One God who alone is worthy of worship, forever identified as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has specified the Person of the Son, incarnated as the man Christ Jesus, to be the only way to have salvation. Readers may wonder why we're focused on "One Way of salvation" as central to the Biblical Gospel. First, I certainly want non-Christian readers to see in print why Christian people hold to this claim of Christianity. As the reader will see in a moment, there are myths needing dispelled and good reasons given for this claim.
But there is a second reason. Two independent polls (Pew Survey, Religious Landscape Survey, 2008; Ligonier State of Theology Survey, 2022) surveyed Evangelical Christians on the subject of whether there is more than one way to God besides Jesus Christ. The former poll delivered the result of 57% claiming more than one way to God, with Ligonier's poll resulting in 58%. The view that there are many paths to God is called "religious pluralism". I'll deal with this viewpoint in a moment.
Why is this significant? Think about it. Statistically, on any given Sunday, even in so-called Bible believing churches, over half of professing Bible-believing Christians would dispute the position we're advocating for in these posts - that Jesus Christ is the only way one can get to Heaven, and that explicit faith in Him in required.
As readers will see today, the "one way" of salvation follows from "One God". The way of salvation is Jesus Christ. As we will see, He not only came to be truly man for us, but He also came as God with us (Matthew 1:21-23; 1 Timothy 2:5). In other words, the Biblical monotheism I argued for in last post includes in it the understanding that the Son is truly God, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. To affirm Biblical monotheism is to include the notion that the incarnate Son of God must be the only way, since Scripture tells us that "salvation is of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9).
Myth-busting a claim by religious pluralism
Religious pluralists will argue there is no privileged religion, since in their view, all religions are of the same value. The question to ask of course is this: is that true?
Before we get to the Scriptures that reveal the exclusivity of salvation in Jesus Christ, it is important to dispel a commonly held myth propagated by pluralism. Pluralists will try to show that Christianity's exclusive truth claims is bigotry and mean-spirited, since according to them, it alone claims to be "the only way". When you fact-check other religions, you quickly discover Christianity isn't the only religion claiming exclusivity. Let’s look at a few other religions and their claims.
1. The Bhagavad-Gita – One of the three
main Hindu holy books. Hare Krishnas use this. Bhagavad-Gita 18:66 “Abandon
all varieties of religion and just surrender unto me. I shall deliver you from
all sinful reactions. Do not fear.” This religious book believes Krishna to
be one of three main deities which are part of a much larger group of deities
in Hinduism (130 million or so).
2. Dhammapada – One of the main sources for Buddhism. Chapter 14 “He who has gone to refuge to the Buddha, the teaching and his order penetrates with transcendental wisdom the four fold truths.” Buddha did not believe in God or at least in a personalized deity. Ultimate reality is cyclical and impersonal.
3. Quran – The main book of Islam. Surah (Chapter) 47 – “God will render of none effect the works of those who believe not, and who turn away men from the way of God; but as to those who believe, and work righteousness, and believe the revelation which hath been sent down to Muhummad (for it is truth from their Lord), he will expiate their evil deeds from them, and will dispose their heart aright.”
4. Pluralism. Some may be surprised, since pluralism itself claims that there are multiple paths to God. However, Pluralism itself is an exclusivist claim. How so? It positions itself as the definitive world on all other religions. Further, it rules out exclusivist claims like "Jesus is the only way" in favor of its own objectivity "there are multiple paths to God".
The uniqueness of Christianity is what sets it apart, even more so than its exclusive truth claim to be the only way to God.
Contrary to many today who promote “pluralism” or the belief that all ways lead to God, the above examples show that other religions claim exclusivity. What sets Christianity apart in its exclusive truth claims is the Person of Jesus. He claimed to be God (John 8:58). He gave His life for the sins of His people. He raised from the dead.
The deities of Hinduism, Buddha, and Mohummad never claim to be the One True Living God. Never gave their lives for their people’s sins. Never raised from the dead to tell about it. The uniqueness of Jesus Christ sets Him apart as “The Way”.
I’m going to present two main points as to why “The Way” to God is one way through Jesus Christ. First, we will note the Bible’s testimony. Then second, what sets Jesus Christ apart from all others, and thus proves that He alone is the way of salvation.
A. Biblical testimony of the one way of salvation.
Wherever theologians and professing Christians get the notion that there is possibly more than one way to God, or there is possibly of salvation outside of express faith in Jesus Christ, its not from the Bible. In such cases, practitioners of so-called "inclusivism" or the most extreme opposite view of exclusivism, universalism (all people will be saved regardless of what they believe) have to import a man-made system or philosophy.
Below I’m going to lay out some of the Bible verses that talk about what theologians call “the exclusivity of the Gospel” or there only being one way to God.
Isaiah 35:8-9 “A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way, and fools will not wander on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it; these will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk there.”
Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Matthew 11:27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
John 10:9 “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
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.’”
Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”
Ephesians 2:18 “for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”
1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
Hebrews 10:19-22 “Therefore,
brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of
Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil,
that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure
water.”
B. What makes Jesus Christ unique and thus the only way of salvation.
I'm going to put forth five unique doctrines of Christianity that no other religion in the world shares. These five truths are tied to Jesus Christ, who himself is the core, the foundation, and exclusive personality of Christianity.
(B1). He alone is God in human flesh.
Dr. Ed Hindson in “The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics”, page 138, notes this: “Jesus is deity on foot! He walks among men, but He lives above men. He looks like a man, but He talks like God. He is fully human and yet totally Divine. He is the window through which we see the nature and character of God in action. And He is the mirror through which we see ourselves in relation to God.” The second main part of the Apostle’s Creed affirms: I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. See John 1:14; 14:6,8.
(B2). He alone was virgin born.
Contrary to what you may hear on the internet today, the virginal conception and birth of Jesus Christ is unique among all religions and philosophies, whether modern or in antiquity. The Egyptian story of Osiris from the Egyptian Book of the Dead recounts Osiris deriving from the sky and earth gods. No virgin birth there. Mithra of Persian and Roman religious fame came out of a rock to journey into the netherworld – again no virgin birth.
In the Pali Canon of Buddhism, Buddha allegedly came about when two people from the celestial realm or “Brahma” touched his mother’s stomach. She was already a married woman, so again, no virgin birth there.
Among the Greeks, the historian Plutarch and the later Suetonius tell the story of the conception of Alexander the Great, the mighty conqueror. A serpent laid by the side of his mother and she became pregnant. You guessed it – no virgin. The Bible alone teaches a virgin birth, and Jesus alone fulfilled i
Second, He had to be sinless in order to have the perfection God demands. As sinners, we cannot pay for our own sin even if we suffered forever, much less could we pay for the sin of someone else. Whether the sacrifice was accepted dependent on its value, its perfection. Third, he also had to be God, so that it could be said that God himself undertook a rescue mission to reconcile sinful humanity. If salvation is of the Lord he had to provide the very sacrifice he demanded.” He alone is God in the flesh. He alone experienced a virgin birth.
(B3). He alone died for sinners.
We so often take for granted the uniqueness of Christ dying for our sins as a substitutionary atonement (Romans 3:24-26; Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18; 3:18). No other founder or leader of any religion, philosophy, or movement in history ever died for His people for the sake of not only love, but for appeasing or propitiating the wrath of a Holy God. As man He died. As God, He provided the infinite value to the cross (Acts 20:28). Only Christ and Christianity proves God’s love via the cross (Rom 5:8).
(B4). He alone raised from the dead.
Jesus Christ alone is God and man, alone had a virgin birth, and alone died for sin. We now see a fourth uniqueness about Jesus – His resurrection. Jesus predicted His own death and resurrection (see John 2:19-20 and roughly about ten more spots throughout the Gospel accounts). Remarkably, He raised from the dead as public vindication that all He achieved on the cross was accepted by God (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Acts 3:14-15).
Only the four Gospel accounts give us a consistent, historically rooted, and prophetically fulfilled narrative surrounding the events of the empty tomb. His subsequent twelve appearances over a forty-day period cemented the certainty we have of knowing that He physically, and bodily raised from the dead. Muhummad, though being claimed to have ascended into Heaven, never died for His people and certainly did not raised from the dead. Buddha’s remains were cremated and distributed among his followers. No other religion has this claim of a resurrection.
(B5). He alone is necessary for Christianity to exist and salvation to exist.
This final point on the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the way of salvation is meant to note how if you remove Him from Christianity, you have no Christianity.1
All other religions will claim that our greatest need is enlightenment, moral reformation, or a code of laws to deal with our guilt and our problems. Christianity alone tells us we need the Savior. Our problem is sin, not ignorance. The message and the Master are one-and-the-same, meaning Jesus Christ is the Good News of the Gospel. If we don’t have Him at saving faith, we don’t have God, nor reconciliation, nor forgiveness of sins.
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 (that is, universal) church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
In tomorrow's post we will close out this short series by noting "One Faith", and what makes saving faith in particular unique to Christianity.
Endnote:
1. I’ve dealt with Muslims in the past. Any Muslim will tell you that as important as Muhummad is, Islam would still be Islam with or without Muhummad (severely altered, but not eliminated).
The principles of enlightenment taught by Buddha could be recreated without him as seen in other similar Eastern faiths. Hinduism claims no central deity or founder.
Mormonism, though claiming Jesus as their Savior too, yet have a different Jesus who is one among a long string of deities stretching back through eternity. You could still have Mormonism without Christ. All other religions can still persist with or without their founder because they are simply human made principles and morals.
