Jesus: The Way or A Way?

Every Wednesday we’ll post a message having to do with doctrine and purity. Hope it helps.

Jesus: The Way or A Way?

I mentioned last week that there are four basic truths seeming to be “under construction” in the interest of new and improved truth: The Sinful Nature of Humanity, The Exclusivity of Christ (this post), The Existence of Hell, and The Definition of the Family. For the next few weeks, on Wednesday postings, I’d like to re-visit each of these four. Last week we looked at the first; today let’s address the question of Christ’s exclusivity.

A few years back a popular liberal campaign was titled Would Jesus Discriminate? The idea promoted was that He welcomed all (true) and never judged (way off) In fact, His teachings were both exclusive and exclusionary, delineating between who would and wouldn’t enter the Kingdom with lines drawn unmistakably and repeatedly.

The most obvious claim coming to mind is “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) Not much wiggle room there, nor in Acts 4:12 when Peter affirmed “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” John’s likewise specific when he writes “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (I John 5:12) And the issue of whether or not one has that life is eternal and critical, as Jesus made clear to Nicodemus: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) and Revelation warns that “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:15)

Pretty discriminatory stuff, black and white, in or out. Of course the invitation to life is broad, but the terms are narrow: Faith in the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is the only way to eternal life, a way provided to all and chosen by some, but the only way nonetheless.

Yet the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church claims that it’s “limiting to God” to say that Jesus is the only way.

Likewise, a hugely popular evangelical author writes:

I think there are Muslim brothers and sisters who are willing to say, ‘You live up to the truth as you understand it. I will live up to the truth as I understand it, and we will leave it up to God on judgment day.’ There is much in Christianity that would suggest exactly the same thing…I’ve got to believe that Jesus is the only Savior but being a Christian is not the only way to be saved.

And the well-known son of one of the Church’s finest Bible expositors posed a question that was astonishing to those who’d cut their teeth on his father’s teaching:

“Is the Christian experience better than the experience of any other religion? Who can say? … It is quite possible that we cannot—at least at this time—know if there is a qualitative difference between the Christian and non-Christian spiritual experience.” – Chuck Smith Jr., Frequently Avoided Questions Baker Books

They’re not alone. Pollster George Barna noted back in 1991 that  “More than half of born again respondents (to a survey of Christians) believed there’s no such thing as absolute truth.

If high percentages of born again believers no longer believe truth exists, they can hardly be expected to know what truth is. And to me, that’s scarier than economic downturn, high gas prices or the wrong man in the White House. Because, as cult expert Ron Rhodes warned,

When the Church begins to look and sound like the world, then there is no compelling rationale for its continued existence.

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