Yes, Jesus is Your Only Hope

We live in a time when “tolerance,” “diversity” and “inclusivity” are considered by many cultural virtues that supersede all others. This popular relativist notion disregards something far more important: Truth.

Jesus is truth. Either that or, as C.S. Lewis famously observed, He is a liar, a lunatic or the “Devil of Hell” himself.

Christ was both tolerant and intolerant – utterly exclusive and wholly inclusive. He said in no uncertain terms: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Jesus asserted over and again that He is the only way to God the Father. Note that, rather conspicuously, He did not say: “No one comes to the Father except through me, the Buddha, Muhammad, Ganesh or L. Ron Hubbard.”

Philippians 2:10-11 assures us, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

That’s every knee: Every atheist, agnostic, Muslim or Jew; every Buddhist, Hindu, Scientologist and everyone in between, living, dead or yet-to-be born.

Yet Christ also promised us this: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light” (Matthew 11:28-29).

Romans 10:13 is even more direct: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Nonetheless, the Scriptures remain explicit. Jesus Christ is the one and only path to God the Father and, ultimately, eternal salvation.

The thing about truth is that it’s true whether you choose to believe it or not. Jesus did not merely speak truth, He is truth. He is truth personified – the embodiment and source of everything under the sun and all that is true, precisely as He claimed to be.

As mentioned above, one of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes points out, as only Lewis could, that Jesus was either the Son of God, as he maintained, or He was a liar, a lunatic, or, worse, the “Devil of Hell.”

Wrote Lewis: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Eternal life. This is the glorious hope followers of Christ have in Him. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

John 3:36 warns: “Whoever believes in the Son [Jesus] has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” Absent acceptance of and belief upon Christ, we will neither see God the Father nor His Son, who is eternal life.

God both created and loves – in a way incomprehensible to the finite human mind – every human being ever born, or otherwise. He wove us together in our mother’s wombs and numbered our every hair. Yet God the Father has but one begotten Son. The rest of us, in order to become God’s children, must be adopted and grafted into the vine by, in and through the One who is the Son – He who is the Vine: Christ Jesus (see John 15:5).

Indeed, to become a child of God, we must ask God, through Christ, to adopt us. We mustn’t just believe upon Him – for “Even the demons believe that” (see James 2:19) – but, rather, we must also receive Him as Lord and Savior. We must follow Jesus, the one true God, as our only God. “But to all who believed him (Jesus) and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

The pluralist notion that, “There are many paths to God,” is an insidious lie spread by the father of lies himself. Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13).

Indeed, as I’ve said before, the Bible is one of two things: It is either simply an ancient text chock-full of creative tales and loose philosophies no more relevant to our daily lives than a Tony Robbins self-help book, or it is what it says it is: the inerrant, inspired Word of God. It can be nothing else.

If it is the former then, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32).

If it is the latter, and I believe with all my heart, soul, mind and strength that it is, then you’d be wise to heed Christ’s explicit forewarning that He is the exclusive way, truth and life.

The facts themselves bear witness and His divine acts of power teach those who doubt that He is true God, and His sufferings show that He is true man. And if those who are feeble in understanding are not fully assured, they will pay the penalty on His dread day.

If He were not flesh, why was Mary introduced at all? And if He were not God, whom was Gabriel calling Lord?

If He were not flesh, who was lying in the manger? And if He were not God, whom did the Angels come down and glorify?

If He were not flesh, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes? And if He were not God, whom did the shepherds worship?

If He were not flesh, whom did Joseph circumcise? And if He were not God, in whose honor did the star speed through the heavens?

If He were not flesh, whom did Mary suckle? And if He were not God, to whom did the Magi offer gifts?

If He were not flesh, whom did Simeon carry in his arms? And if He were not God, to whom did he say, “Let me depart in peace”?
“Wrote Lewis: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

If He were not flesh, whom did Joseph take and flee into Egypt? And if He were not God, in whom were words “Out of Egypt I have called My Son” fulfilled?

If He were not flesh, whom did John baptize? And if He were not God, to whom did the Father from heaven say, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased”?

If He were not flesh, who fasted and hungered in the desert? And if He were not God, whom did the Angels come down and serve?

If He were not flesh, who was invited to the wedding in Cana of Galilee? And if He were not God, who turned the water into wine?

If He were not flesh, in whose hands were the loaves? And if He were not God, who satisfied crowds and thousands in the desert, not counting women and children, from five loaves and two fishes?

If He were not flesh, who fell asleep in the boat? And if He were not God, who rebuked the winds and the sea?

If He were not flesh, with whom did Simon the Pharisee eat? And if He were not God, who pardoned the offenses of the sinful woman?

If He were not flesh, who sat by the well, worn out by the journey? And if He were not God, who gave living water to the woman of Samaria and reprehended her because she had had five husbands?

If He were not flesh, who wore human garments? And if He were not God, who did acts of power and wonders?

If He were not flesh, who spat on the ground and made clay? And if He were not God, who through the clay compelled the eyes to see?

If He were not flesh, who wept at Lazarus’ grave? And if He were not God, who by His command brought out one four days dead?

If He were not flesh, who sat on the foal? And if He were not God, whom did the crowds go out to meet with glory?

If He were not flesh, whom did the Jews arrest? And if He were not God, who gave an order to the earth and threw them onto their faces?

If He were not flesh, who was struck with a blow? And if He were not God, who cured the ear that had been cut off by Peter and restored it to its place?

If He were not flesh, who received spittings on His face? And if He were not God, who breathed the Holy Spirit into the faces of His Apostles?

If He were not flesh, who stood before Pilate at the judgement seat? And if He were not God, who made Pilate’s wife afraid by a dream?

If He were not flesh, whose garments did the soldiers strip off and divide? And if He were not God, how was the sun darkened at the cross?

If He were not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if He were not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?

If He were not flesh, whose hands and feet were transfixed by nails? And if He were not God, how was the veil of the temple rent, the rocks broken and the graves opened?

If He were not flesh, who cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned Me”? And if He were not God, who said “Father, forgive them”?

If He were not flesh, who was hung on a cross with the thieves? And if He were not God, how did He say to the thief, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise”?

If He were not flesh, to whom did they offer vinegar and gall? And if He were not God, on hearing whose voice did Hades tremble?

If He were not flesh, whose side did the lance pierce, and blood and water came out? And if He were not God, who smashed to gates of Hades and tear apart it bonds? And at whose command did the imprisoned dead come out?

If He were not flesh, whom did the Apostles see in the upper room? And if He were not God, how did He enter when the doors were shut?

If He were not flesh, the marks of the nails and the lance in whose hands and side did Thomas handle? And if He were not God, to whom did He cry out, “My Lord and my God”?

If He were not flesh, who ate by the sea of Tiberias? And if He were not God, at whose command was the net filled?

If He were not flesh, whom did the Apostles and Angels see being taken up into heaven? And if He were not God, to whom was heaven opened, whom did the Powers worship in fear and whom did the Father invite to “Sit at my right hand”. As David said, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, etc.”

If He were not God and man, our salvation is a lie, and the words of the Prophets are lies.”

~St. Ephraim the Syrian, “Sermon on the Transfiguration of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ”

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