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Is Jesus The Only Way?

Two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the pentagon,
former President, Bill Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he
suggested that america‘s own “arrogant
self-righteousness” was partly to blame for making the nation a target of
terrorism.  He went on to say he believed
the whole mess could have been avoided if everyone on both sides had simply
realized there is no such thing as absolute or universal truth, and therefore
no ideology is worth fighting over. 

 
Thomas Friedman wrote
in the New York Times, “It is urgent that the different religions reinterpret
their traditions to embrace modernity and pluralism and to create space for
secularism and alternative faiths.”
 
Is our culture asking
us to give up Jesus for a greater religious cause? 

 

At a national leadership prayer breakfast, the
speaker for the morning was from the Holy Trinity Church which is right next to ground zero. He said, “After 9-11, theology is back. God is back, but in this new environment we
must all be willing to give up those traditions that divide us so we can be
one.” He went on to say that God speaks
to other faiths and other religious groups.
 
How far do we take this though? Can God speak to people from other faiths? I would say yes. God meets people in different areas and speaks to them in different ways but this does not negate the fact that His Word is Truth and that the Truth is absolute. He met Saul who did not believe in Christ as the way to God and was on his was to kill Christians but in was in that meeting that Saul was introduced to Christ and became Paul, a new creation.
 
God can meet people in different ways from different backgrounds and beliefs but it is always to draw them to the Truth and lead them to the Way of true Life. It is Jesus who says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” John 14:6. He goes on to say that “No one comes to the Father but by ME.” 
 
It may not look the same in every situation and in every case but it is always through faith in Jesus.
 
In Acts 3 Peter and John were used by God to
heal a man who had been lame his entire life and as the crowd begins to gather,
Peter begins to preach.

He pointed out that:

·       
Jesus is the
author of life (v 15)

·       
He was raised
from the dead (v 15)

·       
He fulfilled a
1500 yr. Old prophecy (v 22)

·       
He is coming
again (v 21)

·                        And all the
families of the earth are blessed through Him.
(v 25)

When we come to Acts 4, we find that the Jewish officials
arrested them for preaching Jesus and they were called to stand before the
religious leaders of Judaism (vs. 5-12).  

They were being
pressured to give up Jesus but instead they proclaimed the absolute supremacy
of Jesus Christ.
 
So would I day that Jesus is the only way? Yes. Is this an exclusive statement? Definitely NOT! In fact, quite the opposite. It is very inclusive because “whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”