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It is often said that all roads lead to God and that we worship the same God by different methods. Is this true? The answer to this question is of vital importance, for each of us will stand before Him. Can we be confident in any one way to God? Can we be confident in the idea that all worship God in different ways?
It was Jesus who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.” He also said He was the door to salvation and any who try to enter another way is a thief and a robber.[1] Jesus is very exclusionary. He went as far as to say that the world only loves those who are part of its system, but will hate the ones who follow Him.[2] The reason is that Jesus calls us out of the world, its religions, and its ways of thinking. He then calls us to live as pilgrims journeying through a country that is not our own.
From the beginning of our discussion, we see that Jesus pitted Christianity against the world. It’s not possible to accept the words of Jesus and the world religions at the same time. Nor is it possible to accept other religions without rebuffing Jesus. This truth is being challenged every day and in many creative ways. An example is this Hindu proverb. There are variations, but the proverb goes something like this:
A student approached a guru and asked, “Why do men argue about religion and how do we know what God is like?”
The guru explained how philosophers and theologians are like blind men around an elephant. Each one was asked to feel of the elephant and describe it. The blind men began arguing among themselves. The one who felt the leg said, “An elephant is like a mighty tree.”
One who felt the ear said, “You’re wrong. An elephant is like a large fan in your hand.”
“You’re both wrong,” said the one who felt its side. “An elephant is like a great wall.”
Each man described different parts of the elephant, arguing that what they experienced was what the elephant is like. The guru turned to the young man and said, “This is what the religions are doing. Each one is right and no one is wrong, except those who dispute the others.”
This proverb sounds good on the surface, and indeed there is one clear truth in this Hindu proverb – though it isn’t quite what the originator intended. In fact, this proverb proves the truth of scripture. While the guru claimed that no one was wrong, the truth is that they all were wrong. The elephant wasn’t a great wall, nor a fan, nor a tree, nor any of the attributes these men said.
The truth in this proverb is that all these men were blind and all were wrong.
Isn’t this exactly what Jesus said in the Bible? Men are blind until God makes them see. Until God opens our eyes, we are lost in darkness and all our views on salvation are wrong. Even the nation of Israel, from whom God raised the prophets to pen the scriptures, were lost in their blindness and wrong in their views of salvation. Jesus said that He came to make the blind see, and those who claim to see would continue in blindness, and remain in their sins.[3] In John 8:24, the religious leaders debated with Jesus. He didn’t tell them that we all must find God in our own ways. Instead, He said, “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
What does Jesus mean, “I am He?” This goes back to who Jesus is as we explored in the previous chapter. He must open our eyes to see, and only then do we discover who the true God is. Indeed we are like blind men, unable to discern who God is. It is not mankind discovering God. Instead, it is God opening our eyes as He reveals Himself to us. Not man finding God, but God finding man. It’s not merely a discovery of enlightenment; it’s a power outside of our own abilities creating life within us.
Spiritually, the Bible says we are dead, but in Christ we are made alive. The dead cannot raise himself, nor can we who have no eternal life create that life by our own efforts. We’ll look at this in more detail shortly, but first, let’s look at some common questions Christians will likely face.
Why do Christians believe Jesus is the only way of salvation? You’ve likely heard someone ask this. Perhaps you’ve asked this yourself. Other similar questions often asked are:
Why doesn’t God just forget about sin and take us all to heaven?
Why would a loving God condemn someone to hell just because they don’t believe in him?
These are important questions and hopefully this chapter will be a tool in helping you answer these in either your life, or in discussing this with others who ask.
Why would a loving God condemn someone just because they don’t believe?
This is a common question and fully deserves an honest answer. The first step in answering this question is to recognize that there is an error in perspective. The question is flawed. God is not condemning those who don’t believe. He’s redeeming those who do believe. Consider John 3:17-20
17 “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
Let’s think for a moment on the weight of this verse. “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world…he who does not believe is condemned already.”
The message of the gospel is not, believe in Jesus or God will condemn you. The message of the gospel is that you are already under condemnation; therefore, Jesus has come to redeem you and take you out of that condemnation. This is why Jesus said, “You are not of the world, but I have called you out of the world.”
Just as with the blind men and the elephant, mankind is already groping in the darkness, and human nature is corrupt in its ideas. We have formed our philosophies out of our own assumptions, while in blindness and confusion. A blind man may be able to persuade other blind men that an elephant is a tree. He may also be able to persuade others who are blind that he knows the truth about God. Yet he remains groping in the darkness alongside others who are also groping.
To the blind, a false description may appear to be true, but to those who have seen the elephant, his words appear foolish. Those who can’t see the elephant think it’s absurd when someone claims to have actually seen it, but those who can see it understand. When it comes to faith in Christ, those whose eyes have been opened see the world’s religions as foolish as calling an elephant a tree. People groping blindly in the darkness embrace any plausible religion, and often think it’s absurd that anyone could actually claim to know truth.
So we can see that God did not send us the Messiah to condemn the world and cast them into darkness. Man is already in darkness and is already under condemnation. Only those who refuse to receive their sight will remain in darkness, and those who refuse to be pulled out of the pit of blindness will remain under condemnation.
Why is man blind and already under condemnation? The Bible says that all men are under condemnation through Adam, but are given life through Christ. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:21-22
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
Does this mean we are being judged for Adam’s sin? Yes and no. We inherit our human nature through Adam, but we are held accountable for our own actions. In a discussion a man once scoffed at the idea that people are born with a sinful nature. To answer his objection, I pointed to the nature of a child. I didn’t have to teach my kids to be selfish. They were born with the ability to take toys from other children. Even though they have never seen anyone hit, they hit their siblings. They knew how to throw tantrums without having any examples to imitate. Every misbehavior they practice came natural, without any training or guidance. In fact, as a parent, my responsibility is to use instruction and consequences to guide their behavior toward an acceptable standard. My training can alter outward actions, but it does not change the heart.
Where do children learn selfishness? It is part of their nature. And it remains part of our nature as adults. Why are we selfish by nature? It’s just that – nature. Human nature.
I was born with a selfish, sinful nature, and something needs to be changed within me. Though I was born with my natural tendency toward sin, I am still the one who chooses to sin. As a child, I knew the rules laid down by my parents, yet I willfully disobeyed when the rules didn’t fulfill the desires of my selfish nature. Why do people steal, cheat, manipulate, lie, lust, or act out on negative behaviors?
An American politician fell into scandal for his infidelity a few years back. When caught, he began with denial but eventually had to admit it in the face of evidence. He even redefined words to both hide and justify his actions. Like a child, he followed the selfish desires of his heart and even tried to manipulate to get his way. At some point he made the statement, “I’m just wired this way.” It was meant to justify his actions, but he hit on the heart of the problem. We are all ‘just wired this way’. He got caught and made into a public spectacle, but we all struggle with our fallen human nature. It’s easy to point to someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but we’ve all struggled with various failures and temptations. Our struggles may differ in some areas, but we all have a bent toward sin.
It is for this reason that we are all under condemnation. I was born into blindness, corruption, and my own fallen nature guides me in my decision making, morality, and world view. Since we are drawing our internal standard from selfish human nature, we choose to sin when we value temptation over a contradicting moral standard. We are making foolish choices because we have no ability to see the value behind God’s moral requirements. It is spiritual blindness – for man cannot see into the spiritual world God desires for him until after he receives sight from the Lord. Look at 1 Corinthians 2:14
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Why don’t other religions understand the things of God? They can only discern with blind eyes and misinformed ideas. Therefore, the ways of God are foolishness. Until you have eyes to see what’s beyond human perception, little makes sense. Consider this illustration.
In the past, the oceans were considered the silent deep. Nothing could be heard in the water that couldn’t be heard on land. Go below the surface of the water and what do you hear? You might hear a skewed sound of water lapping on the shore or a passing motor boat, but the sounds of the ocean were imperceptible. An uninformed man may stick his head under water, not hear anything, and conclude that nothing is down there based on the silence.
Today we have sonar and sensitive instruments that can detect sounds the human ear cannot. We have discovered that the ocean is filled with sounds man cannot hear on his own. We now know that whales can speak to each other across hundreds and even thousands of miles of ocean. And that they have a language by which they can communicate with specific messages to each other.
What had been the silent deep is now understood to be active and alive. The human ear still cannot perceive, but sounds are everywhere. The ancient man who said, “Nothing is down there,” made a logical assumption based on his limited understanding, but he was blind to the truth. Toying with religion is very much like this. Sometimes people make statements like, “Try Jesus. If you don’t like Christianity, you can go back to your life.” This is like asking someone to stick their head in the ocean and try to perceive what they cannot see or understand.
There must be spiritual eyes in order to see spiritual things, and this is a gift of God that is promised to those who believe upon Christ. In a few minutes, we’ll explore the new life and the transformation of the believer, but first, let’s answer our other introductory question.
Why doesn’t God just eliminate all sin and take us to heaven?
To understand this question, we should first look at what makes something a sin. Did God arbitrarily conjure up a list of rules for man to abide by? The Bible gives us the answer. Take a moment and look at these two passages:
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Romans 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Man’s behavior is measured against the image of God. We are created in God’s image for the sake of reflecting God’s glory. According to Romans, all sin is the result of man falling short of the glory we were created to reflect. Therefore, we know that sin is anything that contradicts the nature and glory of God. Why is that important? My hope is that you will understand the answer to this question by the end of this section.
It’s important to understand that morality finds its roots in God’s own character. The Bible says that everything was created by God for His pleasure.[4] Man was created for the purpose of having fellowship with God and reflecting God’s glory. When we deviate from God’s design by taking part in behaviors that are contradictory to His character, we have departed from the standard of God. Mankind gets his goodness from the Lord, and through that goodness we have fellowship with God.
Sin is stepping away from God’s character and choosing a contrary way. Righteousness is found by abiding in God’s standard and enjoying fellowship with our Creator.
The Bible says that sin cannot abide in God’s presence. Anything contradictory to God’s character cannot abide with God. When Israel strayed from God, He declared that two cannot walk together unless they are in agreement. Therefore, God cast the idolatrous nation away and they were destroyed by the nations around them – though He preserved a remnant that would one day recognize the worthlessness of idolatry and return to the Lord.
This is a historical example that explains our relationship with God. When man sins, his character is no longer in agreement with God’s character, and fellowship is no longer possible. Sin, or the things that oppose God’s character, have no effect on God; however, God has a great effect on sin. Sin also has a great effect on us as individuals. According to God’s own declaration, everything that exalts itself in opposition to God will be cast down. After all, this is His creation and He is worthy to set the standard and remove anything that opposes His nature.
An atheist once stated that this was evidence that God was selfish. To this I asked, “Do you have fellowship with people that do the things you hate? Or provoke you with inappropriate actions? Or challenge your personality and demand you change to conform to their ideas?”
Fellowship abides among those who have a common interest. When we seek fellowship with our Creator, He gives us the power to conform to His nature and character. When we demand that God become like us, fellowship is not possible. And yes, demanding that God accept the things that contradict His nature is equivalent to demanding that God change to fit our character. God cannot change. We can. As we’ll explore later, this is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Every sin will be judged by God and given the wages of sin. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death[5]. Death came by sin and sin came through Adam[6]. This was made evident when Adam first sinned. Fellowship with God was broken and Adam could no longer abide in God’s presence. In fact, Adam hid with his wife to avoid God.
God judged man by cursing everything around him. This is known as the fall. Scripture teaches that all of creation groans with the burden of sin as it awaits the final redemption when God will restore all things to their intended purposes.
After the fall, Adam recognized his own nakedness and was ashamed. The Lord took an animal, slew it, and used the skins to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve.
This is the gospel story tucked away in Genesis. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins[7]. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. Before man chose to sin, God warned that in the day he disobeyed, he would die. Physical death began as a slow process, but spiritual death was immediate. Through Adam, we also are spiritually dead and will remain that way, unless we are given a new spirit that has life, as God intended before the fall.
We are dead until raised into life.
The Bible has much to say on this topic, but we are going to look primarily at two passages. As we discussed earlier, we were born into sin and though our sin nature is inherited, the penalty of sin – spiritual death – spreads to all because all sin and fall short of God’s glory[8]. Eternal life comes through the Spirit, but all are dead and unable to obtain that life. A dead man cannot raise himself. This is why works cannot obtain salvation. You can throw flowers on a corpse, but it’s still dead. Decorating a corpse doesn’t improve its condition – or its eventual destination – to decay.
Something that has the power to give life must intervene to raise the dead. Having said this, let’s look at Colossians 2:11-14
11 In [Christ] you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
This passage has a lot of great information for us to harvest, so let’s examine it a little closer. First, let’s look at the concept of circumcision. In both the Old and New Testaments, God said that true circumcision is within the heart[9].
Whether we look at the Old or New Testament, the gospel is clearly seen in the ordinance of circumcision. Circumcision was when the foreskin of a male child was cut away. It was the sign of the covenant. The flesh would be cut away, and God would declare the child to be part of His covenant. It was the removal of the flesh for the purpose of partaking in a spiritual promise.
In Colossians above, the scriptures are declaring that while we were outside of God’s covenant, the Lord circumcised our hearts by taking away the flesh and joining us to His promise. Once again we can see that the Old Testament pointed directly to what God was about to do. Circumcision serves as an illustration for God’s people to see the promise unfolding before their eyes.
In Jewish custom, a child was eight days old when circumcised. It wasn’t the child performing the work. He merely laid there while circumcision was performed. In the same way, we are circumcised in our hearts by Christ. It isn’t the works we have done – it is God’s work done on our behalf when we receive it by faith. God declares His salvation, and we either believe it by faith (which is a gift of God), or disbelieve through the flesh (which is the rebellion of man).
Notice also, we are buried in the flesh, and then raised from our spiritual death into eternal life. It is putting the flesh in the grave of baptism so God can raise us in the Spirit of eternal life. Look at 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Throughout the New Testament we see this explained in various ways. Before Christ transforms us, we are spiritually dead. When we respond by faith to God’s call, something happens. We don’t just add religion to our lives. Our old life is buried with Christ. This is the purpose of baptism. Scripture teaches that we are baptized to wash away our sins, while calling on the name of the Lord. Getting dunked only makes a person wet. It is an act of obedience by faith and we call upon the Lord to wash away our sins.
We don’t call upon the physical water. Baptism represents the death and burial of our old life in the flesh, then we are raised in newness of life. We are transformed into a new creation by the power of God. Now we live according to the Spirit because we are a new person. The old things are passed away – in the grave of baptism – and now everything is new. We are not calling upon the water for salvation. Nor are we putting our trust in an ordinance. Salvation is putting our trust in Christ, calling upon Him to circumcise the flesh (or remove the fleshly nature from our hearts) and give us new life in the Spirit.
When a man named Nathaniel came to Jesus, he wanted to understand the Kingdom of God. Jesus said that he must be born again. In our culture, born again means different things to different people, but scripturally, it means that we have died to our old life and are born into a new life by the Spirit. Jesus explains this further in John 5:21-25
21 “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
22 “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,
23 “that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
24 ” Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
25 “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
Faith comes by hearing the word of God.[10] Jesus affirms this as he makes it clear that we must believe his word and allow him, the Son of God, to give us passage from death to life.
Simply die to find life
How great is that promise we just read from Jesus! Those who believe shall not come into judgment, for they have passed from death to life. The new life of the believer is not destined for judgment. The judgment of condemnation only applies to the dead. That doesn’t mean we aren’t accountable for our actions, but it does mean we are on a different road that leads away from death.
As with all things spiritual, the opposite of human nature is usually the truth of God. Human nature grapples for the gusto of life by grasping for more and more. Living it up is thought to be the meaning of life. The world grapples for life, doesn’t find it, and hopes the solution is to grapple for more. With God, however, life is found through death. Not physical death, but death to our life rooted in the flesh. Let’s look at the words of Jesus to understand this better. John 12:23-26
23 But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
25 “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
26 “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
In this passage, Jesus is foretelling of His coming death on the cross, but He also informs his disciples that this principle applies to them as well. We follow Christ in death – not by being crucified physically, but by being crucified with Him through repentance – turning from our ways – and surrendering our lives to Him. Baptism is the burial of our old life. It is an outward testimony of laying down our lives.
Let me stop for a moment and point out an important truth about repentance. The word means to turn around or have a change of mind, but this definition must be applied in light of the rest of what we know about how God works in our lives. It is not merely you and I deciding to change. It is the work of God who grants repentance to us (See 2 Timothy 2:25). It is the work of God in our hearts, changing our perception on life, and then empowering us to turn from the life of the flesh and toward the life of the Spirit.
Repentance is not you and I deciding to change. Turning over a new leaf may make a temporary change. Deciding to stop a certain behavior may indeed have a limited benefit. While these are noble human efforts, repentance is much more than this. It is God pulling the veil from our heart so we can understand His voice spoken into our spirit. We hear His call to stop going in the direction of our own ways, and to take His hand that He may lead us into the way of the Spirit – the way of eternal life. God’s drawing in our heart is the way of repentance.
With that understanding, let’s go back to the illustration Jesus gave in the book of John. The picture is a seed. Let’s consider the grain of wheat Jesus used as an illustration. A grain of wheat is dry and lifeless. To see this truth, pick any seed. Corn is shriveled, hard, and dry. Nothing in it shows any signs of life. Someone who didn’t understand the science behind it would think there was no way to get life out of this dead kernel.
Something strange happens when you bury a seed. Water soaks into the hard shell, something deep within comes alive, and the dead outer shell breaks open and a new plant emerges. The plant looks nothing like the seed. The seed itself dies when the plant emerges. As the plant grows, the dry remains of the old seed fall away and are forgotten.
This is the picture Jesus is painting. When we die to ourselves, our old life is buried with Christ, and a new life emerges. I say ‘old life’ but a better way may be to say ‘our old ways of living for the flesh’. Spiritually, our old life is dead. The miracle of life from the seed is a visual image, but nothing compares to the new birth within us by the Spirit. We are buried with Christ, following him to the cross, and then God raises us up as a new creation with life that doesn’t compare to the flesh we are leaving behind. Look at Colossians 2:11-14. We’ve already looked at this passage, but I want to read it again in the context of our current topic.
11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Notice the word pictures given to us in this passage. We were uncircumcised. The flesh of human nature surrounded us like the hard shell of that seed. We were dead, unable to even comprehend life. Yet, while we were still dead in our old ways that were contrary to God, He made us alive. He forgave us of all our sins by nailing it to the cross so that He could make us alive with His Spirit. The lifeless shell was taken out of the way, and we have emerged as a new creation. Christ bore the penalty of our sins in His death, and rose from the grave to lead us into life. The message of the cross is not, you’re going to hell if you don’t believe. The message of the cross is that you were already dead in your sins, and Jesus provided life to you and anyone else who receives His words and the gift of salvation.
[1] John 10:1
[2] John 15:18-19, 2 Peter 2:10-11, Psalm 84:5
[3] John 9:39-41
[4] Revelation 4:11
[5] Romans 6:23
[6] Romans 5:12
[7] Hebrews 9:22
[8] Romans 5:12
[9] Jeremiah 4:4, Romans 2:29
[10] Romans 10:17