What About People Who Lived Before Jesus?

The short answer: People in Old Testament times were saved the same way we are: by God’s grace, through trusting Him. Abraham believed God’s promise, and God counted him righteous. They looked forward to a Saviour they hadn’t yet seen; we look back to the One who has come.

Here’s a puzzle. If Jesus is the only way to God, what about Abraham, Moses, Ruth or David? They lived centuries before Jesus was born. They never heard His name, never read the New Testament, never heard of the cross. Were they saved? And if so, how?

(Book 1 answered what about people who never hear about Jesus. This is a different question: what about the believers who came before Him?)

Abraham believed

Start with Abraham, about two thousand years before Jesus. God promised the childless old man that his family would be as many as the stars. And then comes one of the most important sentences in the whole Bible: “Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

Notice what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say Abraham kept enough rules. The Law of Moses hadn’t even been given yet. Abraham trusted God’s promise, and God counted him as right with Him.

Paul builds his whole explanation of the gospel on that verse: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3). And he says those words “were written not only for Abraham, but also for us, to whom righteousness will be credited—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Romans 4:23–24). Same way in, for him and for us.

Looking forward

What did Abraham believe in? More than he could see. Paul says that God “foretold the gospel to Abraham” (Galatians 3:8). Jesus Himself said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

The believers of the Old Testament didn’t know the name Jesus or the details of the cross. But they trusted the God who had promised to rescue them, and every promise He made was pointing to Christ. After the resurrection, Jesus walked with two disciples and, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself” (Luke 24:27).

Even the prophets didn’t fully understand what they were writing. They “searched and investigated carefully” (1 Peter 1:10), trying to work out when and how God’s promised Saviour would come.

What about the sacrifices?

Weren’t Old Testament people saved by sacrificing animals? Not really. Hebrews says plainly, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). The sacrifices were like a picture, or a signpost: something dies in someone else’s place. They taught God’s people to trust Him to deal with sin, and they pointed ahead to the real sacrifice.

So when Jesus died, His death reached backwards as well as forwards. Paul says that God presented Jesus as the atoning sacrifice “because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand” (Romans 3:25), waiting for the cross. Hebrews says Christ died “to redeem them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). The believers of the Old Testament were forgiven on credit, you might say, and the bill was paid at Calvary.

The great crowd of Hebrews 11

Hebrews 11 lists a whole crowd of these people: Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, even Rahab, a Canaanite woman with a bad reputation, who “did not perish with those who were disobedient” (Hebrews 11:31). It says of them, “All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar” (Hebrews 11:13).

And then the chapter ends with something beautiful: “God had planned something better for us, so that together with us they would be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40). They aren’t a separate group with a separate deal. They’re part of the same family as you, saved by the same Saviour, waiting for the same resurrection.

That also answers a quieter worry. If God has always saved people by grace through faith, then salvation has never been about being good enough, in any age. It has always been a gift.

Think about it: Abraham trusted God’s promise before he could see how it would be kept. Is there a promise of God you’re being asked to trust before you can see the ending?

Go deeper: The Big Story — this chapter walks through God’s call and covenant promise to Abraham, showing that he was counted right with God by trusting the promise and that the same way in is open to anyone, from any family, who trusts Jesus. Start with chapter 5, “A Promise to Abraham”.