Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Easter: How are we Saved?

Acts 7: 55 – end

The Martyrdom of Stephen

54 When they heard these things they were [h]cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

John 14; 1-11

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.”

⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸ Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

⁹ Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. ¹¹ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

Christians sometimes disagree.

Who gets to heaven is one area we disagree on, in fact people argue about it with such conviction that one might think they have forgotten who actually makes the decision

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Some find great assurance in this verse, while others worry it may exclude many from heaven.

Let’s examine these viewpoints, then you can make up your own mind... or at least have your existing opinion confirmed.

Firstly, the view that salvation is through Christ alone.

This is clearly stated in Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Salvation came down to us in Jesus. We could never reach heaven by our own goodness – it’s like trying to get to the moon by taking a running leap. So Jesus embraced our humanity and, through his life, death and resurrection, showed us the way to the Father.

Salvation is offered to all through Christ. In this sense this understanding is inclusive – it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, black or white, male or female.

The door is open to everyone.

There is wonderful assurance in this, Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Yet even if the door is open to everyone, it clearly matters that you find the right door, as 1 Timothy 2:5 says: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus.”

This understanding is rooted in scripture and Church tradition. However, it worries some people because, while it liberates and assures many, it appears to condemn many more – especially loved ones who never accepted Jesus, or good people of other faiths, or of no faith.

Other Christians believe everyone is saved, even without consciously accepting Jesus as Saviour.

They argue that if God is love, He would not condemn people eternally for failing to understand who Jesus is.

Supporting verses include John 12:32, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” and Colossians 1:19-20, which says God will reconcile “all things” to himself through Christ’s blood.

The thief on the cross is often cited: he simply recognised Jesus’ innocence and received the promise of paradise without affirming any creed, baptism, or doctrinal statement.

Furthermore, the biggest block of evidence for God working through other religions is the Old Testament itself – the first two-thirds of the Bible is another religion - Judaism.

Christianity is, in one sense, founded on the principle that God can be seen in another religion.

Like the first, this view is also rooted in scripture and tradition, but it worries some because it can seem to suggest salvation by good works or that God simply abandons justice and pardons everyone.

A third understanding holds that if anyone reaches the Father, it must be through Jesus – even if they did not recognise him as such.

On the road to Emmaus, those two disciples did not initially recognise Jesus. We often fail to recognise Jesus when we meet him, yet, whenever we encounter “the way, the truth and the life” – in science, beauty, goodness, love, or truth – we are encountering Jesus, whether we can name him or not.

Remember Matthew 25? ‘When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in...?’...‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus turns up in our lives beyond the walls of our churches and beyond the walls of our religion, if he didn’t he wouldn’t be ‘the way the truth and the life.’ The trouble is, we read the second part of John 14; 6, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me,’ without reference to the first part, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’

The first half is the key to understanding the second half.

Translators usually render that second half as ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’ However, I think the word 'except' is a poor translation of the Greek word ‘ei’ , which elsewhere in the New Testament is translated ‘if’ not ‘except’.

‘No one comes to the Father if not by me’ is a more literal translation.

If you have gotten to the Father it must have been through Jesus, even if that was not your understanding.

The meaning of John 16; 6 is inclusive not despite the unique divine nature of Jesus – but because of his unique divine nature.

Philosophy may see truth as either abstract or relative, but Christianity says truth is a person whom we may or may not always recognise.

Whatever you believe about salvation, if you want your account to be Christian, that is to be based on the teachings of Jesus, you must not delay heaven.

When does eternal life start?

When you die? At the end of time? Tomorrow? Later this afternoon?

If you follow the way of Jesus now is life eternal, and here is the Kingdom of Heaven. We are not to wait for heaven, we are to work for heaven in the here and now – that way we will be on the right path when we reach the borders of the world to come.

Amen.