ONLY AND ALWAYS
CHRIST: SOLA CHRISTUS
DR. JIM DIXON
JULY 8, 2012
JOHN 14:1-l0a
Barack Obama is the president of our United States. He has written a number of books. He has written “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams From My Father.” He has co-written “Of Thee I Sing” and “Change We Can Believe In.” I have read most of what Barack Obama has written. I have done this because of my own curiosity. I have done this because he is the president of our United States. I have done this because, as a pastor, I am often asked questions relating to Barack Obama, particularly questions relating to his faith.
One of the questions that is often asked of me is this: “Is Barack Obama a Muslim?” I have been asked that question many times. I think the answer is no. I certainly do not believe he is a Muslim. I know there are some conservative Christian websites that try to portray Barack Obama as a Muslim. Some of these conservative Christian websites quote statements Barack Obama made early in his presidency when he was traveling in the Middle East and seeking to build bridges to the Muslim world. I must say that many of those statements are pulled out of context in order to, I would say, falsely portray him as a Muslim.
You also see on some of these same websites that Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, is thrown out there as though that proves he is a Muslim. That does not reasonably follow. If you look at Judges 4-5, you will see that the general of the armies of Israel, a Jewish man from the tribe of Naphtali is named Barack. So, you could just as easily conclude that Obama is Jewish because of the name Barack. It seems to me—trying to be fair—as I read the books that Barack Obama has written, he is a self-professing Christian. He certainly claims to be a Christian. He states in his books that he came to a point where he asked Jesus to save him from his sins. He states in his books that he believes that Jesus died on the cross for his sins and that he has accepted Christ as his Savior and Lord. He has given that same testimony in a variety of venues, including at the National Prayer Breakfast.
But I also must say this: I believe Barack Obama is a pluralist. To try and be fair, he is a Christian pluralist. As a pluralist, Obama believes there are many paths to God. He states that he has chosen the path called Christianity and that Christ is his source of salvation. But, he believes there are other roads that lead to heaven, other paths that lead to salvation and eternal life. Barack Obama believes that Muslims may be saved by Islam and that Hindus and Buddhists may be saved through Hinduism and Buddhism. He would say that his way is Christ, but there are other ways, other roads, other paths to heaven. This makes him a pluralist.
Some of you have said to me, “Well, will a Christian pluralist go to heaven?” Let me just say, I am not the judge. I think we can all be grateful that I am not the judge. That is really not for me to say. My suspicion is that in heaven there will be Christian pluralists who truly have asked Jesus to save them from their sin. I am sure when we get to heaven there will be some surprises. But I want to make sure you understand that if you are a pluralist, you have left the realm of orthodoxy; you have left the historic Christian faith if you become a pluralist. If you are a pluralist, the Bible clearly is against pluralism. I want to make sure you understand that if you are a pluralist, you have chosen a belief system and a theological construct that is contrary to the teachings of the Bible.
The Reformation cry, “sola Christus,” is that Christ is the only means of salvation. This has to do with the area of theology called soteriology. What must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do to be saved? The Bible says, only through Christ. It is Christ, only and always. He is the sole means of salvation. This is the consistent teaching of the Bible.
In our passage of Scripture for today, Jesus said, “I am the way” [“Ego eimi he hodos.”] “I am the truth.” [“Ego eimi he aletheia.”] “I am the life.” [“Ego eimi he zoe.”] “I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” That is clear. In Acts 4:12, Peter is speaking to the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews in the city of Jerusalem. He is talking about the name of Jesus, and he makes this statement: “There is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we may be saved.” How clear is that? “There is salvation in no one else. There is no other name given amongst men whereby we may be saved.” This is the consistent teaching of Holy Scripture.
We are saying that salvation is through Christ. This doesn’t mean we judge the world. Christ judges the world. Jesus himself said, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, has put all judgment in the hands of the Son, that all might honor the Son in the same way that they honor the Father.” So, all judgment waits for Christ. We know from the Bible that those who accept Christ as Lord and Savior will be saved. We know from the Bible that those who reject Christ are lost. Some of you might say, “What about those who have never heard? What about those who have heard but never really understood the gospel?” That is in the hands of Christ because He died for the sin of the world. He will judge everybody. He is the judge. “Sola Christus,” Christ alone. He is the source of salvation.
You might say, “How do we know this?” Obviously, the Bible states it; but I want to give two teachings that relate to “sola Christus.” The first teaching is that only Jesus Christ has the power and authority to forgive sins. This is why we say “Christ alone.” Only Jesus has the authority and power to forgive sins. In Matthew 1, the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in Nazareth and says to him, “You shall call His name Yeshua. You shall call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” The name the angel of the Lord tells Joseph to give to his son has the meaning “savior.” “Yeshua,” He will save us from sin. This is the unique power of Christ. He will save us from our sins. In John 1:29, you see John the Baptist announcing Jesus to the multitudes, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Again, He has the power and the authority to forgive sins.
Sin was a matter of huge controversy in the ministry of Christ. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is found in Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5. It is the story of the paralytic. This is a story often told. It is set in Capernaum in the region of Galilee, the sea of Tiberius. There are these four guys, and they have a buddy who they are close to who is paralyzed. They love him, and they care about him. They hear that Jesus has come to town. They hear that Jesus is at His home. When it says “home,” it is probably referring to the home of Peter where Jesus stayed.
These four guys think, “Let’s take our friend to Jesus. If He is the Messiah, maybe He can heal him.” They bring their friend to the house where Jesus is, and they are disappointed and surprised because the place is packed. There is a whole crowd gathered around the house. They can’t reach the Christ. They can’t get to Him. Somehow they work their way around to where they can get up on the roof, and they bring their friend (who is on a stretcher) up on the roof with them. They create a hole in the roof. They drop their friend down on a stretcher into the room where Christ is. Christ marvels at their faith.
Jesus looks at this paralyzed man and says, “I say to you, your sins are forgiven you.” The scribes and the Pharisees there were enraged. They are totally offended. They say, “Why does this man speak like this? This is blasphemy. No one can forgive sins but God alone.” Jesus perceives their anger. He turns to them and says, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’ or ‘Arise, take up your bed, and walk?’ But in order that you might know that the Son of Man . . .” (Understand that the Son of Man is a Messianic title; we see it in the book of Daniel describing the Messiah at the consummation of history. This Messiah will come on the clouds of heaven to judge the nations and receive His people.) “In order that you might know that the Son of Man has authority and power on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, ‘Rise, take up your bed, and walk.’”
Everybody was stunned. The Bible says that they all said, “We have never seen anything like this.” Of course, the man rose, took up his bed, and walked. That’s unique authority; that’s unique power to forgive sins. Jesus has that power because He died for the sin of the world. He has that power, in a sense, retroactively; so, He could exercise that power even before He died. There was a sense in which that power could be applied because He is the Lamb of God and He would give His life for the sin of the world. For all time, He has authority to forgive sins. This is the power and uniqueness of the Son of God. Buddha never even claimed to have the authority to forgive sins. Muhammad never even claimed to have the authority to forgive sins. This is unique to Jesus Christ. “Sola Christus.”
All the religions of the world show a struggle with sin. You can look at Islam, and you see how the Muslim people struggle with sin. They seek to have some kind of a victory over sin through living in submission to Sharia Law and living in conformity to the Five Pillars—”shahadah,” “salat,” “zakat,” “sawm,” and “hajj.” They seek to make faithful confession, to practice ritualistic prayer five times a day, and to give sacrificially out of their net worth. Every year, they give sacrificially, not from their income, but from their net worth—this is “zakat.” Every year, they fast in the month of Ramadan. They make their pilgrimage to circle the Kaaba. This is all part of their effort, their striving to have some kind of a win when it comes to sin. They hope that at the final judgment, the angel that has a list of all their good deeds will have a longer list than the angel that has the list of their sins. They hope that somehow, through Sharia law, they can accomplish enough good to have some kind of relative victory over sin.
You look at Buddhism and Hinduism, and you see a huge struggle with sin through the law of karma and the law of samsara. It is true that Hindus, with regard to sin, oftentimes take a pilgrimage to Allahabad or to Varanasi or to the allegedly sacred waters of the Ganges or the Yamuna Rivers. They bathe there, hoping that they might have some special mercy with regard to their sin. For the most part, both Hindus and Buddhists seek victory over sin through the law of karma and through the never-ending cycles of samsara, which have to do with life, death, rebirth, life, death, rebirth, life, death, rebirth, and reincarnation. Your “atman,” your soul, goes through countless lifetimes. It all has to do with sin; it all has to do with the effort to obtain “moksha,” to attain some kind of relative purity over many lifetimes in their struggle with sin. In between each cycle, each lifetime, each cycle of samsara, you may spend some time in hell; but ultimately, you come back to another lifetime to continue the struggle with sin. All of these people are precious. They are precious to God. It is all about a struggle with sin.
In Judaism, there is the law of Torah. Looking at the scribes and Pharisees, even in the time of Christ, there was a struggle for righteousness. There was some degree of self-righteousness, as they believed they were actually living in conformity to Torah.
When you look at the religions of the world and all the precious people on earth, whether you are looking at Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Judaism . . . whatever you are looking at, the religions of the world are all about doing it yourself. It is not “sola gratia,” it is not “sola Christus”; it is “o solo mio.” By the grace of God, I am not even going to try and sing it for you. It is, ultimately, “o solo mio”—you have got to do it yourself. But you have this great cry of the Reformation, this great message in Holy Scripture. It is grace. It is Christ. “Sola gratia” and “sola Christus” are joined together—Christ saved us by His grace. That is what the gospel is about. That is what the cross is about. It is good news!
We take this good news to the world. We take it to the nations because we love people. If we were pluralists, we wouldn’t bother. If we really believed there were many paths, we wouldn’t bother. But Christ has given us the Great Commission. I hope you understand the ministry of this church. I hope that you understand our heart and heartbeat. I hope you understand what we are about and why we have this passion. We are ministering in 60 nations in the world. We are ministering throughout our own Jerusalem, which is why we have dozens of ministries in the inner city. It is why we go where we go, why 3,000 of you have gone on short-term mission trips. It is because we really believe in the only and always message of the gospel that centers on Christ. “Sola Christus.”
At the time of the Reformation, there was a problem with the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church taught that it had authority to forgive sins. For Martin Luther and John Calvin, this was a huge issue. Part of the argument was concerning Matthew chapter 16 and the statement that Christ made to Peter at Caesarea Philippi, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This is the binding and loosing statement that was made to Peter and the Apostles in Matthew chapter 16.
If you look a little deeper in Scripture in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus makes the same statement about binding and loosing to the whole church, to all Christians, to the Church universal. If you look still deeper in John chapter 20, you see that Jesus makes the statement to all the disciples in the upper room when He breathes on them saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” All who receive the Holy Spirit have some ministry in forgiveness. The Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 to all who believed. I think when you treat Scripture fairly, there is some ministry in forgiveness that Christ has given to the Church. It is the ministry of the gospel. Only Christ has the power and authority to forgive. But through the gospel, as the Church goes forth, as the Apostles went forth, as we go forth, we get to be part of this ministry of forgiveness.
When we take Jesus to the nations, we can truly say to people, “If you accept Him as your Savior, and if you will confess your sin and embrace His death for you on the cross, your sins will be forgiven.” We have this part in the ministry of forgiveness. That is really what Matthew 16, Matthew 18, John 20, and, in a sense, Acts 2 are all about.
During the Reformation, they were concerned because the Catholic church was not only thinking they had the power to forgive, they were selling forgiveness in the form of indulgences. That is why Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The Catholic Church was selling indulgences. “If you give money to the Church, we will forgive your sins. The more money you give, the more sins we will forgive.” It was all part of the castle stewardship campaign and a fund drive by Pope Leo X to build St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican. The Reformers were saying, “No! ‘Sola Christus.’ Only Christ can forgive.” (Many of the Reformers had questions with regard to purgatory. There was much discussion and debate about 1 Corinthians 3, Luke 12, and Matthew 18 as they relate to the concept of purgatory. But that is another subject.) Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. This is at the heart of the gospel.
Finally, only Christ has the keys to heaven. Only Christ has the keys to the kingdom. That is why we say, “sola Christus.” I have a key here. This is my car key. This is the key to my Ford Expedition. This is actually a replacement key because my first key broke. I had a key to the Ford and Barb had a key to the Ford, but both of those keys broke. We were at Starbucks in Castle Rock, and we were just getting ready to leave. I went to put my key in the ignition, and it just fell apart. The plastic shattered, the metal came out, and I couldn’t start my car. Barb tried it with the other key and the same thing happened. I suppose there might be worse places to be stuck than Starbucks, but we thought, “Wow! What do we do? We can’t get the car going.”
We went into Home Depot to see if they could fix these keys or make a new key. They tried to fix the key, but they couldn’t do it. They tried to make a new key, and they tried to re-code a key; but they could not do it. They couldn’t get it to work. So, our daughter Heather came and picked us up. We made arrangements with the Ford agency to get new keys. We were kind of hoping they would consider it under warranty. At that time, I had only had the car for a year and a half. They said, “Well, you have obviously abused the keys.” I am not sure why they think that. It is true that I have used mine to take the lids off paint cans . . . Ok, I never really did that. All I have really done, and all Barb has ever done was to just stick it into the ignition and turn it. That is all we ever did. They said, “It is not under warranty because you have obviously mistreated the keys.” The cost was over $100 dollars per key.
We went to another Ford agency, and they treated us great. They said, “Obviously, there is a design flaw here. Don’t you worry about it. We will pick it up and make you new keys.” They did, and that is why I have this key. Now, it is kind of cool to be able to start my car and go places. I think we all understand how keys are important in life. Barb and I have an issue with regard to keys. I have had a lot of key problems throughout the years. I have told the story before of how, years ago, Barb and I went up to Vail. A member of our church had a condo in Vail at the Vorlaufer, and they let us stay in their condo. At that time, we were leasing a Nissan Pathfinder.
The condo in Vail was on the third floor, but the ceilings were high. So, it was pretty high up there. We went on a walk and came back to get into the condo. Then we realized that neither one of us had the key and, somehow, we had locked the key in our Pathfinder. We had locked the key to the condo in the car. Then we realized that we had locked the key to the car in the condo. You cannot make this stuff up. We were like, “What do we do?” The back of the condo had a balcony. We thought maybe the sliding glass door was open. It was about 35 feet up. There were some lodge pole pines in the back. I said to Barb, “I am going to try and shimmy up there and see if I can get on to the balcony.” Barb said, “No!” This was not just stupid . . . this was unusually stupid.
So, I tried to shimmy up this lodge pole pine. I got up there ten feet, twenty feet, and the trunk was getting thinner and thinner. I realized that I was going to be in trouble before I reached the balcony. Plus, as the trunk got thinner, it started moving with me. It started moving away from the balcony, not towards the balcony. I wound up coming back down, just happy to be alive and all scratched up. Barb and I thought, “Well, what do we do now?” We called a locksmith. It was a really young guy, really confident, almost cocky. He said, “There is no lock I can’t open. I have never failed.” We were like, “Wow, that is great. We need you to get us into the door of the condo.”
He started working on it. He said, “Boy, this is an unusual lock here.” Pretty soon, he realized that he couldn’t get it. He said, “Not to worry, I can get into your car.” We thought, “Okay.” It wound up that he really couldn’t open the car either; but he broke something, the alarm went off, and we eventually did get into the car. Then we had our keys. I think you can see that when you have a condo in Vail, it is really good to have a key. It is a great privilege to be able to stay in a place in Vail. What a privilege to be able to go into the mountains and have a place to stay.
How about heaven? How about paradise? How about the New Jerusalem? How about the glories of the everlasting? You don’t want to miss out on that, right? You really want to be able to get in when it comes to heaven, when it comes to the life to come, when it comes to the heavenly city, paradise. You want to have access. What the Bible says again and again and again is this: “only Christ.” “No one comes to the Father but by Me.”
In Revelation chapter 1, Jesus appears resurrected and alive to John on the Island of Patmos. John sees Christ resurrected in all of His glory. He says, “The face of Christ was shining on me like the sun at full strength. His voice was like the sound of many waters.” John fell down before Him as though dead. Jesus reached down and touched John. Then Jesus said, “Fear not. I am the living one. I died, but I am alive forever. I have the keys of death and hades.” What does that mean? What is “hades?” A lot of people seem to think that “hades” is synonymous with hell. That is not true. In Jewish theology, the concept of the Greek “hades” is similar to the concept of “sheol.” “Hades” is simply a keeping place of the dead, a place where the dead waited for the final judgment. Jesus is saying, “I can let people out of the keeping place of the dead. I can release them from the grip of death.” The implication is that He releases them to bring them into the wonders of heaven.
Then, in Revelation 3, Jesus is addressing the church of Philadelphia. He says, “To the angel of the church of Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the Holy One, the True One, who opens what no one is able to shut, who shuts and no one is able to open, who has the key of David.’” So, Jesus said, “I have the key of David.” What is that? Scholars believe that the key of David is the key that is kept by the king of Judea. The king of Judah had the key of David. It was the key to the treasury in the royal palace in the city of David in Jerusalem. The key to the treasury in the royal palace was the key of David.
We know that sometimes the king of Israel would entrust the keeping of the key to the secretary of state. When you come to Isaiah 22:22, you see how Shebna is the secretary of state who’s cast down; Eliakim was the secretary of state who was trusted and elevated. The king entrusts the key of David to his secretary of state. So, he is able to open, and no one is able to shut; and what he shuts no one is able to open. It is the key to the treasury and to the glories of the royal palace in the City of David and Jerusalem. Symbolically, it represents the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly city, and the treasures of heaven. Jesus is saying, “I have the key to all the treasures of heaven.”
When we say, “sola Christus,” we are talking about salvation. We are talking about heaven, and we are talking about the one who has the power to give you eternal life. Only Christ can forgive sin. Only Christ has the keys. That is why we are talking about Christ all of the time. This is so important.
When we couple this with “sola gratia,” which we are going to do next week, I think you will see the power of this. I hope that you are going to want to be faithful to tell the world about Jesus because we love people. It is not because we judge people; Jesus is the judge, and we trust all of that to Him. We know that He has the keys, and we know that He has the power to forgive sins. We take the gospel to the nations, to our neighborhoods, to our places of business. I hope you are faithful. “Sola Christus.” Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.