Jesus said, 'No one comes to the Father but by me.' That mean there's no hope for all those who haven't heard of Jesus. Can this be true?

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In John 14:6 Jesus states that no one comes to his Father (God) but through him. For some, this suggests that Christianity is exclusive, discounting millions who have never heard the gospel message. By implication, then, if God is willing to condemn untold millions, he cannot a be a God of love.

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If we choose to say that Jesus didn’t really mean it to sound this way, and reinterpret his statement to be more palatable, what are we to do with other tricky passages that we’d rather not grapple with?

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Perhaps the answer lies in the context. To make sense of one verse we first need to see how and where it fits into the Bible as a whole.

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The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, tells one coherent, consistent story, affirmed over centuries, particularly in the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.

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These creeds affirm that the triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) created the world and created mankind. In love, he gave people the choice to depend on him, or to choose autonomy.

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Through the various covenants (made with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David) God initiates restoration and redemption, making it clear that, through Israel, redemption will come to all nations. The first covenant with Abraham says, 'All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.' This theme of the nations being blessed recurs may times –especially in the book of Isaiah. God chose a people, Israel, to represent his love and mercy to the world, and to be a blessing to the whole world. Israel at times depended on God (and were blessed), at times they rebelled against God, with seriously negative consequences. Through the prophets God kept bringing Israel back to dependence on him. In his perfect love, God cannot tolerate his people choosing self-destruction through sin. The prophets, in particular Isaiah, predicted the coming of Jesus the Messiah, the way by which all people can finally be restored to a right relationship with God and participate in the resurrection life, which is God’s kingdom on earth now and in the new kingdom when Jesus returns to reign forever.

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God’s perfect love is two-sided – judgement for those who refuse him, and mercy for those who accept the sacrificial death of Jesus on their behalf. They accept that Jesus paid the price for their sins, and they receive God’s forgiveness.

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God chose to send his son as a baby, to live fully human among humans, and to die a hideous death. This is something we will never be able to understand, but by faith we accept it as God’s way. The message of the cross is huge – and uncomfortable – and a ‘stumbling block for many.'

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If we say we can come to God any other way we ignore. or trivialise, the cross.

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Now let us look at John 14:3 in the context of the New Testament.  Who is Jesus? In Mark’s Gospel, in particular, we are gradually led to the unavoidable answer: Jesus is God. Through the Holy Spirit many Old Testament prophets were speaking under the direction of God the Holy Spirit. Those prophets were, are and will be inhabitants of God’s kingdom. Yet they hadn’t encountered the incarnate Jesus, and didn’t yet know of God’s plan to send Jesus to the world, even though they predicted a Messiah who would redeem his people.

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Now we look at the statement in the Gospel of John.

The statement in John’s gospel that ‘No one comes to the Father but by me’ (John 14:6) was made by Jesus to his disciples, Thomas in particular. He had been telling them that he was going to prepare a place for them in [his] Father’s house. He said ‘I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.’ Thomas, puzzled, says ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus answers ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me you would have known my Father also.’ Even a disciple like Thomas seems not to have really ‘known’ Jesus. We must see John 14:6 in its context. It was addressed specifically to Thomas, and we must careful not to extrapolate more from it in the context allows.

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Thomas needed to see God in Jesus, and see Jesus as the way to God.

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Those who have heard of Jesus (through the Bible) also need to see Jesus as the way to God. Who else perfectly shows us God’s character and love other than Jesus? We have a choice to make – to accept that Jesus was the Messiah, that he died on our behalf, that he rose again to give those who accept him eternal life, and that he sends the Holy Spirit to empower us. The Spirit enables us  to keep coming back to him to ask for forgiveness, and, day by day, to live in closer relationship with him.

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So, what of those who have not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

 

Before we attempt to answer this question, we need to remind ourselves that in this area, as in so many other areas of our faith, what we don't know  far out weighs what we do. So we are cautious not to be dogmatic.

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Firstly, we look at the characters in the Old Testament. Those who followed God according to the light they had received are surely in heaven today. Moses and Elijah appeared at the transfiguration, which was a vision into heaven. I believe they were saved in advance by the blood of Christ, having never heard of Jesus. (In the mystery of God’s infinity, it was not actually  'in advance,' because with God there is no past, present or future - he lives in the eternal present. Thus Jesus could say, 'Before Abraham was I AM,'  and John speaks of 'The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world'  John 8:59; Rev 13:8.)

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All  human beings are created by God, and share in his universal grace. All people have a God-given conscience which enables them to make good or bad choices. Not only do people have conscience, but they also have the capacity to wonder at creation and know that there must be a Creator behind it. A God-given desire for God is universal in all mankind.  At some point everyone will encounter God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and will choose acceptance or rejection. When and how is as much of a mystery to us, as are many other aspects of our faith.

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There are also a number of references in the book of Acts to people who were God-fearing even though they had not yet heard about Jesus, or, in some cases even heard about the Old Testament (Acts 10:2,22; 13:26,50; 17:4,17).In other words, it is fully possible to be God-fearing without having heard the message of Scripture. What that will mean on the day of judgement, we have no idea. All we know is that God looks more at the heart than at deeds.

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The centurion at the cross, with his very limited knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, said, 'Surely this was a righteous man.' He will surely be in heaven, saved by the blood of Christ, which he saw so literally, but understood so little.

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The bottom line is that 'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.' Like Thomas, those who have heard of Jesus have to make individual choices on the basis of what they know. As far as other people are concerned, they can trust that a loving God will deal in love with everyone. No one knows how wide the grace of God will stretch. I personally think it will stretch to the saving of many people who have not heard of Jesus, who will be saved by the blood of Christ without knowing it. I think there is a hint of that in 1 John 2:2 – 'He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world,' and in 1 John 4:14 – 'The Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. In a way these verses sound more all-encompassing than even than John 3:16.

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We need to take the Bible as a whole, and not cherry-pick verses and try to interpret them outside of their context.  We should never assume as biblical truth something that isn’t explicitly there (e.g. claim that everyone who hasn’t heard of Christ will go to hell.) It’s helpful to interpret the difficult or obscure passages in Scripture in the light of the clear ones. What is abundantly clear in Scripture is that God’s love is beyond measure and that his justice is beyond question.