It’s probably the theological question I get asked the most. It certainly was the one I was asked most often when I was a campus minister working with college students. It was a question that, I’m sure, had its roots in many late night talks with people from other nations and other cultures. Maybe it came from living with a roommate or falling in love with a boyfriend who was of another faith or who professed no faith. But then they would come to worship or to a Thursday night dinner and we would talk about Jesus and we would sing about how “Jesus is savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth” and we would pray to God in the name of Jesus. And they would start to think about their friends and their roommates and their professors and all the other people who did not do this strange thing that we did. They weren’t worshipping Jesus and yet, weren’t some of these other folks good people? Don’t some of them express faith and hope and live ethical lives? The question arose and eventually it would make its way to me in its theological form, “What about those folks who aren’t Christian? Do we really believe that salvation comes through Christ alone?”
That’s the question I want to offer up today as we do a second week of soundings – exploring the Bible with an issue in mind and seeing what God might have to say to us. What do we believe about Jesus and salvation? What does the Bible say about this? And then how do we relate to a world that is going to find whatever answer we come up with at best unusual and at worst offensive?
I have to start by saying that I am tempted to say that this is a misplaced question. There’s something a little strange about it. That we should be worried about being a Christian having everything to do with Christ – that’s a little strange. It’s right there in the name. And if Jesus is the one who has shown us the way to God, would we really want to give up on the new life we’ve gained because we think it could have happened differently? It’s a little bit like someone giving up on Shakespeare’s plays – and all of their beauty and insight in what it’s like to be human – because they were written in English rather than Urdu. If Jesus has given us entry into the kingdom and told us that we can be children of God, are we really going to shy away from talking of him as The Way, The Truth and The Life?
This is the verse that is at the heart of this question. John chapter 14, verse 6: “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” We get hung up on the last part of that. No one? Really? Except through Jesus? No one?
But this is a consistent message through the Bible. God is an exclusive lover and God wants exclusivity in those who come to love God. What is the first commandment? “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods but me.” [Ex. 20:2] The Shema, the great focus verse for Judaism, in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 and 5, says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
When the people of Israel enter the land that they are promised after the long journey through the wilderness God tells them to tear down the altars to other gods because “you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” [Ex.. 34:14] What Israel has to learn is that when they stay close to the God who has claimed them and liberated them and brought them to a new land they will thrive. But when they forget God they will fall. God talks about their faithlessness in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 21: “They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols.” There is an emptiness and nothingness is the other things that we make our gods.
So it is not surprising that Christians would talk about Jesus in the same sort of ways. Jesus is the full expression of God’s intentions for humanity. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the one who goes to the cross to prove that God’s love bears all things. Jesus is the one who goes forth from the tomb to prove that God’s love conquers death. Jesus is the one who opens the door for lost people to be found, for wounded people to be made whole, for sick people to be healed, for dead people to be made alive, and for oppressed people to be set free. Jesus is the one we call Immanuel – God with us. Jesus is the one on whom God’s Spirit descended and of whom God’s voice said, “This is my beloved Son – listen to Him.”
So it’s not a surprise to hear Jesus saying, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” It’s not a surprise to hear in Acts, chapter 4 verses 11 and 12,, Peter saying that Jesus is the cornerstone. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” It’s not a surprise to read in 1 Timothy 2, verse 5: “There is one God and there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.” It’s not a surprise to read Paul in Romans chapter 10, verse 9 saying, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” It’s not surprising to hear these things because they were written by people whose lives had been turned upside down and absolutely transformed by their experience with Jesus Christ. They knew, because it had happened to them, that Jesus was the way to God, the way to new life, the way to salvation. They didn’t stop to consider whether there were other ways or other paths, because they had found the Way. There was no other way.
Like a man on his knee proposing to his intended bride, there is no room for considering alternatives. It may be a foolish thing he is doing. It may, from the outside, appear that he is being a little excessive, a little rash, a little over the top. But from the inside, in what is happening between these two, it is the most natural thing in the world. So in addition to the biblical message that God is a jealous God, a God who loves exclusively and desires our total selves, our entire love in return…in addition to this we can also add that the Bible says that Jesus is the full expression of God’s intentions and it is right that we should come to God through him alone.
But there’s more to this story. We’ve been talking about exclusive love but you know that the message of the Bible is not a message of exclusion. The thing that threatened the Pharisees about Jesus is not that he was exclusive but that he was inclusive. He included people that they thought should not have been included. He hung out with sinners. He consulted with tax collectors. He consorted with prostitutes. And Jesus seemed to enjoy these people.
I ran across a great sermon by a preacher named Samir Selmanovic this week. He’s a convert from Islam from Croatia and now is starting a new church in Manhattan called Faith House. Selmanovic says that what really ticked off the Pharisees about Jesus was not that he loved people but that he seemed to really like them. You know how easy it is for us to say, “Well, I love that person as a Christian, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like them.” The Pharisees could have said something like that – loving people in the abstract but despising them in person.
But Jesus doesn’t do that. He goes in the midst of the people and tells his followers to welcome them. Selmanovic says that Jesus allows himself to need others and that this is the sign of true love. “You don’t truly love the other,” he says, “until you can take what the other needs to give you.”[i] And so Jesus tells a woman at a well in Samaria that he needs a drink of water from her. He tells his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane that he needs them. Jesus is unafraid to be inclusive and to accept that others have something to offer. Selmanovic wonders if maybe that doesn’t affect our evangelism as Christians. “We withhold being teachable from the world and the world, in turn, withholds itself from us.”[ii]
The reading from Acts today points us in this direction. Paul is taking the faith to Athens, a place of great learning and great religious ferment. There are all kinds of option for believing in Athens. Paul goes to the Areopagus, where the philosophers and religious thinkers gather, and he does what Jesus does – he looks at how God is already active in the lives of the Athenians. Chapter 17 verse 22 says, “Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you.’” Paul sees that God is already present there.
This too, is biblical. God speaks in other peoples and even in other faiths. Even we who have fallen in love with God through Christ and have given our lives over to him can hear in others a word that illuminates the world. In the Hebrew scriptures we see God using the Persian king Cyrus as an instrument. God says to Cyrus in Isaiah chapter 45 beginning with verse 4: “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by name; I surname you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do not know me, so that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me.”
In the New Testament Jesus talks in John chapter 10 verse 16 about having “other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Peter, in Acts, the same disciple who declared that there is no other name given for salvation, also recognized that God was throwing the door wide open, not closing it in Jesus. After his revelation in the sail cloth in chapter 10 verses 34 and 35 he says: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” It was his mission to help all those who were searching to hear how God had come with a message of salvation for all in Jesus Christ.
This, perhaps is the most important message we can take from this biblical exploration. If we hear Jesus’ claim to be the Way as a threat to those who do not claim salvation in Christ, then we have misunderstood it. If we hear the claim that there is no other name by which people may be saved as a way to sort out the world into who’s in and who’s out so that we can feel justified or superior, then we have misunderstood it. Those are the fears I hear when people ask me the question about their non-Christian friends.
What we want people to hear is not that we think their lives are a mess without Jesus. They know that already. We know how much Jesus still has to work on in us even after we accept Christ. What we want people to hear is that God wants a full chorus. That God’s work in the world is not condemnation and division but reconciliation. John 3 verse 17 says, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that world might be saved through him.” 2 Corinthians 5 verse 19 says, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” Psalm 22 verse 27 promises that “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.” God speaks in Isaiah chapter 49 verse 6 to say, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.”
I don’t think we should be anxious for the salvation of the world. God is about that work and what God promises, God fulfills. God needs agents for this work and that is why Jesus’ final words in Matthew’s gospel are “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” [Mat. 28:18—20] But he also promises there: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” God is reconciling the world in Jesus Christ. That’s why we say that there is salvation through Christ alone. But that’s not a weapon, it’s an invitation. And we are called to live our lives as Christians in such a way that people will see, not us, but the power of transforming good news.
Samir Selmanovic tells a story in the sermon I quoted about a woman named Sue. One Christmas week, she showed up at his church service, partly because it was so cold and she had nowhere else to go and partly because she was attracted by his sermon title, which was “The Magic of Christianity.” That was attractive to her because she was a witch, a Wiccan who called herself a white witch.
But she got intrigued by what she heard. She became friends with this pastor. They went to watch “Lord of the Rings” together and she joined a Bible Study in the church.
Some time later the church hosted a conference for pastors starting new faith communities and as part of it there were testimonies of failure from six of the pastors. They decided at the conference that they needed a time to talk about how hard the work of telling the good news was, too, and most conferences only focused on the successes. So they had this time scheduled.
Selmanovic wanted to offer a blessing to the pastors as they finished their testimonies and he tried to think who could do this. Suddenly it came to him. I’ll ask the witch. So he asked Sue to bless them and at first she said, “Yes, if I can pray to God as a mother.” Selmanovic was uncomfortable with that and thought it would be distracting to the purpose of the conference, but they eventually agreed that she could offer a prayer to God as the Holy Spirit.
So when these pastors shared the pain of their failures at this conference, Sue got up at the end and prayed this prayer: “Dear Holy Spirit, I am not a Christian, but I and my son are cared for in this church. One day, I might become a believer. These pastors are worn out in their service for you, doing good to people. Please make them see how important their work is. What would the world be like without them? May they walk on so that I and people like me can find a way one day and come to believe.”
One of the pastors leaned forward and whispered in Selmanovic’s ear, “Thank you, Jesus.” Selmanovic said, “Her words lingered in the air like a wonderful heathen scent. We were hoping that if we just stayed quiet that there would be more words coming. We were basking in the love, hope and faith of this woman.” And it was a hope and faith that she was longing to see in Jesus and his followers.
Will Willimon, our United Methodist bishop in North Alabama, says, “On the basis of our daily experience of walking with Jesus, we have difficulty imagining any other way for people like us—inherently selfish, violent, idolatrous, cowards that we are—to get abundant life other than through a crucified and risen Savior like Jesus. But why should we try to imagine other possible ways, truths, and lives? We’ve got our hands full just trying to keep up with Jesus. Cannot we joyfully, lovingly testify to the unique, unsubstitutable way that has led us to such abundant life?”[iii]
And if we do, we might add, might we not invite others to see what life can be like when lived in God’s light? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. But the bigger question is: Is Jesus your way, your truth, and your life? Thanks be to God.
John 14:1-14 [NRSV]
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going."
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
[i] Samir Selmanovic, “Finding Our God in the Other,” http://www.crosswalkministries.com/cw/realmedia/102106avs.ram
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] William Willimon, “Preaching on the Way of John 14:6,” Circuit Rider May/June 2007
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