Following Judah's Lion

If Jesus is Exclusive - Are We?

In the midst of the human experience there are all sorts of mental and emotional metamorphosis’s that claim to fulfill some longing or sense of purpose within the human conscience. All religions have their list of devotees who profess a completion through that particular experience and usually through the particular knowledge taught by that religion or system. Some are so convinced that they will even die for that which they claim changed them and made them whole. The array of this kind of phenomenon is almost endless, and new ones arise all the time. And many of these human experiences are in competition with each other and are incompatible simply based upon a conflict of creedal truth espoused by each. In short, they cannot all be true and therefore the experience, although genuine in the mind and outward manifestation, is a result of being mentally persuaded and is the fruit of that persuasion and not the actual result of truth itself. The truth becomes what a person believes and not the truth in abstract.
And so a changed life is not necessarily the proof of the truth that life embraces since so many believe different “truths” and change their lives accordingly. But the search for place and meaning is so strong that it produces many answers that are deviations from the actual truth. People follow all kinds of men and all kinds of emotional, spiritual, and mental strategies that are designed to convince and reinforce the human psyche that its existence is meaningful and even divine. And voilà, we arrive at a host of different religions and systems that capture the fancies of segments of humanity. And in these systems, religious and otherwise, many humans have found satisfaction and cling to them lest they feel lost and untethered to any sort of fulfillment. Humans desire safety and attempt to avoid danger and uncertainty.
But squarely in the midst of all this confusion lives a group of people who say they believe that a man named Jesus of Nazareth was the Creator in human flesh and that His mission was to rescue the human race from death and destruction…eternally. Now that, my friends, is some contention. And seemingly more arrogant is their claim that all other religions and systems are frauds to varying degrees, and that only Jesus is the truth. This assertion is both immensely simplistic and yet utterly profound, as well as overtly presumptuous. We who believe in this Jesus and who have entrusted our eternities into His hands have involuntarily placed ourselves in a superior position, not because of anything in us, but because we have placed this Jesus in a superior position. And if superior was not enough, we have placed Him, in accordance with His own words, in a position of exclusivity. In other words, He is the only way, the only truth, and the only life.
And let us draw the necessary conclusions that must accompany this exclusivity as it pertains to life and life eternal. As it pertains to all other systems of thought and truth, there can be no compromise and there can be no compatibility with Jesus. His words demand a decision without any negotiation or vacillation. He offers no wiggle room and although His offer is unencumbered and debt free, He demands all. He is not playing some cosmic game. He is not attempting to coddle or oblige; He has pronounced His identity and intentions without ambiguity, and He offers Himself freely to all who desire eternal truth and life. Jesus is the one enigma to all other religious systems since His very words place them as more than worthless; they are lies.
While other religions and thought systems suggest everything from a universal mind to a divine consciousness to a higher power, this Jesus claims to be the one and only Creator. And just what caused Him to be hated and eventually sent to death? It wasn’t His teachings on love, or His healings, or His teachings of forgiveness. The issue that brought about His death was His insistence that He was God - the I AM.

I AM the door.
I AM the Good Shepherd.
I AM the way, the truth, and the life.
I AM the resurrection and the life.

Do not be blind to the wording of all the “I AM” metaphors. The use of the words I AM are not coincidental; they are profound and revealing. They refer back to the question Moses asked to the glory in the burning bush. “Who shall I say sent me?”, asks Moses.

And God said unto Moses, “I AM THAT I AM“, and he said, “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”

How obvious it is if you process it without preconceptions and prejudices. Jesus is claiming to be the same God that spoke to Moses in that burning bush. He is claiming to be Jehovah, Elohim, and the I AM THAT I AM. No ambiguity and no uncertainty. And presented with those claims we are faced squarely with a decision. We either believe and follow or reject and turn away. There is no middle ground; there is no compromise; there is no negotiation. Does it seem authoritarian to you? Does it seem so exclusive and unyielding to your rebellious and stubborn heart? Do you wish to have some say in the matter, and are you desiring to make some case for alterations in what Jesus is presenting? Perhaps you do not wish any major changes, mind you, just some minor understandings that can accommodate sincerity and some other, less stringent interpretations. Does that soften the blow and reduce the tension?
Jesus offers no room for compromise on the issue of Him. And yet He comes full of grace and reaching out with the love that was revealed upon the cross where He gave His own life. It is finished and He now offers that finished work. There is nothing left to do and nothing left undone. Believe and rest. Of course there are still competing schools of thought and competing religious figures who have ushered in new systems of redemption and higher learning. You can always follow Buddha, or Mohammed, or the Hindu gods, or even Moses, or the god that most people follow regardless of lip service to another - themselves. Or you can parse out your allegiance and let Jesus have a percentage as a safety valve while you allow yourself the luxury of following other gods and other paths to earthly fulfillment and spiritual enlightenment; all while retaining a semblance of Christian belief and minimal outward obligations. And you may feel a sense of satisfaction when you compare yourself with others and discover a reassuring similar experience and life quintessence. Thankfully you are one of many unremarkable lives that profess Jesus is the only way to eternal life and yet live the same as the unbelieving neighbor with a few moral stance differences. There, done and done.
But that is not the faith that actually believes and follows the Lord Jesus. His claims, if believed, require a life that substantiates our faith. And when lives that follow false gods are changed, what are we to make of lives that say they follow Jesus and are not changed? If we pause and reevaluate the claims of Jesus, and if we reevaluate the veracity of our personal faith in Him, are they congruous? What would a life look like that was absolutely convinced it had eternal life - eternal life - through Jesus Christ? And upon that conviction, unashamed and unwavering, that life set out on a journey to emulate Jesus in every area with some minor cultural adjustments that never did violence to the revelation of the Person of Jesus Christ. Let us ask ourselves this question:

Would that same exclusivity that we say we assign to Jesus manifest itself in the lives that profess to emulate Him, or would those lives be passive, unremarkable, and living insignificantly well within the framework of the culture in which God’s providence had placed them?

And when I suggest an extraordinary lifestyle that is culturally conspicuous I surely do not mean a caustic, self righteous, and politically active life that is much more a thorn than a light. I do not mean being the moral police instead of a redemptive force. The life that emulates Jesus must be loving and gracious, truthful yet humble, and dedicated to the redemption in which it found life itself. I speak of an exclusive life that reveals the redemption, the exclusive redemption, that is found in Jesus Christ and Him alone. The Amish are known for their difference because of their outward appearance and cloistered lifestyle, but where are the lives that project a majestic humility and an unusual love that may not lead everyone to Jesus but cannot be refuted? We should not only be noteworthy, but we should be a phenomenon against the backdrop of such cultural and spiritual darkness. And yet we blend nicely.
If Jesus is who He says He is, and if He is exclusively the only Savior, and if we say we believe those truths, then our lives are in desperate need of a compliance that actually substantiates such a outrageous claim. If we already have the gift of eternal life, then why are we so entangled with the affairs of this world?

It is time for us all, individually and collectively, to take a painful inventory of just how compromised and diluted are our lives when juxtaposed upon our professions of faith.