How could a just God put a man in a place where he is unable to hear about Jesus and then send him to hell?

Answer:

I'm glad that the lesson piqued your interest, even though you don't agree with the conclusion.

First off, I must point out that this isn't a matter of your God or my God. Such an attitude relegates God to be a creation of man rather than the other way around. There is only one God and He gave us only one message to be taught (Ephesians 4:4-6). I proved my points from God's Word, you did not; yet, you suggest that I ought to stop serving the God found in the Bible. From my viewpoint, such is humorously unthinkable.

Second, God is just, not because I said so. Justice is a part of God's nature. "Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: Far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity. For He repays man according to his work, and makes man to find a reward according to his way. Surely God will never do wickedly, nor will the Almighty pervert justice" (Job 34:10-12).

Let's humor your position a moment. Let's assume there is some other route to salvation other than through Jesus, even though Jesus clearly stated, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).

To earn heaven, a person would need to never do wrong; an impossibility since everyone sins whether they have God's law or not (Romans 3:23). One slip and he will have incurred a debt that he cannot repay. "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:26). The person who incurred the debt cannot repay it. He has nothing to offer. There is nothing in this life which he can give God because he can take nothing from this life. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). All he has is himself and he has already sold himself to sin. "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. ... O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:14,24). All men, on their own, have never been able to save themselves from the pit of sin they dug and fell into.

But instead of seeing men in a predicament from which God in His great goodness sent His Son to rescue (Romans 5:8), you wish to claim it is God's fault. In your hypothetical situation, you claim it is God who places a person in a place he is unable to hear the Gospel. Why not blame the man for living so isolated? Or the man's ancestors for choosing to live without contact with the rest of the world? But the reality is that there isn't a place where the Gospel has not reached and cannot be known. "But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: 'Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world'" (Romans 10:18). Hypothetical situations are not proof and in this particular case, the situation isn't likely.

The reality is that people who do not hear the Gospel cannot be saved. They are lost because they have sinned and have no means of rescuing themselves. It is for this reason Christians are so eager to spread the good news. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20). People's eternal lives depend on that teaching.