This week we are addressing the third of these
eight common questions skeptics pose as a challenge to Christianity, which is “Is
Jesus the only way?" In other words, do Christians believe that there is
only one way to God and that everyone who is not a Christian is condemned by
God?”
Yesterday
we looked at the five most common objections to the claim that Jesus is the
only way to experience a right relationship with God. We discovered that there is absolute truth and that everyone
believes in absolute truths. And because every religious
system believes in its exclusive truth, then only one of two things can be
true: either every religious system is wrong or one religious system is right.
The
timeless reality is that the message of Christianity is distinctive and unique
from every other religious system because it is a message about a unique
person-Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is unique in His activity in history that
provides humanity the opportunity to experience a relationship with God. Jesus
is unique in who He is as God in a bod. And Jesus is unique in that Jesus
Himself is the personification of truth.
We see
this reality revealed for us in a section of an account of Jesus life in the
Bible called the gospel of John. In this section of the gospel of John that we
are going to jump into, Jesus is engaged in the final conversation that He
would have with His closest followers before His arrest. In this conversation, Jesus has basically told
His closest followers that He was leaving them and that where He was going,
they could not follow.
Now, at this point, I
want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves as one of Jesus closest followers.
You left everything, family, friends, career, in order to follow Jesus. And now
Jesus is going to bail on you after you have left everything to follow Him
because you had come to believe that He was the fulfillment of a promise that
God had made to send a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah? Imagine yourself as one
of Jesus closest followers.
Now what would you be
thinking and feeling? “What!
What do you mean that we cannot follow you? We left everything to follow you.
We leveraged everything to follow you.” As a disciple, your world has been
turned upside down. This morning, place yourself in the shoes of one of the
disciples. Let’s walk together in those shoes as we see what Jesus has to say
next, beginning in John 14:1:
"Do not let your
heart be troubled; believe in God, believe
also in Me. "In My Father's house are many dwelling
places; if it were not
so, I would have told you; for I go to
prepare
a place for you. "If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again
and receive you to Myself, that
where I am, there you may be
also. "And you know the
way where
I am going."
Jesus explained to the
disciples that instead of being disturbed, they should believe in Jesus words.
Now when Jesus uses the word believe here, this word is the same word that is
also translated trust in our English Bibles. This word literally means to
entrust oneself with complete confidence in someone or something. Jesus is
saying “You need to trust Me. Just as you are to place your confident trust in
God, you need to place your confident trust in Me”.
Jesus then provided the
reason why they were to place their confident trust in Him: “In My
Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told
you; for I go to prepare a place for you. "If I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you
may be also.” Now the disciples had heard this kind of language before.
You see, in Jesus day, this language was used to
describe what would happen in a wedding. After becoming engaged, the bridegroom
would then go and prepare a place for he and his wife to live, with his family.
The bridegroom would basically build an addition on his parent’s house for them
to live in. After the addition was completed, bridegroom would then come back
in a loud parade-like celebration that would stop at the bride’s house, where
they would have the wedding ceremony and reception. The bridegroom would pick the
bride up, and take her to be with his family. When Jesus uses the phrase
“receive you to myself”, this phrase literally means to take someone into a close
association with oneself. Jesus is saying “I am going to take you to myself”.
Now imagine yourself as a
disciple. Jesus is using language of getting married, but Jesus does not have a
girlfriend. And besides, He is not talking about marrying a girl. Instead, He
is talking about you. Jesus has just told you that His Father’s house has many
dwelling places and that He is going to prepare a place for you to be able to
live in a close intimate association with Him. And if that was not enough,
Jesus says that you know the way to His Father’s house. What would you be
thinking? We see what Thomas was thinking in verse 5:
Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know
where You are going, how do we know the way?"
In this question, we see
Thomas reveal the confusion that the disciples were feeling. Imagine yourself
as Thomas. Earlier Jesus stated that where He was going that they could not
come; now Jesus is saying that they know the way where He is going? So which is
it? “Jesus, I’m confused. So, can I or can’t I come with you? Jesus, how am I
supposed to know the way, when you have never told us the way you are going?
And where are you going?”
You see, Thomas, as the rest of the disciples
are thinking of a literal road to a literal house where they never have been,
so how are they supposed to know the way there. Jesus, however, is talking
about something all together different, as we see in His response in verse 6-7:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the
truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. "If you
had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him,
and have seen Him."
You see, Jesus was not
talking about an earthly way to an earthly house. Instead Jesus was talking
about the way that one could experience the relationship with God that they
were created for, but had been separated from, as a result of selfishness and
rebellion. Jesus is saying “I am the way of life; I am the source and
embodiment of truth; I am the source by which you can experience forgiveness
and the relationship with God that you were created for forever. And there is
only way to experience that forgiveness and relationship. No one comes to
experience that forgiveness and relationship with God apart from placing their
trust in Me. You need to trust Me. Just as you are to place your confident
trust in God, you need to place your confident trust in Me. If you really
understood who I was as both life and the source of life, you would really
understand who God was”.
You see, up to this
point, the twelve disciples had not fully grasped the full significance of who
Jesus was. The disciples had not fully wrapped their minds around who Jesus was
and how He was connected and related to God. However, Jesus explains to the
disciples that would change. As this conversation continued, Jesus would
continue to blow up their categories when it came to who He was and how He was
connected to God. Jesus begins to demolish their categories as another of the
disciples asks a question in verse 8:
Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the
Father, and it is enough for us."
In other words, Phillip asks
“Jesus all you have to do is take us to God and we will be good. So just take
us to God already, then things will be clear”. We see Jesus response in verse 9-11:
Jesus said to him,
"Have I been so long with you, and yet
you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the
Father; how can you say, 'Show
us the Father '? "Do you not
believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say
to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does
His works. "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me;
otherwise believe because of the works themselves.
In other words, Jesus
says “Phillip, where have you been these past three years? How is it that you
have not come to the knowledge that I am God. Phillip, I am God in a bod. You
see Phillip, I do not need to take you to God, because I am God who has come to
you to reveal and explain myself to you.”
When Jesus uses the
phrase “I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me” Jesus is revealing the
reality that He is God in a bod. Jesus Christ is the second member of the
Triune God. Jesus has the same nature and essence as God the Father. Jesus then
backed His statement by explaining that His message and teachings are not of
His own initiative. In other words, Jesus is not coming up with what He is
saying. Instead, it is God the Father abiding in Me that initiates both His
message and His miracles. Now when Jesus uses the word abide here, this word
means to not leave a certain sphere of existence, to remain connected.
Jesus here is revealing
the reality that He and God the Father are distinct but inseparably related and
connected with one another. That is why earlier in the gospel of John, in John
1:18, John stated that the only begotten
God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. Jesus came
to earth to reveal and explain God to humanity and to rescue humanity from
their selfishness and rebellion.
Now here is a question to
consider: What kind of man would make such an arrogant and audacious claim? As C.S. Lewis famously pointed out: Jesus does not
allow us to think of Him as simply a good moral teacher. For Jesus claimed to
be much more than that. Jesus claimed to be God. And because Jesus claimed to be
God only one of three
things can be true of Jesus:
Either he knew that he was
not God and deceived people, which would make him a liar, which is not
something that a good person would do, or He believed He was God, but he really
wasn’t, which would make him a coo-coo for cocoa puffs lunatic, which is not
something that is good, or He really was “God in a Bod”, the Messiah, the
promised one who provides the one way to be right with God and to enable us to
have the relationship with God that we were created for.
So, are Christians being
arrogant for believing that there is no other way to God but through Jesus? Or
are Christians responding and recognizing the incredible lengths that God has
gone to provide us an opportunity to experience forgiveness and the
relationship with Him that we were created for through Jesus?
Friday we will answer this
question....
No comments:
Post a Comment