Jesus Is The Only Way Of Salvation Religion Essay

Why do we as Christians believe that He is the only way to the Father. Since Christ is the source of life and truth, He must also be the way to God Himself.2 I feel that if you believe otherwise than what is clearly and plainly stated in the Bible, you are essentially saying that you know more than Jesus Himself knows. Many people would argue that is not what they are saying, but if we are contradicting this statement, that is in essence what we are saying. Many people of this world, in today¿½s society will argue this statement and are very tolerant of other ways to get to Heaven.

I love talking to people about this scripture; I have actually recently finished writing a sermon on this talk for my youth group. I look at this verse in John as our road map to heaven. Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.3 The word guides us and instructs us during our walk here on earth. Believers know there is only one way to heaven and once we get saved we are on that pathway there. The Bible is our roadmap, clear instructions with everything we need along the way found in His word.

Jesus gathered the disciples, although the disciples didn¿½t know it at the time, they had gathered around the table with Jesus for what would be their last meal together. They already knew that there was going to be something different about their time together that night, for the evening had begun with Jesus taking off his outer garment, getting down on his knees, taking a basin and a cloth, and washing his disciples¿½ feet. Unnerved, they sat around the table, probably wondering what was going to happen next. They didn¿½t have to wait long to find out. Jesus started talking in a way they had not heard him talk before. First, he told them not to be anxious about the events to come. ¿½What events to come?¿½ they wondered. Then he told them he was going away, but that he would come back and take them with him. ¿½Going away?¿½ This was going to be very hard for the disciples; they would not truly understand the consequences of what was to follow. He said I¿½I go to prepare a place for you¿½.4 While he was gone he would be doing a lot of work preparing a place for them with His father in Heaven. Jesus also said in John 14:3 ¿½I will come again, and receive you unto myself.¿½ Jesus had already explained all of this to the disciples that he had to leave this earth in order for the Holy Spirit to come here and live in the hearts of men. He also taught them that the only way for them or anyone else to get to the Father was through Him.

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Thomas living true to his name did not understand fully. He asked how they could know where they would be going, and how they were to get there. Jesus said that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus didn¿½t say there was any other way, only this way. He clearly said that No one could get to the Father except through Him. I don¿½t understand how people cannot get this and why they still think there is other ways to Heaven. There is one way and only one way through Him. Not only was Jesus telling the disciples how to get there, He also left us the roadmap. We should all rejoice in the fact that He went also to prepare us a place to be with Him forever. He will return for His children and take us to be in Heaven with Him forever.

Jesus said, ¿½I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.¿½ Except, that is, by the road map that He gave us to know the way. ¿½The way¿½ has nothing to do with knowing or believing in Jesus go to heaven, you see. ¿½The way¿½ is not about a certain way of thinking or even being baptized in a certain way. Rather, as we are reminded, On the night in which he gave himself up for us He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ¿½This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.¿½5 The one and only ¿½way¿½ to the Father is the way of the cross, the way of death and resurrection, the way of dying to self in order that we might live to Christ. That is why the apostle Paul went to the Corinthians vowing to proclaim ¿½nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.¿½6 That is why he also told the Galatians that ¿½I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me.¿½7 To ¿½die to an old way of being and an old identity and to be born into a new way of being and a new identity.¿½8 That, as Jesus would say, is the only way to the Father.

There is an interesting commercial currently running on TV that I believe embodies that old way of being and that old identity better than anything else. You have probably seen it. It begins when a wife, after their old television seems to have breathed its last, says to her husband, ¿½You¿½re right, we need a new TV.¿½ The cameras then cut to the husband, whose face immediately lights up at the thought of having the latest big screen, high def, plasma TV, or whatever hanging on his wall. Suddenly, to the strains of Freddie Mercury and Queen, music starts to fill the air. ¿½I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now!¿½ A voice then is overheard proclaiming that with the Chase Credit Card, you can have it all and you can have it now. Catchy, isn¿½t it? It kind of gets me all stirred up. Yet while it obviously is a great ad campaign, and great music to boot, it seems to me to be a terrible indictment of both our society and ourselves. That commercial tells us that the only way to happiness, that the only way to fulfillment, that the only way to life is by living for ourselves, by immersing ourselves in things, by living a life that is totally centered upon ourselves.

But the cross of Christ, that central symbol of our faith, presents a very different view of life. The gospel writers proclaim over and over again that the only way to the Father is through our dying to self and rising to Christ; by turning away from a life centered upon ourselves and turning towards a life centered upon God. And that turning away is the same way taken by the prodigal, who came to himself and was then welcomed home from exile; it is the same way taken by the woman of Samaria, who turned away from the well and found that she was never thirsty again; it is the same way taken by Lazarus, who was called out of the tomb and raised from the dead. There is only one way to life and, as Jesus showed us, it began on that terrible Friday afternoon. It ended on that glorious Sunday morning. Do you want to find that way? Then go ahead and die, and then let Christ raise you to life. For that is the only way to the Father.

Perhaps the words of the old gospel hymn writer Jessie Brown Pounder say it best. While some may find another way to put it, its words contain a great truth. Listen:

my needs go home by the way of the cross,

There¿½s no other way but this;

I shall ne¿½er get sight of the Gates of Light,

If the way of the cross I miss.

The way of the cross leads home,

The way of the cross leads home;

It is sweet to know, as I onward go,

The way of the cross leads home.9

1 John 14:6 New International Version

2 Elmer Towns, John Believe and Live, (Chattanooga, AMG Publishers, 2002), 141.

3 Romans 10:17 NIV

4 John 14:2 NIV

5 Luke 22:19 NIV

6 1 Corinthians 2:2 NIV

7 Galatians 2:20 NIV

8 Marcus Boyd, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith, (New York, Harper Collins, 1989) 113

9 Jesse Brown Pounder, ¿½The Way of the Cross Leads Home,¿½ The Cokesbury Worship Hymnal, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1938, p.141

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