To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude 24-25, NIV)
The Bible’s full of doxologies (statements of praise), but the last two verses in Jude are my favorite. There is so much there to discuss, but what strikes me today is that phrase “to the only God”…
Can we really say there is only one God? Is Jesus the only way to get to God? “In today’s multi-cultural, pluralistic world…only one God? That’s pretty (fill in the blank: arrogant, offensive, insensitive, politically incorrect, hateful, bigoted…)!”
Despite current sentiment, this is a consistent theme in the OT – where the prophets made fun of carved, dumb idols – and the NT where Paul associates other religions with demons. So we have very solid theological ground to stand on when making our claims about Jesus.
The challenge is saying it in this culture…that’s where it gets tricky.
So this is our topic for this week’s sermon in our series “Perspective.” Is Jesus the only way to God? Dare we say such a thing?
I hope you’ll join us as we answer these and other questions to help the church navigate in these challenging times.
