Last night I said I would start a series on God's glory. I am still planning it, but I've got something else for today. I believe that universalism, or even a slightly softer claim that people who are not Christians can still get to heaven through whatever religion they practice is contrary, not only to the Bible in places like John 14:6 and Acts 4:12, but also to the entire spirit and purpose of Christ's life and death.
There are several reasons why I believe that a Christian cannot believe in salvation outside of Christ. These are:
1. The Bible says there is no salvation outside of Christ.
If this isn't sufficent at least one of these things must be deined.
2. God is a just God.
3. All men are sinners.
4. Sin deserves punishment.
5. Christ bore our punishment.
6. Christ punishment for us is recieved by faith.
1. The Bible says there is no salvation outside of Christ.
This is the simplest reason logically, and it is very clear, so I won't spend too much time here. Look at these two verses.
I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. - John 14:6
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved. - Acts 4:12
These two verses are clear enough. There is no salvation outsid eof Christ. However, this exclusivity grates at the moral sensibilities of many, so various creative interpretations for these verses are offered to try and get around the very clear intended meaning. I don't really want to deal with the interpretations but I would like to show the more signifcant truths that must be denied if any sort of universalism is accepted.
2. God is a just God
Logically, there is an easy out for someone who believes ina universal salvation. That out is to simply deny that God is just. God is a merciful God, so He won't hold someone's sin against them right? This past winter the speaker at a youth conference I went to (as a college leader) seemed to hold this position. She comforted a young man who's uncle was not a Christian with Phil. 2:10-11 "At the name of every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on Earth, and of those under the Earth, and that every tounge should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." She took this to mean that in the end, everyone will be in heaven worshipping God. I went up to her after the meeting and asked her why she said this, and bascially asked whether or not she believed in hell. She responded that she believed in hell, but this interpretation of the verse was her hope that eventually the mercy of God will overcome our foolishness, and in the end all would be forgiven. I didn't really want to lecture a speaker about theology then and there, so I left.
Think about her idea though. First, there is no support for her idea that in the end God will overlook our sin. Think about Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation" God has promised that he will "by no means clear the guilty" -Exodus 33:7. Or think about Luke 16:26 where Jesus in a parable speaks about the seperation between heaven and hell. "And besides all this, between you and us there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us."
Imagine if in 5 years a judge in America granted a universal pardon for all of the convicts currently in jail and just let them go. Would that be a just thing for a judge to do? God's mercy is that He provided a way for us to escape His justice even though we were guilty. Does His mercy require Him to provide another because some missed the first one?
3. All men are sinners
This one is easy to see how a denail of would lead to universalism. If men are not sinners then men do not need to be saved. If we don't need to be saved, then Christ didn't need to die, and everyone can get to heaven. However, any reading of Romans 3:23 or of the Law should persuade a reasonable person that all men are sinners according to how God defines sin. This is extremely evident from experience.
4. Sin deserves punishment
Well, who cares if all men are sinners. What does sin matter anyways? Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." So, the wages of sin is death. Don't miss the meaning of the verse in a different way of stating something. A wage is something we merit from an action. Back when I was in high school, I reffed soccer games. My wages for a particular game would be around $20 for working that game. The work brought about the wage. It is the same way for sin. The payment brought about for sin is death. The Bible further speaks of us as dead in our tragressions and sins in Ephesians 2, and on many many occasions speaks of God's wrath against sin. I don't have a list of references in front of me, but they're there.
5. Christ bore our punishment.
Christ was the solution to our problem of being sinners in front of a holy God who punishes sin. But is the face of universalism, the key point here is that it was Christ who did this. Only Christ was the Son of God who came to bear your sins. There are not even any competing claims to this. Buddha does not claim to have borne your sins. Neither does Mohammed. If you are a sinner in front of a holy God, there is only one person who you can look to with the hope of having Him bear the punishment for you, and that is Christ. Think of the song in Revelation 5:9-10 "You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us by your blood out of every tribe and tounge and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign forever on Earth." It was Christ that did this. I don't think that anything else makes sense at all here.
6. Christ's punishment for us is recieved by faith.
This I think is the sticky point. Many people might suggest that Christ's bearing of our sins could be recieved even if they don't have a conscious faith in Him. CS Lewis even believed this, as is evident in his comendation of a servant of Tash (I think that was the God's name) at the end of The Last Battle. I have a class that starts in 15 minutes, so I won't be able to treat this in it's length here, but I will offer up one thought.
Christ, the man who bore our punishment, said "He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." -John 3:18. My proposal is this, if Christ was the one that made this way possible for us, should we not trust Him that the conditions that He set forth for recieving a gift that He gave are accurate? I mean, who are we to say that Christ is wrong and people can recieve Christ without believing in His name? Christ did the work, not you or me, should we not trust him about his own work? Furthermore, note how specific He is. We must believe in His NAME. I don't think this could apply to a "good" muslim who seeks God with his heart, but desepies the name of Christ, but only because he was brought up in Saudi Arabia and that is what his parents taught him to do. It just doesn't follow.
Anyways, Piper spends like 40 pages on this in Let the Nations Be Glad! and I may in a later post exposit some of his findings and references.
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