Isn't living by the light you have enough?
What creation and conscience can do, and what they cannot.
The short answer Settled
No. Creation and conscience can leave a person without excuse, but they cannot save him. They show that God is, and that a person has sinned against Him; they do not tell him the gospel. No one lives up even to the light he has, so no one can save himself by it. Faith that saves comes by hearing the message about Christ. The person who hears it changes his mind about what saves him: he stops depending on himself and depends on Christ.
What creation and conscience can do
Paul names what creation's witness leads to: "so that they are without excuse" (). The result is no excuse, not salvation. Conscience carries the work of God's law, and Paul says what the law does: it speaks "that every mouth may be stopped," for "by the law is the knowledge of sin" (). It shows a person his sin; it does not forgive it. A mirror can show a person how dirty his face is, but it cannot wash it. Neither creation nor conscience tells a person that Christ died for his sins and rose again.
Nor does anyone live up to the light he has. Paul says to the person who judges others by it, "you who judge practice the same things" (). By God's measure, not his own, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (). So no one can save himself by the light he has. The message about Christ calls him to change his mind about what saves him: to stop depending on himself and depend on God's Son. Scripture calls that turn repentance, and it is the same turn as believing (see What must a person do to be saved?).
Faith comes by hearing
Paul runs the chain backward. "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved" (), but "how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" (). He sums it up: "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (). Creation shows a Maker. It does not preach the One to believe in.
God chose to save that way. "The world through wisdom did not know God," so "it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe" (). In Athens, Paul met people who worshipped "without knowing," and he did not leave them there: "Him I proclaim to you" ().
Cornelius
Cornelius had far more than creation and conscience. He was "a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always" (). Peter said that "in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him" (), meaning God welcomes such a person from any nation. Yet the angel had told Cornelius that Peter "will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved" (). He would be saved when he heard and believed, not before. Peter's message was that "whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins" ().
The usual objection
Many people hold that God will accept anyone who sincerely follows the light he has. A person who sees God's hand in nature, worships Him as best he knows, and lives by his conscience is, on this view, already on his way to God, whatever he has heard about Jesus. If creation and conscience truly show God, as this study has said, then surely they are enough.
The light creation and conscience give is real. But Scripture says what that light does: it takes away a person's defense and shows him his sin. When Paul says "these times of ignorance God overlooked" (), he does not mean that people in those times were not accountable, or that their ignorance saved them. He means God was patient. In those generations He "allowed all nations to walk in their own ways" () and did not yet judge them for it. They were still guilty: "as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law" (). Yet the door was open then too. Gentiles who believed a word God sent them were received: Rahab, who had heard what the LORD did and confessed Him as "God in heaven above and on earth beneath" (), and the people of Nineveh in Jonah's day, who "believed God" when Jonah preached (). Jesus Himself says they "will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah" (). Like Cornelius, they were received through a word from God, not through the light they already had. What changed is that God's call now goes out to everyone. The same verse goes straight on: God "now commands all men everywhere to repent."
The words behind it
| Word | Where | Form | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀναπολογήτους anapologētous, "without excuse" (Strong's 379) | Adjective | Without a defense. Creation takes away a person's defense; it does not acquit him. | |
| ἐπίγνωσις epignōsis, "the knowledge" (1922) | Noun | Full knowledge. The law makes sin known; it does not declare anyone righteous. | |
| ἀκοῆς akoēs, "hearing" (189), and ῥήματος rhēmatos, "the word" (4487) | Nouns, genitive singular | What is heard, and a spoken word: a message. | |
| κηρύγματος kērygmatos, "the message preached" (2782) | Noun, genitive singular | The thing proclaimed, not something people reason out for themselves. | |
| δεκτὸς dektos, "accepted" (1184) | Adjective | Welcome, acceptable to God. It is not the word for saved. | |
| σωθήσῃ sōthēsē, "will be saved" (4982) | Future passive indicative | Future: Cornelius would be saved by the words Peter spoke, not before. | |
| ὑπεριδὼν hyperidōn, "overlooked" (5237) | Second aorist active participle | To look past, to let something go by without acting on it. It is not a word for forgiving or excusing. |
No textual variants affect the conclusion.
This study checks the Greek Received Text against the Majority Text, and the written Hebrew against its traditional reading. If a difference could change a conclusion, this note explains it. Otherwise it says that none does.