Jesus said, "No-one comes to the Father except through Me." Dicuss

[Tortington]

Jesus said, "No-one comes to the Father except through Me."

What i don't understand about this phrase comes on two levels.

1. supposing there is a corner of the world where a child dies never having heard of jesus. Do they get some 'Jesus' lessons in purgatory before St. Peter given them a golden ticket? or do they go to hell - hell being never knowing gods grace ( i believe)

2. the Jesus i read about, the kindly person bringing diferent peoples together - helping hte lowly samarian - pro women pretty much poster boy for the race equality commission - He would do this?

i'd like a debate about this rather than any hethens athiests agnostics telling me that god doesn't exist if you don't mind. ta.

athiests and agnostics just sit back and watch the christians fight it out

Custardo, if we believe that God is good and that He is all powerful we don't have to make excuses for Him and we can safely trust Him to do right by everybody in His inimitable way. So don't worry about unbaptised Hindu babies or such like:- YOU have heard about Jesus and YOU need to make a decision as to whether YOU want to live in relationship with Him (come to the Father through Him) or in rebellion (don't want to know about someone who condemns unbaptised Hindu babies to hell)
Nobody is perfect and so nobody can have a relationship with God except through Jesus, who died for us to take our sin away.

I once remember Rowan Williams being asked if he believed that "No one comes to the Father except through Jesus". He said he did, but pointed out that Jesus did not say HOW they came to the Father through him. There is much about faith and drawing closer to God that we do not understand, let's not kid ourselves that we can work it all out and put it into a neat doctrinal package.

Custardo, THANK YOU for asking this question. My massive faith crisis as a teenager was started when I wondered exactly what you are wondering - and was slapped down by nuns at catechism saying "Don't ask questions, just pray" / "The unbaptised don't deserve God's mercy" / "If you don't believe Jesus' words you are already condemned". Seriously. And, sorry if I cause offence, the intransigence of a few of the answers here remind me of what those nuns said. Shudder.

Anyway, having slowly and painfully regained some kind of faith (should that have a capital F?) I am still stuck with the original question. Here's the answer I've reached so far

:

A) Jesus definitely said "I am the way, I am the truth, no one comes to the Father unless they come through Me"

B) Jesus also very clearly said that we will all be judged by how much (or little) we treated every other person we met as if they were Jesus Himself - "I was hungry and you did not feed me" etc.

C) So, it seems to me that Christ wanted us all (all humans, pharisees samaritans sinners hindus whoever, if it is true that God sent His only Son to save all humanity as opposed to a few WASP bigots) to see Him in each other. Meaning that we have to look deep into every person, past their flaws and the treetrunks in our own eyes, and find what there is to love in them. And love them. As if there was Christ in them, as if they were Jesus.

D) So could it be that if any human, of whatever age / era / place / religion, manages to attain that state whereby they see God's Love in other humans - could it be that they know the Father (=God of love and peace?).

Buddhists would call that Nirvana, Sufis would call it losing themselves to enter God's Love.

I hope that makes sense. I am still bothered by the OP's question; also by the many questions prompted by my own answer to it. Will follow this thread with interest.

Mental capacity exhausted by posting this, about to stagger off to bed!

Custardo - "athiests and agnostics just sit back and watch the christians fight it out"

That is my quote of the day - that if you dont mind I shall plagurise next time I want to ask a question about faith

oooh it moved on a bit - wonder where the rev is?

i ultimatley believe as DutchOma said - that i trust god to do the right thing.

Ultimatley i do not believe that the bible is the word of god written through man - but the origins, the editing and the different versions are arguments we have had before - not what i want to do now.

i can't wrap my head around an all knowing omnipotent being - leaving out the good people becuase of their lack of faith on this earth.

do i want to be in the light of a being who doesn't accept my husband or my sons (baptised catholic self proclaimed agnostic and buddhist!)

But in the end it's not about what we want, or what we believe.

It's about the truth.

It must be possible to seek the truth, to pray to God and to know Him as a living Being and understand what He says about things.

It seems inconsistent that there's such a diversity of religious opinion. Where it conflicts, someone must have the wrong end of the stick!

If Jesus claims to be The Truth then it's quite a challenge to disprove that.

"do i want to be in the light of a being who doesn't accept my husband or my sons (baptised catholic self proclaimed agnostic and buddhist!)"

Well, personally I want to be in the light of the Truth, and accept the truth on God's terms.

When I die and meet God, (as I believe we all will), I want to make sure I've known the real Diety while on earth, (and not believed in something inaccurate).

Oherwise I might be in for a rude awakening!!!

In the end Custardo, you are only responsible for your own behaviour. So:- you love God, you love everybody else in the full conviction that God loves your husband and your sons more than you can ever do.
They are responsible for their own faith and actions, even God will let them get on with working it out for themselves.

sylvia - yes i think we are kind of agreeing - in the end i have to trust God - i do - i don't think God would exclude good people despite their faith.

DutchOma - oh yes agree - nothing i can do about it - free will and all that.

And don't torture yourself Custardo with thoughts of:- if they don't believe they will go to hell. Just do the best you can in loving them and praying for them and leave the rest to God, who can do 'immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine Eph.3:20'

oh i absolutely don't

but i hate being told that the kids won't go to heaven and wonder who would want to believe in a god who judges in such a way.

it's not the god i believe in.

Whenever anyone says something about someone going to heaven or hell, remember that it's not their place to make such a judgement. If there are such states as heaven and hell then only God will understand what they mean and how they will relate to us as individuals.

All we can do is love God and those around us to the best of our abilities, trying to make this life as close to heaven and as far from hell as we can. All the rest is in God's hands. And I'm happy with it that way!

If God is Everywhere and in Everything, then does that not contradict Jesus saying you can only get to the Father through him??

I experience that there is:
the left hand of God
and the right hand of God

therefore Jesus is not in the middle, God is. Two polar energies in the middle balance.

Jesus was a conduit, a channel for accessing God through Baptism rituals and so on. We all are conduits and Beings God radiates and works through.

I am the Way, the Truth and the Light. Readings I have explored about that statement have implied that you could look at as:

(I) Papillon am the Way, the Truth (walking and standing in my personal Truth) and the Light (gotta shine your own beacon) , no one comes to the Father except through Me. Me, myself, I have to walk my personal Truth to access God walking coming through me.

It aint so cut and dried that if you have not accepted Jesus or never heard of him that you get flushed down the reject pipe. God is not a clique type of thing.

yea I know I aint Christian, God encouraged me to post alright

I don't think that is orthodox thinking, papillon. It sounds more pagan or new age to me.

Its not how I think of God, it is how I 'feel' God working through me on a daily basis. Seems to be similar to how Jesus felt God work through him.

I am neither Pagan nor New Age

Do you think that is what the scripture means? I am confused.

Papillon, never thought of that before. Doesn't make total sense to me but thanks for the ideas...

...anyone, did anything I wrote before make any sense? Reactions/comments would help my wee seeking brain.

Sorry if my post was too long or philosophy-speaky or weird

Custardo, I was brought up Catholic and my dh Protestant, there's folk who told him he'd have to convert (sic!) or go to hell and then wouldn't he miss me? So with you on the family members thing.

Is there a cake icon?

The way I understand it is that those folk who haven't been taught about Jesus will meet him on his return and if they recignise him as their saviour then they will go to Heaven and be with God for eternity.
I think the 'shed scene' in C S Lewis' "Last Battle" explains this theory really well

I think you have to look at the verses preceeding John 14:6.

Thomas was asking the way, and Jesus said that he was the way.

Jesus is God the son, so when he was walking on earth, the people that encountered him were looking at God incarnate. There was no reason to find another path to God because he was standing there right in front of them.

Because of the trinitarian view of the godhead, you don't just get God. If you have a relationship with God, then you automatically have one with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You can't separate the Trinity and pick and choose which part you have relationship with.

When Jesus was speaking in this gospel passage, Thomas didn't yet understand that he was God the Son. Jesus was spelling it out to him.

What does it mean for us? It means when we turn to Christ, we get the fullness of the trinity.

What happens if you have never heard of Christ? I have no idea, but God is loving, merciful and just, so we just have to trust him. We have been told to 'tell others' so should be obedient to commandment.

We cannot make God suit us and write our own version of the truth. We conform to his truth, which is the only truth.

Not having been raised a Christian, I am always utterly baffled by the notion that the ONLY way to God is through Jesus. Why would this be so? Like Papillon, I feel that there is 'that of God in all of us' ( can you tell I am a Quaker attender ) - whatever the path we have chosen to Faith. Nothing puts me off conventional Christianity more than the notion that somehow Christians have an exclusive relationship with God, and are the only holders of The Truth on this matter. I am not trying to be confrontational, I am very interested in Christianity, especially contemplative mysticism. But I do get genuinely bewildered by this aspect of it!

Hmmm - I am definitely not an atheist but neither am I a Christian - but I think I can hopefully still contribute something? As a philologist, I really want to say to people that we shouldn't forget in all this that many of the phrases that are commonly attributed to Jesus were transcribed from memory many years after his death, then subjected to translation through several languages over many more years. The chances of the phrases being accurate are not great, even if what he said struck his followers as being revolutionary and memory worthy.

So in a way it's rather odd to be fighting over the exact meaning of something when it may well be someone else's interpretation of what was said, or even a mistranslation.

FWIW I think it's a good idea to take a step back from the nitty gritty of the words and look at the bigger picture. If the life of Jesus gave us anything it gave us the central images of him on the cross and then the empty tomb.

Symbolically this means not only the general social/religious thing of self sacrifice for others (loving your neighbour as he is the same as you) and the transforming nature of love giving us a "new life", but it also refers to the work which each individual must do of mastering the selfish ego (the commanding self referred to in Sufism) in order to reawaken the divinity which is within each of us.

I'm not a Christian, because I don't believe that Jesus was the son of god any more than you or I - I think god is a lot more complex than that, it just doesn't work like that does it, really? Many religions have this golden thread running through them where the mystical branches of each one seem to actually be realising the same ultimate truth, somewhere beyond words, beyond geographical, historical and cultural influences.

I think this is what Jesus meant by the comment of none shall enter heaven except through me - heaven, god, is within, underneath the layers of personality and self there is the spark of connecting divinity within all of us. What we need to do is learn how to commune with that.

And actually, I think you can maybe do that as an agnostic or even as a humanist. I don't think "belief" is actually necessary.

Personally I think think the idea of the trinity has to do with the evolution of our understanding of (what we know as and call) god.

First of all when we were dressed in rabbit skins we thought god the father was out there, commanding us.

Then we could grasp the concept of god incarnate (the son).

But the holy spirit is a little more difficult to grasp and often isn't dwelt upon, but I think it means "god within us".

And the reason why it is a trinity is because they are all essentially the same thing just viewed from different perspectives, mirroring not only our "religious" evolution in historical terms, but the personal evolution that hopefully happens to us within our own lifetimes.

The reason why I can't be a Christian is because this evolution within our lifetimes obviously happens to Jews, Muslims, Hindus etc as well, so that's why I have to see the concepts and scriptures as basically stories-as-a-means-to-understanding that amount to the same thing but dressed in different clothes.

I realise that followers of those religions would disagree with me on those points, but that is what it looks like to me as an outside observer who is spiritually but not religiously inclined.

slimcognito - had i been more intelligent, articulate, and been able to get away from 'quality time with my children' i like to think i could have written your post
have been tucked up on the sofa this afternoon reading 'a history of god' by karen armstrong so i am learning about the evolution of religion - fascinating. thanks for posting, in particular for your take on the trinity - another area of utter incomprehension to me in the past, i am slowly coming to grips with what it might mean at the moment

Another way to represent and sense Trinity is that the three aspects are:

• The Left Hand of God (Holy Ghost)
• God (Father)
• The Right Hand of God (Son)

The Chinese call it Ying Yang, the Maori call it Hauora - there are many parallels amongst religions/spiritual paths, each their own form of Truth as personal.

When I read about Jesus, I see myself. Its a reflection of how I come to God through Me.

God's truth is the one and only truth. You can't make your own version to suit what is comfortable to you.

That is everything that is wrong with religion.

We have to conform to God's ways, not the opposite.

Slim,
The Holy Spirit is not 'god within us'. The HS is the 'paraclete', which means he comes alongside us, as a companion.

The notion of everything becoming divine is not orthodox christianity.