5. What was the conclusion which Jesus drew from His identity?

Here we come to the final phrase of John 14:6, ". . . No one comes to the Father, except through Me". The Lord had already indicated the truth clearly underscored here by saying that He is the way, and the truth, and the life. However, He knew the hearts of men. He knew that men would resist such a seemingly narrow conclusion on every front. He knew that the Moslem would try to still speak respectfully of Him while promoting another way of getting to Allah. He knew that the unbelieving Jew would cling to his own way, trying to reach God through an Old Covenant which has passed away so that he has no temple and animal sacrifice for sins. Christ knew that the animists who worship evil spirits would attempt their way, along with the Hindus and Buddhists and Taoists and Shintoists -- the New-Agers, and the old heretics -- the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies, and a host of others. All would propound their ways to find God or spiritual fulfillment. He knew there would be men who in their arrogance would declare that they find God by spending time in nature, and do not need Christ and His church. He knew that there would be false, supposedly Christian pastors who would teach that there is not a hell, and that everyone eventually gets to the Father, howbeit in different ways. He knew that there would be a Tom on the airplane who wanted to cling to a general respect for Christ and the Bible and spiritual things, but only as long as it all fit with His own notions of a nice tolerant Christ and God who let people get in some other way than that of the Christian faith.

Christ as God in human flesh knew all this. And so the Savior spoke in clear, unmistakable terms to make sure that there could be no possible misunderstanding -- to ensure that when men were challenged to come up with an alternative explanation of this passage and actually tried to do so, it would be obvious that they were twisting the clear sense of words which are as obvious and straightforward as they could possibly be. These words declared that no human being on the face of the earth is ever able to get to God the Father, and to His heaven, unless He first goes through Jesus Christ, believing in Him as the bloody sacrifice through Whom alone he may be saved. That's the bottom line. No other meaning is possible without turning the basic principles of human language on their head.

Now in light of all that we have seen, what are some final lessons which should be underscored in our hearts and minds before we leave this pivotal portion of God's Word in the Bible?:

1. This key verse, John 14:6, speaks very directly to each boy and girl, each man and woman, who reads these words. It speaks a message which you may be seeing for the first time. It speaks a message which may be quite familiar to you, yet one which you may still never have really laid hold of by faith until now. It is a vitally important message if you would ever get to God the Father and to His heaven. That message is that it is impossible to get to God the Father and to His heaven unless you go in the path of faith in Jesus Christ.

Again, as we have seen, the world shouts to you that such a conclusion is a narrow and horribly intolerant position. It loves to point to all sorts of systems of thought which men have devised which possess a supposedly equal claim to our esteem and respect. And it tries to maintain that you can have a high regard for Jesus Christ and the Christian faith while having an equally high regard for other belief systems as well. But the words of Jesus Himself do not allow such a supposedly open-minded approach to matters having to do with God and heaven and your eternal soul. It was Jesus Himself who was so "narrow and horribly intolerant". His message was inescapably exclusive. If you cannot endure His absolute and exclusive claims, then you really cannot endure and respect the Jesus of the Bible, for it is the true Jesus who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." Any other position toward Him than that which agrees with His claim here is to call Him a liar or a lunatic -- hardly a high view of the Savior. If you deny what He says here, you must either be saying that He outright lied, or that He was out of His mind, possessed with the "Messianic complex" of a madman. And you cannot say that He is worthy of respect and esteem. You cannot have it both ways.

2. Our key verse also tells us that it is absolutely essential that every man and woman, boy and girl, be told about the Lord Jesus. For He is the only way that they will ever get to God and His heaven. Here is a powerful motivation for our witness to others and for missions in general. For without it, there would be no obvious reason for the sowing with weeping to which the Lord calls His children (Psalm 126:5-6; Matthew 28:18-20). We must never allow ourselves to forget the haunting questions of Rom. 10:14:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

Men will not call on Jesus and be saved if they have not first come to believe in Him. And they will not believe in Him if they have never heard of Him. And they will never hear of Him if someone does not come and proclaim Him to them. Without the heralding of the Gospel message, men will not get to Jesus, and they will perish. There is no other option. Therefore, we who know the Lord had better be busy seeing that those around us plunging on to hell hear about the One who is the way, the truth and the life.

3. Finally, our key verse tells us the message we must seek to communicate to every boy and girl, man and woman. This is the message which was not acceptable to the man I talked to on the airplane. It is a message which is not generally popular in our nation, worshipping as it does at the altar of toleration and acceptance of all religions and philosophies. But it is still the truth -- and apart from it no man will ever get to God or heaven. It is not merely my opinion, or the opinion of other ordinary men which I have adopted as my own. It is the message directly revealed to us by Jesus Himself in our key verse:

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

To those who are distant from God, wandering in their own path as lost and rebellious sheep, we must point out the only way to the Father which is Jesus Christ. To those who have believed the lies of the Devil and of the world and of their own hearts, we must point out the Savior as being the truth -- the very Word of God -- and therefore the source of all truth -- especially of that leading to heaven. To those who are dead in their sins and headed to a physical death which will usher them into the second death of eternal torment, we must call out that Jesus is the life -- and therefore the giver of life -- so much so, that if they repent of their sins and believe in Him, they will come to have abundant life now, and eternal life with the Father in heaven.

We must present this Gospel as an exclusive Gospel -- as an inescapably exclusive Gospel. For there is no way around the words of our Lord. Furthermore, there is no other way to explain why the baby Jesus came to this wicked world to die. There is no way we can understand the horrible sacrifice of the divine Son by the Divine Father if any other way of saving men might have been available. There was no other way. The agony of the Savior on Golgotha's hill is eloquent testimony to that fact along with his Words. If we choose to ignore Christ's Words -- if we choose to ignore Christ's birth and agony -- we will be unable to escape the doom that will result, for any supposedly "alternative" routes which we choose to take will surely fail to bring us to the Father's house. They will instead eventually plunge off a cliff into hell.

But as we present this exclusive Gospel, we should not forget that it is so much more. As you consider this exclusive Gospel as an unbeliever -- perhaps as one tempted to reject it for its inescapably exclusive character -- recognize that it is so much more. It is a glorious Gospel -- Good News -- which exalts the true God and His Son Jesus Christ. It is a gracious Gospel which provides to us a way of salvation as those who deserve nothing but the wrath of God. If men -- if we -- will but humble ourselves and acknowledge who we are before this perfectly holy God, and if we will but ponder a moment over the great price which has been paid that men like us might be saved from their sins, we will not stumble at the exclusiveness of the Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. We will marvel that there is even one way at all by which we may come to the Father. And we will marvel that the Lord Jesus should ever want to take the likes of us to dwell with Him forever in the Father's house, let alone lay down His life under the angry frown of His beloved Father to make it possible in the first place.

Return to Truth for Eternity.