Chapter 2
The Open Door Is the Only Door
R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Back in 2006 when we first came together for Together for the Gospel, we adopted a set of affirmations and denials. We started that statement by saying:
We are brothers in Christ united in one great cause—to stand together for the Gospel. We are convinced that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been misrepresented, misunderstood, and marginalized in many Churches and among many who claim the name of Christ. Compromise of the Gospel has led to the preaching of false gospels, the seduction of many minds and movements, and the weakening of the Church’s Gospel witness. As in previous moments of theological and spiritual crisis in the Church, we believe that the answer to this confusion and compromise lies in a comprehensive recovery and reaffirmation of the Gospel—and in Christians banding together in Gospel Churches that display God’s glory in this fallen world.
Articles IX and X in that statement are particularly important as we think about the character of the gospel and the exclusivity of the claims of Christ. Article IX says,
We affirm that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s means of bringing salvation to His people, that sinners are commanded to believe the Gospel, and that the Church is commissioned to preach and teach the Gospel to all nations. We deny that evangelism can be reduced to any program, technique, or marketing approach. We further deny that salvation can be separated from repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Article X goes on:
We affirm that salvation comes to those who truly believe and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We deny that there is salvation in any other name, or that saving faith can take any form other than conscious belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and His saving acts.
We come together at the Together for the Gospel conference every other year to celebrate and declare that we are unashamed of the gospel. We come together to point to Christ as the door of salvation and to pray, with the apostle Paul, for an open door for the proclamation of the gospel. We also confess together that the open door is the only door. There is no other door that leads to salvation. There is no other name by which we must be saved. One door, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
Several factors have made the message of the exclusivity of Christ largely unpalatable in our day.
Cultural Shift to Post-Christianity
The first is the shift to a cultural condition of post-Christianity. This, of course, doesn’t mean that Christianity has disappeared. It means that Christianity, as a worldview, no longer sets the agenda for society at large. It also means that the people we meet in the community—our next-door neighbors and the parents who sit next to us at Little League games—will have a worldview that is radically different from our own.
In this cultural condition of post-Christianity, religion is increasingly seen as a mere human construct. Exclusive claims are touted as hopelessly naive, imperialistic, divisive, and dangerous. The exclusive claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ are now more shockingly out of step with our society than ever before. Today, it is not only considered bad theology, but also bad etiquette to show up believing that Jesus is the only Savior.
Generational Shift that Prizes “Etiquette”
The second issue is a generational shift that has taken place within Evangelicalism. In 1986, James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia published a book entitled Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation. The generation Hunter was writing about back in 1986 is obviously no longer the coming generation. But back when it was the coming generation, Hunter pointed out that the one theological issue that was experiencing the greatest revision was the exclusivity of the gospel. Even among young evangelicals in the mid-1980s, Hunter argued that the exclusivity of the gospel presented the greatest apologetic challenge. That was almost thirty years ago.
Now we are living in a generation of young evangelicals who have been largely raised within the post-Christian intellectual condition of relativism and who have been trained in a social and cultural etiquette that doesn’t allow exclusive claims because they are considered rude. Christian Smith, looking at the generation we now know as “millennials,” suggested that the religion that they actually hold is “moralistic therapeutic deism.” And if you hold to a moralistic therapeutic deism, it is quite obvious you’re not going to hold to the exclusivity of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In this generation, the exclusivity of the gospel is now one of the most glaringly peer-offending convictions imaginable. Just consider a young male college student from an evangelical family arriving at a major college or university campus in America. That young man and many other young men move into the dorm. One of the fellow students he meets is a Hindu freshman from India. Their conversations with one another will eventually reveal their worldviews, and their religious commitments will surface. Eventually the young man from India looks at the young evangelical and says, “Are you really telling me that my parents and all my ancestors are going to hell?” You can understand why, in that kind of cultural environment, those who call themselves evangelicals try to find a way out of the “problem” of the exclusivity of Christ.
Influence of Protestant Liberalism
A third issue is the influence of a century of Protestant Liberalism. Protestant Liberalism as far back as the late nineteenth century was, in part, a response to the problem of theological particularity. Protestant liberals sought a way out of the exclusive-truth claims of Christianity. One of the ways out was to assert that religion was simply a human construct—a human attempt to make a connection with the divine. This, of course, makes it impossible to suggest that any one religion is superior to another.
Protestant liberals felt a sense of urgency to affirm this notion because they abandoned the authority of Scripture, redefined the doctrinal character of Christianity, and transformed the gospel as it is found in the Scripture into a message of social action and personal empowerment. As they did these things, they simultaneously realized that the scandal of particularity could be eventually avoided if you simply suggested that all religions eventually led to the divine.
In liberal Protestant denominations, various forms of universalism and inclusivism have reigned for most of the last century. In the end, liberal Protestantism has settled on the notion that every belief system points to the same human quest for the divine. This led to the development of a self-declared moratorium on missions. Obviously, if you no longer believe faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, and if you no longer believe that salvation comes only to those who come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, then missions is seen as an imperialistic embarrassment. That’s why Protestant liberals have basically retreated from the world for the better part of the century. In their understanding, missions are imperialism, racism, and theological hegemony.
Among the mainline Protestant denominations, universalism and inclusivism are now so settled they’re no longer even controversial. There is almost a stunned surprise in those circles that anyone might still hold to the exclusivity of the gospel.
But we believe otherwise. We believe, teach, and confess that Jesus is the Savior of the world, the only Savior, the one mediator between God and sinful humanity, the sole mediator of a new and better covenant enacted on new and better promises.
One of the most controversial words you can use in any kind of setting where truth is at stake in our contemporary context is the word “one.” Monotheism is really the root issue. Political philosophers increasingly suggest that the first original sin of politics and how human beings relate to one another is monotheism.
For example, Stuart Hampshire, who taught in the Ivy Leagues for many years, said that monotheism is the root evil that leads to all violence. Gore Vidal, the late novelist, said that it is the worshipers of the monotheistic sky guy with his omnis—omnipotence, omniscience, and so on—that led to the oppression and tyranny. If we could just rid the world of monotheism, some say, we could rid the world of all its great conflicts. In our culture, when you say one God—before you even get to one gospel—you’re in trouble.
The only culturally acceptable way to hold to one God is to concede that the religions of the world are all feeble and frail human attempts to define the divine—every religion doing as best as it can. In other words, every religious system just reflects human beings’ limited and ethnically determined conceptualities on their innate religious quest.
But the Christian gospel is not mere monotheism; it is a mono-redemptive message. We believe not merely that there is salvation in the name of Christ, but that there is salvation in no other name.
The Testimony of Scripture
So it should be no surprise that Jesus himself tells us about this single saving name. In the gospel of John, he says to his disciples:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:1–7)
John 14 is a conclusive word on the matter. Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. But lest there be any misunderstanding, Jesus follows that sequence with a negative assertion—“no one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus affirms and he denies. There is no way out of this text other than denying the truthfulness or authority of the text—and there are those who will do both. But we can do neither.
Jesus is preparing his disciples for his absence. He is preparing them with a promise of eternal habitation with him. And when they are with him, they will know safety, security, peace, fellowship, communion, mercy, and redemption. They will know salvation. To know Jesus is to know the way, the truth, and the life. Further, John 14:1–7 has a Trinitarian context that we cannot miss. We are not only promised that we will be with Jesus, but that we will be with the Father. Jesus makes plain that no one comes to the Father except through him.
This is clear elsewhere in the New Testament, particularly in the sequence of “I am” statements throughout the gospel of John. Consider John 10:1–11:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
At no point anywhere in the Scripture do we find anything other than the definite article. Never a Savior, but the Savior, the Christ, the resurrection, the door, the good Shepherd. Whenever the context is God’s saving act in Christ, the definite article pertains.
Then of course, there is Acts 4:5–12:
On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
In fact these words echo what Peter had already said on the Day of Pentecost:
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. (Acts 2:29–41)
Peter makes clear that the promise of salvation is for all that God calls to himself. How does he call unto himself? Only through the Son. In other words, the open door is the only door. Christian exclusivism is often presented as an apologetic challenge, and it is an apologetic challenge because it requires the church’s faithful defense and explanation. But if we see it as a negative, hard, burdensome truth that we are forced by Christian duty to bear, we slander the gospel. We are those who must strive to celebrate the gospel in every dimension, even its exclusivity. The singularity of Christ is what saves us.
The Proposal and Problem of Universalism and Inclusivism
Let’s just imagine for a moment that the phenomenologists are right and that all religions are essentially culturally conditioned human constructs to get at the divine. Let’s assume we have no claim to privileged information and no access to revelation.
The first thing we would notice is that there is great diversity among religions. There is Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Baha’i, Sikhs, Aboriginal religions, ancient paganism, New Age spirituality, various religions of the self in the post-Christian West, Judaism, and Christianity. It’s a long catalog and we’ve just scratched the surface.
Many argue that the similarities far outweigh the differences. Most have holy books. All have religious teachers. All promise blessings to their adherents. Most require some obedience to a law or liturgy or lifestyle. But at that point the commonalities end. In their essences, each religion is radically different. They’re not even all theistic. Buddhism is not clearly theistic. Hinduism is clearly polytheistic. Those that are theistic to some degree are at odds over the character of God. Is God’s character good or evil, or some combination of the two? Are there both good and evil gods? Does God speak? In what form does he speak? Does he reveal himself in words, or in riddles and puzzles?
These various religions don’t share common ground on human origins. They do not share common ground on what it means to be human. They do not share common ground on the nature of the problem facing humanity. They disagree on the meaning of history, on what is required of humanity, on who can save us, and on the issue of where history is headed. In other words, you can only argue that these religions are virtually the same if you don’t actually know anything about them.
Liberal Protestantism says we should celebrate diversity and allow everyone to find his own way. They claim we should forfeit claims of Christian exclusivism—forgo conversions and missionary ambition. The liberal Protestant world is now settled into some form of consensus that includes universalism and inclusivism. Universalism simply says everyone will eventually be accepted, regardless of any disposition or morality or whether they hear any gospel and believe it. More common amongst most Christian denominations, even those marked by Protestant liberalism, is a form of inclusivism that claims that all these faith systems eventually represent the same thing, but that at the end of the day the decisive teacher will be discovered to have been Jesus Christ.
Now think with me for a moment about Roman Catholicism. Prior to Vatican II, what characterized the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was that which was defined by Cyprian in the early church: extra ecclesiam nulla salus—outside the church, there is no salvation. But Vatican II represented a massive theological transformation in Catholicism. In Vatican II, the church declared:
All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.
At many points and in several documents of Vatican II, the church officially stated a position of inclusivism, and not only that, but a radical inclusivism that said persons should actually be understood, no matter their religion, as being drawn into the saving work of Christ.
The most radical proponent of this was Pope John Paul II. In 1979, in his encyclical Redemptor Hominis, he wrote: “Man—every man without exception whatever—has been redeemed by Christ . . . because with man—with each man without any exception whatever—Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it.” The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches inclusivism as the means, and that means universalism as the end.
An advisor to Vatican II, a German theologian by the name of Karl Rahner, suggested that Christians should understand the adherents of other world religions as, “anonymous Christians.” He argued, “Christianity does not simply confront the member of an extra-Christian religion as a mere non-Christian, but as someone who can and must already be regarded in this or that respect as an anonymous Christian.” Likewise he argued, “The church will not so much regard herself today as the exclusive community of those who have a claim to salvation, but rather as the historically tangible vanguard and the historically and socially constituted explicit expression of what the Christian hopes is present as a hidden reality even outside the visible church.”9
It would be very convenient if this were true. This would relieve an awful lot of pressure on us because when we see an adherent of a non-Christian religion, we can simply rest in the knowledge that they are actually “anonymous Christians.” The freshman in the dorm with the Hindu roommate would find himself in a much less awkward situation if he could simply consider his new friend an “anonymous Christian.”
And of course if the world is made up of “anonymous Christians” then there really aren’t any unreached people groups! There are just people groups made up of people who are anonymous Christians. Our task is merely to go and declare to them that they are Christians, even though they do not know it yet.
There’s only one problem with this: the absolute absence of any anonymous Christian in the New Testament, and the clear teaching of Christ and of the apostles that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. The Scripture is very clear. If they do not hear, they will not believe, and if they do not believe, they will not be saved.
But it’s not just the Roman Catholic Church that has adopted universalism. Even some who have identified with Evangelicalism have adopted it. Consider Rob Bell’s book Love Wins or Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy. McLaren writes:
I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.10
All that stands between that statement and the truth is the New Testament. We need to recognize as we consider this question that the theological cost of surrendering the singularity of Christ is more massive than many may understand. John Hick, who was the leading proponent in the twentieth century of what he called “the non-absoluteness of Christianity,” said that Christianity, in order to adopt a posture of non-absoluteness, would have to give up the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the claim of incarnation, and substitutionary atonement. In other words, it would have to cease being Christianity.
Only Jesus Will Do
Frankly, all of these proposals work fine if we don’t need a Savior. But we do. And there is only one Savior, and salvation is in his name alone. He is the only Savior, the sole mediator, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the Resurrection, and the Redeemer. If all we need is a teacher of enlightenment, the Buddha will do. If all we need is a collection of gods for every occasion, Hinduism will do. If all we need is a tribal deity, any tribal deity will do. If all we need is a lawgiver, Moses will do. If all we need is a set of rules and a way of devotion, Mohammad or Joseph Smith will do. If all we need is inspiration and insight into the sovereign self, Oprah will do. But if we need a Savior, only Jesus will do.
That is why we are unashamed of the gospel. With the apostle Paul, we declare to all peoples everywhere that it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. That’s why we are not ashamed of the gospel. In it is the power of God unto salvation.
The open door is the only door—but the only door is an open door! We declare Christ as Savior and Lord, the one who died on the cross and was buried and was raised on the third day by the power of God. We declare salvation to all who call upon the name of the Lord, who hear the gospel and believe, and by believing are saved.
We declare Christ as the Savior of the world, eagerly preaching this gospel of salvation to the entire world, knowing that the Father is calling to himself men and women from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. This is not the burden we bear or the apologetic challenge that hinders us. This is the good news of salvation.
We need a Savior and, thankfully, Jesus is that savior. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life (see John 3:16). The open door is the only door, and the only door is an open door. There is salvation in this name and in no other name. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by him. He is the resurrection and the life. To come to him is to find that life. This is the gospel of which we are unashamed, and this is the gospel in which we stand together.