Are Muslims Saved?

A "Primitive Baptist" preacher wrote to me recently and said:

"One thing that has always bothered me, is those who clearly reject Christ, such as the Muslim could be a child of God. Sure, a Muslim could be converted but how often does that happen?"

I wonder how many other Hardshells are bothered in the same way as this brother. When you ask a Hardshell Baptist whether a person must believe in Christ and the one true God in order to be saved, you will generally get a "no" answer. Others, however, will hesitate, and will say that people can believe in Jesus on the subconscious level so that they believe but don't know that they believe, having no conscious knowledge of Jesus. That is ridiculous of course. 

This preacher brother's comment made me think of my chat with a former Hardshell minister who was at one time a close friend of mine when I was a Hardshell. I wrote about this in my post "My Talk With Elder Charles Smith" (See here). We had this little chat in Walmart several years after I had left the Hardshells and became a true "primitive" or "old" Baptist. I wrote this in that post:

"I first asked him, "a belief in what God?"  "Any god?"  "So, all Muslims are saved?"  He gave me a slight shake of the head with a look of disapproval but said nothing.  "A person does not have to believe in the one true God of Israel?"  This was the view espoused by Elder Sarrels in his Hardshell "Systematic Theology" and which I have soundly refuted."

He did not want to answer this question. Why not? Perhaps it was because he was bothered as was the brother who wrote to me and said what he said in the comment above. 

This also reminds me of a time when I met with my former father in law at the Bear Creek Association of which he was a leading minister and which I too was once a part of. He and I were very close at one time until his daughter and I divorced. Years later I would go to the above named Association and spend a day, mostly to spend time with him. We spent a lot of time talking during the breaks between those sessions. He was a lover of Spurgeon. I recall informing him about the historical research I had done and how I found out that what Hardshells believe today was not what their forefathers believed. They believed that faith in Christ was necessary for salvation. I talked to him about how the scriptures were very clear on this matter, and so too was Spurgeon. I wrote about our conversations in a post titled "Elder Newell Helms" (See here). Here is what I wrote in that post:

"I was glad to hear brother Helms tell me in one of our visits at the Bear Creek Association (last decade) that he did not believe that unbelievers were saved and that he said this recently in a sermon. I said to him - "I am happy to hear you say this."

When I was a Hardshell I was often disturbed in my bible studies to see that what I believed was simply not in harmony with the scriptures. But, it took years for God to finally bring me fully out of the heresy of Hardshellism. I have since then thanked him a thousand times for it. 

Now, let me write further about this issue. I have written on this much through the years. I cite from leaders in the "Primitive" or "Hardshell" denomination who said that millions of people may be "saved," "born again," "regenerated," etc., who never believed in the one true God nor in the Son of God, nor in the Gospel of Christ, and who never knew or loved the true God and Jesus Christ, nor were saved by placing their faith in Christ's atoning blood or sacrifice, but who remained worshipers of false gods or pagans and polytheists.  Now let me give you the proof of this, and the arguments offered by Hardshells to prove their premise or proposition.

In chapter 53 of my series "The Hardshell Baptist Cult" I write under the title "Regeneration Evidence?" (See here) I cite from Elder R.V. Sarrels who wrote a book titled "Systematic Theology" (see in the picture above), and I bought my copy many years ago and read through it. After I left the Hardshells I went through it to find citations to use in writing against the history and heresies of Hardshellism. In that chapter I cite these words of Sarrels:

"...in perhaps the vast majority of cases the elements of conversion–repentance, faith, and justification–may be present only embryonically..." (Systematic Theology, page 369) "The more advanced intellectual Christian concepts about all of these progressive steps which unfold in the believer's experience do not prove that these do not exist embryonically in the obscure, yet spiritual, exercise of the quickened soul in heathen lands. The child of God, be he heathen or cultured, may not understand all that is woven around his life in God, yet in germ all is there. (See Rom:2:14)"

Notice that he is talking about "the quickened soul in heathen lands." There is no such character in the bible! There is no such character as a regenerated unbeliever. If a person is a heathen, he is a pagan, a person who worships false gods. Hardshell Baptists say that in "the vast majority of cases" people who are "quickened" into divine or spiritual life are heathens, who he says are converted "embryonically." What he means by that is that people who are not converted are really converted, and people who believe in many false gods really believe in the one true God. That is calling good evil, calling the crooked straight, calling light darkness, etc. Think of this kind of thinking being used in other contexts. By it I could say "Hitler was really a kind, gentle man embryonically," or "Hitler embryonically loved the Jews." Or, "the Devil embryonically loves God." 

The Bible says that all the heathen who do not believe in Yahweh or the Messiah are lost. Sarrels would say that many Muslims are born again children of God, and embryonically believe in Jesus and his death and resurrection, even though they say they don't believe in that Gospel. We will cite more from Sarrels shortly, but let me first cite what Elder C.H. Cayce, one of the greatest leaders of the "Primitive Baptist Church," said on this matter. Cayce wrote:

"...if we are sorry for sin and grieve on account thereof, it is because we are alive spiritually." (Cayce's Editorials, Vol. 3, page 169)

"A saving knowledge and faith in Christ does not come through the gospel; but one must have that before he can be reached through or by the gospel." (Vol. VI, page 176)

I cannot believe that I was once a part of this cult which believed such perversions of the word of God. The first statement would make nearly everyone in the world to be a spiritually alive child of God. Who has not felt guilt for wrongdoing? Have not even wicked people in the bible expressed sorrow for their sins and were not saved simply for that? Judas felt sorry for what he had done. (Matt. 27: 3) Does that mean that he was a child of God possessing divine life? Did not Jesus say that Judas was a "demon"? (John 6: 70) Did Jesus not say that it would have been better that Judas had never been born? (Matt. 26: 24) This one case disproves what Cayce said, and what many other Hardshells have affirmed since his day. 

The second statement is also diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Bible. Cayce says a man must believe in Christ before he ever comes to know about Jesus. That makes a fool of the apostle Paul, for he wrote:

"For "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" (Rom. 10: 13-14 nkjv)

Cayce says a man must believe in him of whom he has not heard! A man that blind has no credibility. If you read Cayce's other writings you will see that he actually believes that one must hear about Jesus or the Gospel in order to believe in Jesus or the Gospel, but believes that only because Jesus himself, with his voice, directly speaks to heathens as he did to Saul of Tarsus. In writing upon 1 Peter 3:18-21, on October 23, 1906, Cayce wrote:  

"By the same Spirit by which His body was quickened He went and preached unto the spirits in prison. This shows very clearly that there is a work upon spirit which is performed by the direct work of the Spirit. “And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” - (Ephesians 2:17-18). There is a preaching, or a work, which Jesus does by His Spirit, or by the Holy Spirit. This work is what is also called regeneration. Through the work of Jesus, His offering, both Jews and Gentiles have access to the Father by one Spirit in the work of regeneration. The Holy Spirit makes the application of the blood of Christ in the work of regeneration."

Here is his view on Rom. 10:17: 

"So, then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."--Verse 17. "The word here is the speech of God. God speaks to the sinner who is dead in sins, and by the power of that speech the sinner is made alive in Christ, made alive from the dead..." (Cayce's Editorials, Volume 5, pages 123, 124)

Cayce even says that the Athenian idolaters, who knew not God nor Jesus Christ, nevertheless were born again children of God, people to whom Christ had already appeared to and spoke audibly to them and made them believers in him, and the true God, and in the way of salvation. He says when they worshiped the "unknown god" that they were actually worshiping Yahweh and Jesus even though they did not know anything about them. Yet, this is so illogical. If Jesus had already preached to these Athenian heathens, then why did they not know God or Jesus? Why is he an "unknown" God? Also, why did the Athenians, when they heard Paul preaching the Gospel, say: “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign (or strange) gods,” when "he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection"? (Acts 17: 18) If they were already believers, had already heard the gospel by the personal preaching of Jesus, and had been given faith, then why do they say that they know nothing about him? You can read my post on what Cayce said further about the saved state of the heathen (here).

What this ideology does is make believers out of unbelievers. A person does not believe in Jesus, but somehow by the reasoning of Sarrels and Cayce, and others as we will see, makes them believers. Again, you have to be bewitched to believe such nonsense. 

Sylvester Hassell, who lived in the time of Cayce, wrote the following in answer to the question - "Will any persons be saved unless the gospel is preached to them?" (emphasis mine) 

"While it is true that the ministry is to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, as the Spirit of God may direct them, and as the providence of God may open the way to them, and it is the duty of other members to help them on their way after a godly sort, and those to whom they minister in spiritual things should minister to them in carnal things, as the Scripture teach, it is at the same time true that all the elect and redeemed people of God, both infants and adults, will be saved. (Psalm 33:12; Isa. 35:10; 45:17; 53:11; Jer. 31-34; Matt. 1:21; 11:25-27; 16:16,17; John 5:25; 6:37-40; 10:27-30; 17:1-3, 24; Rom. 8:28-39; I Cor. 1:26-31; 12:3; Eph. 1:1-14; I Pet. 1-5; Rev. 5:9,10). Jesus is the Great Preacher, and, by His omnipresent Spirit, He preaches His gospel savingly to His people (Isa. 61:1-3,10,11; Luke 4:16-30; Heb. 2:11,12; Psalm 110:3)." (Questions and Answers-Part 11)

The same arguments against this view that I gave to what Cayce said applies to what Hassell here says. Next, let us hear from Elder Lemuel Potter, another late 19th century leader of the Hardshells. He said the following in his debate with Yates:

"And by his Spirit he can, and I will say he will, and does, quicken the benighted soul of the heathen and prepare him for heaven and glory. If that is not true, what mean all the Scriptures I have quoted here to you?" (Fifth Speech)

What he means by this is that heathens may be saved even if they stay ignorant of the one true God and the Son of God and the Gospel. In chapter 62 of my book on the Hardshell cult, under the title "Hardshells on Gill V" (See here), I wrote:

"Elder John R. Daily in a debate with W. P. Throgmorton in 1912 said: 

"Men in heathendom are regenerated by the Spirit of God without the Gospel (Daily-Throgmorton Debate, p. 273).

But, if Jesus preaches the Gospel personally to every elect person in heathen polytheism, as Cayce and Hassell said, then how are they without the Gospel? Not only that, but they make Jesus a poor preacher, for if he appears to all these heathens in order to reveal himself to them as he did to Saul (Paul), then why are they ignorant of the Gospel and failed to believe in what Jesus was preaching to them? That was not the case with the apostle Paul. If Daily (who lived in the time of Cayce and Hassell) believed as they did, and he probably did, then how can he say that the ones to whom Jesus preached are without the Gospel? And, why did they not become Christians if he preached to them with irresistible power? 

Is it impossible for the Spirit of God to regenerate through the Gospel that his servants preach? Further, why doesn't Jesus continue to be our only preacher? Would not hearing him preach to us every day not be better than hearing human preachers? Also, most of those who heard Jesus' preaching directly to them did not believe in him. In chapter 18 in the "The Hardshell Baptist Cult" series under the title "Hardshells on Conversion" (See here) I cite these words of Elder R.V. Sarrels:

"We here give some attention to a matter mentioned earlier in this chapter: Since we hold, (a) that God, without the use of the gospel as a means, regenerates his loved ones in heathen lands as well as in cultured lands, and, (b) that in all of these lands, both heathen and cultured, the Holy Spirit performs his convicting work, we make the following differential observation: As the innate knowledge of God's existence, or First Truths, may exist in only faintly discernible ideas about the Supreme Being, and may range from this all but dormant and little understood stamp of the Maker to the highest and most enlightened concept of God's existence, so the facts connected with conviction--and conversion--may begin with the faintly dim ideas about sin, righteousness, and judgment, about repentance, faith, and justification, and range from this to the most advanced intellectual concepts concerning these progressive steps in the experience of a believer in gospel lands." (pages 365, 366)

But again, if Jesus preaches the gospel to all his elect as a means of their regeneration, then how can Sarrels say that the preaching of the gospel was not a means? Actually, what Cayce and Hassell and others we could cite say is that it is by the preaching Jesus does himself that regenerates and not by the preaching Jesus does through his sent preachers. In regard to the text in I Peter 3: 18-20 that Cayce wrote upon (given above), most Hardshells would say that Christ going to "preach to the spirits in prison" was a preaching Christ did through Noah, for the text says that these spirits were "formerly disobedient...in the days of Noah." Many scripture passages tell us that when the ministers of Christ are preaching his word and gospel that he is preaching through them. In II Corinthians 13: 3 Paul plainly says that Christ was speaking in him. Jesus said to his evangelists - "whoever hears you hears me." (Luke 10: 16) Paul, in speaking of Jesus, said to the Ephesians that Jesus "came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near." (Eph. 2: 17) Clearly Paul meant that Christ came in the person of Paul and preached to them through Paul.

Notice that Sarrels wants to try to make believers out of unbelievers. Before we saw how he used the word "embryonically" and now he uses the word "dormant" and says that the heathen who are regenerated by the direct speaking of Christ to them gives them but a "little" understanding of him or his word, or only "dim ideas" about the way of salvation. You would think that the preaching of Christ could do better than that. I have heard about Arminians saying that every man had a "spark" of divinity, but in the words of Sarrels we see how his kind of "regeneration" only gives a very small spark of spiritual life and knowledge of God. 

Sarrels also wrote:

"We have the mind of Christ," says Paul (I Cor. 2:16)...However embryonic this mind of Christ may be in one's conscious life, even among civilized people, or however indistinct and distorted this may be in saved people who have no knowledge of Christ in the gospel sense, the mind of Christ is there; as something absolutely native to the new creation, it is there in every person on earth. Paul did not preach ANOTHER God to the men of Athens who had gathered on Mars' Hill; he preached to them the very God WHOM THEY INGNORANTLY WORSHIPPED." (pg. 423)

Here again he uses that word "embryonic." He also speaks of people who are saved but "who have no knowledge of Christ in the gospel sense." Saved without knowledge of Christ? What does he mean by "in a gospel sense"? Is he saying that one can know Christ but not in a gospel sense? Notice also how Sarrels parrots the view of Cayce. Sarrels was a young man when Cayce was an old man, and Cayce at one time chastised Sarrels for being a young whippersnapper. Further, if Cayce and Hassell are right, those regenerated by the preaching of the Gospel by Christ do have knowledge of Christ in a gospel sense.

Sarrels wrote:

"Not only does this view limit salvation to areas where the gospel is preached; it actually limits salvation to those who believe the gospel and obey it. (As the Scriptures themselves do!) The Moslems, the Buddhists, the Brahmans, and all other non-Christian adherents, even in gospel lands, are according to the strict sense of this view doomed. Not only this--strictly interpreted and applied, this view would exclude Jews and Unitarians, and, by some, even Catholics, who do not believe what is preached (like the gospel?) as some religious groups would present the matter. These are hard facts which need to be placed before the world. For reasons which are but briefly alluded to in some parts of the work, but developed more fully in other parts, we hold that God, despite the teachings of man, saves his chosen people all over the world." (page 434)

But if Cayce and Hassell are right, then salvation is limited to where the gospel is preached for Christ preaches the gospel to everyone in regenerating them. He then says that Muslims and Polytheists of every kind are regenerated even though they know nothing of the gospel, or even reject it.

Wrote Sarrels:

"This view makes God's system of operations to be less efficient than Satan's system of operations. No one denies that Satan carries on his work all over the world without the use of documents, preachers, or witnesses. Out in slum districts, in gangland's hide-outs, in vice centers, and in areas of the world where the Bible is unknown, this arch enemy of God is driving day and night to further his cause. And Satan does this by working directly and immediately in the hearts of men." (ibid)

Elder Daily in one of his debates, with W.P. Thorgmorton I believe, made this same argument, and even had a chart to illustrate the point. I also believe that Cayce was Daily's moderator in that debate. I have addressed this argument before. This argument would force them into Universalism, or mighty close to it. This argument says that unless Christ saves more than Satan destroys that Christ fails. We could throw out a thousand examples that would overthrow this line of reasoning but this post is getting far too long. 

Notice also that he says that Satan works "directly and immediately in the hearts of men." That may be true, but he also works through men and demons, and must do so because he is not omnipresent. 

So, are Muslims saved even though they reject the Gospel? Are Polytheists saved even though they do not believe in one God, Yahweh, Father, Son, and Spirit? Are they really believers in Jesus and the gospel on the subconscious level but not on the conscious level? The Bible is clear that all who believe not, or know not, God and Jesus, will be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." (II Thess. 1: 9) 

In Hardshell teaching about salvation they are preaching "another gospel" and are therefore "enemies of the cross of Christ." (See Gal. 1: 8; Phil. 3: 18) To tell Muslims, Buddhists, and Polytheists that they are saved is to oppose the teaching of Christ and do much harm.