(The following is the April 23 devotional from my Next Step Devotions book. Before reading it, I suggest you read John 14 and pay close attention to verses 1-7.)
There is one God and one Heaven where all his children will live forever in his presence. There is only one way to experience eternal life – through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
The disciples didn’t understand Jesus’ comments about preparing a place for believers and coming again for them. They asked him about it, and he answered with one of the most straightforward exclusivity claims in the Bible: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (v. 6).
Christians will not be popular today by echoing Jesus’ message. Unbelievers and those professing other faiths reject the claim that believing in Jesus is the only way to have eternal life. They see such teaching as narrow-minded, bigoted, ignorant, intolerant, or hate speech. The more popular but completely unscriptural notion is that there are many ways to God, many spokes on the wheel, and people merely follow different paths to get to the same place. It is impossible to reconcile such false teaching with biblical truth.
Acts 4:12 is equally clear: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” These two verses and many more passages leave no room for Christians to waffle on the subject. We must affirm the necessity of believing in Jesus alone for eternal salvation. He is not a way, a truth, and a life. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through him.
Expect rejection from much of the world if you openly proclaim this exclusivity. God’s enemies rejected Jesus and will reject us if we follow him and his teaching. Still, we must declare it. A lost world demands our faithfulness to the unchanging gospel.
Next Step:
When did you last talk with someone about Jesus being the only way to eternal life? Who might you have such a conversation with soon?