What Will Happen To “The Other Fellow”?

Dear Bro. George,

Your meditations on “what I don’t know” are very thought-provoking. One in particular caught my attention, “What will happen to ‘the other fellow’ ” [No­vember, p. 471].

I have often quoted the comment of Jesus to Peter: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me” (John 21:22,23). But my thoughts on this issue are more focused on the people of the world in general. As one who has been to many different countries primarily for Bible mission work, I meditate a lot on the plight of the apparently spiritually “helpless” people I see all around. All too often I hear brethren quote that “God is not willing that any should perish” (2 Pet. 3:9), implying that their salvation is in His hands, that it’s up to God. But as I read the context of Peter’s short epistle, I am not sure we correctly understand his point. He seems to me to be saying, ‘He is long suffering to us-ward, not will­ing that any Hof us] should perish.’ Two verses further on he says, “Since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be?”

In the previous chapter Peter laments those who have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord, yet who are in danger of being entangled again: “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness…” (2:20,21). Peter sees that, in one sense, it is better for people to remain in ignorance than, having escaped from darkness into light, to be entrapped again by the darkness. They have been called and have responded; it seems it is these of whom God is not willing that any should perish — just as Jesus was not willing that any of his disciples should be lost. (In the end, despite their “little faith” on several occasions, he only lost one, “the son of perdition.”)

True, we can quote the words of Jesus to Peter, telling him to focus on himself and not be concerned about the future of fellow believers. But the larger picture is another issue. It is all very well to dismiss it as something I do not know, but in my experience it will not stay dismissed.

I meditate on God’s standards of judgment especially when I hear brethren say, in effect, ‘Unless you understand the Scriptures just as we do, and act just as we do, you will not be in the Kingdom!’ Are we right to think this way? Or is this some­thing else we should put, at least partly, in the “what I don’t know” basket?

To whom much is given, of him much is expected (Luke 12:48)! Is this a significant principle of judgment? Jesus said it will be “more tolerable” for Tyre and Sidon, and for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment (Matt. 10:15; 11:22), and that the men of Nineveh would “rise up” in the judgment (Matt. 12:41). The Potter’s judgment of the various types of vessels He has made is something we cannot know. We can see in the history of Israel the cold fact that, for most of the time, they failed in their role as God’s witnesses. Did this matter to God, that is, the failure of His people to be a true “witness”?

It is one thing for some to have access to the ‘fullness of the knowledge of the Son of God’ (Eph 4:13), and then to turn away from this and forsake the assembling of themselves together (Heb. 10:25). It is very much a different thing for one to whom little knowledge is given, to embrace what he is given with a willing heart. But having said this, I say at the same time, how to deal with this difference is “what I don’t know”!

The question refuses to go away for mission workers — as they scatter the seed and see it germinating in virgin soil in largely pagan lands, and yet have such limited opportunity to tend and water it. There is a brother, the first to be baptized in a remote state of India, who keeps telling me how he is preaching to nearby illiterate tribal peoples. He tells me they believe the fundamental message about Jesus, his Kingdom, the hope of resurrection, etc. He tells me he has “examined” them and they give the “right” answers! “Can I baptize them, Uncle?” he asks. What answer do I give? “I don’t know”?

One line of thought sometimes expressed is that, since only eight were saved in the times of Noah, we should expect to see only a small remnant saved today. The small ‘splinter groups’ of our brotherhood like to quote this. The reasoning on this seems very thin. I cannot accept the reasoning that the world population exploded enormously before the flood. There were only eight generations from Cain and Seth to Noah. Although they lived exceptionally long lives, we have no indication that they were continuously having many, many children. Those who claim they spread out over all the earth are stating something they simply ‘don’t know’. The building of the ark over a great many years — possibly 100 — must have been a landmark on the earth, and it would be its own testimony to impending doom. Furthermore, we note that Noah is described as “a preacher of righteous­ness” (2 Pet. 2:5). So the warning to the world was visual and verbal, and there is reason to think that many if not most of those living then would have heard the message. But they did not have ears to hear.

Paul writes, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). “Without excuse”, since the days of creation, if they do not believe in God and His power — and what else? The context suggests that the physical evidence of a Creator is part of a wider mix of the “gospel” (vv. 16-19). But Paul does say, “Since the creation… they are without excuse.” This invites us to consider the degrees of what we like to call “responsibility”, and therefore “knowledge”, at the different stages of human his­tory — right up to the six billion-plus in the world today. Once again, we admit “we don’t know”. But with the admission comes, at least for me, the feeling that I should be careful what conclusions to reach about the nature of the judgment to come.

So 1 Timothy 2:4 tells us God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” In what context does Paul make this statement? It is written against the background of how the believers should behave, the image they should present to the world, and how they should pray “for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we might lead a quiet and peaceful life…” (vv. 1,2). This corresponds to the behavior Peter advised for wives of unbelievers, that by their conduct they might win them to Christ (1 Pet. 3:1). The lives of believers need to be such that all who see us should be encouraged and not hindered, because God desires all to be saved.

We keep coming back to the telling illustration of God as the Potter. “Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, ‘Why hast thou made me thus?’ ” (Rom. 9:20). We have to leave it at that, as we ponder the way in which the fields are “white to the harvest”, and our responsibility in all this. We are workers together with God (2 Cor. 6:1). The challenge facing each one of us is to see the ways He is at work.