In John 14:6, John reported Jesus as having said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” With those words, there was no room left for any other way to salvation. Now, we can either believe it or not…that option is left to us, but changing it is’t. It makes no sense to me how a group, denomination, church, etc., can call themselves “Christian” and yet deny the exclusivity of Christ for salvation. This goes back to an earlier post where I talked about the meaninglessness that the word “Christian” is coming to have.
In his letter, John essentially reiterates the same idea by claiming that the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar and, in essence, among the antichrist. In verse 23, John says exactly what he said in his gospel, only a different way:
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
Then he encourages us to stick with that. Sounds easy enough, but in an ever-increasingly politically-correct world where tolerance is demanded towards every belief (except those who believe in Christ alone for salvation!), it becomes more and more difficult to openly hold to this. Subtle pressure mounts for us to compromise our beliefs in the name of tolerance. It must be pointed out, though, there is a massive difference in tolerating individuals who hold different beliefs and even tolerating their holding them, and giving them a pass in the name of tolerance. There is real Truth and though I never want to shove that down someone’s throat and insist that they hold to that (which is true tolerance), I do want to make sure that I speak that truth and live that truth in a compassionate way. As verse 25 explains, what is at stake is far too high to do otherwise.
