Creator, Father, King #222

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

HERE’S AN EYE-POPPING statistic: In 2020, the world’s estimated population was 7.8 billion.

That’s a lot of people.

With that many people comes a glut of different religions. There are the “Big Five”—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism—that most people (almost 5.8 billion) identify with and a multitude of smaller ones. Some experts estimate there are more than four thousand different religions in the world. Another 1.2 billion people classify themselves as “nonreligious.” This group includes atheists (those who don’t believe in God or the afterlife) and agnostics (those who say they don’t know or care if there’s a God). The world is a huge melting pot of religious beliefs.

So . . . which is correct? Can one be right while the others are wrong? Or can many religious paths lead to the same eternal happiness?

Jesus answered that in today’s verse and John 14:6 (see yesterday’s devotion). No one, he said, can experience eternal life with God apart from him.

What’s It Mean?

Wow.

In a world overflowing with religious ideas, that’s an incredibly bold, polarizing statement. In essence, Jesus declared in John 3:36 and 14:6 that true Christianity—the gospel of Jesus Christ, as declared in the Bible—is true and all other religions are false.

Most people don’t like to be told their ideas about religion, morality, and eternity are wrong. Billions of people around the world are committed, to some degree, to specific religious beliefs. Many others take a more relaxed approach, believing that “all roads lead to heaven,” as long as you are ethical and remain relatively committed to your cause.

But this is absurd—logically impossible. For instance, Islam and Judaism reject the doctrines of the Trinity and Christ’s deity. Hindus believe in many gods and reincarnation. Buddhists strive to reach enlightenment (a.k.a., “nirvana”) through human effort.

All these beliefs directly violate core tenets of Christianity found in God’s Word. How can all these viewpoints be correct and lead everyone—somehow, some way—into a righteous standing before God in heaven? The answer: they can’t! Would the same God who sent his Son to die to redeem sinners (John 3:16) also accept many other conflicting salvation plans? Absolutely not!

There is only one way to heaven: through the righteousness provided through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!

Now What?

Check out tomorrow’s devotion to learn how we can be assured that Christianity is the only true faith.

Did You Know?

First John 4:1-6 provides insight in helping us discern truthful spiritual beliefs from error.