Is There Really Only One Way To God?.......and is Jesus Christ the one and true way? There have been about three times in my own life in which that question, in differing forms, has hit me right between the eyes and made me ponder for a minute just what the absolute truth about a genuine relationship with Christ was really about......The first time occured when I was just a boy. I wasn't saved yet, and I didn't have much of a grasp of Christ, the Bible, sin, or anything spiritual, but I had been to church a number of times, and thought I was a believer. A friend asked me if I believed the bible, and I replied, "yes". He instantly challenged me with his incredulous question, "Does that sound like a merciful God- sending you to hell just because you don't believe in his son?" I was blindsided by his question (as well as his attitude) because I had never before in my young life really been challenged about the Gospel, or about why I believed what I believed (or thought I believed)......
The second time I was quickly challenged about my faith (and I was truly born-again at that point, having been apprehended by the Lord at twenty years of age) was in a wheat field on a summer job as I was sharing the Gospel with a co-worker. The man retorted, "That sounds like a threat!" Again, I was taken back for a moment, trying to figure out just how to respond.....
The third time happened as I was leading a Bible study a few years ago, when a man asked, "Sincere Muslims aren't wrong, as long as they really believe, right?"... All of these questions seem poignant and honest, don't they? We as believers in Christ and His Gospel must understant though, that we do not come from the position of a neutral world view. If we did, then who could say who's right and who's wrong about eternal life and the true condition of a soul? We in fact DO come from a Biblical world view- a view which clearly states that mandkind is helplessly and hopelessly dead in sin, and that only God Himself could and did take the initiative in bringing lost humanity back into a right relationship with Him through the substitutional death and subsequent resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ......
One of the first scriptures we learn as new Christians is John 14:6- "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." So simple, really. But an unsaved individual must be confronted with the fact that they are lost. If they cannot see that, then they'll never really see the need for a savior. Jesus didn't just die and rise from the dead to be our friend- He did it to bring us to the Father and deliver us from eternal damnation.....
Objections to the Gospel will not take us by surprise, and answering them will be considerably easier when we realize just what world view we espouse, and the lost will be forced to look at their own spiritual condition and seriously consider it as we make it clear to them that Jesus takes us FROM death and hell, and TO salvation and life- eternal life.
En Agape,
Jim Ewing
