Jesus No Longer the Only Way?

DesiderioDomini- "there are no good people. one sin makes a man "ungood"

there is none good but God alone, Jesus' words.

so the technical answer is YES, a good person can be saved outside of Jesus.

However, no such person exists"

This is a good point not many people realize, but I would say the good person if he existed isn't saved outside of Jesus. He would not need saving at all. But for those who do need saving, there is only one name under heaven by which a man can be saved.

[ September 09, 2005, 11:42 PM: Message edited by: Bunyon ]

 

Marcia,
I've noticed this too. I've dealt with many who believe that there are many paths to God and claim to be a Christian.

 

His way IS the highway.

1 Jo 5:10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

 

I was a little confused when I first started reading this thread. Some of you are very right on and some are not.
Jesus is the only way to eternal life period.
There is no other way.
Now does that mean you have to go to a particular church to be saved?
The answer is no. One is saved through the blood of Christ no matter what church that person attends.
However, there are some churches that make it easier to understand the true gospel and some churches that make it almost impossible to know what the true gospel is.
For example are there saved Catholics?
Yes, there are, but they were saved inspite of the Catholic church not because of its teachings.
Now a person in a religion other than 'Christian" like Islam, Buddhism, etc. Must go outside of their religion for the knowledge on how to be saved, for those religion are based upon false gods.

 

Whoops!

 

Responses to such a poorly worded and ambiguous question tell us nothing at all because we do not know how the respondents interpreted the question!

Furthermore, when Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me,” what did He mean by this statement? I certainly don’t think that he had in mind 21st century Christology! We need to go back to the Christology of the persons who lived close to the time of Jesus and prayerfully consider their concept of Christ and his teachings. And having done that, we need to study how the concept of Christ and his teachings changed and developed over the centuries up to our present time.

To be more specific, when Christ spoke these words, was He speaking of his historical person or the Messiah or some other concept of who He is? And do we find that concept of which Jesus was speaking exclusively in the Christian Faith, or do we also find it in some other faiths or in some of the people of some other faiths? Anyone who tries to answer these questions and other similar questions concerning the meaning of Jesus in John 14:6 without taking the time to examine them very carefully and prayerfully is, in my personal opinion, a careless fool and a threat to the gospel message.

Our job as a Christian is NOT to say that in order to be saved one has to believe this—or believe that, or belong to this faith—or belong to that faith; our job as a Christian is to share the gospel with others through word and deed, and to pray for them and trust the Holy Spirit to do His work in their hearts and lives.

My father is not saved to this day because of ignorant and narrow-minded meddlers and busybodies who misrepresented the person of Christ in both their spoken word and their lives. And now I find a multitude of narrow-minded meddlers and busybodies with their own website and “ministries” making a mockery of our Savior by misrepresenting who He is and what He taught.

Jesus wants us to know that we have sinned, that the wages of sin is death, and that He and He alone died for our sins on the cross. Let’s share that message with the world rather than attack the views of others.

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Again Craig ....

 

I don't think a majority of evangelicals believe this, but a growing number do. I was criticized by 3 born again Christians for saying that the God of Islam is not the God of the Bible. Afterwards, in the course of discussing this with them, I found out that they believe good Muslims who don't hear about Jesus will go to heaven. This is not the first time I've had this kind of discussion born again believers. I've met Christians who tell me that they used to believe Jesus is the only way to God and eternal life but they no longer believe it. This has been happening more the past few years.

This poll was given to people of many religions. If someone said "outside of your faith," I would consider that to mean outside of the Christian faith. </font>[/QUOTE]I see the same thing Marcia. I keep hearing from people that claim to be Christian's, that the god of Islam and all the rest are the same God as the one in the Bible we believe in. Something like it's just God's way of using different paths for different cultures or some such nonsense. Then they say when you point out scripture that says otherwise, that some of scripture might be from God but it's mostly from men.
How do you talk to someone like that? </font>[/QUOTE]If they are still in denial after pointing out scripture, then give up and let God take care of them.
It disturbs me to see so many confessing Christians in error.
Jesus is the only way and the Bible is CLEAR on that.

 

Many protestant churches have gone liberal. It is common to find that many churchgoers are content to concede that perhaps Jesus was just a good man pointing the way to God, with Paul and John and others fleshing out "Christianity" with many doctrines that Jesus Himself would not agree with. The Jesus Seminar and others (like Bruce Chilton) are pandering this as the true scholarly consensus on Jesus. Sad.

I admit that I have at times been bothered by the idea that a person could be a conscientious moral individual, truly trying to life a good life and yet go to Hell because he/she was not raised a Christian. Where would I be worshipping right now if I had been born in India?

Yet we all must admit that the Bible is pretty clear on the impossibility of salvation without Christ. God's wisdom is greater than ours. I admit that I would be happy to one day find out that Jesus would allow good people never given a clear presentation of the Gospel to choose Him - but we have no biblical basis for believing such a thing.

 

.

 

I know you don't like the emergent church, postmodernism and mysticism, but you are incorrectly associating them with inclusivism.

While many emergent/postmodern/mystical Christians may also be inclusivists, the theology of inclusivism is independent of these movements and predated them.

Sixteenth century reformer Uldrich Zwingli was an inclusivist. C.S. Lewis clearly entertained inclusive theology as evidenced in his allegory of the endtimes in the Narnia book, The Last Battle.

The major modern inclusivist theologian is Karl Rahner who was a liberal Catholic priest very influential in Vatican II.

Just a note that Inclusivists are not Universalists and do not have a problem proclaiming that Jesus is the only way to God.

Inclusivism is also not about "being a good person" as some seem to be suggesting.

 

so what IS inclusivism?

 

Christian inclusivism usually agrees with the exclusivisity of Christ as affirmed by John 14:6.

However, they disagree with the exclusivisity of Christianity. Saying that Christ MAY extend grace to those outside of Christianity including atheists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc. to be saved by Jesus. Especially those who have never had a chance, either geographically or culturally, to choose Christianity.

A key word is MAY in that it is for Christ to determine and not man. Inclusivists are clearly not universalist in that they will not say that all "good people" or "people of faith" will go to heaven.

 

Oh I see, Gold Dragon.

I saw a quote of Pope John Paul II espousing that exact view.

 

Yep, since the time of Vatican II, inclusivism has been a major position held by a majority of the RCC. Of course like all groups, there is probably varying degrees of acceptance of this position within the RCC.

 

Right.

Until I had seen that quote a few months ago, I did not realize that Catholics held that position.

 

Inclusivism has definitely permeated the RCC. On the other hand the catechism tends to be pretty strict in that grace through the sacraments is necessary for salvation. There is a clause however (I forget where) which says something to the effect of God can extend Christ's sacrifice to noncatholics (namely "good" people in other faiths) if He wishes.