Fortunately, as any study of the entire Bible will show, exclusivist salvation theology simply cannot stand up under the weight of all the evidence that the Bible brings to bear on this subject. The end result is that major aspects of these understandings are shown to fall into the category of what Jesus described as ‘traditions of men’ masquerading as the ‘sure and certain mind of God’. Just as Jesus continually challenged the Pharisees’ many versions of ‘accepted doctrine’, these false human traditions need to be exposed and thundered against.

Let us now restate and examine this vital question.
What about the vast multitudes of people down through time who either:
never had a chance to hear the gospel of Christ at all, or only ever heard a version so flawed and badly presented that any person of integrity would have rejected what they heard? (Most of these people would have followed the religious traditions of their family and culture.)

Have all these people automatically then:
never been able to live in any degree of relationship with God, and are they all automatically destined to go to hell on death?

What answers are given by exclusivist Christians to these questions?
These answers are outlined below.

1. The ‘no compromise’ answer

This is the only answer that can be given if evangelicals are being totally consistent with their salvation doctrines.

It goes like this.

Yes, all people who haven’t believed in and accepted Christ in a conscious way are lost souls in this life and for eternity. They cannot ever live in any form of right relationship with God in this life and that, after death, they will spend eternity in hell.

It is this frightening doctrine which has provided the major motivation behind the whole vast evangelical missionary movement down through the past two thousand years. The doctrine itself results from their interpretations of key issues like the nature of the ‘new covenant’ and the nature, extent and practical effects of Christ’s work on the cross.

Those evangelicals bold enough to proclaim such a ‘no compromise’ position are at least being totally consistent and following faithfully the inevitable logical conclusions of the propositions of their doctrinal formulas. They are, in effect, stating what evangelicals should and must believe if they are to be consistent with the logic inherent in their doctrines.

However, other evangelicals try to have it both ways. They argue for a slightly more generous and inclusive approach, while not changing any of the foundational doctrinal propositions. Here are the major ways they endeavour to argue for this.