“Is Jesus the Way to Salvation?” Psalm 121, John 3:1-17 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” By the Reverend. Joanna Adams Morningside Presbyterian Church Atlanta, Georgia February 20, 2005

“Is Jesus the Way to Salvation?”
Psalm 121, John 3:1-17
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but may have eternal life.”
By the Reverend. Joanna Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, Georgia
February 20, 2005
Today we continue the Lenten series of sermons we began last Sunday, a series designed to
address some of the more perplexing problems of faith and life. Each of these five questions
arises from the assigned Biblical passage for the day. Last Sunday, we wrestled with what to do
about the devil. Next Sunday, we will inquire as to the whereabouts of God when terrible things
happen. This morning’s question, Is Jesus the way to salvation? arises from an encounter
between a religious leader named Nicodemus and a first century rabbi named Jesus.
In today’s religiously pluralistic world in which 70% of the world’s population is not Christian,
this is an important question – Is Jesus the way to salvation? It is an important question in our
religiously diverse nation, where one’s neighbor is almost as likely to be a Buddhist as a Baptist.
Even within the Christian communion, there is great debate about whether or not the Christian
way is the only way to salvation.
The research arm of our denomination, the Presbyterian Panel, has reported that one third of the
members of the Presbyterian Church USA agree with this statement, “All different religions are
equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth.” Four out of ten disagree with that
statement, and the remainder are unsure. I tried to do the math in my head and I just couldn’t
follow it. Maybe you can.
Let us just say that the debate goes on, though it is worth noting that the first question persons
who join the Presbyterian Church or present children for baptism are asked has to do with
professing faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Is Jesus the way to salvation? This question sometimes arises in families. Whether or not a
person is saved can be a matter of quite intense conversation at the time of death, particularly in
southern families or evangelically-oriented families.(1) Wives worry about whether their
husbands are going to make it to heaven or not and vice versa.
Some preachers have been known to use the occasion of a funeral to warn the mourners that
those present had better be born again or spend eternity being sorry. A particularly troubling
example of that for Al and me took place several years ago in a memorial service for a long-time
friend. The preacher emphasized again and again that in order to be saved; one had to be born
again. At least half those in attendance at the memorial service were Jewish. Does it really
2
honor and serve the gracious purposes of Jesus Christ for people of other faiths to be
disrespected? I don’t think so, not ever.
Is Jesus the way? And are those who do not confess him as Lord to be considered unsaved? One
way to answer that question is to use the Biblical proof-text method. A proof-texter might turn
to the fourth chapter of the Book of Acts to make the case: “There is salvation in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (Acts
4:12) The proof-texter might turn to the fourteenth chapter of the gospel of John’s gospel: “I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me,” or the third
chapter of John: “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again,”…those who
do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only of
God.”
Now if you want to make the counter argument but still play the proof-text game, there is plenty
of ammunition for you too: 1 Timothy 2 speaks of God our savior who desires that everyone be
saved and come to the knowledge of truth. There is 2 Peter: “God does not wish that anyone
perish but that everyone come to repentance.”
Whatever “side” you are on, the problem with this methodology is that it begins with a
presupposition and then plucks passages from scripture to support that presupposition. I think
that is an inherently intellectually flawed approach. I want to suggest that we do something
different today, that we listen to the passage, that we listen as Nicodemus struggles to understand
Jesus and his message of salvation, rather than imposing our prior assumptions about Jesus and
his message of salvation on the passage that we have read.
New Testament scholar Gail O’Day wisely recommends that we not approach the passage in the
same way Nicodemus approached Jesus, which was as if he already knew the answer. (2)
Nicodemus was a slogan man. He had pronouncements to make. “Jesus, you are a teacher who
comes from God. I am clear about that, and I know you couldn’t do what you have been doing if
you did not come from God. I am here for you to talk to me just a little bit so that I can figure
you out.” But Jesus had come with the purpose of inaugurating the kingdom of God, and he
wasn’t in the least interested whether or not Nicodemus could get a perfect 1600 score on the
Salvation SAT.
He wanted Nicodemus to understand “redemptive transformation,” which is what Jesus was all
about. (3) He wanted him to understand and be open to receiving the new life that he had come
to offer, and so he said to Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you no one can see the kingdom without
being born from above.” The Greek word can be translated either way -” born again” or “born
from above”. “From above” indicates that God’s action, rather than a human choice, is the
operative power in the matter of salvation.
Nicodemus was as puzzled as I am sure you are at this moment. How can anybody be born from
above, born anew, or however you want to translate it after one has grown old? He couldn’t
figure out the concept. How do you reenter your mother’s womb? He heard Jesus on a literal
level, but you miss the meaning if you stay with literalism. Jesus pressed on, “Very truly, I tell
you, you can not enter the kingdom without being born of water and the Spirit. You must be
3
born from above.” Entrance into this new order is not something that Nicodemus has to gain or
even can gain. It is what God intends to give. For us, entrance into the new order is made visible
for us in the sacrament of baptism.
Jesus appealed to Nicodemus’ religious memory as he continued the conversation, trying to get
Nicodemus to let go of his own assumptions. He said, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so must the son of Man be lifted up.” The Greek word means both ”to lift up”
and “to exalt”. Here is the paradox: Jesus is going to be exalted by being lifted up to the place
of crucifixion and death.
Then finally, Jesus says, “Come on Nicodemus. Come with me into the heart of the greatest of
all mysteries, the love of God.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
may not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, God sent the Son into the world not to
condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)
John 3:16 - For some people, it is the most prominent gate-keeping scripture there is. You want
to know who’s in and who’s out in this matter of salvation? Just read John 3:16. It is like the
arm in the parking lot – it goes down, it goes up. You don’t believe – you are out. You do, you
are in. But what if Jesus meant something quite different? After all, he was not speaking to
someone who was outside the realm of acceptability. He was talking to a leader at the
synagogue, someone who was there every time the doors were open. Consider that John 3:16
might be directed specifically toward insiders who had difficulty accepting the freedom of God
to love whomever God chooses.
I am not saying that what you and I believe about Jesus Christ is unimportant. I believe it makes
all the difference in the world. I believe that Jesus Christ is the unique Savior of the world. I
have bet my life and dedicated my ministry to that. It is in his beautiful story of hope and
salvation that I find the deepest meaning of existence. But I also believe that what God decided
about the world in Jesus Christ is more important than what you and I decide about Jesus Christ.
It is what God does that is the efficacious force finally in the matter of salvation. If you were to
ask me, “Have you been saved? Have you been born again? Have you been ushered into that
transformed life made possible in Jesus Christ?”
I would say, “Indeed I have, and I can tell you exactly when it happened for me. It was when
Jesus Christ died on the hill called Calvary, outside of Jerusalem. I was baptized into that
salvation when I rode on my father’s arm down the aisle of a church to be baptized when I was a
baby girl.” Redemptive transformation that is what Jesus was about, and those who accept that
transformed life are the ones who inherit eternal life.
Let me say this. Eternal life does not mean immortality after we die, as if the whole point of the
Christian faith and the Christian church is what happens to us in heaven. Eternal life is life that
is entirely possible to live in the here and now in the unending presence of God. Jesus’ gift of
his own life through being lifted up on the cross makes eternal life possible on this earth.
4
There is no question that in the third chapter of John, this new life is linked with belief in Jesus
as Lord. There is no question that from the beginning, the one confession that has unified the
Christian church throughout the ages has been this one – “Jesus is Lord.” (4) Christians are those
who believe that God was made known through God’s own self disclosure in Jesus Christ, the
one who is the way, the truth, and the life. This is the good news that we have to share and that
we are commissioned to share with all the world. But belief in the lordship of Christ is no reason
to believe that Christian believers are any better, more admirable or more loved by God than
anyone else. What is it the Book of Ephesians says? “By grace you have been saved through
faith, and it is not your doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
When we speak of God’s grace, we would do well to remember that you and I can never restrict
divine grace. We cannot restrict God’s grace to those who profess faith in Christ. Neither can
we assume that all people are saved regardless of faith. All of these matters are in God’s capable
hands and are not for us to determine. (5) Whew! It is not our job to be God. It is God’s job to
be God, and therefore we can joyfully proclaim by how we live and what we say, what we
believe Christ was and is up to in the world, freeing people from oppression and self-hatred,
freeing people even from death. (6) This is the fullness of life to which Jesus bore witness.
Here are the two things that must be held together: the freedom of God to be God and to act in
whatever way God’s sovereign will chooses and the glad belief that God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself. What a witness the church could make if we trusted God with
the matter of salvation, and we got on with the business of loving our neighbor and living out the
story of God’s love in Jesus Christ. What a witness we could make if we stopped seeing
salvation as a ticket to heaven and started seeing it as a way of living in the here and now.
One recalls the sobering words of Jonathan Swift in the 18th century. “We have just enough
religion to make us hate. But not enough to make us love one another.” What if we became
completely dedicated to Jesus Christ, not in the sense of beating up other people with the gospel
or feeling superior to them because we have it and they don’t, but loving as Christ loved? It is so
interesting to note that the longest passage in the whole New Testament on this whole matter of
salvation is found in the 25th chapter of Matthew. Do you know that passage? There the litmus
test is not an assent to any kind of belief. (7) The Lord Jesus Christ sits on a throne and all the
nations of the earth come before him, and he separates all the people from one another as a
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep will be on his right hand and the goats
will be on his left, and he will say to those on his right, “Come those of you who are blessed by
the father, inherit the kingdom that has been yours from the foundation of the earth.”
What will be the basis of the judgment? “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and
you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, I was the outsider, and you welcomed me. The kingdom
is for you.”
Salvation is not a state of being. It is a way of being, living and acting, of being opened up in a
way you have never been opened up before. It is leaning into the life- giving wind of God’s
Holy Spirit. The great Scottish missionary, Leslie Newbigin, once said, The question for
Christians is not how can I be saved? There is only one question that matters: How can God be
gloried?” (8)
5
Oh, Nicodemus, we thank you for taking us into the heart of salvation today. We are so glad for
you, Nicodemus, that you stepped right into the middle of salvation when you went to Jesus long
ago with your own questions about life and faith. We know you got it because of what happened
in the end.
Friends, in Christ, do you know who went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body after he had died
on the cross? It was Joseph of Arimathea and another man whose name was Nicodemus. The
two of them took the body and wrapped it in spices and in linen cloths and laid it in a tomb.
Think of all the people whose lives have been touched by Jesus, all whom he had healed, all to
whom he had spoken the good news. Of them all, one of the two who were granted the privilege
of preparing his body for burial was Nicodemus, whose own life had emerged like a butterfly
from its cocoon after Jesus turned his mind inside out one night and opened his eyes to see that
right then, in him, God was reaching down to embrace the world in love.
(1) Dr. Malcolm Brownlee, “Is There Saving Grace for Those Who do not Profess faith in Jesus
Christ?” Theology and Worship, PC(USA)
(2 Dr. Gail O’Day, The Word Disclosed, CPB Press, 1987.
(3) An expression used by Dr. Ed Farley, professor of Theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School
(4) “Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ,” The 214th General Assembly (2002) of the Presbyterian
Church (USA)
(5) Ibid.
(6) A Declaration of Faith, PCUS
(7) Samuel Adams, “The Christian Encounter with Religious Plurality: A Reformed
Perspective,” The University of Chicago Divinity School, 1999.
(8) Ibid.