This is Katie from Montana again. I'm just reading through John, and in John 15, 22, Jesus says, if I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for sin. And then in 25, or no, 24, he says, if I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my father. My question is, how does this not contradict what Paul says in Romans, where it says, no one is without excuse because they have seen through nature and through what has been created, they can see God's glory and are without excuse. And Paul also, somewhere in Romans, talks about how even those without the law are a law to themselves. So I'm confused about Jesus' words here in these two verses because to me this seems to be saying if they haven't heard or if they hadn't seen these things of Jesus then they would not be guilty of sin so I guess my question is related to people in unreached people groups what do we always understood it through the lens of Romans that they are still guilty and held accountable because of their sin before God. But when I read these verses from Jesus, I'm second-guessing that. So I'd appreciate any insight you have. Thanks, and talk to you later.

Okay, thank you, Katie. This is another one of those—my introduction was meant to lay a predicate for my response, that sometimes there are things that Jesus says that are very difficult to understand. Now, we do have a principle in biblical interpretation, which is based on a high view of Scripture. A high view of Scripture is that you see a brother of Scripture as God's Word, that it's inspired, God breathed, that God gave these words through the disciples in some unique fashion, not a dictation. But nevertheless, their words become God's words, and God's words are spoken through them. Okay, that's a high view of Scripture. Now, if that's a sound view of Scripture, then God, being the author, is not going to contradict himself in fundamental ways between different passages. And so the principle is to try to find a way to harmonize the passages. All right? We do this, it's a common thing, by the way, that we do with people in general. We're thinking of somebody who said something odd, and it might be understood one way, and we think, well, wait a minute, you heard him say that? Well, that couldn't have been what he meant, because I know this person, and I know that's not his view. His view is X, Y, Z, which undermines or contradicts what you just told me you think he meant when he said whatever. And so what we try to do is we try to harmonize it. He must have meant this, Because I know, because of these other statements are so clear, what his view is in this. So when he made this comment, he must have meant something like this. And sometimes it's a speculation. You're thinking, well, maybe it's this, maybe it was that. Gosh, I'm not sure. But I don't think you got it right. Because I know that's out of this view. So when you come to a circumstance where you're trying to harmonize a person's comments, or especially God's Word, we're trying to treat it charitably, assume, well, they're not crazy, they're not contradicting themselves. Humans can do that, of course, and live inconsistently and say inconsistent things at different times. I'm just using that as an example that this is a normal thing to try to do, to try to harmonize in a charitable way. In God's word, though, we have this strong understanding that this is God's words. And so he's not going to contradict himself. There must be something we're missing. All right. Now, so when I come to this text, and I've read this a number of times, and I've wondered myself, but this has got a question mark here right after the passage. You know, if I had come, rather, if I had not come, If I had, verse 22, if I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. Now, there is a marginal reference here in my New American Standard. It says, i.e., guilt. That is, the translators think that Jesus is not referring to a mere act of sin, which we're all sinners, but culpability for their rejection. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, i.e. guilt, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Verse 24, then, if I had not, maybe I'll just read it through. I just skipped 23 because it doesn't seem to be part of the question, but I'll just say it because it's important. They would have no excuse for their sin. Then he says, he who hates me hates my father also. Hmm. Continuing, if I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin, once again, guilt. But now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well. Okay, so Jesus is making the point that he's representing the Father, and he says a number of times, if you reject me, you are rejecting the Father who sent me. So you Jews who say you love the Father but not me, I have a demon, you don't love the Father. That's Jesus' point there. Now, this is the upper room discourse. He's explaining to his disciples about this. So then later on we read Paul, and he's talking about humanity, and that humanity has enough evidence to know that there is a God. He's referring to God the Father there. And this broad humanity doesn't know about the Son, but they have already rejected the Father before they even got to the Son. So they are without excuse for rejecting the Father. They don't have guilt for rejecting the Son because they have never heard of the Son. They have guilt for rejecting the Father who everyone has heard from. This is Paul's argument in Romans 1. He also picks this up later on, chapter 9 or 10 or something like that, where people say, well, we haven't heard. He said, of course you've heard. And then he quotes the Psalms, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and his voice has gone out through all the creation. There is a sense in which they've heard, heard enough for culpability. So this is actually rather clear, it seems to me. In Romans, Paul is talking about general revelation and how human beings suppress the truth and unrighteousness, and consequently are held guilty. They are without excuse, all right? So then what is Jesus saying? Is Jesus contradicting Paul? I don't think so, because he's not talking about natural revelation and God's presence writ large in the creation, the rejection of the Father. He is specifically talking about rejection of the Son as evidence of rejection of the Father. And so, here's my attempt at reconciling these two passages. I think what may be the case, and I'm not absolutely sure, of course, because sometimes this requires speculation, but there is a way to harmonize it. And it may be that what Jesus, and it does seem this way given the flow of thought here, it may be that what Jesus is saying is, you are guilty for rejecting me, and your rejection of me is a rejection of the Father. The unreached people groups, they are just guilty of rejecting the Father. That is culpable. That is blameworthy. They are worthy of judgment. They are without excuse. But it's worse for the Pharisees, because the Pharisees had Jesus, God incarnate, the Messiah, come to them and directly speak with them, and then work the kind of miracles that no one has ever worked. And their conclusion was that he was demon-possessed. Now, that's in another passage, but that's it. And so this rejection of Jesus is evidence of the rejection of the Father, and they are guilty of both. Now, there's a principle that can be drawn inductively from the Gospels and other passages, too, that different people have different sins, and some sins are greater than others, and therefore they're greater than others. There's going to be greater judgment. When Jesus was there before Pilate, he said, the one who has delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Probably referring there not to Judas, but to the high priest. The high priest delivered me over to you. He's the one who's got greater sin. Notice he's indicating he's got greater sin. Why would it be greater than, say, Pilate's decree of execution for Jesus? Because the high priest had more revelation. Jesus says in Capernaum, he said, you know, if the miracles that have occurred before you had occurred in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Therefore, it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for you. So here's the principle that we take back from that. When you have greater revelation, you have greater responsibility and greater culpability, therefore greater punishment. No one had greater revelation than those who were standing there with Jesus, watching Jesus do incredible miracles. Yet, in the face of those incredible miracles, in the teeth of them, indeed, they not only did not trust him, but they sought to kill him. And they sought to kill him precisely because he was giving the evidence that he was the true Messiah. Now, how do I know that? Because that's what it says in either the end of John 11 or the beginning of John 12. Remember, John 11 is when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Now, this is a stupendous miracle. In fact, made more stupendous because Jesus delayed. He had raised other people from the dead, the little girl, Talitha Kumi, little girl arise, Aramaic, it's right there in the text. And, well, that was pretty cool. But he did that in private. You know, he put people out, and then he went in there with his disciples and then raised the dead. But the resurrection of Lazarus, rather, that was public. And Jesus, it appears, actually waited longer. He knew Lazarus was sick. He could have gone right away and healed him. That's what Lazarus's sister, Mary or Martha, said to him. I get it mixed up. He said, if you had been here, he would have died. That's what he said believe. I am the resurrection and the life. It's a magnificent conversation. Jesus seems to have delayed on purpose so that Lazarus would die, so that he could do this amazing miracle. By the time he gets there, I think he was up in Judea, by the time he gets back to the Galilee, it's been three days since Lazarus has been buried. This guy's dead. He's dead as a doornail dead. He stinks, which is what the text says. Oh, move the stone. No, he stinks. Move the stone. Now, Jesus raised him from the dead. Oh, that was an OMG moment, right? And so all of these multitudes saw them, and they believed. So many of them, but not everybody. That's when the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees, they got together and made a pact to make sure that Jesus was killed. They knew, they saw, they were aware of the fact of Lazarus's resurrection. And the reason we know this for sure is because they didn't just plot Jesus' death, execution, murder. They didn't plot to kill Jesus, only they also wanted to kill Lazarus, because Lazarus was walking, breathing, talking testimony of the power of Jesus to raise the dead, and therefore confirm his messianic claim. I call it unbelievable unbelief, right? And so here we've just got this amazing circumstance that these are people who have the most incredible amount of revelation, unmatched by anybody else regarding Jesus, except for maybe the disciples, but certainly, because disciples are there for everything. But certainly plenty of amazing things. Remember, Jesus said it this way. If I had not come spoken to them, they would not have guilt. We know they're sinners. All of sin and fall short of the glory of God. They wouldn't have guilt regarding the rejection of Jesus. But now they have no excuse for that sin. Paraphrase a little bit there. He who hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin, guilt, guilt of rejecting the Son. But now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well. The Jewish leadership who are complicit in the death execution of Jesus and the rejection of Christ, they had a double portion of guilt and therefore are going to receive a double portion of judgment. They would not have guilt for rejecting the Son if the Son had not made the display before them that he did. Just like the unreached peoples who die apart from Christ will not have guilt for rejecting Christ. They will have rejected the Father, but not Christ. But even in their cases, when they are judged, it's clear the basis upon what they're judging. This is not Pauline, this is Joannine. John, the same guy who wrote the Gospel of John, wrote the book of Revelation. And when you go to the last couple chapters of the book of Revelation, chapter 20, you have the great white throne judgment, and there it is, the books are open. The books of death, I call them, in contrast to the book of life. And the books of death record all of the deeds of all of the people who ever lived, and all of them are there standing at the judgment. And the text says clearly they were judged according to their deeds. They were found guilty. It doesn't matter where they lived or when they lived, they had deeds that were sinful before a holy God who they should have known better than to sin before. Either known better because of God's general revelation, Romans 1, and the existence of the Father, but instead they, as Paul puts it, suppress that truth in unrighteousness, or they should have known better because they had Jesus right there telling them, working stupendous miracles like nobody else ever did, and they still sought to kill him, concluding that he was demon-possessed. Now, I think that was just an excuse. I don't think they really thought he was demon-possessed. I think this is just their way of dissing him so they didn't have to deal with what he was saying. And for this, they have an extra measure of guilt that they would not have had without those revelations, and therefore they will be judged for rejecting the Son who has made himself so powerfully evident to them and rejecting the Father who he represents. Double duty, double whammy, double guilt, double judgment. I think that's what Jesus is referring to there, but I could be mistaken. But that would be a way of harmonizing, and it does make sense with a whole bunch of other passages. So, Catherine, Katie, you can decide whether you think that's helpful or not. Thank you so much for your calls. Greg Kokel here for Stand to Reason. Give them heaven. Bye-bye now.