. Salvation requires only belief in(to) the Lord Jesus Christ.
Once someone is saved, they are no longer their own, and this comes with a new master and new expectations. But all this is subsequent to salvation.

Nothing in my hands I bring...

Leading a discussion is like herding cats, and some of you cats are still not focusing on the question of salvation for those who have never heard the NT Gospel. Another way of putting the question is "On what basis will God justly condemn someone who never had the opportunity to hear the NT Gospel?"

I think God’s just judgment is illustrated by Jesus in the Parable of the Talents (MT 25:14-29), which indicates that God will judge souls on the basis of the truth (Word = Christ per JN 1:1f.) they have received with ten talents representing the NT Gospel, five talents = the OT, and one talent referring to those who only experienced or had access to general revelation or Nature/Creation, as per RM 1:20.

Have you looked at the references to what I called a "proto-Gospel"? (CL 1:23, RM 10:13-18, GL 3:8)

They will be condemned because through nature and conscience they knew that God existed and they were accountable before Him.

When it comes to salvation, we must keep that obedience in proper perspective as to context.

The Bible was written to believers in the Lord. It requires a LOT of works as members of His family, just as my parents did. However, I wasn't the one who went through labor to become a child of the family.
Believe it or not, I was Not always obedient to my parents from my youth up. Even so, I was still a son of my parents.

Being born spiritually, John 3, is much different.

Or they might be saved because they perceived that God exists and sought His will/word. (MT 7:7, HB 11:6)

To believe, in risen Son for thee, to be willing from God inside you to hear God tell you God just love es you too
1 John 2:1-2
God did it, I see it and for me have decided to stand in thanksgiving and praise over it, Son is risen after he first took away all sin on the cross in his sacrifice Father is settled with form us all to be new in belief to this truth, thank you
Trusting God to teach you over others doing it for you

Appolos only knew of the baptism of John, but he had the Spirit of God per Acts 18:25

per Acts 18:26, he only needed to be taught the truth "more accurately"

is this a model for us of what you are trying to drive at? this man was faithful to what had been revealed to him about God, even if it was incomplete - and though he represents what we might call an "OT saint" knowing nothing of pentecost or anything that occured afterwards, he isn't described as having a different gospel or lacking the gospel - instead only lacking accuracy.

even moreso, in Acts 19:1-7 we have men who didn't even know of the work Christ accomplished and had no idea there was an Holy Spirit - and they are called disciples equally as those whose knowledge of the gospel was full ((if anyone's knowledge can be called full!!))



my stance is this, overall:
who am i to judge another man's servant?

Yes I am driving at those examples but also at the fact that millions of people around the globe before, during and even after the NT era never had the opportunity to hear either the OT prophets or the NT Gospel, but we have biblical clues about how they will be judged justly.

Perhaps...but if they are, either the Lord came to them directly or employed the gospel in some manner.
Throughout history there have been plenty of people who never heard the gospel or about Christ. What do you believe happened to them?