Is there such a thing as truth?
This past weekend I sat in a worship service at The Master’s Inn. I listened as students shared their beliefs on various doctrinal truths some accurate some slightly off. Then the question was posed is Christianity the only way to get to heaven; to which students who claim to be believers responded, much to my shock, that Jesus was a way, even a good way but not the way. One student said that Christianity was right for him because that is what his family believes but somebody who grew up in a muslim family that was truth for them and he had no right to impose his views on others. He also stated that it was not his job to tell other people that they were wrong. It was his job to be the best that he could at the faith that was given to him from his family. I looked around the circle and saw countless heads nodding in agreement that Jesus was just a way to heaven. It struck me that while I know that this idea of religious pluralism exists especially among our younger culture, I had never heard it eloquated quite as strong as I heard around this circle. In this moment I was gripped by the Spirit wondering how could so many young people who have grown up in the church believe this lie and how heart broken I was to know that in the case of this group it was the predominating belief. To say my soul was crushed was an understatement. How can so many people in today’s church not realize the truth of the Word. There is no passage so clear as John 14:6 in all of the Scriptures. In this passage Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but through Me. Jesus does not say that He is a way of many He says that He the singular way to God the father, to heaven. This is foundational to our faith as Christians. The battle for the inerrancy of scripture was long before my time but I never quite understood why it became such a big controversy. If I cannot take the word of God and all of it’s contents therein as truth then what I am building my faith upon? As Jesus said to build our faith upon anything else than the truth we are liken to the foolish man who built his house upon the sand, when the rains came it was washed away, but if we build our house upon the truth that He taught we build upon a solid firm foundation, we build it upon the Rock. As believers we have tried to become so relevant to culture that we have often sacrificed truth. D.A. Carson says “Jesus’ claim of himself being the way, is as timely today as it was when our Lord first uttered this statement. For we live in an age of religious pluralism, when Christianity’s exclusive claims are considered inappropriately narrow, even intolerant, and when pluralism itself has ironically become the dogma by which all truth claims are judged.” So in essence what he is saying is that the truth that Jesus is the only way to heaven, is more important for the world to hear today than ever before because so many people believe that Jesus might be a way of many ways or even worse he is not any way to heaven at all. A world that believes that needs to hear this message more clearer than any other. It is our job as believers to stand up for the truths of the faith. As we looked at in the last blog we cannot sacrifice sound doctrine for love. The message that Jesus is the way as timely now as it ever was and we cannot water that down. If we do we build our faith and even worse other’s faiths upon shifting sand. Religious pluarlism or this idea that there are many ways to god is so rampant in our culture that we have to take this stand for truth. All of these other religions are built upon what I can do to get to God. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and all the rest are about working your way to god. That is why we see so many misguided Muslims because they are trying to work their way to allah. The beautiful thing about being a Christian is that it is not about what I can do to get to God it is about what Christ already did on the cross. On my own I am a wretched sinner who deserves eternal damnation but through the free sacrifice of Christ I am given new life. Ephesians 2:8-9 says “8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.” As Paul says the only things I boast in are my weaknesses so that Christ can receive the glory and not me because He is my way to God not the works that I have done. There is no truth so foundational to our faith as Jesus Christ crucified raised from the dead and providing the one and only way to God. Is there such a thing as truth? Without it I am a wretched destitute man bound for hell. I praise God that there is truth in His Word.
