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'''SBJT: Does the Johannine corpus leave room for salvation through means other than specific faith in Christ?'''

'''D. A. Carson:''' In some ways, this question
is remarkably perverse.

I understand why it must be asked, of
course: not for a moment am I suggesting
that there is perversity in the editor, who
put the question to me. It has to be asked
because today there are increasingly strident
voices that argue that although all
salvation comes through Jesus Christ, it
does not follow that there must be personal,
self-conscious faith for salvation to
take place. God in his grace, it is argued,
may save some people by the merits of
his Son, without their ever having heard
of his Son. So is it not legitimate to ask
whether the books of the Johannine corpus
leave room for salvation “through
means other than specific faith in Christ?”
So yes, the question may be asked. Indeed,
in today’s climate, it ''must'' be asked.
Still, in some ways it is perverse. It is a
little like the questions teenagers sometimes
ask: “Is there anything in the Bible
to stop me from doing X?” “What’s wrong
with Y?” Once again, the questions must
be asked, and answered. But at best, such
questions are remarkably immature. They
try to get the Bible to answer things which,
strictly speaking, are not quite on the
Bible’s agenda. Worse, they focus on
something just slightly skewed. As compared
with the teen’s question, surely the
Bible’s focus is on how to please God,
what are our most important priorities,
and the like—not what we can get away
with. Similarly, there can be little doubt
that the Bible’s focus is on the plan of salvation
God has provided. Men and
women can be reconciled to their Maker
through the death of the Son he sent into
the world. Men and women must repent
and put their faith in him. The gospel must
be preached everywhere, and will draw
people together from every tribe and language
and people and nation. Strictly
speaking, it does not focus an enormous
amount of attention on the question as to
whether some might be saved even if they
do not consciously trust Christ, or if so,
how many such a group might comprise.
So I am being asked if the Bible, in one of
its corpora, allows space for such a view.
It is a bit like trying to disprove a negative
proposition. Moreover, this particular
vision of the “anonymous Christian”
(the expression is Karl Rahner’s) is on the
face of it remarkably insulting to devout
believers of other faiths. Most devout Hindus
or Muslims that I know would not like
to be informed that they are really “anonymous
Christians,” anymore than devout
Christians want to be told that they are
“anonymous Buddhists.”

Certainly the Johannine corpus includes
many passages that insist on some
kind of exclusion. One thinks, for instance,
of Thomas’ question and Jesus’ answer.
Thomas protests, “Lord, we don’t know
where you are going, so how can we know
the way?” Jesus answers, “I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:5,
6). But the critic might well respond that
this sort of text does not really address the
crucial question. For both sides of this
particular debate agree that people gain
salvation solely through Jesus Christ: no
one comes to the Father except through
him. But does this passage, they ask, necessarily
exclude those who may be saved
by him who have nevertheless not selfconsciously
reposed their faith in him,
because they have never had the privilege
of hearing about him?

At one level, of course, the critics are
right: ''formally'', John 14:6 does not address
that question. Nevertheless the Gospel of
John so repeatedly insists that ''faith in Jesus''
is the condition of salvation that the drift
of this book is all in one direction. God
gave his Son so that “whoever ''believes'' in
him shall not perish but have eternal life”
(3:16). Again: “I tell you the truth, whoever
hears my word and believes him who
sent me has eternal life and will not be
condemned; he has crossed over from
death to life” (5:24). And this is the fruit
of God loving the world and sending his
Son into the world (3:16,17): in other
words, the mission of the Son into the
world is to result in people believing in
him and experiencing eternal life. The
Son’s mission is never cast as providing
eternal life for certain people whether they
have believed in him or not. If the Gospel
of John does not formally exclude such a
possibility, it is only because it does not
set out to address that particular question.
Its direction does not encourage speculation
along that front.

First John is more focused yet. As in the
Fourth Gospel, there is an emphasis on the
cross as the place where sin was dealt
with, and therefore as the ground on
which people approach God (2:2, 4:10).
Potentially, that ground is sufficient for the
whole world (2:2). At the same time, 1
John is patently clear that the whole world
is not saved. When this epistle describes
who is “in” and who is “out,” it deploys a
number of criteria, what Robert Law famously
called “the tests of life.” Law’s
category has its problems, but these need
not concern us. Law detected three “tests”:
Genuine Christians (a) love other Christians,
(b) do what Christ says, and (c) believe
the truth, in particular the truth
about who Jesus is.

It is this latter category that is most
applicable to the topic at hand, precisely
because it is worded in several ways. In 1
John 2:23, we are told, “No one who denies
the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges
the Son has the Father also.”
The critic may respond, “Yes, but this text
does not specifically deal with the person
who does not ''deny'' the Son, yet who has
not specifically ''acknowledged'' the Son, either.
That person may not even have heard
of the Son.” Formally, of course, that is
correct—though on the face of it, it flies
in the face of the tenor of the book. Moreover,
1 John 4:2-3 is even stronger: “Every
spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ
has come in the flesh is from God, but
every spirit that does ''not acknowledge'' Jesus
is not from God.” Formally, this excludes
those who ''do not acknowledge'' who Jesus
is. Doubtless someone may argue that this
is merely a rhetorical way of saying that
such people ''deny'' who Jesus is. But if the
critic is allowed to appeal to the larger
rhetoric of the document, so may I—and
I insist that the rhetoric of the document
aligns who is “in” with certain faith-content
and certain performance-in-life—
even while insisting that the ''ground'' of
acceptance before God is the atonement.
The only reason one wants to appeal to
the most pedantic reading is because that
is the kind of pedantry the critics deploy
to avoid what the text says in, say, John
14:6. If we respond with the same level of
pedantry, citing 1 John 4:2-3, the text is
against them.

The same sort of polarization between
who is “in” and who is “out” is found in
the Apocalypse, though there, of course,
the imagery is very different. In the massive
vision of Revelation 4-5, no one is
found who is worthy to approach the
throne of God and open the seals of the
scroll in his right hand (5:3). In the symbolism
of the vision, this means that no one
was found worthy to bring to pass all God’s
purposes for blessing and judgment. John
weeps at the news, until an interpreting
elder reassures him: the Lion of the tribe
of Judah, who is also the Lamb, who
emerges from the center of the throne of
God, has prevailed, and he alone brings to
pass God’s purposes. As the book
progresses, a massive dualism controls the
dramatic apocalyptic symbolism. Either
one bears the mark of the beast and is
thereby spared the beast’s wrath, but faces
the wrath of the Lamb, or one bears the
mark of the Lamb and is thereby spared
the Lamb’s wrath, but faces the wrath of
the beast (Rev 13-14). Implicitly, the question
becomes, whose wrath do you want
to face? Everyone bears one mark or the
other. Attempts by some writers to define
“the eternal gospel” in Revelation 14:6 as a
generic appeal to the God of creation or the
like, without reference to the Lamb and his
death which are so central to the unfolding
drama of this book, are desperate expedients
deployed to support a lost cause.
Specificially, this appeal argues that the
content of “the eternal gospel” in 14:6 is
simply to “Fear God and give him glory”
(14:7). But by this stage in the church’s
history, “gospel” is a word so bound up
with the good news of Jesus this is an extraordinarily
ahistorical reading—the
more so in a book in which the Lamb,
both slaughtered and reigning—is the
One who alone has brought about God’s
purposes for redemption and judgment.
It is better by far to understand 14:7 and
its exhortation to fear God to be the warning
added to (but not identified with)
“the eternal gospel” (14:6) that has already
been explained.

So does the Johannine corpus “leave
room for salvation through means other
than specific faith in Christ”? Certainly
not on its most obvious reading.