Transcript:
Stephen: Christianity does have this exclusive claim. In Acts 4:12, you have Peter saying, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." That's something that the modern person doesn't want to hear, though.
Joel: Absolutely. It is important to be clear on what you've just said. The gospel message is an exclusive message. It makes truth claims. What the disciples said, you've quoted from Acts 4, is perfectly consistent with what the Lord Jesus said when he was here as well. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
People nowadays find that difficult to swallow. I think what we should say is people in the days of the apostles also found that hard to swallow. They lived in a religiously pluralistic society. There was a whole pantheon of Roman and Greek gods. People didn't have a problem with Jesus presenting himself as a god or a way. The disciples are presenting him as a way of salvation. But that he is the unique way, the only way to access God, to have eternal life, brought them into all kinds of conflict.
Stephen: You mentioned some of the thinking of the Greeks. When Paul walked into Athens, it was a city filled with idolatry. There were all sorts of gods and idols.
In the modern world, we don't have physical idols everywhere, but certainly people like it as a nice way to think that there's many ways to God. There's many ways up the mountain, as it were. There's many ways to God.
How would you refute or expose the falseness of pluralism versus the Christian message that Christ is the only way?
Joel: I think the thing I would say is everyone makes truth claims. The problem a lot of people have with the Christian gospel is that it's asserting that I know the truth and I know the way to God. But the problem is a person who takes a religiously pluralistic position, who says that all ways are ways to God, or there are many ways to God, all religions can show us how to receive eternal life, they're also making a truth claim. They're also making an assertion. I know what's correct.
There's a popular analogy that's sometimes used to illustrate the position of religious pluralism whereby four blind men are asked to describe an elephant. Of course they can't see it. They don't know what an elephant looks like. One reaches out and grabs hold of the tail and says an elephant is like a rope. Another takes hold of one of the legs. He says, "No, that's not correct. An elephant is like a tree." Another touches the side of the elephant and says, "No, both of you are wrong. It's actually like a wall." The fourth touches the trunk and says, "No, all of those different explanations are incorrect. An elephant is like a snake."
The point that is trying to be made is this: all of these men were describing different aspects of the elephant, but they didn't have all of the knowledge.
There's a couple of problems with that analogy. Number one, the person who is the religious pluralist is actually standing back and saying, "All of these religions are limited, but I'm not limited. I see the full picture."
The other problem is this: what if the elephant speaks? I think it was Kevin DeYoung who I first remember hearing say that. What if the elephant tells us what he looks like? What we believe as Christians is that God has actually spoken in history. He has told us what he is like. He has told us how we can access him.
While it's maybe more emotionally palatable to say all of these different perspectives have wisdom and merit, to make a truth claim, while it seems arrogant, if I say London is the capital of England, that's a truth claim, an assertion. That's not disparaging Birmingham or Manchester or any of those other cities. It's just saying the facts. So to say Jesus is the only way to God is not to disparage or belittle other people. It's just to assert the truth.
Stephen: Let's get into why the Lord Jesus is the only way. Why he is the true way. This is not just some dogmatic position that the disciples decided. The message of Christ they presented was basically that he is the only saviour for a reason. There was lots of content, lots of substance to their words around this message that Jesus, his name alone, is the only name that has the power and the ability to save.
Why is that? Help us understand the reason why Jesus is the only way.
Joel: It's important to be clear that that's not just an assertion that is made without evidence or without reason.
There's lots of different things that we could say, but maybe one of the very clear verses is in 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 5 where Paul says, "There's one God and one mediator, one bridge, one go-between between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."
As both God and man, he is the only person who can deal with sin. Sin is a human problem, so it needs to be dealt with by a human being. It can't be dealt with by an angel. Animal sacrifice has to be a man. Jesus Christ is a real man, a true man. But he's also God. He's also fully and completely divine.
Sin is an infinite problem and a mere mortal like you and I, because we're not infinite people, we can't deal with the infinite cost of sin. But as an infinite person, he can deal with that.
Paul goes on to say about this mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, he gave himself as a ransom for all. He laid a basis in the value of an infinite sacrifice, of the giving of himself at the cross of Calvary. He has established a basis upon which God can forgive the guilty and yet remain righteous.
And that is unique to the Christian worldview, the Christian gospel, where the tension between the righteousness and holiness of God and also the love and mercy and compassion of God is fully resolved, is fully consistent.
Otherwise, you have a God that either compromises on his holiness or on his love in some way to allow people who don't deserve to be in heaven to be there.
Stephen: And the thing is, when it comes to the different religions out there and the different messages of salvation, to keep that in a broad kind of way, there's completely contradictory beliefs about what the core problem is, what we need saved from.
For example, if you were to go to a Buddhist type religion, the big issue is suffering is the biggest problem in the world and we need to escape it somehow. Other religions in the Far East, for example, where the biggest problem is a breakdown, a disharmony between us and nature.
But we believe that at the heart of the problem there's an issue of unrighteousness in our world. The problem of evil is actually in me. If you establish that as the core problem of mankind, which is the problem of the heart, the problem of our lack of righteousness, then look at all the salvation possibilities, and the Lord Jesus and who he is, what he's done on the cross, and the fact of his resurrection, all that implies.
That's the only way we get to be righteous.
Joel: It's the only way we solve the problem of sin in my heart.
Stephen: Absolutely.
Joel: I think it might have been Paul McCauley who I first heard illustrating it like this. People have this notion about salvation and the exclusive claims of Christ as almost being like people are on the deck of a cruise ship. The captain comes to them and says, "Here is a life belt. Carry this with you wherever you go. If you don't take this life belt, I'm going to throw you over the side."
That's how people think salvation according to the Bible works. That's not the position.
As you've exposed, the true problem is human sinfulness and human rebellion. The picture is more like we have been in a warship and we've been attacking the ship of the captain. Our boat has been hit and sunk. We are in the water. We are in danger.
But the captain, even though we have made ourselves his enemies, wants to save us. He has thrown a life belt out to us and he is saying, "Take the life belt. Grab hold of it. I will pull you into my boat and you will be saved."
You can either choose to reject or accept the life belt. But rejecting the life belt doesn't put you in danger. It keeps you in danger.
People can reject Jesus Christ if they want. That doesn't put them in danger. It keeps them in danger. We are already in danger because we have violated the holy law of God.
All of those things you were talking about earlier, the disharmony in nature, the problem of suffering, those things are very real and the Bible speaks to them. But those are symptoms of the problem. They're not the core issue.
It's only in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we actually get to the core of what has gone wrong in the world and in the human heart.
Stephen: Finish up on this one. Let's think about something on the opposite end. While Christianity makes an exclusive claim – Christ is the only way, there's no salvation without him – yet it surely is the most inclusive of the messages you're going to find for man to hear.
Joel: While they said there's salvation in no one else, they also said, "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
This message is not limited to a particular gender or people group or geography or class in society. This is the message for all.
Christ is potentially the saviour for all. All who call on his name will be saved.
So yes, the claims are exclusive, but the scope is the most inclusive message you'll ever encounter.
