What About People Who Never Hear About Jesus?

A common question people ask when they hear a truth statement like "Jesus is the only way to heaven" is,"What about those who've never heard about Jesus?"

Sadly, most people who ask this question don’t ask out of concern for those who have never heard about Jesus, they are simply out to fault God.

They’re often trying to show that God is unfair.

It is not uncommon for people to say that God has dealt unfairly with them or others.

But the Bible claims strongly that ‘the Judge of all the earth always does what is right’. (Genesis 18:25; Daniel 4:37)

In other words, God is completely fair, and this clearly stands out all through the Bible.

One thing that is biblically certain is when the curtains fall on this world, no one will have any grounds for accusing God of unfairness.

You may not know the answer to ‘What about those who die without ever hearing about Jesus?’, but you can rest assured that whatever God does with them will be completely fair.

Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t leave us without an answer to this question.

Paul makes it clear in Romans chapters 1 and 2 that no one will have an excuse on the day of judgment.

Not having heard about Jesus during one's lifetime will not exempt someone from being accountable on judgment day.

The sole distinction between someone who heard the gospel and rejected it and someone who never heard it is that the former will be doubly accountable.

But everyone will be held accountable.

According to Scripture, every individual, at some point in their life, encounters light in some shape or form.

This light may manifest as the gospel, the knowledge of good and evil, the law of Moses, their conscience inside, or creation outside.

Let's briefly examine each one, shall we?

1) The Gospel

As of February 2025, 67.9 percent of the global population had access to the internet.

Of this total, 5.24 billion, or 63.9 percent of the world's population, were social media users, a number that is growing with each passing day.

It is estimated that just over a billion people in the world today have little to no knowledge of Jesus, little to no knowledge of the gospel, and little to no chance of hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ before they die.

With the word’s population estimated at just over 8 billion people, that means 7 billion people have been reached with the message of the gospel in one way or the other.

This means that those who can honestly claim they never heard about Jesus are in the minority.

Most of us can't use this as an excuse.

Let's consider, for the sake of argument, that someone has never heard of Jesus and His gospel. What happens then? Let's see...

2) The conscience inside (witness within)

The Bible teaches that within each and every one of us is an instinctive knowledge of God. (Romans 1:19)

God has basically placed a homing device in each and every one of us that tells us there is a God and constantly draws us to Him.

Your conscience inside bears witness that there is a God.

In his book, the quest for God, Richard. A. Bennett writers:

To help each of us come to know Him, God has placed within our being a deeper inner consciousness of His existence. Some people may choose not to believe in God, but there has never been a person who could not believe in God.

Even those who identify as atheists are aware, deep within their hearts, of the existence of God.

They are merely deceiving themselves. (Psalms 53:1)

I can state emphatically that when faced with a life-threatening situation, no one remains an atheist.

When the bullets start flying and the planes crash, everyone instinctively calls on the name of Jesus like clockwork.

I honestly believe that being an atheist requires more faith than being a believer.

Ultimately, no one will be able to stand before God and claim, ‘But God, I didn’t know you existed’.

A story is told of a believer who approached his pastor after the service to discuss this truth, arguing that he was unaware of God's existence until he was saved.

To prevent any unnecessary back and forth, the pastor suggested he go home and present his concerns to God.

In that moment, God reminded him of an instance when he was around 12 years old. At that time, God had revealed Himself to him, but when he shared this experience with his atheist parents, they dismissed him as delusional, leading him to abandon the matter entirely.

He had somehow repressed this memory and mistakenly believed that when he was born again, it was the first time God had reached out to him. However, this was clearly not the case.

It's more precise to say it was the first time he responded positively to God's call.

At some point, God draws each of us to Himself.

The majority of us simply resist or reject His calling.

In reality, it's not that people are unaware of God's existence, they just choose to have nothing to do with Him. (Romans 1:21)

They acknowledge the moral responsibility it entails, which requires a complete life audit and change. However, they are reluctant to do so, as they prefer to live according to their own terms.

In essence, they want to retail control over their own lives without 'Big Brother' dictating how they should live.

Consequently, they dismiss Him with remarks like 'there is no God... I'm not ready to be born again... it's not the right time for me... God knows my heart', and similar phrases.

3) The knowledge of good and evil

The Bible teaches there is an instinctive knowledge of good and evil in all of us.

Even before the law of Moses was established, God still held individuals responsible for their sins.

In fact, He wiped out the entire human race at one point (save for 8 people) for their sins years before the law was given.

Everyone has an innate sense of right and wrong, leaving no one with an excuse. (Romans 2:15)

Joseph replied to Potiphar's wife's sexual advances by saying:

How could I commit such a wicked act and sin against God?

He understood that having an affair with another man's wife was a sin against God, centuries before the law was given, because he had an innate sense of right and wrong.

And we all do once we reach the age of accountability, which is when we are mature enough to consciously commit sin. (Romans 7:9)

This age differs for different people and is also when a person can consciously decide to be born again.

For a Jewish child, this age is typically 12 or 13 years.

Following their Bat Mitzvah, it is said that the child has reached the age of maturity and is now fully responsible for their actions and mistakes.

4) The law of Moses

God gave the 10 commandments to the Israelites primarily to reveal their sinful ways, which would encourage them to humble themselves and seek Him to save them from their deplorable sinful state.

However, God also gave them the law to guide and restrain them until Jesus arrived. (Galatians 3:23-25)

The line between good and evil can quickly become unclear without governing laws, so God essentially had to establish laws to prevent lawlessness. (Galatians 3:19)

Moses proceeded to add 603 by-laws to God's 10 commandments, resulting in a total of 613 laws.

This essentially served as their light until Jesus, the light of the world (John 8:12), arrived.

This implies that any Jew who passed away before the gospel, as we understand it, remains accountable to God according to the light they possessed, namely the law of Moses.

This includes any Gentile (non-Jew) who attempts to live by the law of Moses in an attempt to have a right standing with God, a practice that remains quite common among many believers today. (Romans 2:14)

5) Creation outside (the witness outside)

Paul asserts that even creation itself bears witness to the existence of God.

In Romans 1:20 he says:

Through the things He has made, God’s power and deity can be clearly seen… so that people are without excuse.

In other words, the presence of creation serves as evidence of God's existence.

David says in Psalm 19:1:

The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.

So you don’t need to open the Bible to know there is a God, you just need to open your window.

Every tree is a flame with God.

Abraham Kuyper once said:

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, MINE!

Even rain and the different seasons are proof of God.

In Acts 14:17 Paul says:

But He never left them without evidence of Himself and His goodness. For instance, He sends you rain and good crops and gives you food and joyful hearts.

Taking all this into consideration, everyone has experienced some form of light in their lifetime such that no one is excusable or absolved from accountability on the day of judgement.

One aspect of God's judgment that reflects His fairness is that each person will be judged based on the light they received, not on the light they didn't receive.

In other words, by what they knew rather than by what they didn't know. (Romans 2:12)

This means...

• Those who knew the gospel and rejected it will be judged by that.

• Those who only knew good and evil and did the latter will be judged by that.

• Those who only knew the law and broke it, will be judged by that.

• Those who only knew (even worshiped) creation and ignored the Creator will be judged by that.

In summary, when individuals stand before Jesus, to whom God the Father has entrusted judgment (Romans 2:16; Acts 10:42, 17:13), everyone will receive a fair trial.

If you are wondering why it is before Jesus, it is simply because He is Man (fully God, fully Man) therefore He is best suited to judge His fellow men.

There is a true story about a man who experienced a vision, in which he saw a vast plain filled with people and in the middle was a magnificent white throne.

He immediately realized he was having a vision of the day of white throne judgement of Christ. (Revelation 20:11-15)

Then he noticed the people on the plain were shouting all sorts of accusations towards the white throne…

'He has no right to judge us.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be born illegitimate.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be born poor..'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be wrongly accused'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be tempted.'

'He doesn’t know what it's like to be murdered in cold blood.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose someone.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to suffer.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be treated unfairly and abused.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be rejected.'

'He doesn’t know what it’s like to be hated.'

Then Jesus entered and mounted on the throne, and the entire crowd fell silent, realizing that the Judge had experienced all this.

Some might contend that it would be unjust for God the Father to judge us since He hasn't experienced life as we do, but this argument doesn't apply to God the Son, Jesus.

Jesus has walked a mile in our shoes and then some (Hebrews 4:15) and

I guarantee that no one will dare to speak against Him when they stand before Him.

On the day of judgment, all will stand before Him, and He will judges each of us fairly, based on the light we had received, rendering to each one according to their deeds. (Romans 2:6)

God bless you.