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Pastor Joel Osteen was a guest on the ABC daytime talk show, The View. While seated at the table with the ladies of The View, Barbara Walters asked Pastor Osteen whether or not he believes the only way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ. Pastor Osteen answered yes. However, in the cross-talk following his answer, there was no opportunity for him to state why this is so.
Why is Jesus the ONLY way to Heaven? The answer lies in Genesis chapters 2 and 3.
"Then the Lord God commanded the man saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Genesis 2:15-17.
"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate." Genesis 3:6.
When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, an offense was committed against God. (Romans 5:12, 15, 17-19) Offenses are also common to the human experience. As human beings, we can all understand what it is like to become offended. If someone is wronged, only the person who has been wronged can say what it will take to make things right again. No other human being can speak for the person who was wronged concerning how to rectify the offense, because the other human being is not the offended party.
Since in the case of the Garden of Eden, God was the offended party, only He can say what it will take to make things right with Him. He did say so. He said it would take Jesus.
"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10.
The word propitiation used in 1 John 4:10 means "what it takes to make things right". God decided to rectify the offense committed against Him ONLY through the sacrifice of His own Son. Since God was the offended party, it was His call.
Now that God has made His decision of what He will and will not accept as propitiation for the offence committed against Himself, each individual has the opportunity to accept or reject God's chosen propitiation. Persons who accept God's chosen propitiation on their behalf, receive the benefits of a rectified relationship with Him. Those benefits include but are not limited to going to Heaven. Persons who reject God's chosen propitiation are stuck with the offense and the consequences of that offense because they have nothing with which to make things right with God.
The really sad part is that if a person dies and goes to Hell and suffers the torments of Hell for ten thousand years, after those ten thousand years have expired, that person still has nothing with which to make things right with God. Their own personal suffering is still not acceptable to God as a propitiation for the offense committed against Him. Their suffering was just a waste.
That is why Christians make a concerted effort to tell other people about Jesus in the hope that those people will accept Him as Savior and Lord. In this age of political correctness and religious pluralism, there are still Christians who boldly proclaim "Jesus is the ONLY way to God!" in order to turn people from a destiny of eternal waste. Regardless of how one perceives the efforts of such Christians, their actions stem from the agape love of God. This love, however eloquently or crudely manifested, seeks to help others avoid a fate from which there is no return.
Jesus IS the ONLY way to God. Won't you accept Him today?
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