My topic is, "Is Christ Really the Only Way?" And I want to start with just two texts. First is
a text about Christ and it is Acts chapter 4 verse 12. In here, both Peter and John are talking, and
Peter is talking specifically mentioning the name of Jesus Christ. And this is what Peter says:
"And there is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
Now, I don't know how Peter could be more clear
to say that salvation is exclusively in Jesus Christ. He is the only name. There is no other way
by which we can be saved. So, that is a little testimony from Peter. I want to go back, though,
and focus our attention on the words of Christ Himself and this comes from John chapter 14 to 16.
This is really a crucial moment in the life of Christ on earth. This is His final time with
the disciples. At the conclusion of this, He is going to be arrested and is going to be off to the
trial. Then it is going to be the crucifixion and the resurrection. So, this is right there at the
end of Christ's earthly ministry, a very intimate moment of Christ with His disciples, and He just
informed them that He is going to be leaving. And Thomas sort of speaks up for the group and
he expresses all this anxiety of the disciples that their Master is going to be leaving them.
And to Thomas this is what Jesus says. This is verse six of John chapter 14.
"Jesus said to him," that is Thomas, "'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through Me." So, this is a very clear statement that Jesus is making. In fact,
we could say that these three statements are a radical truth claim. Jesus is saying, "I am the."
So, first we have got to catch that. It is the definite article, not "a way," not "a truth,"
not "a life." It is "the," the definite article. And I know it is a Saturday and
we shouldn't be talking about English grammar, but we will. So, it is the definite article.
Each one of these is also in the singular. So, this is a radical, absolute truth claim
that Jesus is making, and we need to just come to grips with how this statement is received
and the way it is heard in this moment in which we live, in this cultural moment.
This statement is seen as an ultimate statement of arrogance. It is seen as a
statement of intolerance. Jesus, by claiming to be the exclusive way to the Father,
no one gets to God except through Jesus Christ. We call that exclusivity. He is the exclusive way.
To say that is an incredible intolerant thing to say is what we would see in our culture because
you are saying by definition then that all other ways are false, all other ways will not get you
there. That these religions are not true; there is only one true religion. And so, you will hear
this time and time again that the Christian gospel is arrogant, the Christian gospel is intolerant.
So, here is the first thing I just sort of want to drive home to you, and then we will unpack it,
we will prove it, but I just want you to grasp this first concept, this initial concept to say
that "Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation" is not arrogance, to say that "Jesus Christ is the
only way of salvation" is not intolerant. It is in fact pure compassion. It is compassion and we will
see that because we will see that Jesus Christ really is the only one who can provide salvation.
So, by claiming what Jesus Christ can actually do for someone, that is not arrogance; that
is compassion. So, let us take a look at this a little bit. If we say that there are multiple ways
to heaven, if there are multiple ways, multiple truths, multiple religions that will get you
there, then we are bumping into what philosophers will call "the law of non-contradiction."
So, what is the law of non-contradiction? Well, briefly stated it says that "A cannot be
non-A" at the same time. Let us illustrate it. I can't eat my cake and have it too,
right? That is a contradiction. It would be great if I could be able to do that
and have like a never-ending piece of cake. That would be wonderful. I could always eat my cake,
but I would always have it. But that is a contradiction,
and this is just reflective of life. It is reflective of the world in which we live.
I can't say it is raining outside if it is not raining outside. That is a truly false statement.
And so, when we look at this claim that well, all religions, they are basically teaching the same
thing, and so you can't really say one religion is true and one is false, it doesn't really matter
which particular religion you believe, you know, as long as you are a good person.
In order for that to be true, you have to totally set aside
the law of non-contradiction. And here is why. These religions are not complementary.
These religious claims of the various religions, they are not complementary. They don't sort of
mesh in and coincide and fit together. They flat out contradict each other.
The God of Christianity is the trinitarian God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Now, that is in total contradiction
to Judaism that flat out rejects the deity of Christ. It is also a contradiction
to the religion of Islam. Islam speaks of God as Allah, as "The Sovereign One," and it speaks of
Christ as a prophet, but it denies the deity of Christ. It vehemently denies the deity of Christ.
And so, on this very basic, you'd say central, doctrine to Christianity or central doctrine to
Islam or central document to Judaism, they are not complementary; they are contradictory. And
going back to the law of non-contradiction, God can't be a trinitarian Being or the one
being of Islam or Judaism and both of those be true at the same time. When you think about
the way in which different religions, whether it is Judaism or Islam or Christianity or even
moving into the Eastern religions like Buddhism or Hinduism, and look at the notion of salvation,
well, they are not complementary either. In fact, each of these views are contradictory.
It is hard to even find a notion of salvation in terms of redemption in Eastern religions. In fact,
most Eastern religions are more about liberation, sort of liberating the soul from the body or
liberating the self from the material world. That is the ultimate goal, some kind of liberation.
In Christianity, the goal is redemption. In Christianity,
it is our sin has separated us from a holy God and Jesus is the substitute that reconciles us to God.
That concept of redemption is not even there in some of these Eastern formulations. So, this
idea that all religions are basically teaching the same thing, it doesn't work. You scratch
beneath the surface and what you find is they are not complementary; they are contradictory.
So now, this leaves us with a very important question, and the question is this. Okay,
so if they can't all be true, which one is true? Which of these religious claims is true? And now,
we are back to the question, "Is Jesus Christ really truly the only way of salvation?" Well,
let me just throw out two things for you; number one, the uniqueness of the Bible.
So, you take the Christian Bible and you compare that to any other religious text, and
you will be overwhelmed by the uniqueness of the Bible. It is unlike any other text. For one thing,
it was written over the span of twelve hundred years. It was written by thirty-nine authors.
It was written in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. And when you start
profiling these thirty-nine authors, I mean they are from all walks of life. You have got kings.
You have got people who would have been educated. Moses was educated by the tutors of Pharaoh in
Pharaoh's palace. He would have had the ultimate education at that moment in world history.
Paul had a stellar education. He too would have had the highest ultimate education at that moment
where Paul was in those early centuries AD. But then, you have people like Peter, this
fisherman in Acts chapter 4, who would have been totally what we would call today "blue-collar."
This guy would have gone right to vocational school and right into a job. And you have
other authors like that in the biblical text. You have Amos who says, "I am just a farmer. I am not
a prophet. I am not a son of a prophet. I am a farmer." And God called him to be a messenger.
So, you have this variety of authors, variety of languages, variety of geographic locations,
variety of centuries, and one book. I mean, think about that. One book. You know, if you were to
have four or five people write a biography of an American figure, George Washington, right,
four or five people write a biography, you would have all these interesting accounts,
you would have all these sort of even probably conflicting accounts, conflicting interpretations.
And that is just one person and just one story of it. What would it take to have thirty-nine authors
over all those centuries write a single unified story? No other religious text is like this.
And then the other thing is, you look at some of these texts like the Qur'an, these were
revelations that were given to Mohammed. Then he would write them down or he would recite
them rather, and they were recorded. You have the book of Mormon where you have these like tablets
that have a secret language, and Joseph Smith gets this sort of decoder ability to decode the
secret language, and nobody is aware of how this is happening and he is sort of doing it in secret.
This is not the Bible. The Bible is actually...it's like the Greek of the New
Testament, it's what they call "koine Greek." That means "common Greek." It is not even the language
of the scholars and the official language of the politicians of the day. It is just the language
of the people, the language of the marketplace. And the Bible takes place in geographical places.
You can go check this out. And the Bible deals in space and time. When Paul says that Jesus
rose from the dead and He was seen by five hundred people in 1 Corinthians 15, what he is saying to
his audience is, "Go check it out." There are people who saw Jesus, the resurrected Jesus,
and they are alive. They are here. There are eyewitnesses. Go, verify it. Right? This book
says verify its message. It is not happening behind a curtain; it is happening in space and
time. So, I think it is very easy to establish the uniqueness of the Bible. And so, if we establish
the uniqueness of the Bible, then I think it is worth our while to pay attention to it.
And now, this leads us to the second thing and that is the uniqueness of Christ's message, which
is to say the uniqueness of the gospel message. Now, you start comparing the gospel message
to any other message of any other religion, and you will be struck by the utter uniqueness
of Christianity. For one, all these other religions talk about everything that we must do.
They are basically works-oriented, whether it is even Roman Catholicism
or it is Judaism or it is Islam or it is some of these various cults that have come
along throughout the ages and are present in our day, it is all incumbent on what you do
to achieve some level of merit or to somehow merit the approval of God on your life, and into that is
Christianity's message of grace, that there is nothing that you can do to earn your salvation.
If you go back to 1 Peter 3:15 and read verse 16 and then read verse 17 and 18,
you will see that Christ is our sacrifice, that He, in His righteousness, took our unrighteousness
and bore that penalty upon Him on the cross, that is a unique message, and in fact we see it. And in
the few moments that we have remaining, I just want to walk through John 14:6 with you because
I think this will point out the uniqueness of the Christian message, and I think it might help you.
It might give you some things that you can be able to share with some of your unsaved friends.
So, first of all, Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Let us look at each
one of those. When Jesus says, "I am the way," this is in total contradiction to pluralism,
that says there are multiple ways. It also speaks to that sort of angst of the confusion of our day.
You know, what is the way? Where do we go? You know, probably like maybe you are just naturally
good at directions. I am not. I am directionally challenged. So, I live by my phone and my GPS.
There was actually a time when we didn't have phones and we had to have like physical maps
to get places, but I need that map. I need that way. And if I don't have that map or that way,
I just am confused. I am confused at all of the options. I am confused as to how to get
there. And the journey might be fun, but I have no idea where I am ending up. And what Jesus is for
us is such a clear map in a world of confusion, and we have so many confusing voices out there,
so many authorities trying to tell us what to think. And here is Jesus who says, "I am the way."
Jesus says also, "I am the truth," and that is contrary to two things in our day. One is
skepticism. You know, we live in a very cynical age. You all are tuned into this, the advertising
world. Do you know, you see the billboard for the hamburger? And it is perfect. The bun is perfect.
The burger is perfect. It is juicy. You know that thick slice of tomato. Then you show up
at the actual, you know, establishment that has that advertisement and you open up the wrapper
and the bun is all squished down. The burger is sort of, you know, this thin thing. And it's that,
you know that slice at the top of the tomato that has the brown thing in it? It is that,
instead of that nice round. And what does that breed within us, but cynicism?
And so many just wonder, "Can we even know the truth?" And here Jesus says, "I am the truth." And
we live in a postmodern context. It says, "Well, the truth is unattainable. It sort of passed
us and it is not even worthwhile." That just doesn't wash. In life, we need a place to stand.
We need certainty amidst all of the uncertainty. And here Jesus says, "I am the truth."
And then finally, Jesus says, "I am the life." You know, we also live in a moment of despair.
We see it. And, you know, sadly, I think in many moments and maybe through this pandemic just
because of the sort of abruptness of change that has been brought to our routines and to our lives,
it has sort of spawned a significant and some would say even crisis of just mental health. And
there is a significant sense of despair especially among young people. Some of you may see this in
some of your friends, and we can even go to an extreme of sort of a philosophical position of
what we call "nihilism," you know, literally it means nothing-ism. And it can just sort of
rob a person of what is a precious commodity and that is hope. And you know,
you have seen it and maybe even in your own life you are experiencing despair, and you just feel
there is so much uncertainty out there, so much confusion out there, and it is really taking its
toll. Well, isn't this a beautiful thing that Jesus tells us when He says, "I am the life"?
This, you know, is the gospel message, and this is unique. This is a message of hope. And listen,
this gospel message of hope, this is the message that every person needs to hear.
And if you are out there equipped and you are defending Jesus Christ
as the way, as the truth, and the life, that is all the confidence and courage that you need
to believe in the gospel for yourself. And it is really all the confidence and courage
that you need to proclaim the gospel. And I would just encourage you to do that because
the world you live in and the people you are around, they need this gospel.
Well, let us pray: Our Father and our God, we thank You that Jesus is indeed the way,
the truth, and the life. We thank You for the gospel message of hope and we pray that we would
be faithful in proclaiming it and defending it to those who need it. And may You empower us
and enable us to do this and may it be for Your glory and Your glory alone. Amen.