Did the Death and Resurrection of Christ “Unsave” People?
What about all the Jews who had a saving faith in God and survived the time of Jesus on earth and were never reached by any Christian apostle and died never hearing the name of Jesus? Remember - there were more Jews living outside Palestine during Jesus’ lifetime than in Palestine. The Jews (and Gentile God-fearers) had a temple in Alexandria, Egypt. Throughout the rest of the Roman Empire they had synagogues. Did those Jews and God-fearing Gentiles who were forgiven by God because of their Abrahamic faith, but who never heard of Jesus, go to hell because they died without having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? If so, Jesus’ death and resurrection “unsaved them” (in the sense of reversing their forgiveness by God). If not, then some kind of inclusivism is necessarily implied. When did God stop including people with Abrahamic faith in his forgiving grace?