NO ONE COMES
TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME
MIKE
CUNNINGHAM
DECEMBER 30,
2007
On the night He was betrayed Jesus consoled
His beloved disciples when He told them in John 14:1-6 (ESV) 1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God;
believe also in me. 2 In
my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that
I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the
way to where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you
are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus
said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me.
“No one comes to the Father except through
me.” Millions of people throughout the centuries have become offended by
that assertion. Aside from atheists who are quick to dismiss it as an utterance
of a deluded religious fanatic; Jewish people and others who do believe in God, including an untold
number of Bible doubting Christians, are either repulsed by what Jesus said or
they simply refuse to believe it. To insist that it is only through Him
that sinners such as you and me can enter into God’s heaven really rattles
people. The truth of the matter is that the Gospel is repulsive to those who
are perishing. It may smack of exclusivist arrogance and it may not appear to
be fair, but it’s the truth! I can’t help it. Nevertheless, there are perhaps
millions of Christians who refuse to believe it. For instance, some Christians
will not accept as fact that real nice people; folks who dedicate much of their
time and energy and financial resources for the betterment of society; folks
through whom God has blessed them personally and sometimes for many years; these
Christians do not believe that such good folks are condemning themselves to
hell because they want nothing to do with Jesus.
Furthermore, they ask, “how
can a just God eternally punish a really nice uninformed Hindu, Muslim or
Buddhist, someone who has done a lot of good things throughout his or her life,
but who has had the misfortune of being born and having to live their entire
life in a real dark sin-infested backward area of the earth, and who, through
no fault of their own, knows little or nothing about Jesus; how can He not
allow them into heaven? I know these kinds of thoughts went through the minds
of billions of people when they learned of the terrible disaster that occurred on
the day after Christmas in 2004. Do you remember that awful event that shocked
the world at this time of the year three years ago? In a matter of moments
giant tsunami waves snuffed out the lives of God only knows how many thousands
of unsuspecting men, women and children in
Newsweek continued, “Those hardest hit by last
week’s tsunami were poor fishing communities whose inhabitants—mostly
Hindus—are untutored in refined theological speculation on life and death. For
them, all of life is controlled by the play of capricious deities. Yet their
religious world views and practices provide a measure of spiritual relief from
the toil of their labor. Along the coast of south
“The ocean itself is a terrible god who eats
people and boats, but also provides fish as food. “Hindus use the deities to
think about and explain happenings like the tsunami as destructive acts of
god,” says Richard Davis, a specialist in South Asian Hinduism at
The article added, “The waters that rose up
from the deep last week, drowning tens of thousands of people across a wide arc
of South and Southeast Asia, were a cataclysm of Biblical proportions. But most
of those who survived to weep and mourn—like most of those who died—had never heard [emphasis
added] of Noah or the Biblical God of Wrath, figures so familiar to Christians
and Jews; they were, instead, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.” According to Newsweek, most of the Tsunami
victims would never have known the fact that, concerning the eternal destiny of
unforgiven sinners, Jesus once said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me.” If the information in the Newsweek
article is accurate and most of the victims of that giant Christmas time
Tsunami never heard of the Biblical “God of Wrath,” as Newsweek chose to
characterize Him, and most of those Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists were
completely oblivious to what Jesus taught about Himself being the only way to the
Father; how do you answer the sincere non-Christian wanting to know your
personal belief concerning the eternal destiny of these poor people? In other
words, do you folks truly
believe those dead non-Christian tsunami victims at the moment of their death
were immediately “swept away by terrors” (Psalm 73:19) to “a place of torments”
(Luke 16:23) where they will stay until the Day of Judgment?
No one comes to the
Father except through me. To which as we saw last week
in my Christmas message, our church in its Articles of Faith and in so many
words added a resounding AMEN. However, there are those who disagree with us.
For instance, I also pointed out in that same message that according to teachings
of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church which teaches that: (847) “Those who, through no fault
of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who
nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their
actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those
too may achieve eternal salvation.”[1]
Nevertheless, Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Earlier He had told a man named Nicodemus, John
3:16-18 (ESV) 16 "For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes
in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. But many of those poor tsunami victims never even heard of
Jesus. How can that be fair? Surely the One who is the very embodiment of love and
who cares about all people would provide a means by which they can come to a
saving knowledge of Him. Well He certainly has. After His resurrection we read:
Matthew
28:18-20 (ESV) 18 And Jesus came and
said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I
have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the
age." Go everywhere and proclaim My Gospel!
1
Corinthians 9:16 (ESV) 16 “For if I preach the
gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not
preach the gospel!” It’s as though Paul is saying that he feels
compelled to preach the Gospel and I might add, so does every person God has
sent since; even to faraway places where folks have never heard of Jesus.
Listen to Paul the missionary:
Romans
15:20-21 (ESV) 20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach
the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on
someone else's foundation, 21 but as it is written, "Those who have never been told of him will see, and
those who have never heard will understand." The Gospel must be
shared! And every grateful follower of Jesus will do just that at every God
given opportunity just as Paul did.
Romans
1:16-17 (ESV) 16 “For I am not ashamed
of the gospel, for it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and
also to the Greek. 17 For
in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is
written, "The righteous shall live by faith."
Romans
10:9-15 (ESV) 9 because, if you confess with your mouth
that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. 10 For
with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses
and is saved.
11 For
the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to
shame." 12 For
there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all,
bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For "everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 But how are they to call on him in
whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they
have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they
to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the
feet of those who preach the good news!"
Romans
1:18-20 (ESV) 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their
unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because
God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the
world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write to
the Roman Christians that everyone
knows that God exists. All they have to do is look around them at this vast
universe and they must
come to the unmistakable conclusion that there is a Creator. It’s as plain as
the nose on their face. Regardless
of where on this planet the person may live, everyone knows in his or her heart
that our Creator God exists. But the sad truth is that most people could
care less. They
simply aren’t interested in trying to find out everything they can about Him
i.e. what God is like and what might He expect of me?
Most non-Christians don’t knock themselves out looking for answers.
They are not interested in searching for truth. Nor do such folks plead with God and
humbly ask
Him to reveal
more and more of Himself to them. Instead, they fashion their own version of god according to their
perverted hearts and minds. The god they create and worship is nothing more
than a figment of their own imagination. Search the earth and you will find that every
human being worships some kind of god. And, with all non-Christians, it is
always a god that fits in with their idea of what he or she believes god ought
to be like. Obviously, these folks are conscious of a tremendous void in their life.
They know something is missing. However, they simply are not interested in
filling that void with truth.
In fact, they are so
adverse to truth that they suppress it as we saw in Romans One.
As punishment for this sin God allows them to continue sinning forever.
The Bible teaches that any “nice” Hindu,
Buddhist, Muslim or any other non-Christian who died in the tsunami without
ever having heard of Jesus and His Gospel, never heard of Him because they didn’t want to. They weren’t interested
in searching for and learning truth. Nor did they plead
with God asking Him to reveal Himself more fully to them.
In fact, I believe that, of their own free will, and in his or her own way,
each of them exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
How can I make such a statement? Where do I
get off saying stuff like this? I must say that I not only believe in Jesus but I also believe the
things He taught. Things such as when He prayed on behalf of His beloved
disciples and asked His Father to: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John
17:17). Jesus had previously revealed an amazing truth about Himself when He
said: “I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me“(John 14:6).
Elsewhere Jesus also taught: "Ask and it will
be given to you; seek and
you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8). If someone sincerely wants to
attain a true knowledge of God they “must possess a devout frame of mind, as
well as a pure desire to know the truth. “God is a Spirit; and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Therefore,
anyone who hopes to attain the true knowledge of God, he or she must possess a
reverent, truth-loving spirit and, having attained this, God will seek them
(John 4:23) and reveal Himself to them in a manner He doesn’t do to everyone in
the world. (Compare Matthew 11:25; 16:17).[i]
Regardless of where anyone lives on this
planet and regardless of his or her religious upbringing or lack of it; the truth of the matter is
that if anyone asks God to reveal Himself to them Jesus promises that God will. Anyone who truly seeks Him most certainly
will find Him. If anyone knocks on the door of Gods heart, Jesus promises He
will open it and let that sincere seeker in. There is nothing to prevent anyone
from seeking and finding Jesus but their own self induced hardened heart.
Allow me to illustrate.
Acts 8:26-40 “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go
south to the road--the desert road--that goes down from
The eunuch was obviously a believer in God. He knew that God
existed. Here we find him searching the Scriptures hoping to learn
more about God the Creator God.
29The Spirit
told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading
Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip
asked.
31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it
to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
This man was not a proud know-it-all.
He’s such a sincere seeker of truth that He invites a total stranger to come
into his chariot and sit alongside him. He’s hoping that the man will have some
answers. Don’t imagine for a moment that this was the first time the eunuch
searched and asked about truth].
32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a
sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the
shearer is silent,
so he did not open his
mouth.
33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his
descendants?
For his life was taken from
the earth."
34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the
prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip
began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news [the
Gospel] about Jesus.
What
was the difference between the Ethiopian eunuch and any nice Hindu, Buddhist or
Muslim who died in their sins in the Tsunami? The eunuch was a humble seeker of truth.
It was as though he couldn’t rest until he found it. It doesn’t matter where a
person lives or what the religious culture is; God will find a way to reveal the Gospel of
Jesus to every sincere humble
seeker of truth as we just saw with the Ethiopian Eunuch.
Acts 17:22-28
Paul then stood up in the
meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of
24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the
Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And
he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself
gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he
made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he
determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him
and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28’for in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your
own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
And we can be certain Paul
would have told them everything Jesus taught, including "I am the
way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Speaking through the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord reminds everyone of
this fact.
Jeremiah 29:13-14 “…you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and fine me. When you
seek me with all your heart..”
On the Day of Judgment when
all people will stand before the throne of Christ to give an accounting, everyone will know infallibly
that truth is absolute and that it is knowable.
No one will be able to cop a plea including all those “nice” Hindus,
Muslims, Buddhists and anyone else who never even heard the Gospel. On that
day, everyone without exception will know the absolute truth of what Jesus
declared: “No one comes to the Father except through Me!”
[i] BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS, Milton S. Terry, Page
29 Wipf and Stock Publishers,
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