Originally posted by karoly aczel
Tell me this, Jaywill, once and for all, is Jesus the only way to God? Like (blind) devotion to JC will gaurantee us a place in heaven.
Dont the Hare Krsnas also have a similar kind of devotion to Krsna?
Now I dont have any probelm with Jesus and the Christian notion of God. (well I do , but not in this context). Why is Jesus the only way? Does Christianity have a monopoly on the "Truth"?
I can only write a concise post here and not a book.
1.) The destination of God's salvation is not Heaven. The New Jerusalem in the end of the Bible is a
sign that signifies the mingling of God and man.
You should think of the ultimate goal of salvation as to become like Christ rather than "going" to a happy place. The saved are going into a Person rather than going to a happy place.
The saved are being transformed into that final destination. That is the multiplication of God-men, the brothers of Christ the Firstborn Son of God.
This thread I called
Beyond Jesus is God to emphasize that the eternal plan of God is to bring not just A man into deification but to bring a corporate group of people into a corporate expression of the mingling of God and man.
2.) Jesus said
" No one comes to the Father except through Me ". My opinion is that that is somewhat different from saying
" No one comes to the Father except [through Christianity]"
For Jesus to say
"No one comes to the Father except through Me" means to me that a PERSON, Jesus is the way to God.
Another way to put this is that in all time, everywhere, anywhere, in all history, over all the earth, among all people, IF someone comes to the Father it will be because of Jesus Christ.
The decision as to who will come to the Father is in the hands of a Person, Jesus. In my opinion this is a little different from saying, that no one comes to God except through Christianity.
The
"Me" there is a living Person.
As a younger Christian I spent much time trying to prove to myself and others that God's way of salvation was fair. I tried to theologically handle all kinds of special conditions and hypotheticals. I tried to convince myself and others that every hypothetical case we could imagine could be dealt with by the Gospel message.
I no longer do this kind of reasoning. Up to a certain point I acknowledged that there are some unknowns. And these days I am happy just to declare as Abraham did:
"Far be it from You. Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justly?" (Genesis 18:25)
I believe that certainly, the Judge of all the earth will do justly.