Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Romans 1-3 | Date: January 15, 2023 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Romans chapter three. We’re winding up our series on the doctrine of salvation with some practical questions that are related to this series that we’ve been through. And on both of these, I will assume—both of these that are remaining, this week and next—I will assume that you are still somewhat familiar with Romans as we have gone through it so many times, particularly Romans three and following, but also Romans one and following. We’ve looked back there so many times, but we’ll do that again today.

Our subject today is: Is Jesus the only way? I’m considering adding one more question to it, and that’s the question of baptism and salvation, a practical question that many have asked. I may add that to it, but I think we’ll be done now at the end of January with this series, and then the first Sunday morning in March, when I’m back in the mornings, we will begin our expositions from the Psalms.

Today: Is Jesus the Only Way, Part One. Romans chapter three, and I’ll begin reading with verse nine. You’ll remember in chapters one and two, and then up to this point in chapter three, Paul has been establishing the fact of universal guilt; whether Jew or Gentile, all are guilty before God. And now he comes to a concluding section in that, beginning with verse nine:

What then? Are we Jews any better off? Not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is on their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, once again, we come to this marvelous passage, and we come to entertain a question that is a very contemporary one, one that is pressed with more fervor today than it has been in recent years. We pray that you’ll give us a clear understanding of the question, the answer, and the biblical reasoning behind it, and through it give us a clearer understanding of the gospel and the value of Jesus Christ. We pray in his name, amen.

I think it’s fitting to conclude the series with a message addressing this contemporary debate. It’s the question of inclusivism versus exclusivism, as the way it’s put today. Are we saved by Jesus or are there other ways? Is Jesus exclusively the only way? Our pluralistic society in this postmodern world knows of, I think, scarcely no greater offense than to insist that Jesus is the only way of salvation and that faith in him is required in order to be saved. To tell people that God will not accept you unless you believe about Jesus A, B, C—spell it out—it is just an offensive thing.

And it’s offensive on several levels. One, it assumes that there is such a thing as capital T, Truth. It assumes that you have ascertained what that capital T, Truth is. It assumes that the truth that you acknowledge has more validity than someone else’s truth. It denies the legitimacy of all competing claims to truth. And to postmoderns today, all of that is just—it’s arrogant and it’s imperialistic. It is seeking to force and impose your truth and your version of truth and your views on everyone else. And that, by the very nature of it, is just illegitimate.

And Christianity has come under assault today. It’s not the first time in history, but it has come under a new assault in recent years on those grounds with postmodern influence—that you can’t know capital T Truth, and to claim that your truth is exclusive of all others and that Jesus is the only way is just an offensive edge that just won’t be tolerated in society. And it’s one of the reasons that Christianity today has come under new assault from the world.

And yet, since the very beginning, the Christian church has taken this exclusivistic stance. Now, with the pressure of our society today, many on the fringe have started to compromise on that because of the pressure of the world. But from the beginning, the church has taken this exclusivistic kind of stance. And in their own world, in the first-century church, in the very beginning, Christians insisted that Jesus was the only way to be saved, and that apart from Jesus Christ and apart from faith in Jesus Christ, you are lost. It was an unpopular teaching in their day, and it’s a very unpopular teaching in our day again as well.

And so, where did Christians get this notion? So contrary to public opinion, where did we get this notion that Jesus is the only way? And more importantly—and this is what I’ll address mainly today in the message—why do we get this notion? What is the rationale that makes such an exclusivistic statement and position necessary?

Now there are a couple of questions interrelated to this, and you’ll have to keep them in mind. The first one we’ll deal mostly with today. The second one we’ll deal with mostly next week. But the two interrelated questions are:
1. Is Jesus the only Savior?
2. Is explicit faith in Jesus required in order to be saved?

The question of inclusivism versus exclusivism. So the one: Is Jesus the only Savior? Two: Is explicit faith in Jesus required?

So some might argue—we’ll see next week—that, okay, Jesus is the one who does it, but whether they know about it and believe in him is a separate issue. They still can be saved by Jesus, whether they believe in him or not. That’s the question we’ll take up next time.

Our approach overall will examine the question, first of all, from the nature of Christianity. What is Christianity? What is the gospel? And what is the need of Christ? What is the value of Jesus? What makes him unique? And why do we insist that Jesus is the only way? So we’ll examine the question from the nature of Christianity itself and what it is, its reason for being. And then we’ll survey the teaching of Jesus and his apostles that’s related to this. We’ll examine some related questions, such as the warnings: “If you don’t repent, you’ll perish.” Related warnings like that. And then we’ll consider some common objections to this teaching and we’ll try to take on some of those.

Christianity’s Rationale

First of all today now: Christianity’s rationale. And we’ll begin in broad perspective. The purpose of Christianity, the meaning of Christianity. What is Christianity? Why does it exist? What’s its purpose? Why did God bring it into the world to begin with?

And Paul takes up that question in the book of Romans. Beginning in chapter one, remember verses 18 and following, he begins this extended argument of universal sin and universal guilt. And he begins by insisting that everyone possesses some kind of knowledge of God. Now, he’ll say that people know God, and they don’t know God. That’s not contradictory, but on one level they recognize him, on another level they refuse it, and they don’t know God. But he insists that every person possesses some knowledge of God, and that knowledge of God entails both an awareness of God and a sense of obligation to God.

So let’s look at that again quickly, Romans 1 verses 18 and following:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

An important phrase; we’ll see that in a minute. They suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 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. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Now notice again, Paul’s insisting that every person has this inexpungible sense of God. You might remember a few years ago in our Sunday school series that I taught for the year—what was it, 2019 or something—those of you who survived through all of that, we looked at a couple of Latin phrases that are used in theology a lot in this regard. There’s the sensus divinitatis: every man is born with a sense of God. And with that sense of God, this awareness that God is, is a semen religionis, the seed of religion. So there’s not only an awareness of God, but there’s a sense of obligation to God. There’s both.

And Paul talks about both of those here. Not only does every person have this inexpungible sense that God is, but that knowledge of God, as he calls it here, that knowledge of God entails a sense of obligation to God. It entails a sense of right and wrong. It entails a sense that we know this is right, that is wrong; what kind of worship is right, what kind of worship is wrong. And what is right, what is true about God, is suppressed. It’s suppressed because it’s uncomfortable. And it goes contrary to what we want because we feel guilty then. But the knowledge of God that Paul is asserting here that belongs to every last human being entails both an awareness of God and a sense of obligation to God.

And when he gets to the end of the chapter, verse 32, he says there’s a corresponding recognition then of guilt. Those who know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. So there’s a recognition of guilt, a recognition of right and wrong, even a recognition of guilt, a recognition of accountability, and all of that, and yet there’s a suppression of it. “We won’t have it, we won’t have it.”

So every last man, woman, and child, regardless of what degree of special revelation has been received, Paul argues, both knows God—every person knows God—and yet doesn’t know. There’s a recognition of truth and yet there’s a refusal of the truth. And so he says they became futile in their imaginations, futile in their thinking, which is an interesting observation because what is it that happens to the mind when you deny reality? You know that God is, you know there’s requirements. “No, not true, not true, not true.” Eventually, what does that do to the mind? It becomes futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts are darkened. They act against what they know to be true against conscience.

I think I’ve pointed it out before here that this explains an otherwise, I think, curious reality. If humanity hates God and hates what was revealed about God, why does religion exist at all? Why is religion universal? If what is revealed about God is so offensive that we want to suppress it, why is religion universal? Why is there religion everywhere? And everyone sees the need to express religion in some kind of way.

And the answer is: man both knows God and he refuses God. On the one level, he knows that God is, he knows that God makes demands, he knows that he’s accountable, and so he has religion. But he’s going to have religion in such a way that makes God’s demands manageable. And so we have the various religions, and the same is true of liberal Protestantism. Has it ever wondered you why in our society today, you have churches who want to have drag queens as pastors, homosexuals as pastors, and all kinds of blatant violations of the New Testament, and yet they want to call themselves Christian? What’s that all about? And I think it’s just this: they know God, they recognize the demands, and so they’re going to have religion, but they’re going to have it in manageable ways. So the religions of the world, including liberal Protestantism, are attempts to recognize the obvious and give a nod to the obvious, and yet bring it down to manageable proportions and worship God while at the same time manage the unpleasant entailments of it.

Now by contrast—and this is where Paul is going here in Romans, and Christianity, and this is getting to the rationale of Christianity—why is there Christianity? By contrast to all of that, Christianity embraces the hard questions. It embraces the question of guilt. It embraces the question of our sins and our accountability to God. And it claims to provide an answer, not by suppressing the truth, ignoring it, pretending and hoping it’ll go away and imagining everything will be all right. Christianity embraces those hard questions and brings an answer. And the answer, of course, is the person and work of Jesus. And that is the rationale for Christianity. It’s its whole reason for being. We have a message that proclaims that God has made a way for sinners, sinners as sinners, to be made right with God through a substitute who has taken their place and done for them everything that God requires of them. And through him, fellowship with God is restored.

So the argument of Romans, Romans one to three, we have this establishing of human guilt, universal guilt everywhere. Now chapter three, verses 21 and following, which we’ve just read, get to the heart of Paul’s gospel. This is the heart of Christianity. What is Christianity all about? What is the message we preach? Here it is in a nutshell, verse 21: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” Notice that the gospel is not, first of all, a revelation of the love of God. It is that. It is a revelation of the love of God. It’s a wonderful revelation of the love of God. But first of all, the question that had to be addressed is the question of the righteousness of God. God is a righteous God who demands righteousness of his creatures, and his righteousness demands punishment of his unrighteous creatures. And the good news is we have a righteous way now for God to justify sinners.

So, “but now the righteousness of God has been manifested, apart from the law, although the law and prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” For there’s no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and here it is: they’re “justified by his grace as a gift,” freely, which is just a staggering statement. Not through keeping the law—this righteousness is manifested apart from the law. It’s justification by his grace as a gift. Well, how in the world does that happen? He answers: “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” So Christ offered himself as a sacrifice in place of sinners, and through what he has done for sinners, justification comes freely to those who believe.

So verse 24, we’re “justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” How did his redemptive work do all of this? Verse 25: “God put him forward as a propitiation by his blood.” That is, through his sacrifice, he satisfied the demands of God’s justice. And satisfying the demands of God’s justice in our place, we are freed from the demands of the law, freed from God’s condemnation; the ransom price has been paid, we are redeemed, and justification comes freely to us. God, verse 25, has “put him forward as propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” There it is. It is free. The work for it is done by Jesus and we receive it by faith.

And then verse 25 and 26, he makes the point that all of this was done to demonstrate God’s righteousness. The gospel demonstrates God’s righteousness. He has not surrendered one demand in saving sinners. He has upheld his law. He has upheld the demands of his justice. Grace is that he has met all of those demands in his Son. And in Jesus Christ, we have done for us everything that God requires of us and we are justified freely.

And so Paul argues that the demands or the problem—the problem of human guilt, the demands of divine righteousness—all has to be answered. And the answer is Jesus and his death in place of sinners. God can save on righteous grounds. Paul comes to the conclusion that this—this is the value of Jesus Christ. In Christ, all of the divine requirements are met and in him, we can answer all of those hard questions square on. Jesus has answered for them in our place.

And so Paul’s reasoning, chapters one to three, in a nutshell is: everyone has sinned, everyone is guilty before God, everyone deserves to be condemned, and therefore, everyone needs Jesus, because he’s the one who has answered for all of those demands of God against us. He’s the only remedy that God has provided. So Paul’s gospel, again, is that sinners, though we are, we may find acceptance with God. And the really unique thing about the Christian gospel, as opposed to other religions and particularly liberal Protestantism, is we acknowledge square on the question of our guilt. We don’t come in denying our guilt; we come in confessing our guilt. And we say that Jesus has taken that guilt, and he’s paid for it in full, and in him I have all that God requires.

In other words then, once we see Paul’s argument here, we see that exclusivism, as it’s called today, exclusivism is the very reason for Christianity itself. The very reason God brought the gospel message to the world. This is Paul’s very argument. There’s no remedy to human sin except Jesus. And God sent him to save, and he—he is the unique person able to do the saving apart from Jesus. Paul’s point: apart from Jesus, the sinner has no hope, whatever.

Well, what I want us to see then is that this is the very point of the gospel. It’s entailed in what the gospel is. And this actually is closely related to another Christian claim, a majority Christian claim that I want you to see. And that is that the cross—the cross of Christ—was necessary. That’s been a question that’s been thrown up in the history of the church several times, the general Christian agreement on it. And you want to be careful not to misunderstand the question. The question here is not: was it necessary for God to save us? Pretty obvious, it was not necessary for God to save us. He could have let all of the world perish in its sin. But given God’s determination to save a people for himself, was the cross necessary? Or was that just the way he chose? Could God—he’s sovereign—he can just save in any way he wants to save. He could have just said, “Oh, you’ll be saved,” and that’s that. Is that a viable option? Or was the cross necessary?

And you can see here, Paul’s whole argument is: in order for sinners to be saved, God must be propitiated. That’s the heart of it. God’s justice must be satisfied. His wrath must fall. And it will fall either on the sinner or on a substitute. Paul’s whole argument is that because Jesus has taken the place of sinners and borne the wrath of God against sin, because of that, sinners can be saved. Apart from that, God cannot accept sinners. It would infringe on his righteousness. We have essentially the same thing in Romans chapter five. Paul argues that everything that was lost in Adam, the first head of the human race, we’ve all regained and more than regained in Christ. This exclusivism, you see, is part of the message.

And in fact, there’s one other verse and I’ll take a look at it. We’ll probably—we’ll be back here to Romans three. Look over at Hebrews chapter two. Hebrews chapter two. In Hebrews chapter one, he has spoken of the supreme majesty of Christ as the Son of God, the eternal Son. Wonderful affirmation, a sustained argument of the deity of Christ. In chapter two, you remember then, the writer here speaks of the incarnation of Christ. So now Christ, who is God the Son from eternity, in chapter two has become man. And he’s become everything that man is. And he argues that in verses five and following at some length and with some very specific detail. But then notice his statement in verse 17, where he sums it up:

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For God to save, incarnation was necessary in order for the cross. The problem of human guilt must be faced squarely. There are the demands of divine righteousness, and if sinners are to find acceptance with God, there is just this one way that satisfaction with God has been made, and that is in the cross of Christ. That’s the value of Jesus Christ, that God can receive sinners on just grounds. Without surrendering his demands of his righteousness—he doesn’t lower the bar—he accepts sinners on righteous grounds. And again, what I want you to see is that this is the reason for Christianity. It’s its very meaning. Christianity is a redemptive religion, and it centers on the cross of Christ, apart from whom there is no salvation. By its very nature, Christianity insists on the uniqueness of Jesus and the absolute necessity of Christ as the only Savior from sins. All that is to say, only Jesus can save.

All right, I want to see that through the reason that it’s affirmed. And now we’re going to look at some passages where it’s affirmed, but I want us to see first the reason for it. The reason is the uniqueness of Jesus. Now let’s look at some passages where Jesus himself affirms this. Look at Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. Verse 20 and following, he has this condemnation of the cities there in Galilee. Verse 25, he prays. He insists—and notice here as we read through it—that Jesus insists here that as the divine Son, he has exclusive prerogative to save. Verse 25:

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

This is just a marvelous passage. Marvelous declarations of the unique prerogatives of Jesus as the unique divine Son. “All that God has, I have. Everything’s been given to me. I’m unknowable just like God is unknowable. And no one can know God except those to whom I give this knowledge of God. No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” It is his prerogative to save, and it’s because of this that we have the following verses: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He’s the only Savior.

Over a few pages, chapter 28, the Great Commission, familiar to all of you. Here again, what’s often not recognized—what’s emphasized rightly in this passage is the need to go to the world with the gospel. But what’s often not recognized is that here Jesus is asserting that by his death and resurrection, all saving authority belongs to him. Verse 18: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.'” All right, what’s that mean? He’s the eternal Son. He’s always had all authority in heaven and earth. “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” What’s important—here’s the context. This is post-passion, post-resurrection. Christ has finished and achieved his mediatorial work. He has died in the place of sinners. God has raised him from the dead. And now he has the unique saving authority as God’s mediator. And on the basis of that, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them,” bringing them to obey everything I say. He is the unique Savior. He has unique authority to save because of his work. And so because of that, the gospel command goes out.

We have the same in Luke chapter 24, Luke 24. Again, this is post-resurrection. This is Jesus after his death and resurrection. Here he’s appearing to his disciples to speak to them. He’s explaining to them what the Scriptures have prophesied about his death and resurrection. Verse 46, Luke 24:46:

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Plainly here he is saying that it is on the ground—it is on the ground of his saving death and resurrection now that forgiveness of sins may be proclaimed. Here’s the ground of forgiveness: Jesus. There is no other.

And then of course the clearest one that probably has come to your mind already, John 14 verse six: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'” Here he both asserts that he is the only way to God and he specifically excludes every other means. “I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes except through me.” Now this is extremely important for us to see that this is Jesus’ own claim. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

And then one more, I guess here, on John chapter 17, verses one and two. When Jesus—this is just on the eve of his crucifixion—he again here claims exclusive authority to save:

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come.”

This is the hour of his death.

“Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”

Exclusive authority has been given to Jesus. That is his own claim. To say that Jesus is the only way of salvation is simply to echo what Jesus himself said.

Now in turn then it won’t be surprising to find that the apostles followed Jesus in that same teaching. Let’s jump through a few of those since we’re trying to answer the question thoroughly. Acts chapter four. And again, Peter here, he speaks in exclusive terms. He specifically excludes any other way of salvation except Jesus. Acts 4:12: “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Now all of this is grounded in, remember, the whole reason for Jesus, the whole reason for Christianity. And here they’re simply affirming the obvious.

First, if you’d like to jot down there, Romans 3:21 to 26, that we’ve been through, you can see that there as well. And Paul is insisting the same. Look at 1 Timothy 2. Here Paul reasons that there’s only one person qualified to represent both God and man. 1 Timothy 2 verse 5: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Again, there’s not only the affirmation, but there’s the exclusiveness of it. There’s only one. There’s one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Paul’s whole reasoning here is: who else would you find who’s qualified to answer for men to God? Well, there’s one, and that is the incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus.

And then one more, look at Revelation chapter five. This is significant, I think as well, because here we have a glimpse of the song of the redeemed in heaven. And what’s important here to notice for our purposes is that the song of the redeemed in heaven is a unanimous praise testifying that it is through the blood of Christ that they got there. Revelation 5:9:

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Jesus alone got us here, and that is the same for Americans, and it’s the same for people in any other country in the world. People from every tribe and language and people and nation, we will all sing the same song. Through Jesus’ death, we have been saved.

But from the beginning, Christians have insisted that Jesus is the only way of salvation. And in doing so, we’ve done nothing other than affirm what Jesus himself said and what his apostles said. And the doctrine is not something that’s been made up. It is something that accounts for the facts and handles the hard questions. Christianity insists on the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the uniqueness of his saving work. He alone is qualified to save, and he is the Redeemer that God has sent.

Now, before we finish up, let’s take on one of the objections. And the most common objection today is simply, “Well, that’s just arrogant. It’s arrogant to be exclusive.” And that’s the common objection, it’s a common assumption, really, for postmoderns today. “You have your truth, I have mine. You claim that yours is better than mine. That’s arrogant. It’s imperialistic. You’re trying to impose your views on me. If it works for you, that’s fine. It doesn’t have to work for me. It’s arrogant to say that you have—that Jesus is the only way.”

How do you answer that? I have at least four things to say to that.

Number one: I want to acknowledge right up that some Christians have been arrogant in the way that they’ve insisted on this. It sometimes comes across from some people as more of a party spirit trumping their competitors. And that, frankly, is embarrassing. But there’s more to be said after that.

And that’s the second one: Truth, by its very nature, is exclusive. Two plus two is four. It’s not five. It’s not three. It’s not a hundred. Two plus two is four. Truth by the nature of it is exclusive.

And number three: What remains is the question, is it true that Jesus is the only Savior? Don’t tell me it’s arrogant to affirm that. Answer the question: Is Jesus the only Savior? Or are there other means that would work? Are there other means that would handle the hard questions and face them squarely? That you are a sinner before God, accountable to him, under his judgment, under condemnation—his righteousness demands your punishment. What are you going to do to fix it? What answers do you have? Is there anyone else qualified to save but Jesus? Who else could take the place of sinners and offer a competent sacrifice to take their place and render satisfaction to God, satisfy his just demands against sinners?

It might seem generous to be more inclusive than that. It might seem generous to imagine that any religion is just as good as another. The question we want to ask is: Is it true? Is it true? Can it handle the hard questions or do you have to pretend? If it is true that Jesus is the only one qualified to answer for our sins, to abandon that question for fear of giving offense would just be foolish. Considering a question of such enormous importance, you really want to pretend that all the answers are the same?

And then a fourth question I want to ask, and this is an important one. They say it’s arrogant to insist that Jesus is the only Savior. I want to ask: Was Jesus truthful in his teaching? That’s really where it all comes down. Was Jesus reliable as a teacher of faith and doctrine? Is it arrogant to say that Jesus was wrong? Is it humble to say Jesus was wrong? Arrogant or humble, which is it? Is it arrogant to believe what Jesus taught? And is it more humble somehow to say that he was wrong? I don’t think so.

And so the real question remains: Who is qualified to save us? Who’s qualified to take your sin, to stand in your place, to answer to God, offer acceptable sacrifice, satisfy the demands of justice? And the only answer that keeps coming back is that God the Son incarnate has come and he has stood in the place of sinners.

And so without Jesus—it’s the hard reality—without Jesus, you’re on your own. God is still the Judge. You’re still a sinner. You’re still accountable to him. And there still will be a judgment. Christians just love to say—we love to sing it, we love to confess it in our prayers, we love to say, “Jesus is all I have. All I have is Jesus.” When I stand before God in judgment, all I have is Jesus. And he’s enough.

And the church has been tasked with this message from the beginning. We have good news. You needn’t dodge the hard questions. Face the hard questions. We have an answer for those. We have an answer for those hard questions in Jesus. In him, all of God’s demands are met. And that’s the good news. But it comes with that edge: Jesus is your only hope. He’s all you have. Good news is he’s enough.