When I was born again in the spring of 1995, and even throughout the first few years of being a Christian, I took it for granted that all believers were firmly settled about the fact that Jesus Christ is the only One in whom anyone could believe in order to be saved. That did not seem to be an issue back in those days. It came as a surprise to me, even as a shock, when I started learning that not all professing American Christians believe in only one path to salvation. Over the course of time it has gotten worse. These days, especially in professing Christians under 40, there is a growing belief that one can get to heaven by way of other religions besides Christianity.
We did not get into this quagmire overnight. As far back as the mid-twentieth century there was a cultural upheaval going on which, while it had its good points such as desegregation, it also had multiple bad points. Prayer and the Bible were banned in schools. Abortion was legalized. Alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality were promoted, and you see where that has taken us today. Corruption in government has reached levels normally seen in dictatorships and communist countries. The entertainment industry’s restraints have come off layer by layer, decade by decade, until the unthinkable is now on TV and radio airwaves and the abysmal is in theaters and on the internet. Deception fills the business world. Science is politicized. The mainstream media outlets are collectively a leftist propaganda machine. Over this same period of time the radicalization of the educational system has been and still is taking place so that now, as a result, young people are growing up hating America and believing that Christianity is one more in a long list of fairytales. On and on it goes. The secularization of society has done its work and is continuing its march forward, and sadly the Church has not been immune. From corrupted Bible versions to seeker-friendly churches to the promotion of every stripe of warped doctrine, including the embracing of abominations, this continuous onslaught of spiritual cancer and moral rot has weakened the body of Christ like termites in a house. The body of Christ in America and, I might add, in a lot of other places in the world today is in a condition not unlike that of Israel back in the days of Isaiah the prophet:
Isaiah 1:5-6, 9: Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment…Unless the LORD of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.
One of the crippling consequences of this moral malady has been the decline in the belief that Christ alone saves. To believe this you must also believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, a topic I covered in my very first blog. If you do not trust in the Bible, or if you are using a corrupted translation of it, of which there is a surfeit, then neither I nor anyone else can help you. What I am putting out here next is Christianity 101: Jesus saves, and He alone. Believe it and stand firm, or reject it at your own peril. As the Bible says:
Revelation 22:11: “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.”
Salvation is a gift given to us by God, not something we earn by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Our works give evidence of our salvation; they do not gain it for us (Romans 11:5-6; James 2:14-26). From the beginning, the shedding of blood has been required in order for sins to be atoned for. As far back as the Garden of Eden, God Himself set the pattern (Genesis 3:20-21). When He made coats of animal skins for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness, animals had to die in order to provide for the skins. Blood had to be shed. All this is a picture of the atonement Jesus Christ would ultimately pay for us, with us being clothed in God’s righteousness. Adam’s son Abel knew this and provided an offering from his flock of animals (Genesis 4:3-4).Many centuries later, during the time of Moses, the Law was given and the rules for atonement were laid out as well as the reason why: The shedding of blood for sin was required (Leviticus 17:11). The sacrificial system was in place until the time of Christ’s death. When He shed His blood while on the cross, then died and was raised again, the one way for sin atonement was firmly set.
Hebrews 9:22-28: And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—He would then have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once in the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
Jesus alone could do this because He is fully divine. He is the Son of God and God the Son, the second Person of the Godhead. He came as a Man, therefore He is also fully man. In the likeness of man Christ came to be the once-for-all sacrifice for sins so that lost people can be saved. Jesus Christ’s atoning death at Calvary abolished the old covenant, so that Jews and Gentiles alike must come to Him in order to be saved. With a repentant heart we trust in Him—have faith, believe in Him—as Lord and Savior and He saves us. God the Father invites the lost person to salvation. The Holy Spirit convicts that person of sin. If the individual responds in the affirmative then salvation is granted through Jesus Christ. And I will say it again: Only Jesus Christ saves. There is salvation in no other, and without salvation there is no heaven, only eternal damnation. The Scriptures speak:
John 1:1, 14: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
1 John 5:7-8: For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.
John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
John 10:30: “I and My Father are one.”
Colossians 2:8-10: Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Romans 3:9, 21-26: What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin…But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
John 16:7-8: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment;…”
John 6:37, 44: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out…No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 14:5-6: Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Acts 4:8-12: Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Revelation 20:15: And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Look at other religions the world over and you will find works and more works. The founders of these religions are all dead. Jesus lives, and He alone saves. If Jesus were not the only One by whom we could be saved, then that would make God the Father a sadistic murdering monster because Christ’s suffering and death would not have been necessary. God’s Word is true and He would never lie. Christian, if you don’t believe anything else today then believe that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved. No works, no other god, nothing or no one else but Jesus Christ can forgive and cleanse a person of their sins and save their soul. The Scriptures cited in this blog could not be any more clear. If you do not accept what God says, then there is nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to (1 John 5:10; John 6:66-69). Like the saying goes, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Make up your mind what you are going to believe. Have a conviction that the Word of God is absolutely true and that Jesus Christ is the one and only Way to salvation. Do not allow anything or anyone to persuade you otherwise.
