Are There Only a Few Who Will Be Saved?

It is often wondered whether a few or many will be saved:

There are some questions about matters that we find in Scripture which cannot be answered with fool-proof finality. Sometimes we can only speculate, based on whatever biblical evidence is available to us. One such question has to do with the issue of how many people will ultimately be saved. Even here, we must just break things down into broad categories: will most folks be saved, or will only some folks be saved?

We of course cannot put down any percentages, let alone figures. God alone knows how many people will spend eternity with him, and how many will not. And Scripture itself seems to give us various sorts of answers. For example, some specific texts from the gospels seem to make the case that few will be saved. I refer to these passages.

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

Matthew 22:14 For many are called, but few are chosen.

Luke 13:23-24 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

Then again we have some New Testament passages that seem to speak differently, such as:

Matthew 13:31–32 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Revelation 7:9-10 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Revelation 19:6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.”

So which is it? Other texts could be appealed to here. And some general biblical principles must be considered as well. One is the doctrine of the remnant that is found throughout Scripture. Consider one famous story: Noah and the flood. Only a small remnant – eight people – survived while the rest were drowned.

Passages such as Isaiah 1:9 could also be mentioned: “Unless the LORD Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” And in texts such as Romans 9-11 we read about how only a remnant of Israel will be saved. Thus this idea of a remnant has to be considered in this discussion.

But so too do biblical truths such as God’s great mercy. A well-known passage like Exodus 20:4-6 can be cited: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

There are many other texts like this, such as Lamentations 3:22-23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” That is wonderful news indeed, but we must appeal to the whole counsel of God here.

Thus we have a divergence of biblical data to draw from. If you look at commentators and theologians you will find a corresponding diversity of opinions on the matter. Before looking at a few of them, some general remarks should be made. In the first passage I featured, we know that the words of Jesus were addressed to fellow Jews.

They had the idea that they were such a unique and privileged people that of course they would all be saved. Jesus is warning against this smugness, complacency and presumption. If they are indeed God’s special people, then they should be the first to respond to the message of Jesus. But most of them did not.

And what precedes Matthew 22:14 is the parable of the wedding feast. God invites all sorts of people to join the kingdom, but many refuse the offer. Our response to the gospel invitation also plays a major role here. We are responsible for the choices that we make.

But getting back to the key question, let me offer two differing views. Both men I run with here are in the Reformed camp, but they come to quite different conclusions on this matter. R. C. Sproul in his expository commentary on Luke takes a pessimistic view. He writes:

Did you ever wonder what proportion of fallen humanity will make it to heaven? Is it the majority of humankind that God saves, or is it but a remnant? What percentage of your friends and neighbors will go to heaven and what percentage will spend eternity in hell? Have you ever asked that question seriously? I believe very few people think about that in any degree because we live in a pluralistic culture. The assumption is that most, if not all, people who die will go to heaven. Perhaps God is so kind, so tenderhearted, so merciful that His eternal plan is to save the vast majority of mankind. I hope that’s the case, but I have little reason to believe it.

 

It seems to me that the Scripture is overwhelming in its teaching to the contrary, and that the vast majority of people who have ever lived are either now or will soon be in hell forever. Can you even begin to bear such a thought?

But B. B. Warfield in his rather famous 1915 article, “Are They Few That Be Saved?” takes a much more optimistic stance. You can find it in the 1968 volume of essay, Biblical and Theological Studies (P&R, pp. 334-350). His closing paragraph reads as follows:

These theologians include—to go no further afield—such honored names among prophets of our own as Charles Hodge, Robert L. Dabney and William G. T. Shedd. “We have reason to believe,” writes Charles Hodge, “… that the number finally lost in comparison with the whole number of the saved will be very inconsiderable. Our blessed Lord, when surrounded by the innumerable company of the redeemed, will be hailed as the ‘Salvator Hominum,’ the Saviour of men, as the Lamb that bore the sins of the world.” Robert L. Dabney, expressing regret that the fact has been “too little pressed” “that ultimately the vast majority of the whole mass of humanity, including all generations, will be actually redeemed by Christ,” adds: “There is to be a time, blessed be God, when literally all the then world will be saved by Christ, when the world will be finally, completely and wholly lifted by Christ out of the gulf, to sink no more. So that there is a sense, most legitimate, in which Christ is the prospective Saviour of the world.” “Two errors, therefore,” remarks W. G. T. Shedd, “are to be avoided: First, that all men are saved; secondly, that only a few men are saved…. Some … have represented the number of the reprobated as greater than that of the elect, or equal to it. They found this upon the word of Christ, ‘Many are called, but few are chosen.’ But this describes the situation at the time when our Lord spake, and not the final result of His redemptive work. But when Christ shall have ‘seen of the travail of His soul’ and been ‘satisfied’ with what he has seen; when the whole course of the Gospel shall be complete, and shall be surveyed from beginning to end, it will be found that God’s elect, or church, is ‘a great multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues,’ and that their voice is as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.’ Rev. 7:9; 19:6”

Of course many other believers have weighed in on this topic. Just one more quote: someone also taking a more pessimistic view is Leonard Ravenhill: “I doubt that more than two percent of professing Christians in the United States are truly born again.”

At the very least such remarks should give us all cause for concern. But Philip Graham Ryken offers some fitting and wise closing words for us. Commenting on the Luke 13 passage he says this:

Instead of speculating about the relative numbers of the lost and the saved, Jesus made the issue personal and practical. Addressing the entire crowd, he said, “Strive to enter through the narrow door” (Luke 13:24). Cyril of Alexandria comments that Jesus is “Purposely silent to the useless question,” but “proceeds to speak of what was essential.” What was and is essential is the destiny of one’s own eternal soul. Rather than trying to figure out what God will do with somebody else, the most important question for me to address is my own personal relationship with Jesus Christ: Am I certain that I have walked through the door that leads to eternal life? Do I know for sure that I will be saved? Whether God saves many people or only a few, the important thing for me is to make sure that I have eternal life.

Quite so. That is something I hope and pray all my readers will deal with most earnestly.

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