Is Jesus the Only Way?

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Are there not many roads to God? Are there not many spiritual teachers like Jesus whom we may follow? Certainly there have been many spiritual teachers throughout history. If we are sincere — is that not enough? Isn’t the important thing just personal insight and experience? Why Jesus? Isn’t that just a little too narrow? What about the Jews? What about the Moslems? What about the Buddhists? Could not God have provided many ways to heaven? After all, He would certainly want to be inclusive would He not?

 

If you’re taking a trip from Liverpool to London, there is only one destination, but there are many routes which you can take. You could go via the M6, or you could take the A5. If you are good at reading a map there are many different routes which you could choose. So there are a variety of roots which will get you to London. Are there not also many roads which lead to Heaven?

 

We need to honestly examine this question, because if Jesus is the only way, we need to know it, don’t we? If there are many ways, we need to know this as well.

 

We live, in an age of relativism. In an age where we say there are no absolutes, that there are no absolute rights or wrongs — no absolute truth. I think many in our society have adopted this view because many desperately want it to be so. Many really do not want to have to face the reality that there may be some truths that are unalterable. The very nature of the idea of truth is that there is absolute truth and that if we ignore it we ignore it to our own peril. To ignore the truth is a very dangerous thing.

 

So, what if it is true that Jesus Christ is the only way? This is the real question, the real focus. If He is the only way, then however you may feel about it, to ignore it is to put your soul into spiritual jeopardy.

Now you must understand that Jesus claimed to be the only way. This is not something that theologians claim for Him. This is something that Jesus claimed for Himself. He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Now listen to what else He says, "No man comes to the Father, except through Me" (Injil, John 14:6). Those are the words of Jesus. "I am the way and the truth and the life, no man comes to the father"- no man gets to heaven, no man enters the kingdom of God-"except through Me." That is a very exclusive focus statement declaring that there is no other way we can get to Heaven — no other way we can approach God — no other way we can be saved — except through Jesus Christ.

 

There are other passages I could point to as well. Let me just choose one more, because the Holy Word of God (Bible) declares that Jesus is the only way in no uncertain terms. In Acts 4:12 (the Bible) it is said, "Salvation is found in no one else (than Jesus), for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” What this is saying, in other words, is that Salvation is to be found through Christ alone. In all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us. The Word of God plainly claims that there is no other name than Jesus by which we can be saved. Jesus Himself claimed that He was the only way, that He was the door, that apart from Him there was no other way to Heaven, no other way to approach God and know God, no other way to the kingdom of God. That is clear.

 

Many people believe Jesus was a good teacher, but that He is not the only way. Now if Jesus claimed that He was the only way to God, you have a problem. How can you have a moral teacher who was a liar? Either He was a liar, or a lunatic, or a legend developed by His followers after His death, or He was legitimately the Lord. Those are really the only options.

 

Was Jesus a liar?

Look at His life. How can you come to that conclusion? Read honestly the gospels. Listen to historical accounts written by other people about Jesus Christ. There was nothing in his character, nothing in his nature, nothing in his activities that would indicate that Jesus would have purposefully deceived anyone. He was a teacher of not just high ethical standards, but the highest. He was a teacher who laid his life down because he believed in what he was saying. There is nothing in the life of Jesus that would indicate to any honest person that He was wilfully deceiving others.

 

Maybe Jesus was deceived

Maybe He was a lunatic. If someone came to you today and said, "I am the Messiah," you would think He is crazy. It would be like him saying, "I am a walnut." We’d say, "You’re not a walnut, you’re just plain nuts." Isn’t that right? We’d say, "You’re crazy. You’re off your rocker. Take this man out." But is there anything in Jesus’ life that would convince us that Jesus was a lunatic — that he was unstable? Was there something abnormal about His life, or about His emotional being? No! Here was a man under intense pressure especially when He went to the Cross. He was mocked. He was spat upon. He was nailed to the Cross of Calvary. If there was anything unstable about His personality, surely it would have been revealed then. Yet He was calm, collected, forgiving, and loving. Nothing unstable there.

Was Jesus merely a legend developed in the minds of His followers after His death?

How could that be? Most people don’t believe that there were any gospels written after AD 70. In other words, there were people still alive that knew the situation when the gospel accounts about Jesus were written. How could they be falsified? How could things be said in the gospel accounts about Jesus that were not true about Him? It would be like someone coming today and saying, "Did you know that Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the Messiah? He healed the sick, and he raised the dead, and he fed the multitudes." There would be people who would stand up and say, "Wait, wait, wait a minute! No he didn’t. I knew him, and he didn’t do anything like that. Furthermore, he didn’t even claim to be that." But Jesus did make such claims.

The only conclusion

The only other conclusion that I can come to is that He was legitimately the Lord. He was who He said He was. There is nothing in His life, nothing in His character, nothing in His activities, nothing in His words that would say anything different. Look at His authority over nature. Look at His power over sickness. Look at His sinless and blameless life. Can He be anything else, besides who He said he was? Look at something else, look at the evidence of an objective event- His resurrection from the grave. That is the greatest proof in all of history. The greatest evidence that Jesus was and is who He said He was.

 

What is The evidence that Jesus is who He said He was?

It is the resurrection of Christ from the dead. That is the foundation of the Christian church. That is the foundation of the Christian faith.

The apostle Paul said, "If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty” (the Bible, 1Cointhians 15:14). In other words, Paul is saying, ‘if Christ was not raised, then your trust in God is useless.’ Without the resurrection it is all a cruel joke. It is a hoax. It is all just religion, just ceremony, just ritual. If Christ is not raised then all Christians have is a religion, we don’t serve a living God. We serve a myth. It all hangs and falls on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. How do you explain that event, if it didn’t happen the way the Bible said it happened? But if it did happen the way the Bible records it, then it’s a glorious event indeed. It proves that Jesus was who He said He was. He is the way the truth and the life. He is the Saviour of the world.

 

Did Jesus really rise from the dead??

First explanation

There have been many who have sought to supply other explanations of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of course, the first explanation that was given is found in Matthew’s gospel where it records that the religious leaders paid the guards to say that while they were asleep the disciples came and stole the body.

 

Why would the disciples have done that? Why would these men, who only a few days earlier had fled for their lives in terror, steal the dead body of Jesus and then begin to boldly proclaim a lie — that Jesus had risen from the dead and was the true Messiah. These men who had feared for their own lives not only began to proclaim this, but were thrown into jail, beaten and began to suffer for doing this. It simply doesn’t make sense to me. Why would these men suffer and die for a lie? They were scared to death before He died while He was still with them. What would change them like that? No, they didn’t steal the body.

 

Second explanation

Another explanation is that the Jews or the Romans stole the body of Jesus. That doesn’t make sense either. Because neither the Jews nor the Romans wanted any of these Christians to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. The Romans didn’t want a disturbance. They put Jesus to death to keep a disturbance down. The Jews were threatened by Jesus Christ. Why would they steal His body and then let the Christians go around claiming that He had risen from the dead? They would have been the first ones to drag Jesus’ dead body out and parade it through the streets if they had it. That would have ended any claim for the resurrection. The reason they didn’t do it, however, is because they didn’t have His body. No one had it. It wasn’t there.

 

Third explanation

Some people say, "Oh the women imagined it. They wanted so badly for Jesus not to be dead. When they came to the tomb, they went to the wrong one and imagined that Jesus had risen from the dead." That is not convincing either. When they went and told Peter and John, who were skeptical, they would have gone down and shown them the right tomb. Surely Joseph of Arimathea would have known where he had his own tomb. I’m sure the Romans and the Jews would have been quick to point it out as well. No, the women didn’t imagine that Jesus rose from the dead.

 

Fourth explanation

Some people say that Jesus swooned on the Cross. They say He passed out and people only thought He was dead, so they took Him down and buried Him. They claim that in the cool and damp of the tomb He refreshed Himself and regained His strength and got up and pushed the stone away and He walked out. Now that’s a late invention from about the 18th century. People forget the severity of crucifixion when they talk like that. Here was a man who was beaten, bruised, bloody, beyond recognition. Here was a man who was beaten until His flesh was ripped from His bones. His body was literally pulverized before it ever made it to the Cross. He didn’t even have enough strength to carry the Cross up the hill to the place called Golgotha, the place of the skull. Then He was nailed to the cross and suffered there.

 

What is described by all accounts is one of the most horrible agonizing deaths a man can endure. His brow was pierced with thorns. His lungs were filling up with fluid. A spear was thrust into His side. Then He was taken down. He was embalmed with thick spices and was wrapped tightly in a linen shroud and placed in an airless tomb for three days without water or food. And He revived? Had He then the strength to push the stone away? And then what would He do after He came out? Would He then be able to convince His disciples that He was the Lord of Glory? Hardly! He didn’t swoon, He died a real death.

 

The only explanation

You see the best and only explanation that the evidence brings is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The empty tomb stands as stark and irrefutable proof that the resurrection of Jesus Christ did in fact occur. If Jesus rose from the dead, the Christians’ faith is not vain. But, do you know what else it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt? That what Jesus said was true in every respect. Whenever He said "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" that is the truth. To ignore this is to put your soul in spiritual jeopardy.

 

Jesus rose from the dead. You can go and visit Confucius’ tomb. You can go and visit Buddha’s tomb. You can go and visit Mohammed’s tomb. You can go visit Abraham’s tomb. They are still there. Their dead bodies remain in their tombs, but Jesus isn’t there. He is risen. He is not there. That empty tomb proves that Jesus is indeed the way. No, it wasn’t a hallucination. Jesus appeared on ten different occasions, once to 500 people. You don’t have mass hallucinations with 500 people seeing the same thing. He appeared to His disciples. You had Thomas among them saying that "I’m not going to believe this resurrection stuff until I see it with my own eyes." These were not people who were deluded. These were people who were convinced by the evidence. These were people who saw the Risen Lord and believed because it was true. How else do you describe the change in them?

 

Phillip Schaff said of Jesus "This Jesus of Nazareth without money and arms conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon. Without science and learning He shed more light on matters human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined. Without the eloquence of schools He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects that lie beyond the reach of orator or poet. Without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion and furnished more themes for more sermons, oration, discussion, learned volumes, works of art and songs of praise in the whole army of great men of ancient or modern times." Why? Because of the power-the resurrection power of this one life. What can produce a change in twelve timid men to make them bold as lions? Only the resurrection power of Jesus. Also I can point you to billions of other souls who have experienced that same change — a change inexplicable by human means, but a change only attributable to the resurrection life of Jesus Christ living in that person.

 

So I point you back to our question: Is Jesus the only way? Yes. Jesus is the only way. Is He your way? Which way have you chosen in the hope of reaching God and heaven?