Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

If you're a Christian, you've likely been accused of being narrow minded when it comes to getting to heaven. So what do you think? Is Jesus really the only way? We're about to grapple with that question right here, right now on Focal Point.

Welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host, Dave Drewy, and it's the end of the week special time when Pastor Mike Febares answers a tough listener question. Now, if you have a question you want to ask Pastor Mike, you can post it online at focalpointradio.org/connect.

But right now, let's join Focal Point Executive Director Jay Worton inside the Pastor Study as Pastor Mike answers a question that's bound to come up, especially as we live in a tolerant and pluralistic society. Well, here's Jay now.

Speaker 2

I'm back for another edition of Ask Pastor Mike. And we get asked a lot of very important questions each week, but this one is really important to answer.

The question is, is Jesus the only way of salvation? I know that sounds a little narrow-minded in our society, but how would you respond to that?

Speaker 3

Well, it is narrow, but you know, it's not narrow-minded. It's just a simple, truthful answer. The only atonement for sin is through the cross of Christ. The only application of that given to us in God's word is to put our trust in him and the mechanism of the cross, repent of our sins. So we got the rules and we know how to do it.

When you ask this question, it made me think recently. I've never scuba dived before, but I happened to walk by with my wife one morning with a guy who was on the beach there training people to go scuba diving. Everything I heard him say seemed very narrow-minded. Everything he said was, you have to do this and you'd better do that and you cannot do that. These were emphatic statements, and there was not, "Well, if you feel like it," and, "You know, if you're sincere about taking off this thing or turning that knob." When you're dealing with things that can kill you, right? You can become very emphatic and narrow about the instructions.

Now here's the reality. We don't like to think of this as sinful people, but sin is going to kill us eternally, right? And because we're sinners, we need a solution for the problem of sin. The answer is very narrow, but there are some very specific instructions as to how to fix this. If there's a fire, there's a very specific way to get out. It may be down this hallway; it's the only hallway that's not on fire. So here's the way to go. It's the only way. Get out here. God has provided a way out, and here it is. And that's what the Bible is all about.

The path of atonement is only through Christ. And Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, the life. No one's going to come to the Father except through me." So you can call it narrow all you want, but try to put that kind of mentality into play next time you go scuba diving or skydiving or some instructions about how to save someone with CPR. It doesn't become relativistic at that point where we're dealing with life and death issues and salvation. Religion, if you will, is a life or death issue.

Speaker 2

What do you think it is that makes people so resistant? I would say if they call it narrow minded to Jesus being the only way in their lives when they're maybe involved in other religions. Is there a will issue going on?

Speaker 3

Of course, yeah. And Jesus told the parable, and the punchline in the parable about the people that didn't want the person ruling over them was, "We don't want this man to rule over us." I mean, that's a foundational problem with people that are sinful. We want to be autonomous. We want to do what we think is best. We want to do whatever we decide we want to do. We want to be the captain of our own fate, the master of our own soul. We want these things because we like to keep our options open and do what we choose to do and what we prefer to do.

When you become a Christian and we understand there's a problem called sin that is going to eternally damn us and condemn us, then we need to look to the solution, the answer, the Savior. And he's got an answer. We have to submit to that, and that's hard to do because we want to do our own thing. So yeah, it is a matter of the will. The first three chapters of Romans may help us with this. The reason we don't like God's solution, the righteous and holy solution to our sin, is because we're all sinners.

Fallen humanity loves sin; we love darkness rather than light. As Jesus said in John 3, these things are hard for us. That's why it takes the work of God to enliven our hearts, quicken us, and make us alive in Christ. We throw ourselves in his mercy, pray for his enlightenment, and seek his change in our hearts. God changes those of us that are saved, and we recognize this very unnatural response as sinners: to give up the leadership of our lives, as Luke 14 says, and to follow Christ, letting him be our Savior, our King, our Lord, and our Master.

Speaker 2

What about those people who are maybe Buddhists or some other religion that are very sincere, very devout, very committed to that particular religion?

Or even somebody who's never had a chance to hear about Jesus.

How do we respond to the person that says, what are you going to do about them?

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 3

Well, the basic injustice seems to be in people's minds. How can you be held accountable and punished for something you didn't know about? The Buddhists are going to say, well, he was taught Buddhism, the Hindu was taught to be a Hindu, the Muslim was taught to be a Muslim. So that's what they know and that's what they were taught. So how can they be held responsible for doing things the Christian way and trusting in Jesus and a crucified Christ?

Well, you know, I understand there is a level of truth and an aspect of truth to this in that there are many things that God will not punish someone for because they did not know. But to claim, as many do, that everyone in the world except for those exposed to the teaching of Christ, they're ignorant of the issues that are in play in Christianity. They would be wrong because the Bible makes it very clear the law of God is written on our hearts. Even in our running from the solution that God has provided in Christ is something the Bible says we'll do by suppressing the truth in our own lives in unrighteousness.

In other words, everything in the Bible makes clear we got a sin problem that we cannot solve ourselves. God has to solve it. And all these other religions are trying to solve the problem themselves. If you were to respond to the light of your own conscience, we would recognize the problem that we have cannot be solved by other religious systems. We need God to solve the problem for us. And we're just filled with a world of people that, unfortunately, even those exposed to Christianity, would rather do it their own way.

The Bible makes clear, even through the conscience of a man and even through the natural order of things, natural theology, we might call it, all these things are screaming to us that it doesn't work. And so we have to continue in those things by suppressing the truth. Now, I understand when someone gets to the judgment day who lived in a place without any exposure to Christianity, there's a lot of things that will not be on the table in terms of punishment because those rules were not out there and they weren't the kinds of things that were ever made manifest in someone's conscience.

But when it comes to someone standing before God saying, well, we had no idea, you know, what it meant to fall on the mercy of God and to look for our Creator for some kind of grace and to hope that he would provide the solution to our sins, you know, no one's going to be able to say that because those are the kinds of things that are even self-evident in someone's own heart. And God provides the answer through the missionary work of the church. This is the whole thing that has fueled Christian missions for 2000 years.

As Romans 10 says, no one's going to get this clarified in their own thinking to the place of understanding what it means to have Christ as their substitute for sin unless someone comes and preaches to them. So we want to get the word out all over the world. It's the thing that sends us to foreign lands and out-of-the-way places in the jungle where this proverbial man is who doesn't know anything about Christ. And we want to bring the message of Christ.

The amazing thing again is that God would save any of us because we all deserve to be punished. And he's sending people around the world through you and I, those that are hearing my voice right now, and your churches, and maybe some of you are out there on the mission field right now going to out-of-the-way places to go and bring the message of the gospel to people all around the globe. And that's been the thing that we're commissioned to do, Matthew 28, the Great Commission, to take the message out there.

So, you know, I understand the argument and I recognize there's a sliver of truth to the fact that there will be certain things that will not be punished because they were not clarified through the teaching of the Christian Bible. I get that. But when it comes to salvation, God is a just God and no one will ever be punished for something that they didn't understand and know because those things are evident. Romans chapter 1 and 2 says, through God writing his law on our hearts and through the things he reveals through nature.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. Continue this discussion with a message you've titled. Was Jesus really more than just another good teacher?

Speaker 4

If someone is convinced that there's a God out there, a supreme being, a creator of the world, and if he's equally convinced that there is a book available to us that reveals him, then it would behoove that person. It would be wise; it would be reasonable for that person to take a careful look at what that book says, to see what that book is all about. If one is to do that, one will quickly discover that the Bible is primarily about a person. A person that has been anticipated in the 39 books of the Old Testament and a person that is explained and expounded upon in the 27 books of the New Testament. He is also a person that has been grappled with by our world ever since.

Now, perhaps we can revisit some of the claims of Christ without our Sunday school glasses on, and we can look at them and just be awed at how remarkable the claims are. So look at one of them with me. Colossians, chapter one, verse 15 says, you know, this God that we know, invisible, dwells in unapproachable light. This God who has great glory, that occasionally gives us a little touch of it here in the temple in the Old Testament. Well, this God is seen in Christ. He says, he that is Christ is the image of the invisible God. He is, as chapter two of Colossians says, the fullness of deity dwelling in a body. He's the firstborn, or Prototokus is the Greek word, the Prototokus, the one who has the birthright, the firstborn, the one who gets the inheritance, the one who gets to rule the family business and the family estate. He is the firstborn over all creation.

This verse 15, Prototok, is not referring to his origin; it's referring to his position. He is eternal. For by him, it says, if you want to prove his Godness, all things were created by Him. And then the real tagger, look at the last three words: "and for him." He's in charge. Now, all of that's quite academic and quite interesting, and he's really showed some interesting credentials, assuming the text is reliable. But my nagging rational question is why? You know, why would you come here and live among us? I don't get it. My mind wants to know why God, the God of the universe, would come here and live among us. Wouldn't that be a rational question?

Look at Christ's answer. Mark, chapter 10, gives us a clear statement of why we need to understand why God would become one of us. I mean, that's what we're claiming: that there's a real person with sandals and a beard, who wears a robe and a belt, who is God in human form. Now, what's the point? Why did you grow up in the barstow of Palestine out there in the middle of nowhere, Nazareth, walk around and have to, you know, eat the first-century food? I've been there. Food's not all that great. Why is it that you subject yourself to all the things that the Bible says you subjected yourself to? Obviously, you're greater than man. Why would you want to come and subject yourself to be a man? That doesn't make any sense, does it?

Mark 10:45, he says, you know what? Even the Son of Man, if you want to talk about serving and humility, he didn't come to be served. And if I'm sitting in the crowd, I'm going to go, "No duh," right? What are you doing here? If you've come to be served, don't the angels do an inadequate job? Isn't it good to be in the presence of your Father and this trinitarian God that is revealed in the Bible? Isn't it best to be in perfect fellowship with a perfect union of persons, this Godhead? Isn't that better? What are you doing here? Of course, you didn't come to be served. We're not going to help you much. He says, but I came to serve. And then he defines it. That's all the practicals. Now he's going to give us the theology. I came to give my life, he says, a ransom for many.

Let me give my life a ransom for many. Apparently, there was something about God becoming a man that was necessitated, about a payment that needed to be made. A ransom. A ransom needed to be paid. Now, the predicating truth, the foundational truth for that is that there's a payment that we owe, that we've got a problem. Let's assume that you got your car towed and the friendly tow truck driver shows up in the middle of the night and he takes your car away for whatever reason; you can't pay for your car. Too many parking tickets or parked illegally. But there it is, it's impounded. You can't get it out. And the impound penalty was so severe that the only way you could get it out was to pay the full value of the car.

So basically, it's an even swap. You have done so much bad, whether parking tickets or whatever, you've done so much bad that that car is impounded. And the only way to get it out is to exchange it, either for the value or for another car. I mean, that would work, wouldn't it? I mean, let's just think that through. I hear that your car is impounded and it needs a ransom. And I say, well, you don't have that kind of money and I don't have that kind of money, but I got a car. And you know what? I love you so much and I'm so fond of you and I just care about you so much. I'm such a wonderful pastor that I'm going to come out and redeem your car.

But what I'm going to do, though, I don't have the money to ransom your car at its full value. I'm just going to give them my car and they can impound my car and sell it or auction it or whatever they do. Now, if you drive a Lexus and I drive a Datsun B210, it probably isn't going to work. Are you with me? That ain't going to work. But if I happen to drive a Lexus, which I do not, but let's just assume I did, a pearl white, V8, there it is. And your Lexus happens to be impounded and it's a maroon color, I come in there and I say, look, take my nice, fine, newly waxed pearl white Lexus and you take my Lexus and impound it, but let my buddy's Lexus go. Okay? Just get it out of the impound yard.

Speaker 3

Now.

Speaker 4

You run into the friendly guy behind the desk, perhaps smoking a cigarette, saying, "Okay, you know, I mean, it might just work, my car for your car."

But what if I said to that guy, "Listen, pal, I'm just trying to be such a servant to my friend, and I'm giving my life, or my car, in this case, as a ransom for his car. Do me a favor, just let everybody's car go. Just let them all go."

Now what's he going to say? "Get out of here," right?

Speaker 3

Why?

Speaker 4

Because that didn't make any sense for me to turn in one Lexus and have the entire lot cleared out. But look at our passage again. Jesus said he came to give his life as a ransom. For how many? More than one? A ransom for many. He was going to exchange his life for a lot of lives. Is that how it works?

In the Bible, it says we have a problem called sin. Sin demands God's justice. He's holy. We've missed the mark. His justice demands that he punish us. We are impounded; we have a problem. We are in bondage to the future coming wrath of God. But Jesus came that he could exchange us. Why would God have to embody himself in human form and die on a cross and suffer penalty for me? Why would that ransom have to be paid? Why couldn't some person pay that? Why couldn't it work some other way? Why does he have to be God?

The Bible is clear. Turn with me to one more passage. Hebrews chapter 9 articulates it for us. There is something about a God sacrifice that is different than a man's sacrifice. Oh, he has to be man. Hebrews 2 says, to represent us, we got to have one for one. It's got to be car for car. But there's something about that person being God that makes it acceptable for more than one person.

Look at it. Hebrews chapter 9. He says in verse 15, in comparing Christ's death, the ransom of Christ's life, with all the blood spilt in the Old Testament sacrificial system. And he says, while one might, you know, placate someone's conscience, Christ's blood is far different; that ransom can do a whole much more. He says in verse 14, how much more then will the blood of Christ, who through—circle this word—the eternal spirit? Eternal. There's something man can't do, can't offer a quantitatively eternal sacrifice, but it says through the eternal spirit offered himself.

And here's the qualitative part. Circle that one. Unblemished to God. The ransom was to be paid to God and his holiness and justice. Christ was the only one, if he's God, who could qualitatively perfect life and quantitatively apply to as many people as possible, give enough of himself to apply for the redemption and forgiveness of thousands. And he goes on to say it. Look at verse 15. For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant of those that are called to receive the eternal inheritance. Now that he died as a ransom, he paid the price to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

And the first covenant demands that if you sin, you got to be punished. So Christ died on a cross. Could that be just a prophet? Could that be just a good man? Could that just be a moral teacher? Theologically, it cannot. If it's going to work, if I'm going to be forgiven of my sins and embraced by the creator of the universe, if he's going to look past all my deficiencies, we need a sacrifice that is God in human form.

Now, the problem is every cult group, every world religion, and everyone else who looks at the Bible and does for the injustice that none of us should do, takes it and changes it. They are people that constantly will go almost without fail, right for the jugular of our theology. And that is who Jesus Christ is. And they will go and mitigate that, change it, transform it, or reinterpret it. You can't do that and keep our theology intact.

Jesus made it abundantly clear with his words. He flashed abundant credentials. And then it makes theological sense. You can't deny it. And yet people try all the time. But that's why Jesus constantly brought people back, front and center to the real issue. Do you remember him turning to his disciples and saying, you know what, what do people say about me? Who do people say that I am? Do you remember that?

Now if I'm in the crowd, I'm going to think of a lot of bad things first. Well, they're calling you Beelzebub. They're saying you're possessed by a demon. They think you're crazy. The apostles were a lot more diplomatic than I would have been. And they start with the positive. Well, some think you're a prophet, some think you're a reincarnated prophet. Some think you're Elijah. I mean, they got some pretty good views of you. Some think you're crazy.

Do you remember what Jesus did in that conversation? He said, hey, who do you say that I am? You talk to me about your opinion, the profoundness of that moment when Jesus turned to his disciples and said, hey you, who do you say that I am? I mean, that's the moment of truth. Deceiver, lunatic, or God. So much hinges on that God who gives his life a qualitative, quantitative sacrifice for the universe.

Who do you say that I am? Have you been asked that question before? Do you like the world? Try to find a neutral place for an answer? Or perhaps, like Peter, you've spoken up in your life and said, no, I know who you are. You are the Christ, the blessed one, the Son of the most High God. We understand your position, we understand your role, we understand your task. And it is to redeem me from the penalty of my sin.

If you've made that decision, my question for you in contemplating the deity and supremacy of Christ is, do you live like that? Are we afraid to stand up for him by looking in the eyes of our coworkers and our next-door neighbors and our family members and saying, I believe Jesus is God and I've given my life to serve him? And if no one's ever confronted you with that question, let me be the agent and avenue through which it's asked you today. Who in the world is Christ to you? You made a decision on that one. Yet you don't have many options. Aren't his credentials adequate? Do you understand why he came?

Let me help you. If you're in that camp, pray with me. God, if there are some here that need to respond to that penetrating question of Christ, who do you say that I am? God, may they pray a prayer that resembles something like this. Christ, I recognize that you are God. Jesus, I recognize that you've come to pay a price for my sin. Christ, I acknowledge that if you're God, you deserve my full attention and my full allegiance. And I commit my life, my mind, my heart, my soul, and my strength to the allegiance of Christ and God.

For those of us that have allowed the deity of Christ to become simply a creedal statement, something we affirm in our doctrine, let us recognize that who we're dealing with here, the one who we date our checks by his birth, is the Creator of the universe. The name that we bear when we call ourselves Christians is an embodiment of deity, and he deserves my unabashed allegiance. My bold and firm commitment in every aspect and area of my life drives us there. I pray as we contemplate the only rational response to Christ's question, who do you say that I am? In Jesus' name, Amen.

Speaker 1

This abbreviated message is titled, "Was Jesus really more than just another good teacher?" Find the complete, unedited version when you visit Focal Point Radio.

Well, there are many good teachers out there and many good churches to point you to the right way. But with many advisors, plans succeed. Today, I want to share a note from Rosie who recently wrote in to say, "I go to a wonderful church, but it doesn't go as deep in teaching as I'd like. So my daily appointments with you are vital to my growth. Day in and day out, I've seen and experienced God's mercy, grace, blessing, and most of all, love through Focal Point. It astounds me. Thanks for teaching, chastising, challenging, and encouraging me in my walk. I'm forever grateful."

Well, Rosie, we're pleased we can come alongside your church to supplement you with the in-depth studies you crave. Focal Point's always going to be committed to bringing you these visits free of charge, but it's only possible through the ongoing generosity of friends like you. When you give, you allow countless others to get the additional training they need and be anchored through these turbulent times.

So give a generous financial gift today when you go to focalpointradio.org. Now, to say thanks, we're going to send you a book by C.J. Mahaney called "Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World." We can easily be seduced by the teaching of the world unless we truly know what the Bible says. Ask for the book "Worldliness" when you call 888-320-5885 or when you go to focalpointradio.org.

For a gift of over $75, we'll add Pastor Mike's "Engaging Temptation" series on flash drive. Learn how to resist the lure of sin and stay on the right path. The Temptation Study is the perfect companion to C.J. Mahaney's "Worldliness" book. Call 888-320-5885. It's also available on CD. Find it at focalpointradio.org.

Well, I'm Dave Drouy. Be sure to join Pastor Mike Febares again as he continues our journey through Luke Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 4

Sam.