Does God selectively choose who may be saved?

Most scholars will answer this depending on their theology:

Those who belief only Christ's crucifixion could save

Faith in God's promises

Many theologians argue that people before Jesus were saved through faith in God's promises of a coming Messiah.

Looking forward to Christ

Some interpret that the faithful in the Old Testament were saved by looking forward to Christ's coming sacrifice, just as Christians now look back to it. This is sometimes called "proleptic" faith.

Retroactive application of Christ's sacrifice

Some theologians propose that Christ's sacrifice, while occurring at a specific point in history, has power that extends both forward and backward in time.

Old Testament saints in a waiting place

Some traditions hold that the righteous who died before Christ waited in a separate realm (sometimes called "Abraham's bosom") until Christ's death and resurrection, at which point they were fully redeemed.

Those who belief God (the Father) was/is the Saviour

Sacrificial system

The Old Testament describes an elaborate system of animal sacrifices for the atonement of sins for example Leviticus 4:35, 17:11.

Some view this as a temporary measure until Christ's ultimate sacrifice based on the book of Hebrews and their interpretation of Paul's writings like Romans.

Others long for the third temple to be rebuilt so that this system could be reinstalled. They base their views on Ezekiel's prophecies and the Revelation of John of Patmos.

God's grace

Many argue that salvation has always been by God's grace through faith, not by works. The specific content of that faith may have differed, but the principle remained the same.

Some view that the sacrifices were seen as an outward expression of faith, obedience and worship.

For example the first book of the bible it is written:

He (Abraham) believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. -- Genesis 15:6 (ESV)

And in Psalms which was written before Christ was born:

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

-- Psalm 40:6-8 (ESV)

and

I will teach transgressors Your ways,
and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. For You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

-- Psalm 51:13-17 (ESV)

And Samuel, who lived before Christ was born, wrote:

The people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.”

And Samuel said,

“Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

-- 1 Samuel 15:21-23 (ESV)

And Micah, who lived before Christ was born, wrote:

“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

-- Micah 6:6-8 (ESV)

Even Jesus himself quoted Hosea (Matthew 9:13, 12:7) who wrote:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with Me.

-- Hosea 6:6-7 (ESV)

Jesus also made the point that forgiveness is more important than sacrifices:

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. -- Matthew 5:23-24 (ESV)

Paul wrote:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written,

“The righteous shall live by faith.” -- Habakkuk 2:4

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

-- Romans 1:16-18 (ESV)

Paul quoted Habakkuk, who originally made this statement many years before Christ was born.

Examples of people who got saved before Jesus was born

Persons Gentile? What convinced them Believed God? Repented? Sacrificed? Baptised? Reaction
Rahab Yes Reports of what God could do Yes Assumed Unknown Unknown Risk her life to demonstrate her faith
Ruth Yes No details provided Yes Assumed No No Went as foreigner to Israel
Naaman Yes His healing Yes Assumed No Yes Declared God exist
Jehoiada's revival No He was a priest Assumed Covenant Assumed No Tore Baal temple down and killed Baal priest
Josiah No Discovered the book of Law Yes Fasted Yes No Destroyed all idols and their sacred places
Sailors Yes Saw power of God Yes Assumed Yes No Feared (respected) God
Ninevites Yes Jonah's prophecy Yes Fasted No No King made a proclamation to fast and turn from evil

There are also no records that whoever led these people to conversion ever mentioned any messianic prophecies. Therefore, the assumption is that none of these converts declared a confession of faith in Christ (or the Messiah). Yet as stated above, Habakkuk and Paul wrote "The righteous shall live by faith".

Do we have a contradiction here?

It depends on what your view of "confession of faith in Christ" is.

Traditionally according to many churches it means:

If this was the truth, then none of the people listed above would have been saved and the Bible would be contradicting itself.

When Jesus and the apostles mention "faith", they mean:

And in addition (these people had prophecies, while we believe it has been fulfilled):

The answer to salvation was and still is our Father God. As Isaiah and the apostles stated: the Christ made this possible for us as "gentiles".

For example:

Rahab's conversion

Although not directly stated, we can assume Rahab converted because:

  • She made a confession of faith in the LORD (YHVH) God
  • She risked her life to demonstrate her faith
  • After Jericho's fall, Rahab and her family were integrated into the Israelite community (Joshua 6:25)
  • Rahab is mentioned in Matthew 1:5 as part of Jesus' lineage

Before the men lay down, she (Rahab) came up to them on the roof and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. -- Joshua 2:8-11 (ESV)

By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. -- Hebrews 11:31 (ESV)

Ruth's conversion

And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

-- Ruth 1:15-16 (ESV)

Naaman's conversion

Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.

And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman’s wife. Then she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.” And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “Thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel.”

Then the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”

So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.

And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.”

So it was, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”

Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house.

And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became furious, and went away and said, “Indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’ Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?”

So he turned and went away in a rage.

And his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”

So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel”

-- 2 Kings 5:1-15 (NKJV)

Revival lead by Jehoiada the priest

And Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and people, that they should be the LORD's people, and also between the king and the people.

Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.

And the priest posted watchmen over the house of the LORD.

-- 2 Kings 11:17-18 (ESV)

Josiah's conversion

And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD.”

And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD.”

Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.”

And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the king's servant, saying, “Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”

So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter), and they talked with her. And she said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel (tell the man who sent you to me):

'Thus says the LORD: Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken Me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.

But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, thus shall you say to him,

'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the LORD, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you, declares the LORD. Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.’”

And they brought back word to the king.

Then the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him. And the king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all His heart and all His soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.

And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold:

  • to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven.
  • He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.
  • And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens.
  • And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people.
  • And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.
  • And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled (pronounce unclean) the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beersheba.
  • And he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one's left at the gate of the city. However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers.
  • And he defiled (pronounce unclean) Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech.
  • And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts.
  • And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
  • And the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, he pulled down and broke in pieces and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
  • And the king defiled (pronounce unclean) the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
  • And he broke in pieces the pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with the bones of men.
  • Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust.
  • He also burned the Asherah.
  • And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled (pronounce unclean) it, according to the word of the LORD that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things (1 Kings 13:1-10). Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” And the men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted5 these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” 18 And he said, “Let him be; let no man move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.
  • And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel.
  • And he sacrificed (slaughter) all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.

...

And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.

-- 2 Kings 22:8-15,18-20;23:1-21,25

The sailors' conversion

But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.”

So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!”

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?”

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.

He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”

Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.

Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.”

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.

Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.

-- Jonah 1:4-16 (ESV)

Ninevites' conversion

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey.

And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

-- Jonah 3:1-10 (ESV)