Thursday, October 29
The second kind of person who needs to hear John 14:6 is the anti-religionist. This is the person who says, “Religion is the cause of most of the evil in our world. From religious wars to terrorism to abuse in churches to superstitious people who reject science, the world would be a better place without religion.” When I was younger, anti-religionists were hard to find outside of a college campus. When you did meet them, they were cranks and weirdos who seemed to like the attention they got as the village atheist. But, for the most part, they aren’t cranks and weirdos anymore. If you’re my age or younger, you probably know plenty of people in this category. If you’re older, then all of your kids and grandkids have friends who are in this category, and perhaps you have relatives in this category too. An anti-religionist would look at John 14:6 and say, “It’s so exclusive. Why would God only make one way for people to be saved?” Or the way one of my anti-religionist friends put it, “I just think that a God who sends people to Hell for believing the wrong religion isn’t much of a God.”
I read a good response to this argument from a pastor named John Yates. He’s old enough to remember when polio was the most dreaded disease in the world. Kids were crippled by the thousands. Then, one day when Yates was in High School, they were each handed a sugar cube with a pink syrup on it. It was the polio vaccine that had been developed by Jonas Salk, one of the greatest scientific achievements of the past hundred years. No one in Yates’s High School said, “I won’t take this. I refuse to believe there’s only one way to overcome polio. It’s too exclusive.” No, they thanked God that there was now a way to avoid getting this terrible disease.
Here’s how I responded to my friend who accused God of condemning millions to Hell simply for having the wrong beliefs: “When I read the Bible, I don’t see a God who is trying to exclude people from Heaven. I see a God who saw the world falling apart because of sin, and went on a rescue mission by becoming a man named Jesus, who died to make a way. And now, through His Holy Spirit, He’s trying to get as many as possible in before it’s too late.” He said, “I grew up in church, and I never heard it expressed that way.” And all I could do is apologize. Yet that’s what Jesus is saying to the anti-religionist in John 14:6: Don’t complain that God only made one way to be saved from the core problem of humanity, which is separation from God. Instead, rejoice that He made a way at all.
“Lord, I find people who hate and mock my faith in you to be obnoxious. I see them as enemies. But you don’t see them that way. You loved them enough to die for them. Your heart yearns for them to come home. Help me to see them that way, as well. And even though I don’t feel smart enough to answer their questions or out-argue them, use me anyway in leading them to your saving love. In your name, amen.”
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Conroe
More from Pastor Jeff at his website: jeffbergerwriting.com
