By: Tony Williams | February 25, 2022
One Good Reason to Believe in Jesus: One Way to God: Worthy of Worship
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
Introduction
In my last writings, I discussed an issue that tends to cause a lot of people to struggle or walk away from their faith. That is the idea that Jesus is the only way to know God and experience reconciliation with God. With statements attributed to Jesus Himself like, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6), and “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25), it should be clear that Jesus claims to be the only way to God.
Objection
There are certainly many ways to frame an objection to this idea, but below are three common ways to argue against Jesus being the only way to Heaven:
- Intellectual: Jesus was just a man. Who is he to make such a claim?
- Emotional: How could a good God not allow those who aren’t Christians to be punished?
- Volitional: I would never worship a God who would force His creation to worship Him.
Response
Let’s look at the third objection. So, you would never worship a god who would force you to worship him? What kind of god would you worship? Would you worship a god who gave you everything you ever wanted? Would you worship a god who gave everyone else everything they ever wanted? The problem with a god who gave you everything you ever wanted is all the other people who wanted something slightly different. The problem with the god who gives everyone everything they ever wanted is that everyone wants something slightly different. This would likely have horrible consequences. Maybe you’ve seen this attempted on social media?
How about the god who guaranteed that everything was fair, and everyone got what they deserved all the time? All we need to do to make that possible is to all agree on what is right and wrong, and then come up with exacting standards for punishment that correlate with the wrong done. Oh wait, we still can’t all agree on what’s right! Maybe the god you want to worship is you, seeing as you want to decide what is right and what is wrong and what is fair. The God of the Bible says he is the one who gets to decide since he made it all.
Analogy
You may recall the worm analogy in the last writings that describe worms (us) who tend to crawl on the concrete (sin) and get caught in the hot sun (judgment) after defying their inventor’s (God’s) repeated warnings not to crawl on the concrete (sin), but stay in the dirt (the creator’s will) where the worms can have life and have it abundantly.
This may sound repetitive, but I have to return once again to the creator in our worm analogy. He knows what we are made for, and he knows what causes us to become crusty remnants of once-living beings when we stray from our designed abode. You can be a worm who loves the concrete more than the creator, and you can be a worm who loves the sun more than the creator, and you can be a worm who just chooses not to like the creator because he created you to live in the dirt rather than whatever you felt like doing at that particular moment, but at the end you will only be a victim of your own choices. If the creator asks the worms only to remain in the dirt because the dirt is what they were designed for, does that make the creator evil? If the creator says that obeying will keep worms alive, does that make the creator evil? Also, if the God who created reality isn’t worth worshipping, what is?
Application
The apostle John is very clear about who Jesus was and is in his gospel (John 1). John said,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).
Jesus is revealed to be the designer and sustainer of all life that is summarized in the creation account of Genesis in a manner that continues to be more closely aligned with scientific discoveries of every passing discovery. If Jesus is the designer and provides us a way to keep ourselves from certain death by way of acting according to His design, how silly are we not to thank Him and obey Him and rightly worship Him with every fiber of our being, which we owe to Him and His good purpose anyway?
About the Author
Tony Williams is currently serving in his 20th year as a police officer in a city in Southern Illinois. He has been studying apologetics in his spare time for two decades, since a crisis of faith led him to the discovery of vast and ever-increasing evidence for his faith. Tony received a bachelor’s degree in University Studies from Southern Illinois University in 2019. His career in law enforcement has provided valuable insight into the concepts of truth, evidence, confession, testimony, cultural competency, morality, and most of all, the compelling need for Christ in the lives of the lost. Tony plans to pursue postgraduate studies in apologetics in the near future to sharpen his understanding of the various facets of Christian apologetics.
