One of the more challenging aspects of the Christian apologetic task is defending Christianity against the objection that the gospel is exclusivist. Christian exclusivism means that the Christian faith is the only true faith, that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, and one must have a conscious faith in Jesus Christ to receive that salvation.
In other words, all other ways to God are false paths that lead to destruction.
Clearly then, exclusivism is in direct conflict with religious pluralism. In this article, religious pluralism refers to the belief that multiple religions can lead to God and salvation. Globalism, multiculturalism, and postmodern relativism together provide fertile soil for religious pluralism’s flourishing.
Christians should not be surprised that many take offense at the gospel’s exclusive claims. After all, Jesus and the early Christian martyrs didn’t die because their message was vague and inoffensive. Their message was bold, clear, and absolute. Jesus could have avoided the cross had He been willing to compromise the truth.
Christians have asserted these essential truths with such force because the Bible presents them with such clarity. Christians in every era are obliged to follow the example of these great men in the past and defend the exclusive claims of the gospel, because they are true and because they are vitally important.
Exclusivity in Both OT and NT
The Old Testament makes exclusive claims. The Shema, in Deuteronomy 6:4–5, insists that there is only one God: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” In Isaiah 43:11, God draws out the implication of the Shema for salvation: “I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”
In the New Testament, Jesus expounded on these exclusive claims in Matthew 11:27: “… no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. ” And in John 14:6, He makes the exclusive claim unmistakable: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
The apostles’ teaching reflects the same emphasis. In Acts 4:12, Peter said, “There is salvation in no one else.” And when the jailer in Acts 16:31 asked Paul and Silas how to be saved, they respond with a single, direct answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Years later, Paul still held the same conviction, writing in 1 Timothy 2:5: “There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”
Christ’s unique identity provides the basis for the exclusive nature of His redemptive work. Jesus is fully God and fully man, as attested directly by many scriptural passages. (See John 1:1, 8:58–50, 10:29–31, 14:8–9, 20:28; Phil. 2:5–7; Col. 2:9; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1.) Thus, Jesus is the only Savior (John 1:18, 3:36, 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 John 5:11–12). There is only one God, and He had only one Son (John 3:16), the second person of the Trinity.
Jesus was the agent of creation:
- John 1:3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
- John 1:10: “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.”
- Colossians 1:16: “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”
- Jesus forgives sin — a prerogative only of God:
- Mark 2:5: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’.” Jesus will also be the final judge. (See Matthew 25:31–46.)
The uniqueness of Christ’s person, and thus the exclusivity of Christianity, are firmly grounded in facts of history: His virgin birth and His bodily resurrection. These events are historical, not merely religious ideas.
Saving Grace or Stunning Hubris?
Opposition to Christian exclusivism comes from various angles. For many people, to claim that Jesus is the only path to God is the “height of arrogance.” But calling a person or a statement arrogant says nothing about whether the statement is true or false.
Note that whether the believer making the claim is arrogant or humble (believers should always be humble), the accusation of arrogance says something about the speaker’s attitude but nothing concerning the claim’s truth value. Those who take comfort in such an accusation of arrogance prioritize emotion over truth.
Here’s the irony: If claiming exclusive truth is “arrogant,” then the religious pluralist is also guilty of being arrogant. After all, the pluralist claims his view — that all religions are valid paths to God — is exclusively the right one, and that Christianity’s exclusivity is wrong.
To make Christianity harmonize with other religions, pluralists usually reduce Christianity simply to a moral system, making it one of the many paths to God. But that is not the essence of Christianity. While Christianity certainly has an ethical framework, that ethic grows out of a particular worldview: that God is personal and triune; that humanity’s fundamental problem is separation from God caused by personal sin; and that salvation comes through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. One cannot account for Christian ethics apart from that foundation. No religion can be reduced simply to ethics, for ethics is rooted in claims about the ultimate nature of reality.
Pluralism: An Illogical System
The pluralist project fails because the laws of logic subvert any attempt to reconcile the religious traditions. For example, Jesus Christ cannot be both God incarnate (as in Christianity) and not God incarnate (as in Judaism and Islam). Jesus cannot be both resurrected from the dead (as Christianity argues) and not raised from the dead (as both Judaism and Islam claim). God cannot be both personal (as in Christianity) and impersonal (as in some forms of Hinduism). These are not minor differences; they are fundamental contradictions.
Religious pluralists realize that if the biblical teachings concerning Jesus are true, then Christianity would not only be different from but superior to other religions. Pluralists, therefore, deny that these truths concerning Jesus are factual and reduce them to the category of myth: Jesus was not really God incarnate, did not perform miracles, and was not truly raised from the dead.
If False, Christianity Is of No Importance
Note that to claim the gospel truths are myth is an assertion, not an argument. One can only argue that the Gospels are myths by showing that the miracles they describe did not actually occur — something the pluralist cannot do. Labeling the Gospels as myth rests solely on their inclusion of miracles and supernatural events — realities that challenge the assumptions of the pluralist agenda. Thus, the pluralist’s claim is merely an assumption without supporting evidence.
So, to show that Christianity is not unique, the religious pluralist must offer a highly edited form of Christianity. In so doing, the pluralist has failed miserably in the attempt to demonstrate that Christianity is not essentially unique. If one must deny the central claims of Christianity to make it compatible with other faiths, then one has not shown that it is not unique. One has merely demonstrated that genuine Christianity cannot be reconciled with alternative belief systems, which is what Christianity has asserted all along.
These biblical truths are vitally important. C.S. Lewis famously said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” Since these biblical truths concerning the nature of God, the person of Christ, and the means to salvation involve the most crucial issues in life, Christians must never compromise them but must “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
— Walter Johnson is a recently retired dean of the College of Christian Studies at North Greenville University, where he taught and served for 32 years.