Will God Save The Honest Who Do Not Fully Obey?
All that men can know about this matter is just what the Lord tells us, and he has never told us in one single instance that he will save any except those who do his will. If it shall turn out to be right that some who do not do his will shall be saved, it will be certain to be done; but this matter is wholly with the Lord, and he has not told us anything about it. It is not very easy to discover how men who have the word of God and know how to read it and have strictly honest hearts can fail to understand what God would have them do. The same book that tells us of God and of heaven and the plan of salvation provided through our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in equal plainness what we are required to do in order to be saved; and where the Bible is not, nothing is known of salvation, anyway.
The New Testament tells us what Jesus did to prepare the plan of salvation in language as plain as anything was ever told to humanity. None who reads Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John can fail to understand that Jesus died, shed his blood for the remission of sins, was buried, and rose again from the dead. Nothing was ever more plainly or more intelligibly told than the story of the cross is told by these men. In the commission as given by these men and in Acts of Apostles the conditions upon which men were to be saved are expressed with equal plainness; and in the immediate connection with the conditions upon which we are to be saved we are plainly told that if we do not do them we shall be condemned. "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 16:16.) Who that can understand the gospel, the plan of salvation, can fail to understand these declarations of the Son of God?
Again, all men are commanded to repent, and Jesus says: "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. All these things are just as plain as language can make them; and in these things what room is there for a sincere, honest heart to make a mistake — to fail to understand them? So when brethren apologize for the honestly mistaken in the matter of becoming a Christian, it must be upon the principle that they, with honest hearts and the word of God before them and with all the advantages at their command to understand the truth and with the very best efforts they can make, still fail to understand just what God would have them do. Some of our good brethren presume that this will be the case with some; and then seem, if possible, more anxious to make out some way by which God will save this class than they are to make known the plain word of the Lord, by which he promises with the most perfect certainty to save all who do what he requires.
We do not see any reason why any who have mind enough to be responsible, and who entirely free themselves from prejudice, should fail to understand, nor is there any intimation in the word of God that there will be any such; and hence there is no intimation that any will be saved, except in obedience to the truth, to the plain requirements made in the gospel of Christ. For any man to claim that there are any such cases is for him to simply express his own opinion where there is no expression of the word of God; and then for any one to say not only that there are such, but that the Lord will save them, anyhow, though they have not fully obeyed him, is purely a matter of presumption. The word of God nowhere says any such thing, and for a man to say so is virtually to apologize for sin — for rebellion against God. We think it both dangerous and sinful for any preacher to intimate that God will forgive the sins of any except in accordance with the teaching of the apostles as recorded in the New Testament...
So far as being saved through honesty is concerned, Paul had just as high claims to that as any man can have now when he was persecuting the church. He says he verily thought he ought to do it. Yet he tells us afterwards that he was chief of sinners, and that he obtained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. So far from his honesty saving him when he did contrary to the will of God, it only opened the way for him, to obtain pardon when he obeyed the truth, which could not have been done but for his honesty. But had he continued through life, as thousands of the Jews did, to persecute the church, rejecting the gospel, then how? Suppose the Lord had not determined to make an apostle out of him and had just allowed him to go in his persecutions as he did others, would he then have been saved? Most certainly not, when he was chief of sinners, as he himself said, Who, then, is saved in error?
Men should leave off these opinions and preach the word of God, and then all would be well. It is, therefore, certain that none have the promise of salvation except those whose sins are remitted by the apostles — that is, by the gospel which they preached and as they preached it.