Sat, 24 December, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.

John 14:1-7

¹ “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

What a great promise we have here from our Savior. Not only does He promise that He is preparing a place for us with Him in heaven, but He also promises to take us there.

Thomas then asks the way to the Father, and Jesus says that He alone is the way to the Father.

What do we learn from this?

Pluralism is rampant in the American culture. Pretty much anything goes except to say that someone is wrong in their moral behavior or their religion. We are told that all religions are equal, and therefore they are not to be criticized, unless they say that they hold the truth. But if anyone claims that their religion is right and others are wrong, such a person is ridiculed, because of this false idea that all religions are equal.

Well, the only way all religions can be equally valid is if all religions are equally wrong. They cannot all be right, since they make contradictory claims. And here we have a huge claim of exclusivity from the mouth of Jesus Christ. This cannot be reconciled with the claims of other religions. Either Jesus is preparing a home for His people in heaven, and He alone will faithfully bring them there, or He is not. He Himself eliminates the possibility that He is one of many ways to God, for He says that He is the only way to God. If He is right, then there is no other way to God. Pluralism is false, since Christianity is the only way. But if Jesus is wrong, then we have no reason to believe anything He says at all. Why believe anything else Jesus says if He is wrong about this fundamental issue of how we can be accepted by God? In this case, pluralism is also wrong, because Christianity itself is false if Jesus isn’t the only way to God.

Jesus isn’t a pluralist. He simply will not allow us to hold Christianity as the equal of other religions. He doesn’t claim to be one among many ways to God. No. He is the only way or He is not a way at all.

Where is Christ in this passage?

Jesus is the only way to God because He is the one who provides what is needed to be right with God. We need to have the guilt of our sins paid. Jesus did that on Calvary when He died on the cross to pay for the sins of all those who come to Him in faith. But we need more than just to have the guilt of our sins paid. We also need to be perfectly obedient to God’s laws. Jesus Christ was perfectly obedient, and He gives us His righteousness, satisfying God’s requirement, and making us acceptable before God. It is by His double work of taking our sins and giving us His righteousness that we have access to heaven. Without the work of Jesus Christ applied to us, we can not be right with God. There is no other way to the Father than by faith in His only Son, Jesus Christ.