Part One: One God, One Way, One Faith - A Defense For Why Jesus Is The Only Way of Salvation

Introduction:

I decided to break away momentarily from what has been our long-term series on the Nicene Creed to present a short series I've entitled "One God, One Way, One Faith". Why? This week our church will host a VBS that has as its theme: "One Way" here New Hope Baptist Church: Watertown, NY > Vacation Bible School 2025. Every year, we try to offer a series of adult classes that coincide with whatever the VBS is studying. What follows are notes from this year's study which I've already mentioned: "One God, One Way, One Faith".

What this study is about
    This study is about giving Scriptural,
apologetical, and historical reasons why there is only one way of salvation in Jesus Christ. Scripturally, we will turn to the doctrines of God, Christ, and saving faith to demonstrate this truth. One God, One Way, and One Faith will be our cornerstones.

As a matter of apologetics or "defense of the Christian faith", we will compare Christianity to other religions, offering  an apologetic or “defense of the Christian faith’s uniqueness”. In seeing the uniqueness of Christianity, the reader will hopefully better understand the Biblical teaching on the exclusivity of One God, One Way, One Faith. When I say “exclusivity”, I simply refer to that explicit trust in Jesus Christ, who reveals the true living God and salvation in the Gospel, as the only way of salvation (John 3:16). 

Then lastly, I will introduce the student to the historic Apostle’s Creed as a witness to Christianity’s historic confession of One God, One Way, and One faith.

Why the exclusivity of the Gospel is so important to study.

The bi-annual Ligonier State of Theology Poll conducts a survey among Evangelical Christians and the wider American population to see what they believe about key Biblical doctrines. On the survey’s website here: https://thestateoftheology.com/, we read the following:

“Key to orthodox Christianity is Jesus’ own assertion that He alone is “the way, and the truth, and the life,” and that “no one comes to the Father except through [Him]” (John 14:6, emphasis added). Trends over time and the 2022 survey results reveal an increasingly unbiblical belief among evangelicals that God is pleased by worship that comes from those outside the Christian faith.”

In one of its questions the poll asked Bible believing Christians (i.e. Evangelicals) as to whether they agree or disagree with the following: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”  This poll, conducted every two years since 2016, found the following answers year by year. 2016 48% agree. 2018 51% agree. 2020 42% agree. 2022 56% agree. Our key verse is John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”  In this short series of posts, we want to look at the Bible’s rationale for affirming that there is One God, One Way, and One Faith by noting its emphasis on "One God".

A. Biblical Monotheism: God is One God in Being, Three in Person.

      The Bible affirms this fundamental truth that there is only One God. To argue for what I'll call "Biblical monotheism" is to express the foundation for why there is only one way of salvation. The argument is simple: One God leads to one way of salvation. 

    The Bible teaches “monotheism” meaning “one God”. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  James 2:19 “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?” 

    Establishing the One God of the Bible as the basis for “One Salvation” and “One faith” is the goal of this lesson. Let’s probe further to grasp what I’ll call “Biblical monotheism”. 

    Biblical monotheism asserts that God is a “Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity”. That is, God is One God in being and Three in identity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will note two main points making up Biblical monotheism. First, that God is one God in unity. Then second, this One God is three persons in identity. Noting the Trinity lends not only to showing the uniqueness of the Christian faith, but also to why there is only one way of salvation, due to this One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let's unpack each of these truths in their order.

A1. One God in unity.

There are many more passages we could note as to this first main point of there being “One God”. James P. Boice, a great 19^th century Baptist theologian, lists the following headings from his “Abstracts of Systematic Theology, Chapter 4” with proof texts for God being One God.

(1.) The passages which declare explicitly that God is one: Deut. 6:4; Mal. 2:10: “Hath not one God created us?” Mark 12:29, 32; 1 Tim. 2:5; Eph. 4:5, 6; James 2:19.

(2.) Those that assert that there is none else or none beside him: Deut. 4:35, 39; 1 Sam. 2:2; 2 Sam. 7:22; 1 Kings 8:60; Isa. 44:6, 8; Isa. 45:5, 6, 21, 22; Isa. 46:9; Joel 2:27.

(3.) That he alone is God: 2 Sam. 22:32; Neh. 9:6; Ps. 18:31; 86:10; Isa. 37:16; 43:10, 12; 46:9; John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:4-6.

A2. Three persons in identity.

Let’s establish our second main point about Biblical monotheism: God is One God who is Three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Dr. Boice offers the following definition:

“THE Scripture doctrine of the Trinity is set forth in the abstract of principles of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in these words (Art. III.): ‘God is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being.’

          Dr. Boice then writes:

“The scriptural proofs of the personality and divinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit having now been considered, it is proper to notice a few passages of Scripture in which the Three are revealed distinctly, by being mentioned, or manifested together.” (See Matt. 3:17; Matt. 28:19, John 14:26, and 15:26, 1 Cor. 8:6, 12:4-6)

B. Weaknesses of non-Christian monotheistic views  and non-monotheistic views.

    As we laid out the definition and Scripture proofs for "Biblical monotheism" (i.e. the doctrine of the Trinity), lets compare and contrast it to other positions. We must note that when it comes to world religions and the philosophies of men, there have been seven general categories: 

Monotheism (One God).

Polytheism (many gods).

Pantheism (Everything is God).

Panentheism (God is in everything, the universe is His body).

Henotheism (One powerful God among lesser gods).

Atheism (no God). 

Agnosticism (we cannot know whether there is a God).

     Below I will list the weaknesses of non-Christian monotheistic views and non-monotheistic views.

Non-Christian monotheistic views and their weaknesses.

B1. Deism – God made the world and left it to itself. Weakness: Denies God’s personal involvement in our world, possibility of miracles, possibility of revelation. Not the God of the Bible.

B2. Non-Trinitarian monotheisms – Whether Islam, modern Judaism, or others, to say God is simply a unity without the Trinity makes God dependent somehow on the creation to complete Himself. The Biblical portrayal of God consistently reveals He is self-sufficient and Personal, requiring the ability to interact within Himself. 

    Also, God is a God of love, meaning there needed to be a subject to give love (the Father), a subject to receive love (the Son), and a third subject to complete the circuit of love (the Holy Spirit), see Luke 3:21-22; Romans 5:4-5; 1 John 4:8, 16. Any monotheism without the Triune persons is an incomplete monotheism.

Non-monotheistic views and their weaknesses.

B3. Polytheism – The weaknesses here are that multiple deities have different wills, which leads to conflict, which leads to the absence of objective truth and morality. When you read the polytheistic accounts of Egypt, Greece, or Rome, such systems could not consistently develop a universal sense of right or wrong or truth. 

    Even if they affirmed it, their system could not account for it. Only Biblical Monotheism, having truth and morality as grounded in God, and the Personal involvement of the Trinity, can makes sense of truth and morality. A subset of Polytheism is Dualism, which sees an evil deity and a good deity in conflict with one another. Similar weaknesses beset dualism.

B4. Henotheism. This view sees One God among lesser deities. It suffers the same problems as Polytheism.

B5. Atheism – Without One God, there is no grounding for morality, truth, meaning, or purpose in life. Sometimes a weakness in a worldview is seen in not only logical inconsistency, but also whether it is livable. Atheists will still perform burial rights for their dead loved ones, still pursue a good noble life, and follow the golden rule. Their worldview tells them there is no value to such things, yet their humanity and behavior betrays what they truly know – that God exists (see Romans 1:18-20).

B6. Agnosticism – By stating “I cannot know there is a god” or “We cannot know anything about any god” is self-defeating.

B7. Panentheism and Pantheism – I decided to lump these together, since both affirm a view of deity that is impersonal. The weakness here is that if God were impersonal, there would be no morality or truth, since moral and truth categories require personal agents (one who is the standard, the other who receives the standard). Pantheists (such as Buddhists Hindus) and Panentheists (many who believe God is evolving with history) resort to believing there are no objective truth nor morality.

C. How the Apostle’s Creed highlights One God who is Three Persons.

    Now that we have overviewed the Biblical and apologetical reasons why One God is the basis for the one way of salvation, I want to close out today's post with historical evidence for Christianity confessing the exclusivity of salvation as argued for in this opening post. The Apostle's Creed is stated below. Deriving from at least the second or third century, the Apostle's Creed represents what early Christians confessed, as well as what even earlier church fathers would had inherited from the Apostles themselves. Although the Apostles did not pen the creed, it reflects the historic Christian faith that we find in the New Testament.

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

and born of the virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended to heaven

and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

      As you can see, the Church from the days of Christ and the Apostles has affirmed there is only one truly and living God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God. One Way. One Faith. 

Conclusion:

I close with Ephesians 4:4-6, which is an early creedal expression Paul inserted under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Notice the repetition of the word “one”: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

    In our next post we will continue with this short series, noting Biblical, apologetical, and historical arguments for why Jesus Christ is the One Way of salvation.