Introduction:
A. The story is told of two rival rabbis who came face to face in a narrow alley way.
1. The alley was so narrow that it was impossible for the two to pass by each other.
2. The one rabbi, pulling himself up to his full height, said, “I never make way for arrogant, narrow-minded, fools.”
3. Smiling, the other rabbi stepped aside and said, “I always do.”
B. There is a godly, humble way to believe and behave when I think that I am right and others are wrong.
1. Unfortunately, we don’t always believe and behave as we should when we think we are right and others are wrong.
C. Dr. R. C. Sproul is a well-known and respected contemporary Christian theologian and apologist.
1. He tells about an experience he had as a lowly freshman in college.
a. He was a relatively new convert to Christianity at the time.
b. He was sitting innocently enough in his freshman college English class, when right in the middle of class, the professor, who was hostile to Christianity called R. C. Sproul onto the carpet.
2. The professor asked, “Mr. Sproul, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?”
a. Sproul says that he was shaken by the question.
b. He said, “In that moment, I felt the weight of her question, and I knew that every eye in the room was on me. My mind raced for a way to escape my dilemma. I knew if I said yes, people would be angry. At the same time, if I said no, I would be betraying Christ.”
c. R. C. Sproul muttered almost inaudibly, “Yes, I do.”
3. The teacher responded with unmitigated fury. In front of the class, with a voice as loud as a rocket launcher, she yelled at Sproul, “That is the most narrow-minded, bigoted, and arrogant statement I have ever heard in my life! You must be a supreme egotist to believe that your way of religion is the only way.”
4. R. C. Sproul, thoroughly embarrassed, slouched meekly in his chair without saying another word.
5. Since then, Sproul has learned how to be an effective spokesman for the Christian faith, and if he were back in that classroom now, he would know how to respond to such an attack.
D. But that professor’s charge is one that we, Christians, must learn how to respond to.
1. The question will come in various forms: “Well, all religions are the same, so why insist that yours is the only right one?” or “Why would you be so narrow-minded as to believe Jesus is the only way to God? Isn’t that the height of bigotry?”
2. Whatever the form, this question is always embedded in the idea of tolerance.
3. If the moral and cultural climate of our age has any theme, it is that of tolerance.
a. Our immoral, ungodly, and sinful generation upholds one primary virtue – tolerance of everybody else’s beliefs, choices and sin.
b. Therefore, the only vice that remains is intolerance.
4. It is interesting to me that the tolerance of our age and culture only goes so far.
a. It comes to a screeching halt right at the door of Christianity.
b. Christians who speak up and stand up for what they believe are accused of intolerance, yet those making the accusation are themselves displaying incredible intolerance toward Christians.
c. Pointing out the hypocrisy of this intolerance might make a difference, but don’t count on it.
E. In John 14:6, Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
1. That’s why R. C. Sproul answered his professor’s question the way he did.
2. And that’s why we should answer the same way.
3. Is Jesus the only way? Yes Jesus is – at least that’s what Jesus said and we must take Him at His word.
F. That statement of Jesus is the most outrageous assertion Jesus ever made.
1. It was His most politically incorrect claim of all.
a. That claim rankles people like no other.
b. People call it arrogant, narrow-minded, bigoted, and snobbish; like the professor.
c. For some seekers, it is a stumbling block to faith.
2. But I believe that Jesus was telling the truth when He said it.
a. And I believe He said it out of great compassion, not arrogance.
b. And I believe that when we look closer at it, this statement makes absolute sense.
c. In fact, I believe this single sentence is one of the most critically important bits of information in history and for you and me personally.
3. So why is this claim so controversial?
a. One reason is that it strikes at the core of three great myths about religion.
b. So let’s consider these three myths or misconceptions in light of Jesus’ assertion.
I. Myth #1: All religions are basically the same.
A. You’ve probably heard people say that although there are surface-level distinctions between the various world religions, if you strip them all down to their essentials, all religions fundamentally teach the same thing — so it doesn’t really matter which one you follow.
1. In other words, all spiritual paths lead up the same mountain because all religions basically teach the brotherhood and sisterhood of men and women and the universal fatherhood of God.
2. Now, there is some common ground between many of the world’s religions, particularly concerning certain basic values and morality.
3. But there are significant differences, too.
B. In fact, with this one outlandish assertion, Jesus boldly puts Christianity in a separate class by itself.
1. If the path to God is through Jesus, then Christianity cannot be reconciled with any other religion.
2. The uniqueness of Christianity is rooted in the uniqueness of Jesus Himself.
a. Someone once noted that other religious leaders say, “Follow me and I’ll show you how to find truth,” but Jesus says, “I am the truth.”
b. Other religious leaders say, “Follow me and I’ll show you the way to salvation,” but Jesus says, “I am the way to eternal life.”
c. Other religious leaders say, “Follow me and I’ll show you how to become enlightened,” but Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.”
d. Other religious leaders say, “Follow me and I’ll show you many doors that lead to God,” but Jesus says, “I am the door.”
3. So when Jesus says, “So follow Me,” He is saying something very different than anyone else.
C. For a long time people have tried to harmonize the various religions of the world, but there are drastic and irreconcilable differences between Christianity and other belief systems.
1. Every other religion I’ve ever seen is based on people doing something — through struggling and striving — to somehow earn the favor of God.
a. They say people have to use a Tibetan prayer wheel or go on pilgrimages or give alms to the poor or avoid eating certain foods or pray in a specified way or go through a series of reincarnations or wherever.
b. They are the attempts of people to reach out to God and pacify Him.
2. But in Christianity, Jesus Christ is God reaching out to us.
a. Jesus taught the opposite of what other religious teach.
b. He said nobody can do anything to merit heaven, so we might as well give up trying.
c. He said we’re all guilty of wrongdoing — and that’s consistent with our experience, isn’t it? Nobody here would claim to be perfect.
d. And Jesus said that our wrongdoing separates us from our holy and perfect God — and, again, that’s consistent with our experience. Haven’t you ever felt distant or disconnected from God? Of course you have.
e. Because God is a righteous judge, our wrongdoing has to be paid for.
f. So out of His love, Jesus voluntarily offered Himself as our substitute to pay the penalty that we owed for our sin.
g. And when we receive His sacrifice on our behalf, we become reunited with God for eternity.
3. We might say that all other religions are spelled “D-O,” because they teach that people have to do a bunch of religious rituals and good works to try to please God.
a. But Christianity is spelled “D-O-N-E,” because Christ has done it all on the cross — and we just need to receive Him and His gift of grace.
4. This distinction is starkly demonstrated by comparing a parable taught by Jesus with a similar story found in Buddhist literature.
a. Both stories involve sons who became rebellious and left home, but who then saw the error of their ways and decided to come back and be reconciled with their families.
b. In the Buddhist story, the errant son is required to work off the penalty for his past misdeeds by spending years in servitude.
c. But you know how the Christian parable of the Prodigal Son ends — the repentant son is warmly welcomed home by his loving father and is given undeserved grace and forgiveness.
D. And there are other fundamental differences between Christianity and other world religions as well. 1. For instance, Christianity says there’s one eternal God who created the universe.
2. Hinduism says everything is God — you’re God, I’m God, this podium is God.
3. Islam denies Jesus was God or that He died for our sins.
4. Buddha may not even have believed in God!
5. These beliefs cannot all be true at the same time; they completely contradict each other.
E. So all religions are not the same.
1. And while other religious leaders can offer wise sayings and helpful insights, only Jesus Christ — because He is the perfect Son of God — is qualified to offer Himself as payment for our wrongdoing.
2. No other religious leader even pretended to be able to do that.
3. It’s illogical to think that God would go over to one side of the world and tell people, “Here’s the way to become reconciled with me,” and then go over to another place and say, “No, here’s a completely contradictory way to please me,” and so forth.
4. However, it does make sense that God would provide a path for us to follow to find Him, and that He would tell us about that path in an extraordinary manner, which He did by sending Jesus Christ to enter human history and provide a path to God at such a great cost to Himself.
5. If there was another way to be saved other than the sacrifice of God’s Son, don’t you think God would have made that the way and kept Jesus from dying on the cross?
6. But after having given Jesus as our sacrifice, doesn’t it make sense that Jesus would be the only path to God?
II. Myth #2: All religions are equally valid and valuable.
A. People say that Christianity might be different, but it’s still just one philosophy among many, and is only as valid as any other religion.
1. In other words, even if there are differences between religions, they all have equal claims on the truth.
2. You know — you have your truth and I have mine.
3. This myth has a certain amount of appeal because, on the surface, it seems to reflect our pluralistic attitudes in this country.
4. And we do want to be tolerant of other views, don’t we?
5. The Bible tells us we should be loving, accepting and respectful toward all people, regardless of their faith.
B. As you know, under our Constitution, all religious viewpoints are equally protected.
1. People can believe whatever they want.
2. But this causes some people to jump to the erroneous conclusion that because different philosophies are equally protected, they must be equally valid, and that’s just not the case.
3. The concept behind what the Supreme Court has called our “marketplace of ideas” is that truth and falsehood will grapple in unhindered debate so that, in the end, truth will prevail.
4. So even though all religions are equally protected under our Constitution, that has nothing to do with whether they’re based on truth.
C. Let me give you an example from the late Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko (died 1997).
1. Royko wrote a tongue-in-cheek column in which he said he was a member of the Church of Asylumism.
a. He said this church believes that there was an advanced civilization in a distant galaxy millions of years ago, and a few hundred of these aliens ate some tainted veggie dip and a virus scrambled their brains.
b. When treatment failed, they were taken to an uninhabited planet that would serve as an asylum and where they could roam free and act goofy.
c. That planet, he said, was earth, and we’re all descendants of these aliens.
d. Royko said to doubters: “You want proof? Read history books. Look at the newspaper and TV news. Then tell me this isn’t one big loony bin!”
2. Now, Royko was kidding about the Church of Asylumism, but in this country people have the right to believe whatever they want.
3. The Church of Asylumism would be protected under the Constitution as much as any other religious institution, but that doesn’t mean that its teachings are true or valuable.
D. For you see, everybody is free to make the claim, as Jesus did, that they are the way, the truth, and the life, and that nobody can come to God except through them.
1. I could say it or you could say it, but that wouldn’t make it true.
2. The question is, how do we know Jesus was telling the truth?
3. Well, Jesus backs up His claim with unique credentials that make Him uniquely credible.
4. We talked about this at length in last week’s sermon when we explored the question: “Was Jesus God?” so we won’t take time addressing that in this sermon.
5. Ultimately, Christianity isn’t a philosophy; it’s a reality.
6. Jesus didn’t just claim He was the one-and-only Son of God, but He validated His claim like nobody else in history.
E. Before we consider the last myth, let’s review:
1. So we’ve seen that the first myth — that all religions are basically the same — isn’t true because Christ and His teachings set Christianity apart from all other faiths.
2. And the second myth — that Christianity is just one philosophy among many and only as valid as any other religion — isn’t true because the unique credentials of Christ give Him credibility like no other spiritual leader.
3. In other words, when He claims to be the way to God, His credentials back him up.
III. Myth #3: Christians are narrow-minded and arrogant to say Jesus is the only way to God.
A. Now, I’d agree that Christians would be acting in a narrow-minded way if there really were lots of paths to God and they were saying that theirs is the best or only way.
1. But on the other hand, if Jesus is the only way to God, because His sinlessness and divinity make Him the only able to be our substitute and save us from our sins, then it is not narrow-minded and arrogant to say so.
2. Let me draw you an analogy.
a. Sometimes children develop jaundice shortly after they are born.
b. Jaundice is a liver disorder that causes the skin and the whites of the eyes to turn yellow.
c. When this happens, pediatricians tell parents not to worry because this is easily treated - all they had to do was put the baby under a special light for a while and this would stimulate the liver properly and the baby would be all right.
d. Now, the parents could say, “That treatment sounds too easy or too narrow-minded. Instead, we would rather scrub our baby with soap and dip him in bleach? If we worked hard enough, I’m sure we could get his normal coloring back.”
e. Of course, the doctor would counter, “No, that won’t work. There’s only one way to handle this.”
f. Again the parents could reply, “Well, Doc, that’s your truth, not our truth. We think if we just ignore it, then it will go away.”
g. Losing his patience, the doctor would likely say, “You’re jeopardizing your baby if you don’t do what I say. There’s only one way to cure him. Look at the credentials hanging on my wall. I’ve studied at medical school and I’ve used what I’ve learned to cure countless babies like yours. Trust me and do what I say!”
3. Would any of us accuse that doctor of being narrow-minded if they proposed only one course of treatment to the exclusion of all others?
a. Of course not, that’s not being narrow-minded - that’s acting rationally in accordance with the evidence and truth.
4. Well, we all have a terminal illness called sin, and the reason we cling to Christ is because He’s the Great Physician who has the only cure.
1. We can try to scrub away our sin with good deeds, but it won’t work.
2. We can ignore it and hope it goes away, but it won’t.
3. We can sincerely think there’s another way of dealing with it, but we’d be sincerely wrong.
4. The truth is that only the Great Physician offers a treatment that will erase our stain of sin.
5. When we turn to Him only and encourage others to do the same, then we’re not being narrow-minded; we’re acting rationally in accordance with the evidence and the truth.
Conclusion:
A. A question that always gets raised in discussions about Jesus being the only way is: “But what about those who live in an isolated place and who haven’t had a chance to hear about Jesus? What’s going to happen to them?”
1. Actually this is an excellent question.
2. Let me say that we don’t have as complete an answer to that question as we would like.
3. God hasn’t told us all we’d like to know about this important question.
B. Here’s what we do know from the Bible that helps in answering that question:
1. First, we know that everybody has a moral standard written on their hearts by God and that everybody is guilty of violating that standard. That’s why our conscience bothers us when we do something wrong.
2. Second, we know that everybody has enough information from observing the world to know that God exists, unfortunately, many people have suppressed that and rejected God anyway.
3. Third, we know that those who sincerely seek God will find Him.
a. In fact, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is seeking us first, making it possible for us to seek God.
4. Finally, and most importantly, we know that God is a righteous and merciful judge – God knows how to make judgments about all these things.
a. We can rest assured that in the end, nobody will be excluded from heaven solely because he or she lacked some important information that they had no access to.
b. Ultimately, the reason people will be denied admittance is because they have told God their entire life that they can live just fine without Him.
c. We will have more to say about this in a couple of weeks when we discuss the question: “How can a loving God send people to hell?”
C. But for you and me, the issue isn’t ignorance - It’s faith and obedience.
1. We’ve heard what Jesus said about Himself and what the apostles said about Him.
2. 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)
3. Paul wrote, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men…” (1 Tim. 2:5-6)
D. So next time you have someone say, “Oh, all religions are the same,” don’t do what that young R. C. Sproul did in his freshman English class.
1. Don’t shrink back from the truth, but speak up and say, “Not all religions are the same. Christ and Christianity are uniquely and fundamentally different.”
2. You might use this analogy: All humanity is drowning, and the religions of the world are like a lifeguard throwing humanity a set of instructions on how to swim (how to save yourself). Christianity is akin to the Savior Himself jumping into the water to save humanity at the expense of His own life.
E. When we say that Jesus is the only way to God, we are not being arrogant and narrow-minded, we are simply being truthful.
1. We are simply quoting what Jesus said of Himself: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn. 14:6)
2. Nobody made that up – it comes straight from the mouth of the Son of God.
F. Where are you in your faith journey?
1. Have you and are you putting all your faith and trust in Jesus as the only Savior and Lord?
2. Are you ready to make that kind of commitment today?
3. John 3:16 – “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.”
4. Romans 10:9 – “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
5. Acts 2:38 – “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
6. We would love to help you to believe in, confess faith in, and repent and be baptized into Jesus, who is the only way to God.
Resources:
Is Jesus the Only Way to God? Sermon by Lee Strobel, SermonCentral.com
Skeptics Answered, by D. James Kennedy, Multnomah Books, 1997
Questions People Ask Ministers Most, by Harold Hazelip, Baker Book House, 1986
Prepare to Answer, by Rubel Shelly, 20th Century Christian, 1990
