Salvation Exposed | Peter Jeffery (ISBN: 852344678)

A young woman in her mid-20s came into the church one Sunday for the first time. After the service I spoke to her and discovered she was a devout Roman Catholic. 'If you are a Roman Catholic,' I said, 'why have you come here?'

She answered: 'I know God but I know nothing about Jesus. I want to learn about Jesus.' I replied: 'You cannot know God without Jesus.' She was amazed at the answer, as many religious people would be, but the Bible is very clear that Jesus is the only way to God.

Given the religious thought of today this truth is unacceptable to many. They regard it as bigoted and a failure to recognise the worth of religions other than Christianity. The prevailing thought is that everyone is entitled to his opinion and that one religious opinion is as good as the next. A more unreasonable and absurd attitude it would be difficult to find. How can several diametrically-opposed teachings on the way to God all be right?

Accepting the truth that Jesus is the only way to God is not intolerant bigotry: it is simply believing the teaching that God has given us in his Word. There Jesus said, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14.6).

Peter said, 'Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved' (Acts 4.12, cf 1 Timothy 2.5).

Nothing is more clearly stated in the Bible. The above quotes can bear no interpretation other than that Jesus is the only way to God.

The problem

The way to God and heaven is shut to us by our sin. That sin must be dealt with to God's satisfaction if a way is to be opened for sinners. Sin is a breaking of God's law and a rebellion against the authority of God. It is not merely a moral defect but an affront to the character and holiness of the Lord. Sin is a serious business.

God cannot be indifferent to sin and his opposition to it is not just that of a judge. His heart is the heart of a loving father pained and grieved by the waywardness of his children. For him to say, as he did in Genesis 6, that he was sorry he ever made man is a staggering acknowledgement. When man sins, God suffers.

Human sin affects the relationship between God and man in two basic ways. Firstly, it brings upon us the wrath and condemnation of God. Secondly, it leaves us totally unable to meet God's requirements of love and obedience to his law and word. If a way is to be opened to God it must deal with both these problems. The way to God must be one that meets with God's full approval and satisfies the demands of God's law. Sin must be dealt with if we are ever to have a happy relationship with God. This problem is immense. It is completely beyond man to solve even though history is full of his perverted ingenuity to obtain divine favour. If there is to be a solution, it is God who must provide it.

God's remedy

In John 3.16 we have a perfect statement of God's remedy for sin: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.'

In his divine love God provides a remedy which deals justly with the punishment that sin deserves, and yet, at the same time, provides pardon for the sinner. God has said that the penalty for sin is death - spiritual and physical death. Nothing can change that because it is the judgement of the holy God. God will not turn a blind eye to our sin. Justice must be done, so the demands of God's law and the penalty for breaking that law must be satisfied.

In love and mercy God declares that he will accept a substitute to die in the sinner's place. But God's law demands that the substitute must be free from the guilt of sin and therefore not deserving of death himself. None of us could meet these requirements. So God sent his own Son into the world to become man and to keep his law fully and perfectly. This is what the man Jesus did, and thus became the only acceptable sacrifice to God for human sin.

This is why Jesus is the only way to God.

No other way

In John 14.6, the verse quoted above, Jesus is not saying that he is one of many ways to God but that he is the only way. There is a uniqueness and exclusiveness about Jesus when it comes to the matter of our salvation. There is a triple claim in that verse which is quite amazing. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. There is no alternative to him and the second part of the verse confirms this: 'No one comes to the Father except through me.'

Why is Jesus so adamant that he is the only way to God? The stand he is taking leaves him either totally deluded or totally correct. There is no room for half measures. Either Jesus is deluded and we can safely ignore him, or he is right and therefore it would be the greatest possible folly to ignore him. Our eternal destiny hangs upon this; so do we believe that Jesus is the only way to God?

The facts

How else can sin be dealt with and atoned for, other than through a perfect sacrifice? The sacrificial system set out in the Old Testament points to this, and the book of Hebrews continually draws on the Old Testament to illustrate the meaning of the death of Jesus.

'Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives for ever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them' (7.23-25). Once a priest dies he becomes useless to sinners seeking God's forgiveness. He can offer no sacrifice and make no prayers on their behalf, but Jesus lives for ever, therefore there is no end to his ministry. Time never weakens his ministry. Man is always eventually beaten by time. It is sad to see the skills of a great sports star wane as he goes on too long in the sport and new up and coming youngsters outshine him. That will never happen with Jesus. The salvation he offers sinners today is as effective as that experienced by the thief on the cross.

'The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!' (9.13-14). There will always be a limit to what religious observances can do and that limit always stops short of salvation. This is inevitable, but there is no such inevitability about what Christ has accomplished for us. His sacrificial death cleanses the heart, soul and conscience of the repentant sinner.

A sacrifice for sin has to be acceptable to God. Nothing but the death of the sinless Jesus Christ, God's only Son, could possibly be acceptable to the holy God. Sin that so grieves the heart of God has to be fully atoned for. 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us... He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit' (Galatians 3.13-14).

Of no one else does the Bible say, 'For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross' (Colossians 1.19-20).

In the light of God's clear declarations about Jesus, to look for another way would be like a man with a brain tumour asking a witch doctor rather than a brain surgeon to operate on him.

This article is an edited chapter from Peter Jeffery's new evangelistic book, Salvation Exposed, published by Evangelical Press, and is used with permission. The book is available in packs of ten for £29.50 to encourage people to give them away.