Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Is Jesus Really the Only Way? (1 John 5:1-13)
Date: November 12, 2023
I used to love choose-your-own-adventure books. Do you remember those? You read to a certain point and then were given a choice between two different options. If you went with option A, you turned to page 47, but if you wanted option B, you turned to page 63. Then, when you got through that next part of the story, you were able to choose again. How the story went in any given read through was entirely up to you. Now, because I’m a little bit OCD, I would always make sure I read the book enough times that I experienced every possible option for how the story could have gone, but the point was that it was my choice. I had the power.
I haven’t seen a choose-your-own-adventure book for a while, but the boys did watch through a couple of shows on Netflix that were like this. When you got to a certain point in the episode, you got to choose between one of two actions the characters took. One of them was a survivalist show with Bear Gryllis. That one in particular was pretty interesting because not all the choices you made led to his successfully completing the mission. What worked as a book, though, didn’t work quite as well as a TV show because all the choice nodes meant the action was too slow and disjointed, but still, the attractiveness of the idea is what counted.
We want choices in this life. We want lots of choices. Lots of options. We always want to know that we could have done other than what we did. As long as we have that particular out, then our choice was free. And we want to be free. That’s why we like to do things like play fast and loose with the truth like we talked about a couple of weeks ago. That’s why this next question we are going to address in our teaching series, Confident in the Face of Hard Questions, can prove to be such a challenging one for some folks to get their hearts and minds around.
This morning we are in the fourth part of our journey through a series of some of the hardest questions people ask about the Christian faith. For four weeks now we have taken a different question and wrestled it to the ground with the goal in mind of seeing what is really true on that particular matter through the lens of the Scriptures. We talked about the relevance of truth and miracles in the first couple of weeks with the help of the apostle John’s telling us about a couple of different interactions Jesus had with the Jewish religious authorities of His day. The truth is that Jesus is the source of all truth, and committing our lives to Him is the only way we’ll ever experience that freedom we long to have for ourselves. And, the miracles we see Jesus doing in the Gospels are the way God proved His identity to the world. Then, last week, we tackled the emotionally wrenching question of why there is suffering in the world. There simply aren’t easy or emotionally satisfying answers to that question. God understands this. As a result, He doesn’t try to give them. Instead, He gives us Himself. He gave us Jesus who enters into our suffering with us and gives us the hope that suffering will not be the end of our stories if we will put our trust in Him. God’s answer to suffering is Jesus.
Well, all of that is just fine. Truth matters. Great. Jesus really does seem to be who He says He is. Wonderful. God is someone we can trust even when times are hard. Fantastic. But how do we actually get to Him? I mean, if He really is someone we want to be close to, how do we make that happen? There have been lots and lots of proposals over the centuries of human history. Some of them have been fairly generic—be good and do good—while others have been more…creative. The trouble with all of these different proposals, and the one thing they all have in common is the fact that they’ve all failed. For all of these different proposals of ways to get to God, we never found one that actually got the job done…until we did.
And what is this way that actually works? I’m going to give you the answer to that question right here at the beginning, and then we’ll spend the rest of our time together this morning talking about why it’s the right answer. The one way that actually works is Jesus. Now, I suspect many of you were already convinced of that before I said it. What’s more, that’s not the real question we’re wrestling with this morning. You see, knowing Jesus is the way we can actually get to God creates a tension for us. On the one hand, when we find something that works, we tend to stick with it gladly. On the other hand, we want to be the one to find the thing that works. We don’t like for someone else to give it to us because we feel that diminishes our choice in or our control over the matter. We are even less enamored with the idea that there’s just one way that works. Yes, we’ll stick with something that works when we find it, but that doesn’t mean we want there to be just one way. We are fine and would even prefer for there to be many ways to do something. In fact, if there are many ways, our choosing one that works best for us makes us unique (not really, of course, but in our heads where that kind of thing carries a lot of weight). It helps us maintain a sense of autonomy. When there’s just one way to do something, we lose our freedom, we lose our autonomy, we lose our individuality, we lose everything.
Thus we have this tension. We’re fine with the idea that Jesus is a way that works to get us to God. We run into trouble when we start talking about Jesus’ being the way that works; the only way that works. So then, is that true? Is Jesus really the only way to get to God? Let’s explore that. Helping us in our exploration this morning will once again be Jesus’ best friend, John. If you have a copy of the Scriptures, find your way not to John’s Gospel, but to the first letter he wrote tucked way in the back of the New Testament. Look with me at 1 John 5.
Now, the beginning of 1 John 5 here actually picks up at the end of a longer section that encompasses the last two-thirds of chapter 4. John here is talking about how we can be sure that we know God. What he makes clear in chapter 4 is that love has a great deal to do with that. It’s more than that, though. Love as some ethereal emotion is not the way we get to God. The love John is talking about here is not just some emotional response to a particular situation we are in the way our culture often thinks about it today. This love is embodied in a person, in the person of Jesus Christ. The kind of knowledge, then, that reflects a close relationship with God is evidenced through our love for one another, but we can only show that love when we know Jesus. So, in actuality, knowing Jesus is the way we can know God.
This is what John starts to unpack at the end of this section and into the next one in chapter 5. Take a look at this with me starting right at the beginning of the chapter. He’s going to make the point at the beginning and the end, and then explain why we can trust it in the middle. Listen to this: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” Now, the language there of being “born of God” borrows on the idea Jesus introduced to a pharisee named Nicodemus and which John writes about in the third chapter of his reflection on Jesus’ life and ministry. The idea here is that when we are truly in a relationship with God, we are made new by that. We are made so totally new by it that it is like we have been born again, but this time of God’s Spirit rather than a mother like our first, physical birth. John’s point is that we experience this spiritual rebirth when we are willing to accept Jesus for who He really is. That is, when we know Jesus, we can enter into a meaningful relationship with God, but not before.
There are implications to this knowledge and rebirth. Indeed, to simply announce that we have it is meaningless. There has to be some kind of evidence to back up our claim. This is what John spells out in the rest of that verse. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of him.” Are you following Him there? If you really know God, you’re going to love Him, and if you love Him, you are going to love His children. And how do we know when we are getting that right? John tells us. “This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands. For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands.”
Now, a big part of us wants to react to that. Loving God and keeping His commands are the same thing? How does that work? Well, it goes back to an understanding of what love is. Love is an intentional decision to see someone else become more fully who God designed them to be. That’s what love is when we are talking about loving people. With God the definition changes just a bit because God already is fully Himself. Loving God is seeing Him fully recognized for who He is. And who is He? Well…He’s God. He’s the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He is the sovereign Lord over all creation. He made us and owns us. Thus, it is right and fitting and proper for us to do what He says just like it is right and fitting and proper for kids to do what their parents say, but on an infinitely greater scale. So, yes, loving God and doing what He says necessarily go hand-in-hand. Thankfully, though, as John tells us next, this isn’t some kind of a big burden we have to bear. “For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden, because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.” Putting this all together, then, when we place our faith in Jesus as the Messiah, we enter into a right relationship with God, a state of affairs demonstrated in our lives when we keep His commands which are all about loving one another. Make sense?
But is Jesus really the only way this can all happen? That’s what John gets into in this next part of the passage. Stay in the text with me now at v. 5: “Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” Do you see the connection here? The thing that conquers the world is our faith, and the one who conquers the world is the one whose faith is in Jesus Christ. It is faith in Jesus Christ that allows us to conquer the world. Now, do we do the conquering? Of course not. He does. We simply enjoy the work He has done.
John wants us to understand here, though, that we aren’t to think all this about Jesus on the basis of his word alone. That’s not even close to enough. What we have is so much better. Verse 6 now: “Jesus Christ—he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and these three are in agreement. If we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given about his Son.”
Got all that? If you feel like your brain hurts just a little bit after my reading that…well…you’re not alone. While there may be a few commentators who would venture a confident guess as to exactly what all John means there, those commentators are in lonely company. The truth is, we’re not at all sure what John means by “water,” although there are a number of different guesses. Most interpreters point to John’s talking about Jesus’ ministry in some way. The significance of “blood” is a bit clearer—John’s talking about the evidence of Jesus’ crucifixion as proof of His identity. John’s point, though, is that Jesus’ life and death and ministry are evidence of His identity as the Messiah.
There’s even more than that, though. The Law of Moses called for at least two witnesses to confirm the truthfulness of a person’s testimony. Jesus has His life and ministry and His death and resurrection. That makes two. Two powerful witnesses. As we said a couple of weeks ago, the miracles of His ministry are how God confirmed His identity. John here mentions one more: God Himself. God’s Spirit offers a third testimony in the hearts and minds of those who are willing to place their faith in Him on the basis of the first two that offers us an even more powerful confirmation. Indeed, if we are willing to trust human testimony on the basis of two witnesses, surely God’s additional testimony is even more worthy of our trust.
And when we place our trust in Jesus, this testimony is ours. That’s v. 10: “The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself.” If you receive this testimony and reject it, however, you’re basically saying God’s a liar. “The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony God has given about his Son.” Listen: if you want to say God’s a liar, that’s between you and Him. If you take that path, though, I am not going to be the one getting in the way. If the God who cannot lie says Jesus is His Son, that’s a pretty big deal.
John comes around at the end of our passage here to spell out exactly what this testimony from God is. Look with me now at v. 11: “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” In other words: God’s own testimony about Jesus is that Jesus is the only way to get to Him. There aren’t any other ways that work. If you want to be in a relationship with God, Jesus is the only way to get there. When Jesus said to John and the other guys that “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” He wasn’t just blowing prideful smoke in their faces to get them to commit themselves to what was coming next. He was telling the truth. There really is no other way to get to God except to go through Jesus. There’s no other means of salvation apart from Christ. Jesus really is the only way. No one gets to God except through Jesus.
Now, do you have to buy this? No. I can’t make you believe it. Whether or not you are going to accept God’s word on the matter is up to you. But I can tell you with confidence that no other way you try is going to work. You’re better off just saving yourself a lot of trouble and heartache by simply accepting Him for who He really is and putting your faith in Him. No one gets to God except through Jesus.
Of course, there are still questions hanging in the air on this matter. I know we haven’t nearly settled the whole thing. In fact, until you experience God’s testimony through His Spirit as John talked about, you aren’t going to know it for certain. That third testimony really does matter. Until then—and, honestly, even after then—you might still be asking some hard questions. For instance: What about all the other religions in the world? Does this mean they’re all wrong? Well…yes, it does. Far from this being a position of arrogance, though, it is actually one of the deepest respect and humility. The various other religions around the world are making their own truth claims, their own claims about the nature of reality and the character of God. To argue that they are somehow correct in their claims along with the claims of Christianity’s being correct is to betray either a profound ignorance of the matter at hand, or else to be intentionally and offensively patronizing of them. The god they describe is not the same as the God revealed by guys like John here. To say they are the same—and thus that their methods of getting to Him will work—is simply not true. Their truth claims and the truth claims of the Christian worldview cannot both be true. For us to make the argument that they are false (an argument they make about us and should if they really believe their own truth claims) is to show them the respect of serious engagement. Now, it may be that you do your homework and decide that it is Christianity’s claims about God that are false, but they can’t both be true. If what guys like John says about Jesus’ being the only way to get to God is true, then all of those other options are not. They won’t get you there. No one gets to God except through Jesus.
Okay, but does this mean that people who have never heard about Jesus are all going to Hell? The fear and loathing of the potential answer to that question has kept not a few people from signing up to follow Jesus. They don’t sign up because they understand that if this whole Jesus thing is true, then there are people they know and love who aren’t going to be able to get to God on their current trajectory. What about them? Well, part of the answer to that question is what we are going to talk a whole lot more about next week. You won’t want to miss that. The end for people who finally refuse Jesus’ offer of life isn’t a happy one. But the person making this objection likely has more than just wayward family members in mind. She’s thinking about the 4.5 billion people around the world who have never even heard the Gospel. If no one gets to God except through Jesus, what about them?
There are two really important responses to that question. The first is something I have said numerous times and will keep saying until you are repeating it in your sleep. We have to get God’s character right. God is fully just and fully loving. This means He will always do the right thing. Always. Every single time. It is unjust for someone to be condemned to Hell on the basis of some rule or requirement about which he was never made aware. We know that instinctively. That means, God’s not going to do that. So then, does everyone just go to Heaven? No, and we’ll talk more about that in a couple of weeks. Rather, it means that no one is going to be condemned without having been given the opportunity to respond to God’s invitation to eternal life through Jesus. How He makes that invitation varies, but the fact of the invitation does not. There are increasing numbers of stories, especially in the Muslim world, of people coming to Christ because Jesus appeared to them in a dream. God is just. Because of that we can trust with absolute confidence that no one will be condemned unjustly.
Here’s the other response to this particular tension with the idea that no one gets to God except through Jesus. The means by which God consistently advances His kingdom and sees His Gospel proclaimed to those who have not yet heard it is the faithful bearing of witness to the resurrected Christ by those who are already following Him. In other words, your sharing the Gospel with another person just may be the means by which the justice of God we were just talking about is fulfilled. To put that yet another way, if you are concerned about people dying and spending eternity separated from God because they never heard that no one gets to God except through Jesus, that may be the clue that God is calling you to go and be the one to fix that. So you see, there are no issues of injustice or unfairness or unfortunate ignorance at play here. Indeed, in this case, if someone winds up separated from God because she never heard about Jesus, that’s not God’s fault. That’s yours and my fault. No one gets to God except through Jesus. We need to make sure people know that.
Remember those choose-your-own-adventure books we were talking about a little while ago? Can I suggest that our enjoyment of those has a whole lot to do with the heart of our reaction to this idea? We want choices. We want options. If no one gets to God except through Jesus, though, we don’t have options on this point. A lack of options means we don’t have control over our own destiny. We have to play by someone else’s rules, namely God’s. That truth cuts right at the heart of our sinful desire to be in charge. We want to be able to achieve our salvation on our own. We want it to be the fitting reward for our diligent and hard work. We want to be able to get to God all on our own. And standing in the way is this thing about Jesus’ being the only way. No one gets to God except through Jesus. So, we find all kinds of reasons that can’t possibly be the case.
The trouble is that all these other means we use to try to get to God fail. All of them. And the real truth is that they are all nothing more than variations on the same theme. They are all different versions of a right relationship with God that comes because of something we’ve done. Sometimes we call that a “works righteousness.” All those kinds of approaches fail because we never manage to do enough. Ever. And this is not for a lack of effort. It’s because we can’t do enough. God is holy and we are just not. We’ll never manage to do enough to meet with His exacting standards. Then Jesus comes along and says, “I’ve met all the requirements. Just trust in me, and you’ll be there. Then, you can just relax and do life my way knowing that it’s going to eventually end well no matter how the ride between now and then goes.” Far from being a restrictive thing, there is incredible freedom here. It is the freedom of living in light of reality as it was designed to work in the beginning. No one gets to God except through Jesus. Friends, that is the best news you’ve ever heard. It’s the best news you’ve ever heard because at the end of the day it means you can get to God. Try everything else. Nothing’s stopping you from that. When it all invariably fails to get you there, Jesus will still be there waiting with open arms to bring you to God. No one gets to God except through Jesus. Let us rejoice that we can get to God and go to Him in Christ.