Your Brother Daniel
Was Jesus a Religious Pluralist?
Jesus has been called
many things: a communist, revolutionary, iconoclast, Eastern Guru, shaman, and
now a religious pluralist – one who believes that all religions are essentially
the same, and that there are many roads to salvation.
However, Jesus’
teachings give us no such hope. Instead, He was very exclusivistic. He insisted
that salvation could only come through Him. When asked what deeds had to be
performed in order to have eternal salvation, He answered, "The work of
God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29). That’s Jesus! Even more to the point, He informed the
leadership:
- 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." (John 8:24)
Not very politically correct, but consistent with everything
Jesus taught! He also informed His slow-to-learn disciples that salvation could
only come through Him:
- "I
am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me.” (John 14:6)
Admittedly, this is a highly offensive message on a number of
levels. It communicates that:
1.
We deserve eternal
punishment.
2.
We are not good enough
– forget self-righteousness - and therefore need to be saved.
3.
Any other means of
salvation represents a vain hope.
Consequently, many think that either Jesus or the Gospels must
have been a bit deluded, and they insist that it is ludicrous that a set of
beliefs can bring about God’s salvation. For example, one Emergent Church guru, Tony Jones, disparages the idea that we can
be saved through doctrines and beliefs:
- This
fixation with propositions can easily lead to the attempt to use the
finite tool of language on an absolute Presence that transcends and
embraces finite reality. Languages are culturally constructed symbol
systems that enable humans to communicate by designating one finite
reality in distinction form another. The truly infinite God of Christian
faith is beyond all our linguistic grasping…and so the struggle to capture
God in our finite propositional structures is nothing short of linguistic
idolatry. (The New Christians,
234)
Jones asserts that the emphasis on “finite propositional
structures” (doctrines/beliefs) is nothing more than “linguistic idolatry.”
Today, such views are quite popular, even trendy. In his most
recent book, The Future of Faith,
liberal professor emeritus of the Harvard Divinity School, Harvey Cox,
celebrates the shift in Christianity away from fundamentalism and its emphasis
on doctrine to “spirituality” and social activism. He favors a doctrine-less
faith – a faith we experience and perform, not something we believe:
- We
have been misled for many centuries by the theologians who taught that
“faith” consisted in dutifully believing the articles listed in one of the
countless creeds they have spun out. (18)
It’s not just the creeds that trouble Cox; it’s also the
exclusivistic teachings of the Bible, which insist on Jesus only!
In light of the many attacks of the religious pluralists, it is
important that we not only know what the Bible says but also the reasons behind its insistence. Truly,
it often seems that a mere set of beliefs shouldn’t be the basis of salvation.
It might even seem unjust or arbitrary that God and His Word should insist upon
these requirements. Therefore, let’s try to reason our way through this matter.
Our beliefs aren’t “linguistic idolatry,” but living and active
truths (1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 4:12) that powerfully impact all aspects of our
lives. In fact, this is exactly what Peter argues:
- Grace
and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of
Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need
for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us
by his own glory and goodness. (2
Peter 1:2-3)
All spiritual blessing is given to us as we learn about God.
Truly, the knowledge of God is indispensible. I would have disappeared long ago
if I hadn’t been given the assurance that He gladly forgives me (1 John
1:9-10). Similarly, I would have continued in my self-destructive sin if I
hadn’t learned about His holiness.
However, there is also another rationale for the centrality of
our biblical beliefs. They reflect the fact that our heart has now been opened
to receive God and to enter into a born-again relationship with Him:
REGENERATED HEART à Receives the Testimony
(Beliefs) of God à Transforms our Lives
In light of the above, it is not so much that the beliefs save as
it is that the Spirit saves by
regenerating us (Titus 3:5), causing us to be born again (John 3:3), through
the knowledge of the truth. This enables us to receive the things of God (1
Tim. 2:14) and to love the light (John 3:19-20), the source of our beliefs.
Without this change, God’s truths would remain objects of contempt (2 Cor.
2:14-16; John 15:18-20).
Consequently, the doctrines of the Bible are living and
transforming, infused by the Spirit who plants them savingly upon our heart:
- Now
the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with
unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit
of the Lord… For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of
darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. (2
Cor. 3:17-18; 4:6; NKJV)
As we “behold” the truths of God, we are “being transformed” by
the work of the Spirit. Admittedly, it is not
the truths of God themselves, but the
truths in conjunction with the work
of the Spirit. If the Spirit is at work, we believe that Christ died for our
sins. If He is not at work, we do not believe this way. In fact, without the
Spirit, such beliefs are offensive to us, and we deny them.
Why then are there “Christian” religious pluralists? Because the
truths of God are offensive to them! The light is an offense to them as it is
to all unbelievers. Meanwhile, they know that they are sinners who need a
Savior, but they cannot bear this offensive but very obvious truth (Rom.
1:18-32; 2:14-15; John 3:19-20). The truth is available for all, but it is
distasteful and rejected (Proverbs 1:20-31). It’s free for the taking, but no
one takes it (Rom. 3:10-18)! Consequently, it is only because the Spirit draws
us that we are enabled to receive it (John 6:44).
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