Truth and Salvation #2

When it comes for our eyes to be closed in death, we can entrust our soul to our faithful Savior and that as we step from one realm into another, the way, the truth, and the life, He will carry us personally in a way that leaves us with no cause for fear. Welcome back to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I'm Bill Wright. Today, as Don continues teaching God's people God's word, he'll show us from scripture that our salvation is found in Christ alone and his finished work upon the cross and that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our way into heaven. Right now, here is our teacher with part two of a message titled Truth and Salvation from the Truth Pulpit. What we want to do here is we want to look at these three important terms that Jesus uses as a means of preparing our hearts for communion. We're going to look at, number one, the way to the Father, secondly, the truth of the Father, and thirdly, the life of the Father. Jesus Christ is the way to the Father. Jesus Christ is the truth of the Father. Jesus Christ is the life of the Father. When you combine those, you can see how he is able to bring us safely to heaven, out of sin, out of earth, and into heaven. Also, you can see why there would be no other alternatives, that there is no other prophet, there is no other religion, there is no other savior. It is Christ and Christ alone. We are shut up to Christ, we are enclosed to Christ, or there is no salvation to be had. So let's consider what he says, and we'll go through these three points rather quickly. Let's consider, first of all, Christ the way to the Father, the way to the Father.

Look at it there. Let's read verse 6 once again. Jesus said to Thomas, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. You see the three-fold basis for the outline today.

We're just building our outline from the words of Jesus himself. Jesus says, I am the way. Now, the term way, it can have a little bit of a different nuance depending on the context in which it's used. A way could be a route for traveling. You know, what way are you going to go in order to get to Pennsylvania?

Well, I'm going to take the interstate up and cut across on the Pennsylvania turnpike. It's an idea of a route for traveling, a way, a road, a highway, a path, all of these things being a different significance of the broader general word way. It could also be the act of traveling. I'm going to make my way to Arizona now. In other words, I'm taking a trip.

I'm going to journey to Arizona and find my way to Arizona. It's either the route that you follow to get there, or it could be the act of traveling itself in order to arrive. All of that kind of bound up in the meaning of way depending on the context in which it's used. But as we said, everything about those terms, a path, a journey, a highway, a road, a trip.

Beloved, I want to emphasize this to the point of undue repetition. The whole concept presupposes a starting point and a destination, a departure point and a destination. You depart, you arrive. That's what's bound up in the word way. Now, for us, here we are, and in the context of what Jesus is saying here, our starting point, as we saw at the beginning of the message here today, our starting point is that we are here on earth in a state of sinful separation from God.

That is our starting point. The destination point is unattainable by man. The destination point is the holiness of God in heaven. We are not fit spiritually to join him in heaven, and we cannot traverse from our geographic starting point to where he is in the throne room of God.

We don't even know where that's at specifically. And so that's our starting point, and the destination point is utterly unattainable for the natural man. All men are lost and unable to find the path to God. And, you know, you just look around sadly at the world around us, and you see just the evidence of that, particularly in a month like this, the so-called Pride Month. And you just see how miserably lost people are, lost and slaves to their bodily lusts and their bodily desires with no regard for God.

Having been handed over to a depraved mind to not even recognize the principle of truth, let alone to know it for what it really is, to be separated from Christ and to have no regard for him, for his name to be a common curse word in the discourse of society, to have his word mocked and rejected and undermined even by those who would profess to teach it. We're in a desperate position, beloved. We don't even recognize the starting point. How could we ever go from the starting point to the destination if we don't even know where to start? It should be obvious to you by now that if anyone is going to arrive at the destination point of the holy throne room of God and be safe there, that someone else has to take us there.

You need someone outside of yourself who has the power and the knowledge and the ability to deliver you from point A to point B. Without that, you're lost. And we say this so many times, but it's worth recognizing in this context people saying, I think I'm going to go to heaven. I'm going to be okay.

The good in my life outweighs the bad. Well, first of all, that's a completely false statement. Scripture says there is no one who seeks for God. There is none righteous, not even one. So the very premise of the question is false. But how could the power, even assuming that there was something of merit in human works, I speak as a fool, there is no merit in human works, but even assuming that there was something of value in human works spiritually, I ask you this question, how could those works take you to a place that you don't know where it's at?

How could your sin-stained works prepare you for an encounter with the holy God? How can it take you from a destination on earth to a destination in the third heaven? The very thought is absurd.

And yet that's what people are saying and what they are banking on. Two things. One, it doesn't matter. Every religion leads to God.

Secondly, if it does matter, I'm good enough to go there. They have not seriously contemplated what Jesus said. I'm going away. Where I'm going, you cannot come.

You do not have the power to do it. And what Jesus is saying here in verse 6 is that, Jesus speaking, I am the only one who can take you to heaven. There is no other vessel by which you can get from here to there. And beloved, what I want you to see, we're going to look at several passages now, the Lord Jesus Christ was not bashful about making that exclusive claim in everything that he said. Throughout the course of his ministry, he consistently said things like this. And we're just going to primarily confine ourselves to the Gospel of John. So go back to John chapter 3 with me, verse 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. His only son, his beloved son, and you have to believe in him if you are to avoid death and to enter into eternal life. Scripture goes on in verse 36. And notice the exclusivity of these statements.

There's a positive affirmation and a negative denial of an alternative means. John chapter 3, verse 36. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. If you are in the Son, you are safe. If you deny the Son, you are in danger.

You are in present, immediate danger, and the wrath of God abides on you even now. It is one or the other. There is no comfortable place in between. There is no halfway house.

There is no rest area along the way. It's one or the other. Go on to John chapter 6, verse 40. Jesus says, This is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day. You behold the Son, you believe in him. It is the loving promise of God that if you come to Christ, you will be saved.

And the invitation goes out to anyone and everyone with ears to hear. You may be a forgotten person in the scheme of the world. You may be a horrible sinner.

You may be weighed down with guilt as you're here today. The promise of God, the promise of Christ comes to you. If you behold me and believe in me, you will be saved.

This is the gracious love, the kind purpose and patience of God. But it's found only in Christ. Look at John chapter 8, verse 12. John chapter 8, verse 12. Jesus again spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life. Jesus again pointing to himself, calling attention to himself in a way that would be impossibly arrogant if it came from the lips of anyone else but the Son of God. Jesus says, I am the way.

I am the light of the world. And look at chapter 10, verse 9. Jesus said to them again, Truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

What about other teachers? What about other religions? Verse 10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. Jesus says, I am the door. You want to pass into heaven? You want to pass from death into life? There's only one door through which you can go. There are not multiple doors.

There's not door one, door two, door three. There's one, and it's in Christ. And in chapter 11, verse 25, we read this. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this? And so Jesus has said he is the exclusive way to God, and you can see how he had been building up as the Apostle John recorded the life and teaching of Christ. You can see how he was building up and leading up to this climactic statement in John 14.6. Jesus had been saying all along, I'm the way. I have the power. Other teachers, other religions cannot take you there. You must believe in me, and if you believe in me, you'll enter into life, but if you don't, you will be lost.

And all of that informs the broader context of what Jesus says in John 14.6. I am the way. I, in myself, you must be in me. You must belong to me.

You must have faith in me. You must give yourself to me, and then I can take you, then I will take you from the departure point to the destination point. But without me, you cannot get there.

Without me, you are eternally lost. And so Jesus prepared the way. Jesus accomplished the way even better, accomplished the way to heaven by his sacrificial death, his sin-bearing death, and his resurrection.

And then 40 days later, what did he do? He ascended into heaven, showing visibly, showing visibly that he knew the way and that he had the power to take himself there. And the only way to join in that resurrection life and to ascend, as it were, into heaven is by being in Christ. And the only way that you can be joined to Christ is by faith in him and receiving him and trusting in his death and resurrection, any self-reliance, and your ticket is invalidated.

Acts 4, verse 12 says, there is salvation in no one else. And so when we talk about the concept of truth and we talk about the concept of salvation from sin, we see that Scripture makes a bold, defiant, unapologetic truth claim. An assertion that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father.

Think about it this way. To teach something else, to deny that and say something else, and to make room for other religions that maybe someone who's never heard the gospel, who's never heard about Christ, can actually go to heaven? Listen, to say those things is to deny Christ himself. You stand in opposition to Christ when you say things like that. You either take Jesus in his exclusivity or you don't take him at all. He is the way to the Father. Now secondly, he is the truth of the Father.

Let's go back to John 14, verse 6. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. Jesus is the truth of God precisely because he himself is God. He can say I am the truth of God in a way that no one else can say because he is the very manifestation of God himself.

Look at John chapter 14, verse 9 here where Jesus says in the middle of the verse, he says, He who has seen me has seen the Father. He is the truth of God in the sense that he is the personal manifestation of God. He is the exact representation of his nature. Scripture says that in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. That is the truth. The fullness of God veiled in flesh is revealed in Jesus Christ.

There is no distinction. Jesus and the Father share the identical essence of God. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, clothed that essence in human flesh. And therefore, whenever they were watching Jesus, they were seeing God in action. When we read the words of Jesus, we are reading the words of God himself. Scripture says in John 1, 1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Look at chapter 5, verse 18 with me.

Chapter 5, verse 18. Jesus is the truth of God because he himself is God. He is equal with God. He is uncreated. There has never been a time where the second person of the Trinity did not exist.

He is uncreated and fully co-equal with God in all of his attributes. That's the point of what we read in John 5, verse 18. For this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he not only was breaking the Sabbath but also was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. And Jesus answered, verse 19, and was saying to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, and let it sit as something he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself is doing, and the Father will show him greater works than these so that you will marvel.

Verse 21, For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he wishes. Beloved, he has the character of God. He does the works of God. He speaks the Word of God. He is truly God incarnate, and he is the only one who is. Jesus Christ is God's only Son. There is no other that connect us.

There is no other that can provide a way from our departure point to the destination point. Christ is the truth of God. He says, I am the way of God, and I am the truth of God. And thirdly, we're going to see, go back to chapter 14, verse 6, that Christ is also the life of God, the life of God. He says, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me. The preexistent, uncreated life of God resides fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. Before time began, God was. God had no beginning point, and the same is true of Christ.

There was never a point at which he began to exist. He has always existed in a way that transcends our ability to understand. That is true of God. The Father is true of God the Son. And so, beloved, this might seem a little bit philosophical or esoteric, but it's crucial to understanding what Jesus is saying. The preexistent, uncreated life of God abides fully, abides always, and abides without diminishment in the Lord Jesus Christ. John, chapter 5, verse 26. For just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself.

And we saw earlier in chapter 11, verse 25, Jesus said, I am the resurrection and what? The life. Christ saying, I am the life. If any of us tried to say that, it would be a lie.

It would not be true. We do not possess the life of God in that same sense. We do not have the power to impart the life of God to others by our own hands. We can't lay hands on somebody and transfer the gift of the Holy Spirit from our hands to someone else.

We don't have that power. Jesus does. He shares the indestructible, eternal existence of the Godhead. It is fully in him in bodily form. 1 John, chapter 5, verse 20 says, he is, speaking of Christ, it says, he is the true God and eternal life.

So we take all of these things together, kind of catch our breath in light of everything that we've seen and read. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus, having made that triple assertion, look at what he says there at the end of verse 6, having said that and said it emphatically as we saw, he says, no one comes to the Father but through me. It could be no other way.

No one else is the way, no one else is the truth, no one else is the life. Notice the present tense here. Jesus says, no one comes to the Father but through me. The present tense in this instance is expressing a perpetual condition. It has always been this way.

It has always been this way in the past. It is this way now, and it will always be this way that no one comes to the Father but through me. No one ever came to God through their own obedience, even in the Old Testament. That is the point of Romans chapter 4, that Abraham was saved by faith and justified by faith alone, David in the same way. In their faith, they were looking forward to the coming of the Messiah who would deliver them. In our faith, we look back chronologically to the one who has come.

And so it has always been this way. It is always through faith in Christ alone, and, beloved, that has a really simple, profound implication for us in the room here today. If your faith is in Christ alone, you are safe. You have the way, and the person that you know is the one who is able to take you from the departure point to the destination point.

We don't have to worry about that. When it comes for our eyes to be closed in death, we can entrust our soul to our faithful Savior and know that He will carry us, and that as we step from one realm into another, that Christ, who He is, the way, the truth, and the life, He will carry us personally. He will do it Himself and usher us in in a way that leaves us with no cause for fear. That's what He promises to His disciples.

He said, I go to prepare a place for you. When I come again, either when He comes in glory or when He comes for us in death, He's coming in order to take us to where He is. In Christ, those sins and lawless deeds are remembered no more in the presence of God.

He doesn't hold them against you. He takes you, He embraces you, He receives you as one of His own. Know the blessed thing, beloved, is this. Christ has saved so many people through His grace, through His love, through the power of the cross, and yet there's still room for you as well.

Isn't that wonderful? That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the second part of a message titled, Truth and Salvation, from the current series, In Defense of Truth. Don will have more for us next time on The Truth Pulpit. We hope you won't miss a moment.

But right now, here's Don with a closing word before we end our time today. Friend, one of the things that I'm always mindful of when I'm here in studio, is I'm mindful that there are people out in the audience that are like I used to be, thinking that they were Christians, but not really having the life of God in their soul. You've perhaps read the Bible or gone to church, but you've never really turned your life to Christ in repentance and saving faith.

I was like that. I know what it's like to be self-deceived. I just encourage you, if you've just viewed Christianity as something kind of casual and not all that important, my friend, examine yourself. See if you're truly born again, and let that work of God in your heart lead you to truth, lead you to the Scriptures, so that you would enter into the profound life that belongs only to those who are true Christians. Thanks, Don. And friend, that's our time for today. I'm Bill Wright, hoping you can join us again next time as Don Green continues teaching God's people God's word here on The Truth Vault.