NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME

MIKE CUNNINGHAM

DECEMBER 30, 2007

On the night He was betrayed Jesus consoled His beloved disciples when He told them in John 14:1-6 (ESV) ¹ “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

“No one comes to the Father except through me.” Millions of people throughout the centuries have become offended by that assertion. Aside from atheists who are quick to dismiss it as an utterance of a deluded religious fanatic; Jewish people and others who do believe in God, including an untold number of Bible doubting Christians, are either repulsed by what Jesus said or they simply refuse to believe it. To insist that it is only through Him that sinners such as you and me can enter into God’s heaven really rattles people. The truth of the matter is that the Gospel is repulsive to those who are perishing. It may smack of exclusivist arrogance and it may not appear to be fair, but it’s the truth! I can’t help it. Nevertheless, there are perhaps millions of Christians who refuse to believe it. For instance, some Christians will not accept as fact that real nice people; folks who dedicate much of their time and energy and financial resources for the betterment of society; folks through whom God has blessed them personally and sometimes for many years; these Christians do not believe that such good folks are condemning themselves to hell because they want nothing to do with Jesus.

Furthermore, they ask, “how can a just God eternally punish a really nice uninformed Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist, someone who has done a lot of good things throughout his or her life, but who has had the misfortune of being born and having to live their entire life in a real dark sin-infested backward area of the earth, and who, through no fault of their own, knows little or nothing about Jesus; how can He not allow them into heaven? I know these kinds of thoughts went through the minds of billions of people when they learned of the terrible disaster that occurred on the day after Christmas in 2004. Do you remember that awful event that shocked the world at this time of the year three years ago? In a matter of moments giant tsunami waves snuffed out the lives of God only knows how many thousands of unsuspecting men, women and children in Southeast Asia. The civilized world recoiled in horror as images of horrendous devastation and human agony were broadcast on TV. In one of my sermons addressing this awful tragedy I quoted from the January 10^th issue of Newsweek Magazine which had an interesting article entitled: “Countless Souls Cry Out To God.” The subtitle read: “After a cataclysm of Biblical proportions, people of all faiths ask, Why us? Why here? Why now?”

Newsweek continued, “Those hardest hit by last week’s tsunami were poor fishing communities whose inhabitants—mostly Hindus—are untutored in refined theological speculation on life and death. For them, all of life is controlled by the play of capricious deities. Yet their religious world views and practices provide a measure of spiritual relief from the toil of their labor. Along the coast of south India, Hindus tend to worship local deities; most of them female and far down the Hindu hierarchy of divinities. But like Shiva and other classic gods and goddesses, these local gods are ambivalent: they have the power to destroy as well as to create.”

“The ocean itself is a terrible god who eats people and boats, but also provides fish as food. “Hindus use the deities to think about and explain happenings like the tsunami as destructive acts of god,” says Richard Davis, a specialist in South Asian Hinduism at Bard College in New York. “Relating to the local deity and cooling her anger through propitiation is more important than thinking about personal or collective guilt for what has happened.”

The article added, “The waters that rose up from the deep last week, drowning tens of thousands of people across a wide arc of South and Southeast Asia, were a cataclysm of Biblical proportions. But most of those who survived to weep and mourn—like most of those who died—had never heard [emphasis added] of Noah or the Biblical God of Wrath, figures so familiar to Christians and Jews; they were, instead, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.”  According to Newsweek, most of the Tsunami victims would never have known the fact that, concerning the eternal destiny of unforgiven sinners, Jesus once said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If the information in the Newsweek article is accurate and most of the victims of that giant Christmas time Tsunami never heard of the Biblical “God of Wrath,” as Newsweek chose to characterize Him, and most of those Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists were completely oblivious to what Jesus taught about Himself being the only way to the Father; how do you answer the sincere non-Christian wanting to know your personal belief concerning the eternal destiny of these poor people? In other words, do you folks truly believe those dead non-Christian tsunami victims at the moment of their death were immediately “swept away by terrors” (Psalm 73:19) to “a place of torments” (Luke 16:23) where they will stay until the Day of Judgment?

No one comes to the Father except through me. To which as we saw last week in my Christmas message, our church in its Articles of Faith and in so many words added a resounding AMEN. However, there are those who disagree with us. For instance, I also pointed out in that same message that according to teachings of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church which teaches that: (847) “Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.”[1]

Nevertheless, Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Earlier He had told a man named Nicodemus, John 3:16-18 (ESV) ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. But many of those poor tsunami victims never even heard of Jesus. How can that be fair? Surely the One who is the very embodiment of love and who cares about all people would provide a means by which they can come to a saving knowledge of Him. Well He certainly has. After His resurrection we read:

Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV) ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Go everywhere and proclaim My Gospel!

1 Corinthians 9:16 (ESV) ^{16 “}For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” It’s as though Paul is saying that he feels compelled to preach the Gospel and I might add, so does every person God has sent since; even to faraway places where folks have never heard of Jesus. Listen to Paul the missionary:

Romans 15:20-21 (ESV) ²⁰ and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, ²¹ but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” The Gospel must be shared! And every grateful follower of Jesus will do just that at every God given opportunity just as Paul did.

Romans 1:16-17 (ESV) ^{16 “}For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Romans 10:9-15 (ESV) ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ¹⁴ But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Romans 1:18-20 (ESV) ¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write to the Roman Christians that everyone knows that God exists. All they have to do is look around them at this vast universe and they must come to the unmistakable conclusion that there is a Creator. It’s as plain as the nose on their face. Regardless of where on this planet the person may live, everyone knows in his or her heart that our Creator God exists. But the sad truth is that most people could care less. They simply aren’t interested in trying to find out everything they can about Him i.e. what God is like and what might He expect of me?

Most non-Christians don’t knock themselves out looking for answers. They are not interested in searching for truth. Nor do such folks plead with God and humbly ask Him to reveal more and more of Himself to them. Instead, they fashion their own version of god according to their perverted hearts and minds. The god they create and worship is nothing more than a figment of their own imagination. Search the earth and you will find that every human being worships some kind of god. And, with all non-Christians, it is always a god that fits in with their idea of what he or she believes god ought to be like. Obviously, these folks are conscious of a tremendous void in their life. They know something is missing. However, they simply are not interested in filling that void with truth. In fact, they are so adverse to truth that they suppress it as we saw in Romans One. As punishment for this sin God allows them to continue sinning forever.

The Bible teaches that any “nice” Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or any other non-Christian who died in the tsunami without ever having heard of Jesus and His Gospel, never heard of Him because they didn’t want to. They weren’t interested in searching for and learning truth. Nor did they plead with God asking Him to reveal Himself more fully to them. In fact, I believe that, of their own free will, and in his or her own way, each of them exchanged the truth of God for a lie.

How can I make such a statement? Where do I get off saying stuff like this? I must say that I not only believe in Jesus but I also believe the things He taught. Things such as when He prayed on behalf of His beloved disciples and asked His Father to: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). Jesus had previously revealed an amazing truth about Himself when He said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me“(John 14:6).

Elsewhere Jesus also taught: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8). If someone sincerely wants to attain a true knowledge of God they “must possess a devout frame of mind, as well as a pure desire to know the truth. “God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Therefore, anyone who hopes to attain the true knowledge of God, he or she must possess a reverent, truth-loving spirit and, having attained this, God will seek them (John 4:23) and reveal Himself to them in a manner He doesn’t do to everyone in the world. (Compare Matthew 11:25; 16:17).[i]

Regardless of where anyone lives on this planet and regardless of his or her religious upbringing or lack of it; the truth of the matter is that if anyone asks God to reveal Himself to them Jesus promises that God will. Anyone who truly seeks Him most certainly will find Him. If anyone knocks on the door of Gods heart, Jesus promises He will open it and let that sincere seeker in. There is nothing to prevent anyone from seeking and finding Jesus but their own self induced hardened heart. Allow me to illustrate.

Acts 8:26-40 “Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road–the desert road–that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.” This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship [God as he understood Him]; ²⁸and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.

The eunuch was obviously a believer in God. He knew that God existed. Here we find him searching the Scriptures hoping to learn more about God the Creator God.

²⁹The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

³¹“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

This man was not a proud know-it-all. He’s such a sincere seeker of truth that He invites a total stranger to come into his chariot and sit alongside him. He’s hoping that the man will have some answers. Don’t imagine for a moment that this was the first time the eunuch searched and asked about truth].

³²The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

³³In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.”

³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” ³⁵Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news [the Gospel] about Jesus.

What was the difference between the Ethiopian eunuch and any nice Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim who died in their sins in the Tsunami? The eunuch was a humble seeker of truth. It was as though he couldn’t rest until he found it. It doesn’t matter where a person lives or what the religious culture is; God will find a way to reveal the Gospel of Jesus to every sincere humble seeker of truth as we just saw with the Ethiopian Eunuch.

Acts 17:22-28

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸’for in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

And we can be certain Paul would have told them everything Jesus taught, including “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Speaking through the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord reminds everyone of this fact.

Jeremiah 29:13-14 “…you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and fine me. When you seek me with all your heart..”

On the Day of Judgment when all people will stand before the throne of Christ to give an accounting, everyone will know infallibly that truth is absolute and that it is knowable.  No one will be able to cop a plea including all those “nice” Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and anyone else who never even heard the Gospel. On that day, everyone without exception will know the absolute truth of what Jesus declared: “No one comes to the Father except through Me!”