Christian Exclusivity in a Pluralistic Age

4. Only “One Road” to Heaven? Christian Exclusivity in a Pluralistic Age Part 1

5. One Road Only to Heaven? • Introduction • Many today claim that all religions are just different roads that arrive at the same destination. • Yet, not all “roads” lead to the same destination. • Jesus, in fact, says there is only one “road” to heaven – through Him, and Him alone. • In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” • The Bible also calls Jesus Christ “a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall…” (Romans 9:33)

6. One Road Only to Heaven? • Today, especially, people stumble over and find deeply offensive the Christian teaching that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given among people by which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12). • We live in a pluralistic society, meaning “many (plural) views of the way to be saved.” • Our neighbors, co-workers and friends come from many different religious backgrounds. • They seem just as moral and religious as we are, and in some cases even more so. • It seems the heights of arrogance to think that only Christians have the right religion and will be saved.

7. One Road Only to Heaven? • We also live in a climate of relativism, meaning nothing is absolute, but everything is relative. • People tend to assume that truth, morality and religion are relative to what works best for the individual. • Consequently, how one thinks and lives is viewed strictly subjectively or personally. • “That may be true for you,” we hear said today, “but it isn’t true for me.” • Truth is no longer viewed objectively as something to be discovered. Rather truth is viewed as something the individual makes or constructs for one’s own life. • Morality is viewed as a matter of “values” particular to the individual or the culture, rather than objective absolutes, i.e. “Thou shall not kill.” That’s a Subjective view of life!

8. One Road Only to Heaven? • Religion is viewed as a number of subjective choices and experiences that give meaning to a person’s life. • Religion is perfectly acceptable, so long as it is kept private, experiential and to one’s own self. • Religious truth-claims, doctrines and absolutes are totally out of line and unacceptable. • Since religion is seen as purely personal, “no one has the right to impose his or her religion on anyone else.” • Given this mindset, the very claim that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation seems preposterous. • Even Christian often find that teaching hard to accept. • This may also explain the difficulty the modern day Church has with Evangelism – Sharing Jesus!

9. One Road Only to Heaven? • Don’t all road lead to the same destination? • In real life, do different roads lead to the same destination? • Imagine you want to go to the Grand Canyon. If you head north on I-75, I guarantee, you will never get there. • It will not matter how sincere you are while driving on I-75; • It will not matter how many other interesting places and parts of the country you will see while driving on I-75; • You simply will get to the Grand Canyon! • It’s as simple as that! No, they don’t! NOT

10. One Road Only to Heaven? • Even the many world religions do not claim to arrive at the same destination. • The very concept of “heaven,” referring to the realm of eternal life, is a distinctly Christian belief. • Most Eastern Religions, i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism and the New Age Movement reject the afterlife. • In Hinduism, souls are reincarnated into other beings until they are purged of their distinctions and ultimately merged together into a vast cosmic oneness. • C. S. Lewis, using one of Hinduism’s own metaphors, says “when a drop of water falls into the ocean, the individual drop ceases to exist.”

11. One Road Only to Heaven? • In Buddhism, the afterlife is not heaven but “Nirvana,” meaning literally, “nothingness.” • When after much meditation and multiple reincarnations, the soul finally loses all of its desires and finds enlightenment, it will escape the bounds of the material world – the realm of things – and experiences “the void” of “no-thing-ness.” • In the classical pagan religions and in many other pagan religions of today, all the dead go to the same place. • The ancient Greeks believed that all souls, good and bad alike, crossed over into Hades. This is the word used in the New Testament for “Hell.” …

12. One Road Only to Heaven? • … There the very wicked were tormented, while the rest simply wandered around in a peaceful darkness. • The ancient Germanic tribes had much the same notion with the addition that the warriors would spend their eternity fighting and each night their wounds would heal so they could fight another day. The German’s name for the place of the dead was “Hel.” • In the days of the early church, both Greek and Germanic pagans had no difficulty with the idea of Hell. That’s what they already believed. • When the Christian Missionaries taught them that through Christ they could escape Hell and enter into a realm of eternal joy, that was good news indeed.

13. One Road Only to Heaven? • Mormons teach that when you die, you will get to be the god of your own solar system, having spirit children with your wife to live on the planets you will rule. • Muslims teach the existence of a paradise in which people will enjoy all sensual pleasures, even those their religion forbids here on earth. • Some Jewish sects believe in some kind of afterlife, but most believe that this life is final, with no survival beyond the grave. • Bottom line: If you want to go to heaven, you will need to embrace the religion that teaches there is such a place – Christianity – and only through Christ.

14. Only to Heaven? One Road • All roads DONOT lead to the same place. • There is but ONEROAD that leads to Heaven – faith in Jesus Christ! Questions?

15. One Road Only to Heaven? • Isn’t it unfair for God to condemn non-Christians, especially if they never had a chance to hear about Jesus? Next Sunday I will tackle the question…