There Is No Other Stream — Part Two

I invite you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter 46—page 518 in the church Bibles, if that is of help to you. Isaiah 46, page 518. We read from the first verse:

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low;
 their idols are borne by beasts of burden.
The images that are carried about are burdensome,
 a burden for the weary.
They stoop and bow down together;
 unable to rescue the burden,
 they themselves go off into captivity.

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
 all you who remain of the house of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,
 and have carried since your birth.
Even to your old age and gray hairs
 I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
 I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

“To whom will you compare me or count me equal?
 To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
Some pour out gold from their bags
 and weigh out silver on the scales;
they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god,
 and they bow down and worship it.
They lift it to their shoulders and carry it;
 they set it up in its place, and there it stands.
 From that spot it cannot move.
Though one cries out to it, it does not answer;
 it cannot save him from his troubles.

“Remember this, fix it in mind,
 take it to heart, you rebels.
Remember the former things, those of long ago;
 I am God, and there is no other;
 I am God, and there is none like me.
I make known the end from the beginning,
 from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say: My purpose will stand,
 and I will do all that I please.
From the east I summon a bird of prey;
 from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.
What I have said, that will I bring about;
 what I have planned, that will I do.
Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted,
 you who are far from righteousness.
I am bringing my righteousness near,
 it is not far away;
 and my salvation will not be delayed.
I will grant salvation to Zion,
 my splendor to Israel.

Amen.

Father, help us now as we look to the Bible, as we continue our thoughts from this morning hour. Grant clarity and brevity, we pray, so that in understanding, we might be men and women of faith and of conviction, of kindness, of compassion, of clarity, especially as we seek to make known the exclusive claims of Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Some of you were not present this morning, and we said that we were going to take today to look together topically at this matter of the exclusivity of the Lord Jesus Christ. We began in the morning by thinking a little about the content of that claim and summarized it, essentially—in the New Testament at least—at least by recognizing that the Bible makes it perfectly clear that there is only way, and that is in Jesus. He is “the way, the truth, and the life”[1] (John 14:6); that there is only “one mediator between God and [man], the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5); and that there is only one name in which salvation is to be found, and that we referenced in Acts 4:12.

We then gave some thought to the context in which these affirmations are made, not least of all in the prophetic passages of Isaiah and then within the framework of the first century, recognizing that those who were our forebears found themselves challenged by those who wanted them to negate their view of Jesus, wanted them to consider Jesus as perhaps something more than a man but not quite God or perhaps for them to suggest that Jesus was just the greatest of all the angels. And we reflected on the fact that they didn’t do that, because they couldn’t do that; and the reason they didn’t was not because they were arrogant but because they were making a logical deduction from the information that they had seen and heard and handled concerning the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus and his resurrection and so on.

And as we drew that to a close, we were recognizing that when we take these things in terms of the content and the context in which they’re conveyed, the challenge then comes for us to go back out into the environment which is our daily routine and seek to establish contact with those who come from an entirely different perspective in relationship to these subjects. And we’re not automatically effective in doing this. Some of us are adept at making enemies rather than at making friends. Some of us feel that there is some legitimacy in our taking the wheelbarrow of information that we’ve managed to assemble over time and just tipping it on any unsuspecting soul who might be prepared to give us an opening. And we have found, to our great shame and discredit, that that has not proved, really, to be a very good approach.

In this matter, though, of religion—and particularly of Christianity—in building a bridge into that environment, it’s important for us to at least have some semblance of understanding of the community view, if you like. And it is difficult to make generalizations, but the prevailing notions that I encounter both in reading and in listening at least include these.

One: People believe that there is no unique revelation in history. No unique revelation in history. In other words, they believe that Hebrews chapter 1 is just bunk—i.e., “In the past God spoke of old through the prophets, but now, in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son.”[2] “No,” they say, “we don’t accept that.”

Secondly, the prevailing idea is that there are many different ways to reach the divine reality. There are all kinds of options. You find it in their conversation. They will speak in terms of a wheel as being representative of this or of the various tracks going up the mountain. Everybody can go up the mountain in their own way. Everybody gets there in the end. It doesn’t really matter what path you take.

Also: the idea that all formulations of religion and experience of religion are, by their very nature, inadequate expressions of whatever that truth might be. And as a result—and this is the fourth notion—the idea is that it is necessary, then, to harmonize as much as possible all religious ideas and experiences so as to be able to create one universal concept of religion into which everybody can find a little place—if you like, a great big campground, if you like, where everybody has their own individual cottage, but they all coexist with one another because they’re all part of the larger entity.

And the fifth notion is that when you express things in that way, then you are forced to conclude—so the idea goes—that all religions actually agree on the big and important items, and they only disagree on the minor, secondary, tertiary issues, the things that are on the fringes. And I don’t know about you, but I would imagine that you run into this all the time.

That, really, is an expression of popular pluralism. That’s what it is. There is another dimension to pluralism, at a more, if you like, philosophical or academic level, which is a clever endeavor on the part of pluralists to get out from underneath the obvious fact that there is fundamental disagreement between the religions of the world. And so, at the academic level, philosophical pluralism suggests that all religions, by their expressions, are simply mediating. They’re simply mediating reality—a reality which is beyond whatever expression Hinduism may give or Buddhism may give or Christianity may give—so that if you get beyond the way in which they mediate that notion, then you will find a reality which lies behind the reality, because they possess no reality in themselves; they simply mediate a reality, which you can find, if you like, in a black hole somewhere.

John Dickson, in his books, is very helpful on this. And observing on that, he says, “By describing religions as true in a manner none of them has affirmed before”—you see, that the truth is not in the specifics of Hinduism of Buddhism or of Christianity or of Judaism. The truth is not in the specifics. The truth is in what these specifics mediate; it is behind. Says Dickson, “By describing religions as true in a manner none of them have affirmed before and false in all the ways they have always affirmed, pluralism assumes an intellectual high ground that far exceeds any of the claims of world [religion].”[3] If you can’t process that at 7:30 on a Sunday evening, think about it later on. Get the CD, or go and get Dickson; he’ll be a big help to you.

But we need to understand something of this and then be able to approach it. I want to mention just briefly three factors in seeking to establish contact.

The Arrogance Factor

First of all: what I refer to as the arrogance factor. The arrogance factor. In a context—which we considered this morning—where there is no truth, only truths, where there no principles, only preferences, then we face inevitably the charge of being arrogant in proclaiming Jesus. And if you’ve endeavored to tell people that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me,”[4] then, almost inevitably, someone will have told you, “Well, that’s such an arrogant thing to say.” And if they’ve had time with you, their argument goes along like this:

“I thought you said you were a Christian.”

“Well, I am a Christian.”

“Well, I thought Christians were nice people. I thought Christians were supposed to be humble. And you are obviously not humble. If you were humble, then you would not continue to suggest that Christianity has got it right, and all the rest have got it wrong.”

So the temptation, then, is to shy away from anything like that, because we know that’s exactly what’s going to happen as soon as we say it. So, in fearfulness, we just say nothing.

G. K. Chesterton wrote about the dislocation of humility, remember? He talked about how in an earlier generation, people were supposed to be doubtful about himself but undoubting about his convictions. He says in an earlier generation, you had people who were doubtful about themselves but undoubting about their convictions. Now, he says, that is completely reversed: “A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.” And as a result, he says, we’re “on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe … the multiplication table.”[5] “Oh, no, and I couldn’t possibly tell you that six sixes are thirty-six. Six sixes are whatever you want them to be. I wouldn’t be so arrogant to suggest that six sixes are thirty-six,” or seven eights are fifty-six, or whatever you really want.

So, how do we deal with this? Well, we have to recognize that truth is not a matter of pride or humility; it’s a matter of fact. It’s a matter of fact. Peter Cotrell, a wonderful man who is now getting old, deals with this quite masterfully in a little book that I’ve had for a long time when he says Islam says Jesus wasn’t crucified. We say he was. Only one of us can be right. Judaism says that Jesus was not the Messiah. We say he was. Only one of us can be right. Hinduism says that God has often been incarnate. We say only once, and we can’t both be right.

So we’re stuck with this. And that’s why I always say to people, I say, “Well, the fact is, I’m just stuck with this. I actually am a Christian, and I believe that the Bible is God’s inerrant Word, and so if I’m going to be a Christian and believe my handbook, then I can only tell you what it says in the handbook. So I’m stuck with this. I mean, I would like, in terms of interpersonal relationships, to accommodate you, but I’m sorry; I can’t accommodate you.”

Now, that, I think, is important. Even just to acknowledge that is good. Because part of the problem for some of us lies not in what we’re saying but in our tone. And I think some of us need to face up to the fact that we are actually arrogant in the way we speak—we are actually arrogant in the way we present the claims of Jesus, who was not arrogant at all—that we are actually rather bombastic in the way we take the high ground in conversation and look down our theological noses at people because they don’t understand what we so clearly grasp. I think we need to look in the mirror and see whether we’re not actually guilty of ridiculing other religions and those who are the adherents of other religions, of saying things about other religions and people who hold to other religious positions in a way that is very unchristian, that is actually unkind and is arrogant, that is negative. And we feel that we’re able to do so largely because we don’t know anybody who’s engaged with that -ism, be it Hinduism or Judaism or Islam or whatever it might be.

As soon as you have as your obstetrician a wonderfully nice Muslim doctor, now you’re going to have to engage in dialogue in an entirely different way. You’re not going to be able simply to dismiss things out of hand, because this is a living person. This is a man of high moral standing. This is an individual who is devoutly committed to the truths that underpin his existence. What do we believe about that?

Well, believe that there are no other gods. Why? Because that’s what the Bible says. When we read in Isaiah 47, you’ll notice that Isaiah doesn’t say that these are just other ways of referring to the one God. He doesn’t say that at all. He says the other gods are non-gods. So in other words, we have to have a clear understanding of what we mean when the Bible talks about idolatry.

And we don’t have time to expound Isaiah 47, but it is a wonderful chapter and will repay your study at home—it is so terrific, isn’t it?—46, I should say: “Bel bows down,” and “Nebo stoops low; their idols are born by beasts of burden.” That means nothing to you, probably, but Bel was the patron god of Babylon. You run up against him in “Belteshazzar” in the book of Daniel. He was the king of the gods. He was the one who controlled the destinies of the nations, as far as the Babylonians were concerned. Nebo was his son, the chief operating officer of this dynasty; and between them, they were in charge of things. In the new year’s festival, they would be paraded through the street, and all the people would look at them and say, “Here they come, these divinities that hold our destiny in their hands.”

The prophet of God stands and watches the new year festival coming down the street, and he says, “That’s bunk. What good is a god that has to be carried on a cart? What could a god that needs to be carried do for you when you need carried?” That’s what he says: “You need a god that can carry you, not a god you can carry around on your cart or in your pocket.” He doesn’t for a moment get into any kind of syncretistic nonsense. No! No, he declares who God is, and God stands out separate from these idols.

Now, you say, “Well, if I’m going to hold to that position and the finality of the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, how, then, can I speak in humility and in kindness to my friends?” I want to suggest to you that the only way you will be able to speak with humility and kindness to your friends is if you get clear in your mind the issue of idolatry, the absolute finality of the revelation of God in the person of Jesus. Because if you’re not clear on that, all you will do is get yourself in an unbelievable mess by trying to be a nice person. And you’ll give away the queen before you’ve even moved a couple of pawns around on the board. Before you get, you know, before you start moving your bishops and your castles around, the jolly thing will be over!

You see, it is only when you’ve got clear in your mind the issue of what the Bible says about idolatry and when you’ve got clear in your mind what it says about who Jesus is as the final revelation of God that you can then, actually, have a dialogue with people—and a dialogue that is marked by authenticity, humility, integrity, and sensitivity. For what distinguishes you from your idol-worshipping friend or colleague or spouse or son or uncle is the grace of God. Were it not for the grace of God which amazes you and opened your eyes, you would believe these things, because by nature, we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and we have begun to worship created things rather than the Creator.[6] That is the pro forma of man in his natural state. Therefore, if we are not there, we have been removed from that realm by grace, and only by grace may our friends equally be removed from that realm. Therefore, we ought not to offer to them shibboleths. We ought not to dump our wheelbarrow on them. We ought not to say things that aren’t true. We ought not to make professions that we can’t hold to. Authenticity, sensitivity, integrity, humility. The arrogance factor.

The Tolerance Factor

Secondly, and less time: the tolerance factor. The tolerance factor. One of the reasons that our tongues are tied and our lips are silent is on account of being thought narrow or intolerant. Right? People say, “The trouble with you, Begg, is, number one, arrogant; number two, intolerant.” And that pushes you back, you know, when you’re just sitting behind a desk, and you’re going to have to come out and say something sensible.

A great help in the tolerance factor is just a dictionary. A dictionary will go a long way towards helping you here and unearthing what tolerance actually means in the Oxford English Dictionary. You can use an American one, if you want, but the OED will be as helpful as any.

If you’re going to be a tolerant Christian, it doesn’t mean you go out and accept every view as true and valid but that you treat—we treat—with grace and kindness those with whom we disagree.

The common mistaken idea is that tolerance means accepting every view as equally true and valid. That’s what is suggested by tolerance. Tolerance means that no matter what anybody says, no matter what their view is of religion particularly, per se, if we’re going to be tolerant, we have to say, “That is true, and that is valid.” But that’s actually not what tolerance means. Tolerance in the realm of interpersonal relationships—as opposed to the realm of engineering, which I think is the genesis of tolerance, in terms of holding things in tension—tolerance involves treating with integrity and humility someone whose opinions I believe to be untrue and invalid. That’s tolerance: “I don’t believe that what you’re telling me is the facts. I don’t believe that there is legitimacy in your perspective vis-à-vis heaven or whatever it might be. But I respect the right that you enjoy to hold that view, and I am delighted to be able to have a conversation with you concerning it.”

Again, John Dickson is wonderfully helpful in this. He says, you know, “A tolerant Buddhist … is[n’t] [some]one who accepts as true and valid the Hindu idea of the eternal Soul,” because for a Buddhist to accept the Hindu “idea of the eternal Soul” would be to deny “Buddha’s doctrine of the No-Soul.”[7] So a tolerant Buddhist is not someone who says, “Oh yeah, yeah, I believe the idea of the eternal Soul. That’s a very valid and true perspective.” Because then he would be denying the fundamentals of Buddhism, which says there is no soul. So what’s a tolerant Buddhist? Well, a tolerant Buddhist is someone who has learned to reject the particular Hindu belief of the eternal Soul because of his conviction about his Buddhist belief in No-Soul, and he’s learned to do it with kindness and with respect. Kindness and respect. Therefore, if you’re going to be a tolerant Christian, it doesn’t mean you go out and accept every view as true and valid but that you treat—we treat—with grace and kindness those with whom we disagree.

And I think sometimes, when it comes to our Christian convictions, we’re a bit like the English traveling on the continent of Europe. We’ve spoken about this before, but English people are very, very bad for not learning anybody else’s language. They don’t learn anyone else’s language. They just speak English a little clearer when they travel on the continent of Europe, or they speak a little louder: “What’s wrong with you people. Don’t you understand English?” “What’s wrong with you, you arrogant Englishman? This happens to be the Netherlands. We don’t speak that here.” (Not that Americans would ever have copied the example of the English in this matter!) No, it won’t do for us just to shout a little louder or speak a little clearer.

John Stott has helped us, hasn’t he, by distinguishing the three aspects of tolerance? Legal tolerance: ensuring every minority’s legitimate right to propagate and practice religion in a democracy such as our own. We uphold that as Christians. Don’t fall foul of that. Don’t start phoning up and marching to shut down the views of others. The very freedom that is built into the Constitution of the United States that allows you to convey the truth of Jesus is the same freedom that allows them to convey the truth of Islam. We believe in legal tolerance. We believe in social tolerance, because we teach our children to respect others who dress differently and who worship differently and who believe differently, and we seek to help them to understand the position of those people. What we do not uphold is an intellectual tolerance, which seeks to regard every view as equally valid and true, which regards every opinion as having the basis for toleration in it without ever detecting in it anything that is to be rejected. That, says John Stott, “is not a virtue,” but it is a “vice of the feebleminded.”[8]

The Relevance Factor

The arrogance factor. The tolerance factor. And finally: the relevance factor.

The relevance factor. The uniqueness of Jesus is inescapable. The incarnation is not duplicated anywhere else. People will come up and tell you in Borders and various things that they read something in some dimwit piece that was akin to this, but there’s nothing that comes close to the eternality of the Son of God becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

The claim of Christianity for the incarnation is unique. The story of the cross is unique. This is not a god on a deck chair. This is not a god who beckons us from a high mountain to try and come up and meet him. This is a God who comes down and takes our place and bears our sin, suffers our penalty, dies our death, enters into our brokenness. It is unique.

It won’t do for us to offer to our friends and neighbors a God who does everything in general and nothing in particular.

The story of the resurrection is unique. There is no comparable claim or can be made and sustained on behalf of any of the great religious leaders of the world. There’s not one page of the New Testament that has been written apart from the truth of the resurrection. We probably, as we’ve said before, would never have heard of Jesus of Nazareth were it not for the resurrection.

So the bottom line is this: If you’re a Christian, then you’re not free to believe what you want. Said Augustine, if you believe what you like in the gospel and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe but yourself.[9] In 1952, addressing Yale Divinity School, James Stewart warned the students at Yale—1952, fifty-eight years ago—about a “theologically vague and harmlessly accommodating” Christianity which was, he said, “less that useless.”[10] You get it? A “theologically vague and harmlessly accommodating Christianity,” “less than useless.” It won’t do for us to offer to our friends and neighbors a God who does everything in general and nothing in particular.

And church history affirms the fact that whenever the church in any generation has lost confidence in the truth, the relevance, and the power of the gospel, it loses its edge in urging men and women on Christ’s behalf to be reconciled to God. Read church history, and check for yourself. And if you doubt it, you could have read the article in the July 2 Wall Street this year entitled, “How Missionaries Lost Their Chariots of Fire.” I can’t read the article to you, because our time is gone, and we need to do the baptisms. You can look it up online. But the writer makes the point that

the term ‘missions’ itself now carries … a negative connotation, even in politically and theologically conservative circles. Christians today typically travel abroad to serve others, but not necessarily to spread the gospel. …

The purpose … of their visit is to battle the ills of poverty and to stretch their own spirituality,[11]

but not to spread the gospel. Why? I think in part because the church has lost a conviction regarding the truth, the relevance, and the power of the gospel, which is founded in the exclusive, inclusive claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You are sensible people. You need to figure it out. We began this morning with the archbishop of Canterbury. We will conclude with the archbishop and a brief quote from C. S. Lewis. The archbishop of Canterbury was in conversation with none other than Jane Fonda. The archbishop said to Jane, “Jesus is the Son of God, you know,” to which Fonda replied, “Maybe he is for you, but he’s not for me”—to which the archbishop replied, “Well, either he is, or he isn’t.” “Either he is, or he isn’t.”

People don’t like that compelling logic. But you must authentically, sensitively, humbly push them back. Push them back, in order that they might see the absolute futility of finding meaning and significance and answers in gods which they have to carry around who become, in turn, burdens to them.

I like books such as this, which says on the back that it is for ages eight and up. Oh, I love a book that says “ages eight and up”! I know I’m going to be able to read and understand it. Here it is, The Silver Chair in the Chronicles of Narnia. It’s the encounter between Jill and Aslan. Remember, she’s desperately thirsty. She wants a drink of water. She comes, and she sees the lion who is guarding the place where she might drink. Aslan says to her,

“If you’re thirsty, you may drink.”

[This was] the first … she[’d] heard [for a little while] since Scrubb had spoken to her [at] the edge of the cliff. … The voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill…

See, I’m getting ready to read this to my granddaughter.

And as Jill gazed at his motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“[Oh,] I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear,” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.[12]

“There is no other stream.”

There is no other “fountain filled with blood”[13] that may cleanse the sins of men and women. There is no other who stands on the stage of history and calls out, “If you are thirsty, come to me and drink, and out of your heart will flow rivers of living water.”[14] There is no one else who can say to the idolatrous woman, wrapped up in her sexuality, at the well, “If you would take a drink from the one who offers it to you, you would drink and never be thirsty again.”[15]

Why is that? Because “there is no other name under heaven given [among] men by which we must be saved.”[16] And it is that which will compel you to take this news to your neighbor and your friend—not the utilitarian value of what it will mean to them vis-à-vis their finances or their kids or their felt needs but what it will mean for them to give up every substitute god by bowing down before the living and true God.

What a wonderful time in history we live! What an amazing privilege is granted to us! Let us commit ourselves afresh to, with authenticity and humility and integrity, seek to see others coming to trust in Christ.

Let us pray:

O gracious God, our Father, grant that all that is of yourself may be written into our hearts and our minds, and anything that is unkind or untrue or unnecessary or unhelpful, that it may just be banished from our recollection. We look to you, to your name and the rising of the sun and the setting of the same—to your name that it might be proclaimed among the nations, for we know that your purpose is to put together a company from every tribe and people and nation and tongue,[17] to include all who will believe, for the Jew first and also for the gentile.[18] We commit ourselves as best we know how to this great mission. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

---

[1] John 14:6 (KJV).

[2] Hebrews 1:1–2 (paraphrased).

[3] John Dickson, The Best Kept Secret of Christna Mission: Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 43.

[4] John 14:6 (paraphrased).

[5] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), chap 3.

[6] See Romans 1:25.

[7] Dickson, Best Kept Secret, 45.

[8] John Stott, The Contemporary Christian: An Urgent Plea for Double Listening (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1992), 322.

[9] Augustine, Contra Faustum 17.3.

[10] James S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1953), 16.

[11] Brad A Greenberg, “How Missionaries Lost Their Chariots of Fire,” Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2010, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704895204575321101671590716.

[12] C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (1953), chap. 2.

[13] William Cowper, “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood” (1722).

[14] John 7:37–38 (paraphrased).

[15] John 4:10, 13–14 (paraphrased).

[16] Acts 4:12 (NIV 1984).

[17] See Revelation 7:9.

[18] See Romans 1:16.