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The Inescapably Exclusive Nature Of The Christian Faith
by David Merck
Some time ago while I was riding a jet plane from Minneapolis to Vancouver, British Columbia, I had a good conversation with a man named Tom regarding spiritual matters. From what he told me, he was a serious family man who felt it was very important for his children to attend church while they were growing up. He himself had been raised in a church which professes to be Christian, and said that he believed in God. He indicated a respect for the Bible as God's Word, although he also sheepishly confessed that he had not read it much or been exposed much to its contents other than the small portions quoted each Sunday during church services.
As we visited, and as I pulled out my Bible and began pointing out different portions of God's Word, Tom sought to avoid the clear implications of the verses being brought to his attention by declaring that different people interpret the Bible in different ways, and therefore we cannot be too dogmatic regarding the Scriptures. He especially had a problem with the fact that the Christian faith is an exclusive faith -- that it declares that there is no other way to get to God and heaven than by faith in the Jesus Christ of the Bible. Repeatedly he tried to make a case that some people who have never heard the Gospel surely have lived basically good lives and have gotten to God in some other way.
However, when I turned him to one particular portion of Scripture regarding the exclusive nature of the Christian faith, he was unable to give me an alternative interpretation of the clear meaning of its words. He was unwilling to acknowledge that what this verse obviously said was true -- but he also was unwilling to deny that the Bible is God's Word. Tom was in a difficult spot. He was being forced by a clear statement of the Bible to face the fact that the bottom line issue for Him was this: would what God said be the ultimate authority for him, or would it be what his own mind thought and was willing to accept? Sadly, as I left Tom, he was yet unwilling to give up the posture of making his own thoughts and notions the ultimate authority in his life.
What was the portion of God's Word over which Tom stumbled? It is a verse which has no significant questions regarding its original text as first given by God through its human author. It is the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 6 (14:6). There are other passages which we might consider, but this verse in a clear and unmistakable way confronts us with the inescapably exclusive nature of the Christian faith. It declares that the Christian faith is the only way a man will ever get to God and spend eternity in heaven. Let us observe this verse of God's Word in its larger context, John 13:33-14:6:
33(Jesus speaking) "Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, `Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you. 34A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." 36Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are You going?" Jesus answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward." 37Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake." 38Jesus answered him, "Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times."14:1"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4And where I go you know, and the way you know." 5Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" 6Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Focusing now upon John 14:6, consider with me several important questions regarding this key verse. The first question is:
1. Who was speaking in our key verse?
The first phrase of verse six clearly answers this question. It begins, "Jesus said to him". This verse unashamedly declares that here we have the words of none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Now if we would ask our fellow countrymen what they think about Jesus Christ, most of them would probably respond much like Tom did. They would indicate that they believe there was a real person in history called Jesus who came into the world as a baby. And they would also express a significant degree of respect and appreciation for Him as a good man who taught many good things and did many good deeds. I would imagine that probably all, or at least nearly all of you reading these words would agree with that description of Jesus as far as it goes.
In light of that reality, here in verse 6 we find a significant portion of those good things which Jesus taught. Therefore, we all should be interested in what He had to say. But before we consider further the actual contents of the verse itself, we need to first of all consider its context or setting. This brings us to our second question:
2. What was the situation which caused the Lord Jesus to speak the words of our key verse?
Again, verse 6 begins with the words, "Jesus said to him", which indicates that Jesus' words which follow were part of an interaction with someone else identified in verse 5 as His disciple, Thomas. There was a particular situation or setting which led to Christ's utterance of these significant truths. At this point please notice with me several aspects of this situation:
a. Jesus had said that He was going away soon. Notice again John 13:33:
"Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, `Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you."
It is important to remember that this passage and the verses which follow including our key verse, 14:6, were spoken in the upper room where the Lord Jesus initiated the Lord's Supper on the night before His crucifixion. On this eventful evening, the Lord openly told His beloved disciples that He would soon be leaving them, even as he had indicated in the past. But not only was Jesus going away. There was a further painful reality which was closely-associated with this departure.
b. Jesus had declared that His faithful disciples could not follow Him at the present time. Notice again John 13:33b and 36-38:
33b". . . You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, `Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you." 36Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are You going?" Jesus answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward." 37Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake." 38Jesus answered him, "Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times."
Peter was alarmed at the news that he would be separated from his beloved Master and be unable to follow Him where He was going. He blurted out, "Lord, where are You going?", not out of idle curiosity, but because he wanted to stay with Jesus. The Lord realized this and again underscored that Peter could not presently follow Him. Here it is clear that Jesus was speaking of His own coming death on the cross and of that which would follow it. Peter could not go with Him because it was not Peter's time to die -- and beside, Peter was not yet ready spiritually to die for Christ. When Peter protested that He was ready to lay down his life and die for the Master if He was attacked by His enemies, the Lord gently informed Peter that, for all his good intentions, he would soon end up denying Him. But Peter's emotional response here does make plain how strongly Jesus' news of His coming departure affected His disciples, and how fuzzy was His disciples' understanding of what that departure involved.
Listen to William Hendricksen at this point:
At the feast of Tabernacles, a half year earlier, Jesus had told the Jews that he would be with them only a little while longer. The months have become weeks; the weeks days; the days hours. Only a few more hours now and the day-by-day (physical) fellowship between the Master and his disciples will cease forever (as far as this life is concerned). By his death Jesus will go to the Father. The hopes of the disciples will be blasted. (New Testament Commentary, The Gospel of John, p. 252)
c. However, Jesus added that His faithful disciples would follow Him later. The Lord Jesus implied in verse 36 that Peter would follow his Lord through his own death -- in Peter's case, a martyr's death for the Lord.
And then, because the hearts of His disciples were obviously troubled at the news of Jesus' coming departure and of related events, the Lord spoke to them gracious words of comfort and exhortation:
d. Jesus was going to prepare a dwelling place in His Father's house for His faithful disciples to which He would one day take them so that they could again be with Him. Observe again the words of John 14:1-3:
1"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also."
Here we see that, when Jesus spoke of going away, He not only was referring to His death on the cross, but also to His Resurrection and Ascension to heaven which were inseparably connected with the cross, and which were the fruit of it. Jesus was going away to dwell in His heavenly Father's house. In the process of going there by way of the cross, and while being there with the Father, He was going to be preparing a place in that spacious house to which He would one day take all His faithful followers. The coming separation would not be permanent. Reunion day lay ahead.
But then the Lord added a further word:
e. He stated that His faithful disciples already knew the way to get to the place where He was going. Verse four records this:
4"And where I go you know, and the way you know."
Jesus' words about His followers were true, as will become evident in a minute. However, these disciples had a continuing dream of Jesus soon being an earthly, victorious Messianic king triumphing over the Roman masters of the Jewish nation. This dream clouded their understandings, so that they did not make the proper switch to heavenly realities, as indicated by what happened next:
f. Thomas objected that they did not know the place where Jesus was going, nor did they know the way to get there, and he asked for further information. Let me refer you again to verse 5:
5Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?"
This questioning disciple's protest prompted the Lord to speak the words of our key verse -- words which not only answered Thomas' question, but which also confront us with the central truths of the Christian faith with unusual clarity and focus.
So having identified the speaker in our key verse, and the situation which led to His words, consider a third question regarding verse six:
3. Who was the Lord Jesus speaking about in our key verse?
This is clearly indicated when we observe, "Jesus said to him, `I am the way, and the truth, and the life . . .'" This word "I" in the original Greek language is given great emphasis. We could translate it, "I myself". The Lord wanted to make it unmistakably clear that He was speaking about none other than Himself in the words that followed, which brings us to a fourth question about our key passage:
4. What did Jesus say about His own identity?
When we come to verse 6 of John 14, we come to one of the great "I am" passages which are such an important and unique feature of John's Gospel. In these "I am" passages, the Lord Jesus in a clear and forceful way indicated important elements of His own identity. Elsewhere He declared, "I am the bread of life" (6:48); "I am the light of the world" (8:12); "I am the door (10:9); "I am the good shepherd" (10:11); "I am the resurrection and the life" (11:25); and "I am the true vine" (15:1). Now the Lord was to identify Himself using three different and important words. He declared, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life". Regarding this phrase from our key verse, J. C. Ryle observes:
It is one of those deep utterances which no exposition can thoroughly unfold and exhaust. (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, St. John, vol. III, p. 70)
I have certainly been forced to agree with Mr Ryle as I have sought to understand these words, but we will seek to at least begin to trace out what the Lord meant here. Our understanding of these three "I am's" in one will be greatly aided if we remember that they each indicate ways in which the Lord Jesus is the answer to the deepest needs of the human heart. Let us consider each in turn. First, Jesus said:
a. "I am the way".
This description is most closely related to the preceding context, for Thomas had just asked, ". . . how do we know the way?" As we have already seen, the Lord Jesus was talking about the way to heaven. But now, the last part of verse six indicates that there was an even more fundamental goal in sight. It was that of coming to the Father. Heaven was not a goal in and of itself. It was vitally important because it was, in the language of verse 2, the Father's house. Heaven is the place where God the Father is specially present, along with His exalted Son. And Jesus declared that He Himself as the Son of God was the way to get to God the Father -- thereby ultimately dwelling in His house.
Now this language all assumes something. It assumes that man by nature is far distant from the Father, and from the Father's house.
The Word of God elsewhere explicitly affirms what is assumed here. Each one of us from our births are by nature like the prodigal son who in willfulness and lust for the things of the world turn our backs upon the heavenly Father (Luke 15:11-24; Romans 3:10-12). He made us -- knitting us together in our mother's wombs -- and in that He is our Creator Father (Psalm 139:13-15). Yet we have wanted to have nothing to do with Him. Before birth and since birth He has cared for us, nourished us and revealed Himself to us. Yet, apart from a work of God's grace in our hearts, we have refused to thank and worship Him (Romans 1:18-21). Instead we have been like stupid sheep, going astray from the only path to life, insisting each one on going our own way (Isaiah 53:6). Our natural, rebellious, sinful hearts have caused us to go anywhere but toward the Father's house. Therefore, it is all our own fault that we are far from the Father's house by nature. We are the only ones to be blamed.
But not only is there the problem of the sinful hearts which we have by nature. There is also the problem of the guilty record to which we continue to add as our days on earth continue. For the Father is a perfectly holy God Who cannot endure any spot of sin or wickedness abiding in His presence (Habakkuk 1:13a; Revelation 21:22-27). So not only do we by nature have hearts which run away from the Father's house. We also cannot on our own go waltzing into that house whenever we so please, even if our hearts wanted to. There is a huge debt of guilt which must be paid according to the perfect demands of God's justice. In some way our sin must be punished and thereby removed before we can ever hope to dwell in God's house (Romans 3:23; 6:23a; Job 9:2)
You see, here was a key problem which the man Tom on the airplane had. He did not really see first of all how bad off man is. He had too high of view of himself and other men. And as long as that perspective continued, he could never appreciate the Way to the Father's house and to the Father which has been provided.
But once we come to see our hopeless and helpless separation from the Father's house, then we begin to truly long for the way which has been provided to go there. And Jesus said that He Himself is that way. How is that true? It is because Jesus, while hanging on the cross, felt the wrath of God for the sins of others. He satisfied the offended justice of a perfectly holy God (Isaiah 53:4-6; 11). But He did not do it for all men lost in their sins. He did it only for those who would show that they were the ones for whom He died by responding as He commanded. This response was commanded a few verses before our key verse in John 14:1:
"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me."
He calls all lost men, far separated from the Father's house, to believe in the Father, and to believe in Him. For when you come to Him believing the fact that He is the way, and trustingly throwing your whole soul upon Him to get you to the Father, He will certainly see that you get there. For He is the way.
But there is a second "I am" in our key passage as well. Jesus said to Thomas:
b. "I am . . . the truth".
A few hours after the Lord Jesus spoke these words in the Upper Room, He stood before the Roman governor, Pilate, on trial for His life (John 18:37-38). In the course of that trial, the Lord spoke of His bearing witness to the truth, and Pilate snorted in cynicism and even scorn, "What is truth?" He may have responded this way because he himself so often resorted to lies and deceit, and was surrounded by men who lied and deceived, all the while declaring that what they said was true. Pilate certainly did not act in accordance with the truth or uphold the truth in disposing of Jesus' case, for he admittedly allowed an innocent man to be crucified because of the pressure of the falsely accusing Jews. Pilate may have also responded with such cynicism and scorn because he, like modern men, did not believe that there was any such thing as absolute truth which rightly demands our belief and obedience.
Yet the divine irony is, that even as Pilate retorted with his, "What is truth?", the One standing before Him was the only man in the universe who could ever legitimately say, "I am . . . the truth". What did the Savior mean by this language? In a real sense He was saying that He was the truth incarnate -- in human, fleshly form. Other uses by the Apostle John of the word "truth" help us to understand further what this meant. Notice some of these passages:
"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." (John 17:17)
Here the Lord Jesus in a prayer to His heavenly Father again equated something with truth. He said that the Father's word is truth. The revelation that has come from God the Father is truth indeed. Now this statement sheds much light on our key verse when we remember the first verses of this Gospel.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through Him, and without him nothing was made that was made. 4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.9That was the true Light which gives light to every man who comes into the world.
14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
17For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:1-5; 9; 14; 17)
Another name for Jesus is "the Word". Jesus is the personal, in-flesh revelation of God. He in His person is the bright light of absolute, redemptive truth shining out into a spiritually darkened world full of lies and error. For He is the Word. The writer to the Hebrews brings this out in a little different way. In 1:1-2a, we read:
God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by (literally "in") His Son . . .
When we see Jesus, we see God speaking to us in His person -- we see God's Word incarnate. And since God is always true, Jesus is in His very person, the truth.
Because of this reality, several other realities follow. Jesus is full of truth (John 1:14). Truth came (was realized) through Him (1:17). He told men the truth which He had heard from God, even though wicked men wanted to kill Him as a result (8:40). He declared that He had been born and come into the world to bear witness to the truth, and that everyone who is of the truth hears His voice (18:37). He also stated that if someone abides in His word and thereby proves that He is truly a disciple of Christ's, he will know the truth, and the truth will make him free of slavery to sin (8:31-32).
What a blessed reality is this fact that Jesus is the truth. In this He meets the deepest needs of men as they are born into this world. For everyone by nature enters this world speaking lies (Psalm 58:3). We enter this world exposed to the blinding light of God's general revelation in His creation around us, yet we suppress and shove down that truth rather than thank and worship the God revealing Himself to us. As a result, our minds are darkened and blinded, so that we are self-deceived -- not seeing the truth already around us (Romans 1:18-25). In all this we fit in perfectly into a wicked world around us which hates and despises the truth of God -- which casts it down in the streets (Isaiah 59:9-14). And we reveal that we indeed have the Devil as our father. We manifest that we are the spiritual children of that evil being who does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him, so that whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). Remember that it was the Devil's lies which first led Eve astray in the Garden and brought all the misery in the world into it. This horrible, wretched, malicious being is our spiritual father from birth.
To men who are by nature children of a lying Devil, blind, willingly deceived by lies swirling around us, deceiving others, and ignorant of that which is genuinely and eternally true -- to them, to us, the Lord Jesus comes and presents Himself as the truth itself. He confronts us with that which we as deceivers and deceived so desperately need -- the blazing revelation of God which shows us who God is, who we are, and the only way by which we may be saved. He is the truth -- and He rightly calls us to believe Him, and to believe in Him, as a result, for only the truth is worthy of being believed.
But now we come to the third and final "I am" of our key verse. Jesus also said of Himself:
c. "I am . . . the life". He declared Himself to be the life incarnate -- in human form.
What was the great need of man for which He here declared Himself the answer? We are clearly told in Scripture that man is by nature spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). He is in a real sense lifeless spiritually from the day he is born. But if that were not enough, the Word of God also declares that men by nature are heading certainly toward death -- first of all, toward physical death which is part of the curse of sin, and is the certain end of every man who is born (unless Christ comes first) (Genesis 3:19; Ecclesiastes 2:14, cp. 16). And God's Word declares that man's physical death is but the entrance into eternal death in hell if men die in their sins (Romans 6:23; Luke 16:19-26). Hopeless and helpless indeed are dead and dying men in a world filled with death.
But into that dead and dying world came the One who is the life. Therefore, we read in John 1:4, "In Him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men." In John 5:26, the Lord said of Himself, "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself . . ." Because of His identity, and because of the life resident in Him, He is able to give life to men.
He gives enduring, eternal life to men -- beginning with their present earthly lives. Notice how Jesus brought this out in John 6:35; 51-54:
6:35And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."6:51"I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." 52The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" 53Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
If you come to Jesus, if you believe in Him as the crucified Savior of men (thereby eating and drinking of Him), you will not only live forever spiritually. You will not even get close enough to spiritual death to hunger or thirst in your soul again. What was Jesus whole purpose in coming? He declared it in John 10:10 where He said, ". . . I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly". Abundant life now and forever will be the result for those who believe in Christ. But the good news does not end there. That abundant, eternal life is a secure possession of those who believe, for in John 10:28, Jesus said regarding His sheep, ". . . I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand". Once you have life from Christ, you can never lose it.
Furthermore, not only does this enduring, eternal life begin to be the possession of men who have Jesus by faith in this life. It is the promise of the resurrection of the body which is to come. We have already seen in John 6:54 the promise:
"Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Consider also another portion of God's Word where we again see Christ's self-identity as "the life" tied in closely with the future resurrection hope of the believer -- John 11:23-26.
23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
Jesus not only declares Himself to be the life here. He also identifies Himself as the Resurrection. As a result, the one who believes in Him will live again physically in the resurrection even though he dies physically. Furthermore, he who lives spiritually by faith shall never die spiritually in the second death involving eternal separation from God in hell. What a blessed hope for the believer.
But notice, that hope of abundant, secure, eternal life -- body and soul in heaven -- is only for those who first have the Christ who is the life. There is no other way. Both Christ and this life are inseparably bound together. This truth is underscored in the later inspired words of the same Apostle John who wrote the Gospel we are studying:
11And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12He who has the Son has life (literally, "the life"); he who does not have the Son of God does not have life (literally, "the life").
These then are the three "I am's" of the key verse which we have been studying -- a verse in which Jesus told us much about His identity. He declared that He is the way, and the truth, and the life. But then He went on to say more which brings us to our fifth and last question:
5. What was the conclusion which Jesus drew from His identity?
Here we come to the final phrase of John 14:6, ". . . No one comes to the Father, except through Me". The Lord had already indicated the truth clearly underscored here by saying that He is the way, and the truth, and the life. However, He knew the hearts of men. He knew that men would resist such a seemingly narrow conclusion on every front. He knew that the Moslem would try to still speak respectfully of Him while promoting another way of getting to Allah. He knew that the unbelieving Jew would cling to his own way, trying to reach God through an Old Covenant which has passed away so that he has no temple and animal sacrifice for sins. Christ knew that the animists who worship evil spirits would attempt their way, along with the Hindus and Buddhists and Taoists and Shintoists -- the New-Agers, and the old heretics -- the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies, and a host of others. All would propound their ways to find God or spiritual fulfillment. He knew there would be men who in their arrogance would declare that they find God by spending time in nature, and do not need Christ and His church. He knew that there would be false, supposedly Christian pastors who would teach that there is not a hell, and that everyone eventually gets to the Father, howbeit in different ways. He knew that there would be a Tom on the airplane who wanted to cling to a general respect for Christ and the Bible and spiritual things, but only as long as it all fit with His own notions of a nice tolerant Christ and God who let people get in some other way than that of the Christian faith.
Christ as God in human flesh knew all this. And so the Savior spoke in clear, unmistakable terms to make sure that there could be no possible misunderstanding -- to ensure that when men were challenged to come up with an alternative explanation of this passage and actually tried to do so, it would be obvious that they were twisting the clear sense of words which are as obvious and straightforward as they could possibly be. These words declared that no human being on the face of the earth is ever able to get to God the Father, and to His heaven, unless He first goes through Jesus Christ, believing in Him as the bloody sacrifice through Whom alone he may be saved. That's the bottom line. No other meaning is possible without turning the basic principles of human language on their head.
Now in light of all that we have seen, what are some final lessons which should be underscored in our hearts and minds before we leave this pivotal portion of God's Word in the Bible?:
1. This key verse, John 14:6, speaks very directly to each boy and girl, each man and woman, who reads these words. It speaks a message which you may be seeing for the first time. It speaks a message which may be quite familiar to you, yet one which you may still never have really laid hold of by faith until now. It is a vitally important message if you would ever get to God the Father and to His heaven. That message is that it is impossible to get to God the Father and to His heaven unless you go in the path of faith in Jesus Christ.
Again, as we have seen, the world shouts to you that such a conclusion is a narrow and horribly intolerant position. It loves to point to all sorts of systems of thought which men have devised which possess a supposedly equal claim to our esteem and respect. And it tries to maintain that you can have a high regard for Jesus Christ and the Christian faith while having an equally high regard for other belief systems as well. But the words of Jesus Himself do not allow such a supposedly open-minded approach to matters having to do with God and heaven and your eternal soul. It was Jesus Himself who was so "narrow and horribly intolerant". His message was inescapably exclusive. If you cannot endure His absolute and exclusive claims, then you really cannot endure and respect the Jesus of the Bible, for it is the true Jesus who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." Any other position toward Him than that which agrees with His claim here is to call Him a liar or a lunatic -- hardly a high view of the Savior. If you deny what He says here, you must either be saying that He outright lied, or that He was out of His mind, possessed with the "Messianic complex" of a madman. And you cannot say that He is worthy of respect and esteem. You cannot have it both ways.
2. Our key verse also tells us that it is absolutely essential that every man and woman, boy and girl, be told about the Lord Jesus. For He is the only way that they will ever get to God and His heaven. Here is a powerful motivation for our witness to others and for missions in general. For without it, there would be no obvious reason for the sowing with weeping to which the Lord calls His children (Psalm 126:5-6; Matthew 28:18-20). We must never allow ourselves to forget the haunting questions of Rom. 10:14:
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
Men will not call on Jesus and be saved if they have not first come to believe in Him. And they will not believe in Him if they have never heard of Him. And they will never hear of Him if someone does not come and proclaim Him to them. Without the heralding of the Gospel message, men will not get to Jesus, and they will perish. There is no other option. Therefore, we who know the Lord had better be busy seeing that those around us plunging on to hell hear about the One who is the way, the truth and the life.
3. Finally, our key verse tells us the message we must seek to communicate to every boy and girl, man and woman. This is the message which was not acceptable to the man I talked to on the airplane. It is a message which is not generally popular in our nation, worshipping as it does at the altar of toleration and acceptance of all religions and philosophies. But it is still the truth -- and apart from it no man will ever get to God or heaven. It is not merely my opinion, or the opinion of other ordinary men which I have adopted as my own. It is the message directly revealed to us by Jesus Himself in our key verse:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
To those who are distant from God, wandering in their own path as lost and rebellious sheep, we must point out the only way to the Father which is Jesus Christ. To those who have believed the lies of the Devil and of the world and of their own hearts, we must point out the Savior as being the truth -- the very Word of God -- and therefore the source of all truth -- especially of that leading to heaven. To those who are dead in their sins and headed to a physical death which will usher them into the second death of eternal torment, we must call out that Jesus is the life -- and therefore the giver of life -- so much so, that if they repent of their sins and believe in Him, they will come to have abundant life now, and eternal life with the Father in heaven.
We must present this Gospel as an exclusive Gospel -- as an inescapably exclusive Gospel. For there is no way around the words of our Lord. Furthermore, there is no other way to explain why the baby Jesus came to this wicked world to die. There is no way we can understand the horrible sacrifice of the divine Son by the Divine Father if any other way of saving men might have been available. There was no other way. The agony of the Savior on Golgotha's hill is eloquent testimony to that fact along with his Words. If we choose to ignore Christ's Words -- if we choose to ignore Christ's birth and agony -- we will be unable to escape the doom that will result, for any supposedly "alternative" routes which we choose to take will surely fail to bring us to the Father's house. They will instead eventually plunge off a cliff into hell.
But as we present this exclusive Gospel, we should not forget that it is so much more. As you consider this exclusive Gospel as an unbeliever -- perhaps as one tempted to reject it for its inescapably exclusive character -- recognize that it is so much more. It is a glorious Gospel -- Good News -- which exalts the true God and His Son Jesus Christ. It is a gracious Gospel which provides to us a way of salvation as those who deserve nothing but the wrath of God. If men -- if we -- will but humble ourselves and acknowledge who we are before this perfectly holy God, and if we will but ponder a moment over the great price which has been paid that men like us might be saved from their sins, we will not stumble at the exclusiveness of the Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. We will marvel that there is even one way at all by which we may come to the Father. And we will marvel that the Lord Jesus should ever want to take the likes of us to dwell with Him forever in the Father's house, let alone lay down His life under the angry frown of His beloved Father to make it possible in the first place.