Christ: The Exclusive Path to Salvation

"And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Now, I don't know how Peter could be more clear to say that salvation is exclusively in Jesus Christ. He is the only name. There is no other way by which we can be saved. [00:00:29]

This statement is seen as an ultimate statement of arrogance. It is seen as a statement of intolerance. Jesus, by claiming to be the exclusive way to the Father, no one gets to God except through Jesus Christ. We call that exclusivity. He is the exclusive way. To say that is an incredible intolerant thing to say is what we would see in our culture because you are saying by definition then that all other ways are false, all other ways will not get you there. [00:02:49]

So, here is the first thing I just sort of want to drive home to you, and then we will unpack it, we will prove it, but I just want you to grasp this first concept, this initial concept to say that "Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation" is not arrogance, to say that "Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation" is not intolerant. It is in fact pure compassion. [00:03:39]

So, what is the law of non-contradiction? Well, briefly stated it says that "A cannot be non-A" at the same time. Let us illustrate it. I can't eat my cake and have it too, right? That is a contradiction. It would be great if I could be able to do that and have like a never-ending piece of cake. That would be wonderful. I could always eat my cake, but I would always have it. [00:04:42]

The God of Christianity is the trinitarian God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, that is in total contradiction to Judaism that flat out rejects the deity of Christ. It is also a contradiction to the religion of Islam. Islam speaks of God as Allah, as "The Sovereign One," and it speaks of Christ as a prophet, but it denies the deity of Christ. [00:06:01]

So, you take the Christian Bible and you compare that to any other religious text, and you will be overwhelmed by the uniqueness of the Bible. It is unlike any other text. For one thing, it was written over the span of twelve hundred years. It was written by thirty-nine authors. It was written in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. [00:08:41]

You have this variety of authors, variety of languages, variety of geographic locations, variety of centuries, and one book. I mean, think about that. One book. You know, if you were to have four or five people write a biography of an American figure, George Washington, right, four or five people write a biography, you would have all these interesting accounts, you would have all these sort of even probably conflicting accounts, conflicting interpretations. [00:10:25]

And then the other thing is, you look at some of these texts like the Qur'an, these were revelations that were given to Mohammed. Then he would write them down or he would recite them rather, and they were recorded. You have the book of Mormon where you have these like tablets that have a secret language, and Joseph Smith gets this sort of decoder ability to decode the secret language, and nobody is aware of how this is happening and he is sort of doing it in secret. [00:11:18]

Now, you start comparing the gospel message to any other message of any other religion, and you will be struck by the utter uniqueness of Christianity. For one, all these other religions talk about everything that we must do. They are basically works-oriented, whether it is even Roman Catholicism or it is Judaism or it is Islam or it is some of these various cults that have come along throughout the ages and are present in our day, it is all incumbent on what you do to achieve some level of merit or to somehow merit the approval of God on your life, and into that is Christianity's message of grace, that there is nothing that you can do to earn your salvation. [00:12:52]

So, first of all, Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Let us look at each one of those. When Jesus says, "I am the way," this is in total contradiction to pluralism, that says there are multiple ways. It also speaks to that sort of angst of the confusion of our day. You know, what is the way? Where do we go? [00:14:39]

And then finally, Jesus says, "I am the life." You know, we also live in a moment of despair. We see it. And, you know, sadly, I think in many moments and maybe through this pandemic just because of the sort of abruptness of change that has been brought to our routines and to our lives, it has sort of spawned a significant and some would say even crisis of just mental health. [00:16:59]

This, you know, is the gospel message, and this is unique. This is a message of hope. And listen, this gospel message of hope, this is the message that every person needs to hear. And if you are out there equipped and you are defending Jesus Christ as the way, as the truth, and the life, that is all the confidence and courage that you need to believe in the gospel for yourself. [00:18:23]