Imagine that you have been diagnosed with a terminal disease. The doctor informs you that there is one cure that is 100% effective. But only one. Would you be interested? Or would you insist on the need to have multiple options?

What if you are traveling to a famous historical site and are told that there is only one road that leads to the venue? Would you return home in protest, refusing to be forced into a certain pattern of behavior?

Picture wanting to buy something that you've wanted for a long time and discovering that this item is only available in one store. Would that make you desist from getting what you've been longing for?

Now imagine that a man comes along claiming to offer the only path to knowing God. Do you reject him for his audacity? Criticize his intolerance?

When his followers repeat the claim of exclusivity, how should they be viewed? Will we write them off as closed-minded bigots?

Jesus made the following claim: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

Pretty outrageous, when you think about it. It's one thing to claim to be one of many ways, to hold a truth among other truths and to offer one lifestyle among many. It's quite different to claim to be "the way and the truth and the life."

Openness and tolerance would seemingly require Jesus to offer many options about coming to God. But he didn't. He said, "No one comes to the Father except through me."

Then his followers came along and said the same. Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples, had the audacity to say, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

There are times when we have to face the truth that not every option is equal
Whoa! Wait a minute! Salvation in Jesus and in no one else? No other name by which we can be saved? Not exactly a model of inclusiveness.

But you see, there are times when we have to face the truth that not every option is equal and not every choice is valid. When it comes to eternal life, to salvation, to having a relationship with God, there's only one way: through Jesus Christ.

Want to know more about coming to God through Jesus? Write to me at tarcher@heraldoftruth.org. Or join us at www.hopeforlife.org.

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