Only One Way to be Saved?
As promised in the sermon this morning, here are the sermon notes from the message I preached on John 14:6. I have also included a couple of quotes that were not on the original handout. I spent some time in second service elaborating on the fourth point which is by far the most important one and is key to our arguement and understanding of why we can be saved only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The few Scriptural passages that I included here just do not do justice to the significance and importance of the point.
Life Notes (sermon notes) for a sermon delivered Sunday, May 4, 2008 at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas.
The title of the sermon was, “Is There Only One Way To Be Saved?”
1. There is only one way to heaven because God tells us so
On one occasion the evangelist D. L. Moody, addressed a group of church workers. After the meeting he was confronted by an angry woman who said, “Mr. Moody, do you mean to tell me that I, an educated woman, taught from childhood in good ways and all my life interested in the church and doing good, must enter heaven the same way as the worst criminal of our day?”
“No, maam,” said Moody. “I don’t. God does!”
Deut. 4:35 (ESV) To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides Him.
Deut. 4:39 (ESV) Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.
Deut. 5:7 (ESV) You shall have no other gods before me.
Isaiah 45:5-6 (ESV) I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:18 (ESV) For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:21-23 (ESV) Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’
Isaiah 46:8-9 (ESV) Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me,
Hosea 13:4 (ESV) But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior.
John 14:6 (ESV) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Acts 4:12 (ESV) And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Philip. 2:9-11 (ESV) Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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.
If someone wants you to believe that there is more than one way to heaven, your response should be that of Martin Luther who said: “Must we believe your poor dreams without Scripture, and you will not believe our plain Scripture?”
3. There is only one way to heaven because logic and truth demand it
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” John Adams
Different world religions cannot all be true or lead to the same destination because they make mutually exclusive truth claims about how Jesus is and how we are saved. The law of non-contradiction states that it is not possible that something be both true and not true at the same time and in the same context. It means that two opposite or antithetical propositions cannot both be true at the same time and in the same way, the very thing the advocates of religious inclusivism affirm (there are many different ways to be saved, the major world religions really all teach the same thing, etc.)
Possibly the best cure for those who want to violate the law of Noncontradiction was proposed by a “medieval Muslim philosopher by the name of Avicenna who suggested a surefire way to correct someone who denies the law of Noncontradiction. He said anyone who denies the law of Noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.” (Norman Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, 57)
4. There is only one way to heaven because only Christ died for our sins
Faith in Christ is the only way to be saved because only Christ’s death on the cross and the shedding of His blood is sufficient to atone for our sins thus allowing us sinners to be united to and dwell with a pure, righteous and holy God.
John 8:24 (NIV) I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.”
Hebrews 9:22 (ESV) without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Revelation 1:5 (ESV) Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood
Revelation 5:9 (ESV) And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
John Owen said, “Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.”
