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grace through faith in him. In its context Acts 4:12 admits no thought of salvation apart from a profession of faith in the Savior. Romans 10 Space won’t allow us to examine Romans 10 thoroughly, but we may point to several key verses. Verse 9 proclaims, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Could we ask for more clarity than this? Consider also verses 14–17 in which Paul expounds on the great need for the name of Jesus to go to all corners of the globe: How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? . . . So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
This passage is as clear as any in the Bible. Those who are to be reconciled to Christ must know of Christ so that they may put their faith in him. This fact provides the impetus for Christian mission; preaching and evangelism are motivated by a desire to take the message to all men, so they may be saved to the glory of God. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him” (v. 12). There is no distinction between those who may be saved because there is no distinction in how men are to be saved. Even from these three passages, only three of many we could turn to, we see little reason to believe that Scripture allows for the possibility of “anonymous Christians,” people who will be saved though they have not put their trust in Jesus Christ. The whole burden of the New Testament is that we are saved only through Christ and only through faith in him. Answering the Questions It may be useful here to anticipate a handful of the most common objections to exclusivism.
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