While I can't perhaps go as far as my friend in believing that all roads lead ultimately to God, nor that all people will eventually be redeemed - though I do hope for that - I have moved quite a distance in that direction. I have reason to hope that many who do not know or consciously profess Christ will find themselves in God's Kingdom; and conversely I suspect that many who call themselves Christian will find their place among the chosen less guaranteed than they imagined.
Does this mean I'm becoming a wishy-washy anything-goes so-called liberal? Perhaps, but I don't believe so. Rather I'm trying to take Jesus' own words and character very seriously and not shoehorn them into watertight doctrines that don't actually hold water.
The Way, the Truth and the Life
In the next post I want to look at more of what the Bible has to say on the subject but let's start with 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. To my mind it's quite possible to interpret this verse in a way that's far from the standard 'only Christians go to heaven' version.
Yes, Jesus is the Way, but it is possible to follow a way without knowing its name or having been shown it on a map. All who, led by the Spirit, follow the true way are indeed following Jesus whether they know it or not. Similarly, Jesus is the Truth and the Truth is Jesus, so anyone who seeks the truth is surely seeking Jesus whether they realise it or not. And Jesus is the Life, but life whether spiritual or biological is a pretty mysterious thing, and those who have it may not exactly understand what it is or how they came by it.
So Jesus can truly say 'No-one comes to the Father except by me', for all who do come to the Father by whatever route will find - perhaps to their surprise - that they came in truth through Christ.
One of my favourite passages in C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories comes towards the end of The Last Battle. The young Calormene Emeth, a lifelong devotee of the pagan demon-god Tash, finds himself to his great surprise in the Narnian heaven. Aslan the Christ-Lion explains to him:
"Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me… For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him…
But I [Emeth] said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."This to me is the crux. Those who seek truth, goodness, beauty, justice and mercy will find it, for they are truly seeking God.
Love
We in the modern western church make much of right belief in a correct creed, and of following particular steps that will guarantee us a place in God's kingdom. But authentic Christian faith is not mere intellectual assent to right theories about God and salvation, nor following a five-step programme to eternal life. True belief is about who we are in the deepest place, and about the actions and attitudes towards God and other people that flow from that.
So the greatest command is simply - and almost impossibly - to love: to love God with all our heart, mind and strength; to love our fellow humans as ourselves. Those who seek to follow this law are, as Jesus said, not far from the kingdom, whatever theologies they do or don't profess. And conversely those who have not love, though they perform great miracles, are not actually on the Way of Christ at all.
My own view then is that Christ's presence and activity are not limited to those within the Christian church, and that he is often present incognito in other faiths and none. For wherever there is goodness, truth, love, kindness, honesty, generosity, compassion, or mercy, there at least to some degree is Christ. Even if all paths do not lead to him, in his grace he often chooses to meet us on whatever path we happen to be on.
No comments:
Post a Comment