Issue #1: Is Jesus the only way to God?

Especially in relation to this question, winsomeness has become an ideal that focuses more on avoiding offending people than warning them about the consequences of offending God. Christians must learn to articulate clearly and urgently what these consequences are, and why.

In an article explaining “Why Jesus Is the Only Way to God, and Why Truth Claims to the Contrary Are False,” I wrote,

[M]any people seem to be offended when Christians say Jesus is the only way to God—yet they are only relating what Jesus Himself declared. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” He said. “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Why should this challenge our sensibilities? God, after all, is God. He has a right to establish how people should approach Him and what will be required of them to enter His home. One former pastor offers this insightful account.

While I once was witnessing to a young couple, the husband said he believed there were many ways to be saved. I asked, “If I came to your house at night, put a ladder up to a second-floor window and climbed in, what you would do?” After the man told me he would shoot me, I asked, “You mean you require someone to enter your house only in the way you prescribe, but you believe you can decide how you are going to get into God’s kingdom?”

He responded, “I guess that doesn’t make sense, does it?” I left hoping my challenge eventually would come to represent a true turning point in this man’s perspective on Jesus.¹

Rather than asking how God could exclude those who wish to approach Him in ways other than through His Son, we need to appreciate the cost He paid to provide the one way He provided. God’s perfect character requires Him to judge sin—even those actions we might deem the smallest and least significant violations of His law.

Is God Being Fair?

Robert Laidlaw in 1913 / Wikipedia

In a letter to his employees explaining why he believed in the God of the Bible Robert Laidlaw (1885-1971) declared,

A young man once asked me, “Do you think it is fair of God to set the standard of holiness so high that we cannot reach it, and then judge us for falling short?”

I replied, “God has not set an arbitrary standard of holiness as an official sets an arbitrary standard of height for his bodyguards. In such a case, a man may have all the other qualifications, but if he is an inch too short he is disqualified.

God has not really set a standard at all: He is the standard. He is absolute holiness, and to preserve His own character He must remain absolutely holy in all of His dealings with man, maintaining that standard irrespective of the tremendous implications which it may hold for both Him and us” [emphases added].

So the question isn’t really one of fairness, but divine holiness. God cannot violate His own character.

While Mr. Laidlaw explains eloquently why God’s standard of absolute holiness isn’t a matter of fairness, but instead a matter of His own unchanging nature and character, there is another aspect of fairness we need to examine. Let’s post the question again: Is God being unfair by stipulating that people can come to Him only through His Son, and by no other way? The person asking this question needs healthy reminders of what fairness really is, that no one has been treated more unfairly than Jesus Himself, and that God has not been silent about His plan of salvation.

Jesus, bearing a crown of thorns and wearing a purple robe, was King of the Jews. He was beaten and mocked when He was executed by crucifixion. / Dirck van Baburen / 1623

God sent His Son Jesus to earth to live a perfect life and to never sin; then, in the end, to be rejected, brutally beaten, and crucified. Crucifixion is the cruelest form of capital punishment ever devised. Was any of this fair? Jesus, who was sinless, took upon Himself the sins of the world and died for the guilty, making it possible for them to be forgiven and to receive eternal life, even though they actually deserve eternal punishment in hell. None of this is fair, and we can thank God it isn’t. Grace isn’t fair, and those who trust Christ are its undeserving beneficiaries!

Furthermore, God hasn’t been secretive about His plan of salvation. He revealed it in the Bible, speaking clearly about the consequences of ignoring or rejecting His Son. In John 14:6, Jesus Himself said that He is the only way to God. Since Jesus’ ascension, individual Christians and the church, sometimes at great sacrifice, have worked to spread this message around the world. Would it be fair of God to renege on His word and make exceptions, allowing people into heaven who haven’t come to Him as He has stated they must? Grace is undeserved and clearly isn’t fair, but God is totally fair in saving only those who believe in Christ. Were God to do otherwise, He would be a liar and unworthy of the trust He requires.

I would implore anyone who finds these realities offensive to reconsider, and to change his or her perspective. No one can claim with even the slightest shred of credibility that God is unfair. The real issue is, Will we take advantage of the opportunities God has given us to experience His mercy and grace?

Issue #2: Being an authentic Christian will offend some people.

Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” Significantly, in 2 Timothy 3, Paul began to write about the last days and the atmosphere that will prevail at that time. The apostle warned his “son in the faith,”

^3:1But know this, that in the last days ^[a]perilous times will come: ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, ^[b]unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

This is a portion of the broader context of verse 12, but we also need to take note of what Paul said to Timothy after verse 12. Here are verses 13-17:

¹³But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁶All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, ¹⁷that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Paul and Timothy were swimming against strong cultural currents, and if we are going to remain true to Scripture, so will we. Yet this should not surprise us. Jesus, who was so hated his enemies managed to have him crucified, warned His followers that they too, would be hated.

While we tend to think of Jesus as having been popular during His ministry, a much better term to describe Him is controversial. Jesus was loving and compassionate, but He also upheld the truth and never altered it to avoid offending people. He even emphasized the difficulty that awaited His sincere followers.

Luke 14:25 says of Jesus, “Now great multitudes went with Him.” Apparently, at this point in His ministry, Jesus had quite a following. Probably not all of these individuals were committed to Him, but they at least were curious—and their numbers were plentiful. Why, then, would Jesus do what He did next? Beginning in verse 25, the passage goes on to say,

And He turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷ And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— ²⁹ lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? ³¹ Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. ³³ So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. ³⁴ “Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? ³⁵ It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

…[W}hy would Jesus challenge the people in this way? Weren’t things going well enough? Surely His presentation would cause some, and probably many, to turn away. Why would He want to ruin a good thing? You’d think He’d at least wait until later to deliver this kind of message! We see that He offered a similar challenge to the man we often call the rich young ruler.

Twenty-first century American Christianity tends to resist saying or doing anything that would bring down its numbers, but we need to understand that Jesus simply was being honest. If you think following Jesus will be easy, think again. Elsewhere, Jesus told His disciples,

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”

Notes:

¹Jerry Price, “Jesus the One and Only,” in Life Words Personal Study Guide, Fall, 2010, (Nashville: LifeWay Christian Resources, 2010), 66.

What does it mean to love one’s neighbor? Loving one’s neighbor means being understanding and compassionate, but it also means warning one’s neighbor when necessary. Read Sounding Warnings Is a God-Given Duty.

Here are some ways that the rhetoric of leftist evangelical leaders on the importance of winsomeness and nuance have decreased the effectiveness of the church. Each of these 13 items appears in my list of “95 Theses for the Protestant Evangelical Church in the 21^st Century.” The number in parentheses in each case corresponds to the number assigned to that item in the original list.

1. (1) The church has focused on attracting people and keeping people, and it has failed to challenge them. This corresponding “focus and failure” often is manifested in the church’s efforts to entertain. Chuck Swindoll said, “Some time ago a group of church leaders decided that they didn’t want to be hated. They focused just on attracting more and more people.” He also said, Today, “many churches masquerade as entertainment centers, where the leadership primarily concerns itself with making people feel good.”¹ These teachings of Jesus are excellent examples of the kinds of challenges believers need.
2. (2) The church has equated loving people with not offending them (see Mark 10:17-22; Eph. 4:11-16).
3. (6) The church has emphasized God’s love to the point of effectively neglecting His holiness and wrath.
4. (7) The church says very little about hell, yet hell is very real. Vance Havner once said, “When I pastored a country church, a farmer didn’t like the sermons I preached on hell. He said, ‘Preach about the meek and lowly Jesus.’ I said, ‘That’s where I got my information about hell.’”
5. (8) In its evangelistic presentations, the church emphasizes the themes of purpose and meaning in life and fails to appropriately uphold the certainty of God’s judgment of sins.
6. (9) The church has endeavored to win converts and failed to make disciples.
7. (10) The church has upheld the benefits of salvation and avoided talking about its demands. Here are a few of them(also go here and here).
8. (19) While recognizing that Jesus was compassionate, loving, and kind, the church has largely ignored the fact that He was controversial [also go here].
9. (20) The church has failed to emphasize the true meaning of repentance and the critical need for believers to live holy lives.
10. (21) The church has failed to stress the need for repentance in its evangelistic presentations.
11. (29) The church has failed to understand that taking a stand for righteousness, even though it is unpopular at the moment and can incite accusations of hatred and bigotry, actually can attract people to the Christian faith. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “When the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.”
12. (68) The church has ignored its duty to issue biblical warnings to the culture or to its own people.
13. (73) The church is more interested in being liked than in being respected for its convictions.