Salvation Through Christ Alone “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” -John 14:6 (NIV) Jesus spoke these words to his disciples in the precious hours before he was arrested and eventually crucified. Though the disciples didn’t understand it at the time, Jesus was giving them his last words before making the ultimate sacrifice. The message he gave them was profound, and it had far-reaching implications, but his statement in John 14 was perhaps the most important and all-encompassing: I am the sole pathway to a relationship with God the Father. A sometimes controversial and potentially disquieting truth about life is that humans have the disposition to sin and naturally at odds with God. Ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, humans have been born into a sinful state that fundamentally has severed their relationship with the Father. This existence has, among other things, robbed each individual of the purpose and meaning that a relationship with God imbues in a person’s life. When Jesus told the disciples that “no one comes to the Father except through me,” he was giving them the cure for that which ails all people: the tendency to float adrift and listless in a life devoid of true purpose. Salvation, then, is essentially reconciliation with God and restoration of that relationship which is so central to a full and meaningful life. The words Jesus shared with his disciples on that fateful night 2000 years ago are as relevant today as they were then. Only through Jesus Christ can a person find salvation and truly begin to know God. The good news is that salvation is available to all who come to Christ. No complicated spiritual maneuvers or rituals are necessary; the first step is simply to believe. “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” -Romans (NIV)
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After belief and the recognition of one’s sin, God will compel the new believer to repent and realign his or her thoughts and actions with the components of a Godly life; prayer, fasting, and other spiritual practices will replace the destructive and sinful habits of the past. Moreover, Jesus promised to leave the Holy Spirit to indwell and guide believers – the ultimate communion with God. This free gift of salvation is not experienced in a vacuum, however. In John 17:20-21, later in that same evening, Jesus prays for future disciples: “I pray also for those who will believe in me…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” The search for purpose doesn’t end with acceptance of Jesus; it continues on as believers come together to explore their faith. The disciples were confused as Jesus shared these important truths so many years ago. They would very soon discover the significance of his words, and then they would go on to do great works in his name for years to come. They found out what it means to be living in the power of the Spirit, and they continued to spread the truth about Jesus Christ as the only avenue to the life with the Father humans were created to experience. About: Tell Them That I Love Them is the story of one man’s miraculous personal encounter with Jesus Christ and the message he was called to share with the world. John DiBattista, the author, recounts his life up to and after being blessed with Jesus’ life-giving words. His life story became a living testimony to the fact that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and a life of purpose and direction that everyone longs to have.