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Unlike world religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even Old Covenant Judaism, only the New Covenant Judaism – also known as Christianity – only Christianity holds the answer to the otherwise irreconcilable problem of sin, God’s holiness, and forgiveness. No other faith addresses sin and judgment as Biblical Christianity addresses it. Other faiths tell their adherents if they pray often enough and in the right way, or if they do enough good deeds to outweigh their bad deeds, they might get into heaven.
Christian faith is uniquely different because in our Scriptures God tells us the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. God’s word tells us salvation is a gift not based at all on our works or our heritage. Salvation is granted to us solely by God’s grace. And because salvation is His unmerited gift, no one can boast and say, “I deserve eternal life.” (see Ephesians 2:8-10)
Here is what the former Pharisee, St. Paul, wrote to a disciple named Titus: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)
When the same former Pharisee wrote, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the [Gentile] – he was writing to a people steeped in religious pluralism. Rome, and the nation of Greece before Rome, were known for the multiplicity of gods. But God sent Paul to Rome – and throughout Greek speaking Europe and Asia Minor – to tell them the truth about salvation.
God sent Paul, just as He sends us, to a religiously pluralistic world. It’s the Great Commission Jesus Himself commanded of us: Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Holy Trinity – in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28)
The Christian faith is also distinct from other faiths in that Jesus the Messiah was not simply a man who suffered and died for our sins. God Himself became flesh and blood. Jesus was not a created Being. He is co-eternal and co-existent with the Father and the Holy Spirit. God became Man who suffered and died for our sins. This truth should not surprise those who remember what the Jewish prophets said of the promised Messiah.
For example, in Isaiah’s seventh chapter we read the prophecy of the virgin who will bear a son and call Him ‘Immanuel,’ the Hebrew word which translates into English as ‘God-With-Us.’ In Isaiah 9:6 we read these words: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”
The Jewish scholars in the first century understood exactly what Jesus meant when He said, “I and the Father are one” – meaning one essence, inseparable. That’s why they picked up rocks to stone Him for blasphemy. Some in the 21st century, 2000 years from the event, are confused as to what Jesus meant when He said what He said about His relationship with the Father. But those LIVING at the time suffered no confusion. They knew perfectly well that Jesus claimed to be God Almighty in the flesh.
Why do you think the Lord Jesus again warned the uber-religious Pharisees, “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins”? (John 9) Why do you think He later told His disciples, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me”? (John 14) And why else would His apostles – at the risk of their own stoning – teach the exclusive message: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” ? (Acts 4:12)
Here is how writer and theologian CS Lewis put it: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
You and I must ever remind ourselves of God’s truth in this anti-Christ culture which denies the deity of Jesus and His sacrificial atonement for our sins. Think of your children and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Think of your sons and your daughters, your beloved nieces and grand nieces and nephews who are in mortal danger of being molded into the popular religious pluralism out there, where they are assured, all roads lead to heaven.
Who will tell them that is a damnable lie if you aren’t sure of it yourself?
If there are multiple ways to get to heaven, then why did God send His Son to die a torturous, bloody, agonizing death? If we could gain heaven by any other means, God would have selected those means and spared His Son.
But there is no other way for righteousness to be imputed to us outside of the substitutionary death of Jesus, whose blood alone covers the sins of the penitent.
Declaring Jesus as the only way for men and women to gain eternal life will not win many friends among those who want to live and let live, who insist on being open to other ideas about God and eternal life. In our pluralistic culture where it is unpopular to believe in absolute truth, the message of the gospel is a lightning rod for those who disagree with Christ’s exclusive message.
Well, so be it. As St. Paul wrote to the Christians at Galatia, “If I were trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”
Many people think the phrase, ‘Quo Vadis’ refers to the 1951 movie, based on the book by the same name. But the origin of the Latin phrase dates back into Christian antiquity. Quo Vadis means, "Where are you going?" and is rooted in an ancient Christian apocryphal story – a story every Christian might do well to review once a year.
According to the tradition, while St. Peter was fleeing Nero’s persecution of Christians, he met the Risen Jesus on the road outside the city. Peter asked Him, “Quo Vadis? Where are you going?” To which Jesus replied, “To Rome to be crucified again.”
Peter, face to face with his own fear and remorse in turning away from the Great Commission, returned to the city where he continued the work to which Christ has called all Christians: “Preach the Truth.”
In real life, St. Peter was eventually martyred and crucified upside down. But the point of the Quo Vadis story is not his martyrdom. The point of the story is that Peter would not be ashamed of Christ or the gospel.
And the point of the story for us is: We must do likewise.
As disciples and followers of Jesus, we must decide every day, will we compromise with those who believe all roads lead to heaven? Or will we stand unashamed with Christ, and the history of all the martyrs who died for God’s eternal truth?
God became Man. He lived a sinless life. He died as a substitutionary sacrifice for your sins and mine. Only through Christ can anyone be reconciled with the Father. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
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