I am not the first and I will not be the last to ponder the question, “but what about those who never hear the gospel?” While Christians broadly agree that a person can only be saved by the atoning work of Jesus, there is disagreement over whether a person must have had explicit, conscious faith in Jesus to be saved. Exclusivism answers yes to that question. Inclusivists answer “not necessarily”. Rather than rehash the entire debate, I just want to highlight one argument that I think is problematic for the exclusivist position.

The question arises of just how to interpret references to “every tribe and language and people and nation” in Revelation chapters 5 and 7. It seems to me that the exclusivist position demands that either the word “every” be understood to exclude peoples who existed and died out before the time of Christ, or they have to concede, that somehow, people groups with no known access to God’s promises or his special revelation could have been saved. This seems to force those who hold this position into speculating about how God must have used dreams or visions of some kind to provide a sufficient revelation that saving faith could grab onto.

Or maybe he didn’t do that and people from those tribes were still somehow saved? So, if “every” is indeed every, then what of it?

While writing this post, I asked an AI engine, “Do you know of any teachers or theologians or pastors who hold the exclusivist position who do explicitly address the problem of extinct pre-Christian tribes and specifically how it relates to revelation chapters 5 and 7?”

The response I got back was, “No, no exclusivist theologians, pastors, or teachers explicitly addressing extinct pre-Christian tribes as a direct challenge to Revelation 5:9 or 7:9’s universality appear in sourced materials.”