Jesus is the Only Way to Eternal Life!
In a recent TIME Magazine article Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the recently ordained Bishop to lead the Episcopal Church in America, was asked 10 questions about views on Christianity, the Church, Science, etc. One of the questions asked was: Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven? Jefferts Schori responded by saying, "We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box." I was left totally flabbergasted when I read this. Why are we assuming? What is there to assume? Christ said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me!" We don't have to assume anything with words like that coming Christ. He spoke truth. He wouldn't be who He claimed to be if He didn't speak truth. And lets face it, she's putting God in a small box when she takes away God's judgement and wrath. D.A. Carson has a great quote in the "Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" that says, "The price of diluting God's wrath is diminishing God's holiness." A god who is without holiness or a diminished amount of holiness isn't God. A God who saves the ungodly, sanctifying and then finally glorifying them is a God that can't be contained in a "box". He is the God who is much greater than us. It is the holy God of Scripture that Isaiah describes as, "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY!"
posted by Bob at 9:01 PM
2 Comments:
yes the colors on my page... and whatever else you might want to use. and since this is a comment for that post... have you checked out what TIME did on Chris Tomlin? I guess we added to the numbers who sing his songs at church services after last night :) good to see ya Bob!
7:33 AM
hey bob, i came across your blog and this post a while ago but never commented. however, i was reading an interesting article in newsweek and a quote by billy graham immediately made me think of this. the author of the article, who must cover the "religion beat," asked billy backed in 2006 if a "moral secularist, a good Muslim, or a good Jew would go to heaven." to which his response was "those decisions are for God to make, not men."
i don't disagree with the clergywoman or billy graham's statement and i don't think that conflicts with the gospel. yes, we are called to take the truth to the world and that truth has been revealed to be christ, but believing that God could save people who haven't lived the cookie cutter, americanized version of christianity, who haven't been exposed to the bible or the bullet points of the gospel, that is believing in a God who is bigger than everything i could ever know.
i think it's similar to sin and grace. we don't have to do a thing, God forgives us and bestows more grace than we can shake a stick at, but that doesn't mean we should just go on living life as we please, taking forgiveness for granted. God is God, therefore he can save whoever he pleases and who are we to say "But...but...they didn't proclaim Jesus in the same way i proclaim Jesus!" But that's not to say we now have free reign to forget spreading the gospel, which we must remember is more than bullet points and so much more about love. it doesn't diminish's God's wrath, it only makes him that much bigger and that much more meaningful to the world, not just to the western, affluent world.
8:36 PM
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