Who Can Be Saved?: Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions

Front Cover
InterVarsity Press, 2009 M09 20
Throughout history millions have lived and died without hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Despite vigorous missionary efforts, large populations of the world today have never been evangelized. And now religious pluralism has set up shop on Main Street. The question "Who can be saved?" forces itself on the minds of Christians like never before.
  • Is there a wideness in God's mercy?
  • Does God reveal himself in a way that invites all people to respond positively in saving faith?
  • Does one have to be an Arminian to believe so?
  • Or is there a way for Calvinists to see how God might reveal and save apart from the explicit "gospel" and yet exclusively through Jesus Christ?
  • And if so, what does this say about the role of religions within the sovereign providence of God?
These are big questions requiring thoughtful care. In this intriguing study, Terrance L. Tiessen reassesses the questions of salvation and the role of religions and offers a proposal that is biblically rooted, theologically articulated and missiologically sensitive. This is a book that will set new terms for the discussion of these important issues.

From inside the book

Contents

What About the Saved Who Did Not Believe in Jesus?
165
Can Infants Be Saved?
204
Who Is Able to Believe?
230
Why Should We Send Missionaries?
259
HOW DO THE RELIGIONS FIT INTO GODS PURPOSES IN THE WORLD?
295
How Do Religions Come into Being?
297
How Did the Covenant People Relate to Other Religions?
323
Glossary
483

By What Standard Are People Judged?
123
Can People Be Saved If They Only Have General Revelation?
138
Author Index
498
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 112 - I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven : But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Page 111 - For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.
Page 55 - Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.
Page 254 - For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
Page 299 - Without further ado, then, a religion is: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and longlasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.
Page 375 - In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Page 209 - Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.
Page 378 - They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.
Page 188 - I am not speaking of you all; I know whom I have chosen; it is that the scripture may be fulfilled, 'He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

About the author (2009)

Terrance Tiessen is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Providence Theological Seminary in Otterburne, Manitoba. He has written Irenaeus on the Salvation of the Unevangelized and Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World?

Bibliographic information