We are told seriously that "there is no other name given under heaven, nor among men, whereby we may be saved except Jesus Christ." And that in order to be saved, we must believe in him as the only begotten Son of God, and in the atoning sacrifice of his death for our sins. Here I seriously inquired: If the salvation of the human race is entirely and exclusively dependent upon faith in the merits of the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice, what became of all the people who died before his coming? Orthodoxy answers that they were saved by faith in the _Promised Savior to come_, as given to Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. If so, how many were saved? The Jewish nation never looked for a spiritual Messiah. It was always a temporal one. There is no evidence that they ever had the remotest conception of a Messiah that was to make a vicarious atoning sacrifice of himself for them. Hence their faith in this promise was in vain. It was not the kind that saves, according to orthodoxy. An occasional prophet, like Isaiah or Jeremiah, or some others, _might_ have so understood and believed it. But very few, if any, others did. Then the great mass of "God's chosen people" are now in hell; for they did not believe _rightly_; and all the balance of the world is there because they never heard of such a promise and hence did not believe at all! But the question here arises, If salvation from Abraham to Christ was secured by faith in the promised Messiah _to come_; and which, as we have just seen, according to orthodox definitions, was practically a complete failure; how were they saved from the time of Adam until the promise made to Abraham?