Jesus the only way? (John 14.6)

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Elijah John
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Jesus the only way? (John 14.6)

Post #1

Post by Elijah John »

Why does John's Jesus say that Jesus is the only way to the Father?

a)-Is it because, as many claim, that Jesus sacrifice is God's only provision for the forgiveness of sin?

b)-Is it because Jesus teachings are completely unique and he alone teaches the true path?

c)-Is it because Jesus sacrifice opens the door to Heaven for all who seek God, whether they realize it or not?

d)-Is it because John was reacting to Christians being expelled from the Synagoge by putting a claim on Jesus lips that (in effect) was saying "we don't need you anyway, we have Jesus"?

e) other, or a combination of the above.

Also, why do you personally believe John 14.6, (assuming that you do)

1) Have you actually tried other ways, other religous paths in an attempt to find God?

2) Because "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it"?

3) Or is it because the claim seems logical, reasonable or intuitively true to you?
My theological positions:

-God created us in His image, not the other way around.
-The Bible is redeemed by it's good parts.
-Pure monotheism, simple repentance.
-YHVH is LORD
-The real Jesus is not God, the real YHVH is not a monster.
-Eternal life is a gift from the Living God.
-Keep the Commandments, keep your salvation.
-I have accepted YHVH as my Heavenly Father, LORD and Savior.

I am inspired by Jesus to worship none but YHVH, and to serve only Him.

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tam
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Post #2

Post by tam »

Peace to you EJ,
Elijah John wrote: Why does John's Jesus say that Jesus is the only way to the Father?

a)-Is it because, as many claim, that Jesus sacrifice is God's only provision for the forgiveness of sin?

b)-Is it because Jesus teachings are completely unique and he alone teaches the true path?

c)-Is it because Jesus sacrifice opens the door to Heaven for all who seek God, whether they realize it or not?

d)-Is it because John was reacting to Christians being expelled from the Synagoge by putting a claim on Jesus lips that (in effect) was saying "we don't need you anyway, we have Jesus"?

e) other, or a combination of the above.

"D" is certainly wrong; "d" depends on an assumption that the author of "John" simply made stuff up that he believed - and that he then USED Christ to give authority to his beliefs, rather than simply recording the words that he heard from Jaheshua.



So lets go with "e" other.

Christ said:

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."


Why does the author of "John" have Christ say this? Because the disciple Christ loved is an eyewitness and an apostle, and this is what he, himself, heard Christ speak.

**


Christ taught this because it is true, and would not love would speak that truth to those who want to know the way to the Father? Those that you want to be with you where you are going?

Now that way is not referring to just His sacrifice or His teachings... but to HE, Himself (this would include the rest of course, but I feel like people sometimes put His teachings above Him. Our eyes are to be on HIM, and the rest is included.) Christ is the Way to the Father. No one comes to the Father except through Him. No one can bypass the Son and expect to be received by the Father.


**

God has also given us examples to help us understand this truth that His Son spoke, as well. Such as the design of the Temple (which God gave those specific instructions to Moses on how to build). In the Temple are both the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. This is a physical representation of the spiritual reality. The Holy Place represents Christ (the Holy One of God, and the Holy One of Israel). The Most Holy Place represents God (the Most Holy One of Israel) In the temple, one could not enter the Most Holy Place unless one came though the Holy Place.


(Only a thief would attempt to sneak in some other way; with exception to a person who may have somehow wandered in, in ignorance. I'm not sure how that could happen with the physical temple, but if we translate that to a person attempting to come to God without coming to and through Christ - not because they are ignoring or refusing to listen to Christ or to God's decree, but because they are acting out of ignorance - this person might simply be redirected to the proper channel... or "Way".)



So this is the set up that God gave to Israel. And if it is God's will that we come to Him THROUGH His Son, how can we possibly expect to be received if we refuse to do this?

Also, why do you personally believe John 14.6, (assuming that you do)

1) Have you actually tried other ways, other religous paths in an attempt to find God?

2) Because "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it"?

3) Or is it because the claim seems logical, reasonable or intuitively true to you?



This is a simple answer for me. I believe it because Christ said it. He has more than proven Himself to me, though I am nothing. But He is also the One to whom God told us to LISTEN:

A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." Luke 9:35


I need nothing more than Christ having said something for me to know it is true. But we have also been given examples to help us see this. Such as the temple as mentioned above; and even in the relationship between Joseph and Pharaoh (Genesis 41: 40 onward).





Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

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Re: Jesus the only way? (John 14.6)

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Post by DPMartin »

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

All man comes into the world born into condemnation via receiving the life of Adam, all now can find grace via receiving the life of Noah, those born of Abraham Isaac and Jacob not only can find grace but are under the faith of Abraham by reason of receiving the life of Abraham.

al who are to be saved receive the Life of Christ via being born of the Holy Spirit. therefore only those by grace through faith and through grace by faith may receive the Life of Christ. so the Only Way is Jesus Christ the Son of God to have the Life of a son of God.

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Re: Jesus the only way? (John 14.6)

Post #4

Post by steveb1 »

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

I don't think Jesus is the only way, and I don't think that Jesus thought he was the only way, either. This citation is from John's Gospel, which has a maverick theology not shared with the other (Synoptic) Gospels. But there can be some parallels drawn.

John's Jesus says "I am the way". But what is a way? A way is a road or a path. How can a person be a road or a path? By metaphorically walking the way and the road and the path that he or she himself is preaching and recommending. According to all four Gospels, Jesus walked his own talk, his own path, and he showed others how to do the same.

Luke's Jesus says to take up one's cross daily and walk Jesus's path. Jesus also says that one can find oneself by losing oneself. Paul conceptualized his baptism as a dying and rising with Christ. Back to John, whose Jesus says that unless a grain of wheat falls into the soil and "dies", it will never bear fruit. So clearly Jesus taught that his Way/his Path is something that others can also walk.

It is obvious that hundreds of millions have been walking Jesus's Way of dying and rising again into a new life centered in Spirit rather than in world and culture, even if they've never heard of Jesus and/or Christianity. If indeed there is only one path to the Father, multitudes have, and are, following it because their love of the Father - however they conceive of Him - has already placed them on the Way.

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Post #5

Post by tam »

Peace to you,

I don't know why some of you think there is such a thing as "John's Jesus" or "Matthew's Jesus" or "Mark's Jesus" or "Luke's Jesus".

The authors of the four gospels wrote down what they heard from Christ, such as in the case of the disciple Christ loved (the book of "John"); or what other eyewitnesses reported, such as in the case of Luke. None of them wrote down every single word that Christ spoke, and none of them recorded every single deed that Christ committed. But they are all testifying to and about the same person.


From Matthew 11:27 (and Luke records the same thing):

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.



Do you accept those words?




Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

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Post #6

Post by steveb1 »

tam wrote: Peace to you,

I don't know why some of you think there is such a thing as "John's Jesus" or "Matthew's Jesus" or "Mark's Jesus" or "Luke's Jesus".

The authors of the four gospels wrote down what they heard from Christ, such as in the case of the disciple Christ loved (the book of "John"); or what other eyewitnesses reported, such as in the case of Luke. None of them wrote down every single word that Christ spoke, and none of them recorded every single deed that Christ committed. But they are all testifying to and about the same person.


From Matthew 11:27 (and Luke records the same thing):

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.



Do you accept those words?




Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy
The Gospel authors were not apostles and never met Jesus. Each Gospel tells a different story with a different Jesus. This is why only John mentions Jesus's most spectacular miracle, the raising of Lazarus, which is completely unknown to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who do not show any awareness of John's Jesus's "I am" statements. The Evangelists are unknown writers whose names were only later invented to put a "name" and identity in their respective Gospels. The person whom they are supposedly testifying about in all plausibility never existed as a historical person. Paul himself has no awareness of a historical Jesus who selected disciples in an earthly ministry. Paul wrote decades before any Gospel was written, and his Christ is strictly a non-material pre-existent heavenly "Son" - not the carpenter-sage invented by the Gospel writers.

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Re: Jesus the only way? (John 14.6)

Post #7

Post by Wootah »

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

What other way is there?
Proverbs 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

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"Why is everyone so quick to reason God might be petty. Now that is creating God in our own image :)."

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Post #8

Post by tam »

Peace to you steve1,
steveb1 wrote:
tam wrote: Peace to you,

I don't know why some of you think there is such a thing as "John's Jesus" or "Matthew's Jesus" or "Mark's Jesus" or "Luke's Jesus".

The authors of the four gospels wrote down what they heard from Christ, such as in the case of the disciple Christ loved (the book of "John"); or what other eyewitnesses reported, such as in the case of Luke. None of them wrote down every single word that Christ spoke, and none of them recorded every single deed that Christ committed. But they are all testifying to and about the same person.


From Matthew 11:27 (and Luke records the same thing):

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.



Do you accept those words?




Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy
The Gospel authors were not apostles and never met Jesus.
Not according to those authors (except perhaps Luke who said that he recorded as he had investigated from others who were eyewitnesses). But the disciple Christ loved (who wrote the fourth gospel 'attributed' to John) was indeed an apostle, one of the twelve, present at the last supper, an eyewitness.

One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. John 13:23

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?� John 21:20

Followed by:

This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them down. John 21:23
Each Gospel tells a different story with a different Jesus.
Each gospel testifies to various things that Christ taught and did. None of them claim to have recorded every single teaching or every single deed.
This is why only John mentions Jesus's most spectacular miracle, the raising of Lazarus, which is completely unknown to Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
Just because Matthew, Mark and Luke do not record the raising of Lazarus does not mean that they are unaware of it. (and perhaps it was not their place to tell that particular story)
who do not show any awareness of John's Jesus's "I am" statements.


Same point as above. (even though these so-called "I am" statements do not mean what men have traditionally taught them to mean)
The Evangelists are unknown writers whose names were only later invented to put a "name" and identity in their respective Gospels. The person whom they are supposedly testifying about in all plausibility never existed as a historical person.


A- named or unnamed, none of that changes the fact that the author of the gospel attributed to John is identified IN the gospel as being one of the twelve, as having testified to these things and as having written them down.


B - Are you saying that in all plausibility Christ never existed as an actual person? If so, plausibility according to whom?

Paul himself has no awareness of a historical Jesus who selected disciples in an earthly ministry.
Of course he does. He mentions the apostles - some specifically by name - on numerous occasions.

Paul wrote decades before any Gospel was written, and his Christ is strictly a non-material pre-existent heavenly "Son" - not the carpenter-sage invented by the Gospel writers.
The most you can say here is that Paul did not personally know Christ when He walked as a man in the flesh. Paul only knew Christ as the Spirit. That does not mean Paul did not know that Christ existed as a man before being put to death, and then resurrected.


Indeed, Paul spoke about things that occurred with Christ on the night he was betrayed:


For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord [Jesus], on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.� In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.� ! Corinth 11:23-25


Does that sound immaterial?



Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

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Post #9

Post by steveb1 »

[Replying to post 8 by tam]

1. There is no evidence that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. There are no passages like, "Then Jesus took me aside and asked me about X", no "Then Jesus made us sit down on the hill and spoke to us", no, "Jesus rebuked us for our greedy desires to rule the Kingdom", etc. No "I" passages, no "we" passages. Nothing whatsoever to indicate that the Gospels were written by "I's" and 'We's" that were there. Moreover, the Gospels get topographical, social and historical categories confused, which native Judean disciples would surely not have done.

2. John the Evangelist, whoever he was, was not at the Last Supper. Supposedly the Beloved Disciple was there, but he did not write John's Gospel. The actual author/final editor-redactor refers back to an unnamed witness who some imagine to be the Beloved Disciple, and swears that the anonymous witness's testimony is true, but that claim is impossible to validate.

3. "Just because Matthew, Mark and Luke do not record the raising of Lazarus does not mean that they are unaware of it. (and perhaps it was not their place to tell that particular story)"

Historical studies proceed from plausibility. It is implausible and virtually impossible that Jesus's most important miracle would be promoted by only one Gospel, and that no other NT book uses it even as an example. All four Gospels refer to his baptism and miracles, and especially to his resurrection, but only one of them mentions his greatest miracle of all.

4. Quote:
<Paul himself has no awareness of a historical Jesus who selected disciples in an earthly ministry.>


"Of course he does. He mentions the apostles - some specifically by name - on numerous occasions."

No, he does not. He identifies as an "Apostle" only someone who has seen the exalted spiritual Jesus.

Paul claimed to know Cephas, James, and John. He never claimed to know that they had been historically selected by a historical Jesus. Their apostleship derived solely from their claimed experiences of the heavenly Christ - just as Paul's own apostleship did. If any "Jesus" selected the Apostles, it was the celestial Christ manifesting through visions, apparitions, and revelations, not from a historical person.

5. "Indeed, Paul spoke about things that occurred with Christ on the night he was betrayed"

No, Paul was not relaying a historical recollection of the Last Supper received from the Jerusalem Apostles. He does not put it in the context of Jesus's supposed earthly meals: it stands on its own and he never calls it "the last supper".

On the contrary, Paul explicitly says that he had it "from a revelation from the Lord". The heavenly Lord - not from anyone who supposedly learned it from a historical Jesus.

Nor is Paul's reference to "on the night he was handed over" necessarily a reference to a historical Jesus, since the heavenly Son was conceived to have "emptied himself" and "incarnated" not on geophysical earth, but in the lower heavens, where he underwent a passion, death and resurrection, after which he ascended from the lower heavens back up to the place he had at the Father's side before his "incarnation".

The heavens were then considered to be more real than the paltry, flawed earth, which at best was only a poor imitation of the heavenly realm. The NT book of Hebrews proves this when it says that Jesus as high priest entered the heavenly city of Jerusalem and entered the heavenly Temple. Thus, the heavens were said to have cities, buildings, temples, and even soil (where Adam is buried). Paul thinks of Jesus's "incarnation" and "resurrection" as having occurred in that heavenly, "Really Real Realm". Not on dirt earth.

6. "Are you saying that in all plausibility Christ never existed as an actual person?"

Exactly.

"If so, plausibility according to whom?"

According to Paul and all the other Epistle authors. Your traditional theology claims that Paul and the Epistles had their roots in knowledge/memory of a historical Jesus. However, the fact of the matter is that they have no such knowledge. Had they such knowledge, they would exhibit at every turn. Every Epistle would be peppered throughout with references to a historical Jesus. But they aren't. Their Jesus is strictly a pre-existent cosmic Christ/Son, not a Galilean carpenter-sage.

This situation is as incongruous and grotesque as the case of a book written about Scientology that makes not one mention of L. Ron Hubbard, or a book about the Gettysburg Address that makes not one mention of Abraham Lincoln.

If you think that Paul's letters and the other NT Epistles are based on a historical Jesus, you must explain why none of them mention any of Jesus's teachings and deeds as mentioned in the Gospels. They contain no references to Jesus's baptism by John, his selection of disciples, his wilderness temptation, his miracles, cures, exorcisms, his parables, his teaching on the Kingdom, his teaching on the Torah and Kosher, his raisings of the dead, his forgiving sinners, his conflicts with his own family, disciples, scribes, Pharisees and priests, the wedding at Cana, the sermon on the mount and countless other "historical" deeds performed by a "historical" Jesus.

Note: it is not sufficient to claim that because the Epistles aren't biographies, of course they wouldn't contain much information on Jesus. But the brutal fact is: they contain NO information about a historical Jesus. The best explanation for which is: They had no historical Jesus about whom to write, no historical Jesus whose example and teaching they could cite, none of his sermons and discourses.

The burden of proof rests on you. I will accept Jesus's historicity only if you can list multiple references to him in the Epistles. But you can't, because they are simply not there.

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Post #10

Post by JehovahsWitness »

steveb1 wrote: I will accept Jesus's historicity only if you can list multiple references to him in the Epistles. But you can't, because they are simply not there.
Are you suggesting there are no references to Jesus Christ in the new testament letters?
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"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" -
Romans 14:8

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