Today on the Evangelists Podcast, Christ Alone. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley. Welcome to the Evangelists Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener, and with me in the studio is Paul Feesey. Hello. Hello, everybody. We uh so it's Paul and me down here in this uh soundproof cave, uh, the nuclear bunker deep in the heart of a volcano, actually. Um, but uh we feel safe down here. Welcome to my underground lair. It's that it's that kind of place. We are in a series on the alone statements of the Reformation because what else are we gonna do? It's October 2017, and we are 500 years out from Luther nailing up the 95 Theses, and everyone's going mad. Um well, certainly Protestants are kind of going mad about this time, and uh we we think that it's a return to great gospel truths. Um, I guess on the other side of things, Catholics might think that this has been a tragic mistake and a schism. Uh but I guess we want to make the case that uh what Luther was doing was returning to the scriptural apostolic message uh that was there in the first century, and uh that message has been rumbling down through history. Lots of people believe these same gospel truths, and uh we want to rejoice in them again because we think they bring life and vitality and joy and peace to the Christian life. So uh Paul, do you want to just s say about the shape of what we want to do in these next five evangelist podcasts?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so really we we're well we're we're doing these five videos. Well, six videos really. Yes. Um where we're doing five videos on the five solars, and so what we're gonna do is each week we're gonna take a bit more of an in-depth look at each of those uh in the order that those videos are coming out. So if you watch the video and you think this is good stuff, but I'd like to know a bit more, um hopefully you can come here and you'll hear a bit more about it. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01This is like the Underground layer, as we've established. Underneath the volcano.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, this is the behind the scenes that inside, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Inside the actor's studio big brothers, little brother, whatever it is. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Speak life. What were we gonna call it spike leaf or something? Spike leaf. No, that's not bad. No. We were gonna do those hot takes. What were we gonna call them? Like hot pops. Hot pops. Hot pops. And hot takes and slightly warmed over takes.
SPEAKER_00Lukewarms.
SPEAKER_01Luke Tebid takes with Glenn Scrivener. Uh yes, so the order that we're doing them in is Christ alone, and we'll let's let's think let's think first of all, why are we doing them in in this order? We're going Christ alone, then grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone, glory alone. Why are we doing Christ alone first?
SPEAKER_00Well, you told me to. This is the way it's happening. It's the big one. The big one. The big one. Yeah. Uh yeah, so we're doing Christ alone first because it focuses in on Jesus and the person of Jesus and who he is. And I suppose it is the it's the natural one to go first, I suppose. Um before we think about grace and faith. Um because grace and faith are very tied up in Jesus, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Totally.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And yeah, when I say I suppose, definitely looking at Glace. Very much so, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Very much so. So Jesus has something to do with this. It's kind of like we're great. I mean, I th I think a big problem is when we we start to think, and we'll get into this in in future weeks, but when we start to think of grace as a thing, as a stuff, um, that's a big problem. We start to think of faith as a thing that we do, it's like a big problem. But I think if yeah, I think if we start with Christ, then we start to think, you know what? Grace is just God's gift of Christ, and faith is just our receiving of Christ. But there's no thing called grace, there's no thing called faith. There's a person called Jesus, and he's at the centre of things. So So I think I yeah, I want to defend, I want to defend our order of things and say, Christ alone, let's start with him, and then I think grace and faith start to make sense. Um because what one way we're we're kind of thinking about uh all the solas, and solar is just a Latin word that means alone, uh, as we're thinking about all these alone statements, we're thinking about David and Goliath, the story of 1 Samuel 17, as uh a little narrative that helps explain these Reformation truths. Because David is a little Christ, a miniature Christ, 1 Samuel 16, he's been anointed to be the champion, to be the king of Israel, he's the king of the Jews. So what we're seeing in 1 Samuel 17 as he takes on Goliath is what Christ does. And what does Christ do? He volunteers to win the battle for Israel, and no one else defeats Goliath. David alone does it on that day, and so it's uh it's in Israel's Christ alone that they actually achieve their salvation. So that that's sort of the Christ alone thing, and and then grace alone, David does not do it because Israel's so wonderful. In fact, Israel, his brothers kind of don't want him to be there, and they think, ah, you're just wanting to, you know, spy on us, go back home and look after your sheep. Um David wins for Israel, not because Israel are good, he knows that they are bad. He doesn't save Israel because of what Israel is like, he saves Israel because of what he is like. He is gracious. So Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone. You know, it's it's about looking to your champion. Um, you know, a soldier just needs to look and see the victory of David and simply by faith that they then enjoy all the benefits of David's salvation. And then scripture. Scripture is like the herald on the on the battlefield, the news reporter that says, Goliath is down, victory is ours, surge forwards, hooray! That's that's scripture. And it's all to God's glory alone, you know, no one else, no one else can take credit on that day. It's all glory to God alone who does everything through his Christ. So that's kind of the the the setup for thinking about all these different things, and I and therefore I think I think we go with Christ alone, because it focuses us on our champion, focuses us on our David, who does it all for us. Um and in our in our video, Christ Alone, we've thought about these sort of two different areas of the way in which Christ alone has been understood. And the first area, I guess, is that we know God in Christ alone. So Paul, what like where where would you make your case in Scripture for this kind of thing to say that we know God? Revelation of God comes in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, so I guess some of the big ones we'd want to go to are places like uh Colossians one, where we see Paul saying Jesus is the image of the invisible God, and in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Wow. We get similar things in Hebrews 1, don't we write at the beginning with Christ being the uh the radiance? Is that right?
SPEAKER_01Is that the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh I suppose that's um you know it's a phrase you use quite a lot, you know. It's the if we want to know what God is like, then we look at Jesus, he is our window on God. Um I suppose, you know, some people often get that kind of mixed up, don't they, that they want to say Jesus can't be God because look at all these reasons, then they want to trot out, but actually it's the other way around. Actually, if Jesus is like that, then God is like that. Right. We've seen Christ, we've seen the Father. Yes. Father and I are one. Yes. Um all those kind of things play in, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting. When when people kind of say, Yeah, God Yeah, Jesus can't be God, because I already know what God's like. Like, I've already got this prefabricated mould into which I want to pour Jesus. Like, if if you're saying he's God, okay, he's gotta do this, this, this, this, this, and this. And you're like, Wow, where have you got that idea from?
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Well, a bit I I suppose when we were we were talking the other week about your discussion with Mushraf uh Hussein Hussein, and there's there was that kind of element there, I suppose, wasn't there, that God cannot do certain things. Yes. Uh so it was one of the questions I think you asked was that is God limit is God limited by us? Is that right? Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um Is he limited by our limitations?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And they're very much this kind of and and that was one of the things I don't feel he ever really got to the root of, but uh there was a sense there's very much this idea God cannot do this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Therefore someone like Jesus cannot be God. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I see it happening all the time, like even with Christians, and like your your average Christian testimony goes goes something like this. I'd always believed in God, and then I came to see that Jesus is the God that I'd already believed in. You know, so many people I've I've got this very developed understanding of God, and then I met Jesus, and somebody persuaded me that Jesus was the God that I'd already believed in, which kind of has it backwards. Like if Colossians 1.15 is right, you know, Christ is the image of the invisible gods. Like Christ is the one who's on show. The father is the one who's invisible. Like like so, really, the God that we know without Christ, well, who knows who that guy is?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, so really, you know, it's it's kind of like the old um the old myth of uh Procrustis. So Procrustis was this guy, and he had uh he had he had like a B and B, and you can come and stay in his hotel, and he and he made the claim that his bed would fit you perfectly. So come to my B and B, I'll take you upstairs to your room, this bed will fit you perfectly. And and of course, the the joke, it's a pretty macabre joke, was that the way he would make the bed fit is that he would chop your legs off if you were too tall, right? Or he would stretch you out if you were too short, right? Um this is where we get the phrase the procrustian bed from. Have you ever heard the procrustian bed? Uh no, no, it's not a phrase I use often. Benefits of a classical education. Um In fact, I don't know where that phrase benefits of a classical education comes from, except that it comes from Die Hard. Like so I probably haven't had a classical education, but Hans Gruber. Do you remember the scene in in Die Hard? And uh and Alan Alan Rickman, um, he's in the elevator and and he says to Mr. Takagi, he says, uh, and when Alexander looked across the lands, he wept for there were no more lands to conquer. Benefits of a classical education, he says.
SPEAKER_00I'm more at the kind of Yippie Kaye perspectrum, I think. That's right.
SPEAKER_01Nah, I have a machine gun. Ha ha ha. Now we're Japanese, was he? Yes. His well, his Hans Gruber, yeah, his his German accent was like d it was intentionally very anglophone because obviously every bad guy has to be English. And yeah, because they are the evilest race, obviously. Where was I? Benefits of a classic leg you can procrastinate. Procrastrian bed. Yeah. So if you've got this bed, so procrastined in philosophy is this idea that you've you've got this thing that's set in place, and that's not going to change. And then when you introduce another term, you chop off its legs.
SPEAKER_00You will make it fit.
SPEAKER_01You will make it fit. And so often people's idea of God is that, okay, I know what God's like. He's the big guy with the beard and the and the thunderbolt, right? And and then here comes Jesus, and we fold our arms and we say, Come on, come on, Nazarene, show us what you got. May maybe maybe you'll, you know, maybe you'll make the grade. And if you don't, I'm gonna chop your legs off and I'll you know, and so we fit Jesus to our idea of God, yeah, rather than looking at Jesus and saying, Ah, so that's what God's like. You know? And that that's where I think like the the truth about Christ alone is really quite beautiful, is because you're basically saying, whenever somebody comes up with a the idea of God, you're basically going, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, maybe, maybe, maybe. But let's look at Jesus. And if it looks like Jesus, okay, that's what God's like. And so, you know, Luther's got this lovely phrase, No other God have I but thee, born in a manger, died on a tree. Which is like, oh, okay. So here's here's the kind of God who would be become helpless as a baby, who would become a victim on a cross for us and bleed for us. If that's what God's like, well, hooray. Um so then I think it then I think it comes becomes quite a beautiful truth, like, no other God have I but thee. I'm not gonna contemplate a God who is un-Christ-like. He's the the entirely Christ-like God. And so from a truth that might sound really narrow and nasty to say that God is revealed only in Christ alone, I think it's actually it's actually really good news. It just means He's the one we're looking at, he's the one we're looking to.
SPEAKER_00A lot of people might kind of hear that and think, okay, we could we can we can understand and maybe even accept that Jesus is a window on God, but the idea that maybe, you know, Christ alone is our window on God would some people would struggle with. So people might say, Well, what about creation? Right. You know, that do we not is something not revealed about God in creation? Can we not see stuff there? Yeah. It's kind of another source of knowledge on God.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It would almost be like saying like in Colossians 1 it says he is the image of the invisible God. But I think that view would be to say, he's he's a an image. He's a very good image, maybe he's even the best image. But is he really the image? And sh yeah, and surely creation is preaching all the time to us about God, and and I guess people think about Romans 1 and stuff like that. Yes, you know, what may be known about God is made plain to us because God has made it plain to us. That's Romans 1, verse 19 and 20, I think. Um that from the creation of the world, even God's invisible qualities have been made known. So Romans 1 seems to be talking about this like really massive revelation of God's character in creation. So how do we put that together with Colossians 1? How do you put Romans 1 together with Colossians 1? Well, I I think even within Colossians 1, you've got this massive revelation of Christ. So in Colossians 1 and uh and verse 23, Paul writes, let me just get it up. Here we go. Colossians 1 verse 23. This is the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a minister. So he's actually saying that the gospel is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven. And I think so, Paul's got this maximal sense of, you know, this Christ who created all things in Colossians 1, he's being preached in all things, Colossians 1 verse 23. And I think that goes together with Romans 1, that that actually what may be known about God is being blared in the ears of all humanity. The problem is not that God is like mumbling. The problem is not that God is mumbling about himself, the problem is that we've got our iPhone, you know, but we've got we've we've got our earphones in. We're listening to uh, you know, the podcast that we like and listening to our own sermons.
SPEAKER_00Um So are you saying So my initial thought was creation does tell us something about God. We we can know something of God by looking at the world around us, but actually it doesn't help us to know God personally. Personally. But actually what you're saying, or at least the way I'm hearing it, is that actually the gospel is even in creation, the gospel is preached because all of creation is through Christ and for Christ, and kind of orientated towards him, that in some way the gospel is even preached through a Christ is even is revealed in creation. So therefore actually it does there is a way, there is a sense in which it enables us to know God. Well, I still I still think you still need Romans 10 a preacher.
SPEAKER_01Yeah because faith comes by hearing. Um so I'm absolutely you know adamant about that. It's not about looking up into the night sky and piecing it together and saying, Oh, I know Jesus would die on a cross and I trust in his blood alone. Like you need a preacher to tell you this stuff.
SPEAKER_00So you wouldn't know that you wouldn't know that, but also not enough just to be like, I am awed by creation. Yes, thing either.
SPEAKER_01So that wouldn't be But it's not just like so often people think that the sermon of creation is quite a minimal thing, as though it's like all that creation is telling you is that is that God is very big and clever. Well, no, that's not the way the Bible speaks. Like when when Jesus picks up a seed, and he you know, in John chapter twelve, like he doesn't say, Oh look at this seed, isn't it incredibly well designed? And wouldn't it wouldn't it take a great intelligence? God must be a great intelligence, mustn't he? No, when he picks up a seed, he says, think about it, this dies, rises again, and is fruitful. Mm-hmm that's interesting. Like, it's preaching the gospel. Or Psalm 19, which is this great psalm of what the heavens are declaring. Psalm 19, verse 1, the heavens are declaring the glory of God. The skies are proclaiming the work of his hands. And then when David kind of zeros in on the particular way that the heavens are proclaiming, he focuses in on the sun. Uh the S-U-N, the sun. So from verse 4, you know, it's like a champion bridegroom that that makes its way from east to west in in the in the sky, and it banishes all darkness, and nothing is hidden from its heat, and it brings light and life to the cosmos. And he even says it's like a champion bridegroom. You know, you've only got to flick on a few pages in Psalms and you read Psalm 45, the champion bridegroom is Christ, who, you know, and he is the light of the world, and he is the great high priest, because it's the high priest who goes from east to west in the tabernacle and brings us into God's presence. So what is the sun proclaiming? And and I think it's everything, everything from the S-U-N sun all the way down to seeds. I think they're saying to us something a lot more detailed than God is big and God is clever. I think what they're saying is, yeah, this is Christ's universe. Jesus is Lord, creation's voice proclaims it, um, as the old hymn goes. Um but unfortunately, the big problem is not that God is indistinct in his sermon, the big problem is that we we suppress the truth in our ungodliness, in that Romans 1 sense. So that is creation revealing lots of stuff? It's revealing lots and lots and lots of stuff, um, but it's it's only really interested in Christ, because Christ is the creator, and who else is it going to preach about? Um the the the reason why we don't know Christ through creation is because we we block it all out, we we shout down the sermon of creation, we listen to our own stuff, and we don't really care. So that's what I'd say about about creation. You know, is creation uh an alternative source of knowledge about God? I'd say no. Everything's in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I guess some people would want to push back as well and say, Well, what about other religions? If we can only know God in Christ alone i i i well I suppose people think generally is they want to say that's very that's a very exclusive view the Christian has. Right. Um, and you're saying all other religions are a load of rubbish and stuff. But I guess Well, I mean I know in a sense that's uh there's there's truth in in that and and and untruth as well, isn't there? Because I think we can acknowledge, can't we, that in other religions there are aspects of truth. Sure. True things said by Buddha, true things said by Muhammad, sure. Yeah. I mean just as but I mean as there is in a lot of things as well, you can turn on the TV and sit you know, watch Star Wars and yeah, find elements of truth in there and stuff. Yeah. But in t I mean, what do we think in terms of is is this a narrow thing that we that we're kind of saying Christ is the only way, those ways are not.
SPEAKER_01I think what we're saying, like so r I mean John fourteen was probably the verse that lots of people think of when they think of Christ alone. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John fourteen, six. And it's just it's just true, it's even just a truth of comparative religion that if you want to press into the truth claims in these other religions, that no one no one does actually lead you to the father except Jesus. Um you know, you you go to Islam and and they're they're not they're not even attempting to lead you to the Father. Allah has 99 names and none of them are father. You go to the Buddha and and He's not He's not talking about oneness with the Father, he's talking about oneness with the cosmos. Even just talking to the cults. I mean, the the the great problem with the cults is that they're not leading you to the father. Jehovah's Witnesses are not leading you to the Father. They've redefined God to be simply Jehovah by himself, and they're not leading you to the Father. Mormons are not leading you to the Father. Elohim, you know, exists with his spirit bride, and uh that no nobody's leading you to the Father except the Christ of Scripture. And so, you know, are there great things that the Buddha has said? Yeah. Yeah, I mean I read this this thing that uh Buddha said, um, you will not be judged for your anger, you will be judged by your anger. You're like, Oh, that's an interesting, you know, you're like, okay. It it's just sort of I mean, I guess it's caught up in the in his karmic kind of teaching, um, that actually when you unleash evil out there into the world, you become a victim of it. And it kind of gels what goes around and comes around.
SPEAKER_00And it's kind of words of the great Justin Timberlake. That's right.
SPEAKER_01There's truth found even on the lips. You see, just it's it's also a truth in Romans 1, isn't it? That God hands us over to our sin and that sort of thing, and and you will not be judged for your anger, you'll be judged by your anger. So there's a lot of truth in all these religions, but but do any of them uh lead you to ultimate truth to the Father? No, Christ Christ alone does that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay, and what about what about things like the Old Testament then where you know if we're saying Christ alone, some people want to say at least Jesus doesn't really doesn't really make an appearance until uh no one on this podcast would though, would you? Yeah, yeah. I mean I think I've probably gonna know where you're gonna go with this one. Where do you think I'm gonna go? Well, I mean we're back to the same discussion we were having a few weeks ago, I suppose, about about the Trinity and is the Trinity there in the Old Testament and is Christ in the Old Testament and very visit you know, we'd I think all of us would want to see. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and Jesus says, doesn't he, on the Emmaus Road, you know, he he's he begins explaining the scriptures that are about him, you know, Moses and the prophets. Um so the whole Old Testament is kind of pointing us to Jesus, and not just pointing us forward, uh like to look, he's not here yet, but he's coming. He is uh appearing continually, the the preincarnate son. Yeah. You know, in these kind of Christophanes, if you want to use that word. Christophanes, hey, get you, I know your solas and your own. I remember saying that in a in a lecture at university and and saying, you know, oh well Christ is the visible image of the invisible gods. Uh-huh. And uh so when in the old testament people see gods, it's like it must be Christ, you know, Christophanes. And I remember this lecture looking at me, and she she just went, Well, that's a very advanced theology Which basically I took to mean I don't really agree with that.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean we've already mentioned John 1, Colossians 1, and and Hebrews 1, and it's just fascinating. Like, these are the your three best verses on well, uh, together with John 14, these are these are your best verses on Christ alone being our source of knowledge of God. But the context for all of them is not simply, you know, the New Testament. It's not simply since the incarnation, Jesus is the best. All three of them say, from the foundation of the world, Jesus is the only. Right? And this, you know, we're constantly being told, even within evangelical circles, that Jesus is now now that the New Testament has come, Jesus is now the best revelation of God. Whereas the scriptures are constantly saying, no, Jesus has always been the only revelation of God. So, you know, John 1 begins with Jesus being there from before the foundation of the world. Colossians 1 says he's the creator of everything, Hebrews 1 says he's the creator of everything. But I think this this kind of points to like the the the big drum that we're banging, which is to say that Christ alone is not a narrow truth. It's not naming the narrowness of the way, it's actually naming the cosmic breadth of Christ. It's not about how small the way is, it's about how large Jesus is. And when we get that perspective, I think it becomes quite a beautiful truth.
SPEAKER_00And having that perspective changes everything because you you i I'm reminded of you know um Richard Dawkins, you know, talking about yeah, I think Lennox, it was in the thing with John Lennox, John Lennox says, could you even conceive there is a God? And Dawkins says something like like yes, he could. But the idea that God became a man, a carpenter, and died on a cross is so petty. Right. And if you have that view of that's who Jesus is, he's just this bloke little old Jesus carpenter, died on a cross and that was kind of it, then it does seem it does seem petty. Yeah. It does seem small and narrow and insignificant, but actually if we have a proper picture of who Jesus is, um if we let the scriptures shape that, then actually, like you say, it's not narrow at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And if it's if this is what the God of Heaven does, he actually pours himself out as this carpenter who becomes a preacher, who becomes a slave of all, who becomes a sacrifice on the cross, and he does it all for us. Like suddenly that becomes a really attractive guard. And yeah, I mean I'm constantly talking about this um quote from uh Tom Torrance, who was uh an army chaplain in the Second World War, and he comes across this soldier bleeding out from his wounds, Private Phillips, he's only 19 years old, and uh and the soldier looks up and he sees the Padre, he sees the chaplain, and he says, Padre, is God really like Jesus? That's that's the one thing he wants to know. He's about to meet his maker. Is God really like Jesus? And and Tom Torrent says, Um, Jesus is the only God that there is, the only God that we can know, and he's one who's poured himself out for us. And how beautiful for you know, in this tragic situation, here's this guy, he's about to bleed out, to know that God bled out for him. Um and that's and that's the only that's that you know, that's the picture of God that we have. There's a God we can entrust ourselves to, the the God who was born in a manger and who died on a tree. Um so I I just I just think it's a a beautiful truth, it's not a narrow truth, it's a glorious truth that the the God we're talking about is the Jesus God.
SPEAKER_00And um what about reason? Can we know anything of God simply by reason? Separate from Christ.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, I guess we just say like whatever God can be known can only be the Jesus God, and whatever God who is not known as the Jesus God um is not really worthy of the name. So again, you'd go to Colossians and and places like that. It's Colossians two, in verse three it describes um all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him. And then uh in verse eight of Colossians two, it says, See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Which is fascinating because Paul's basically in verse nine he says, The whole fullness of deity dwells bodily in Christ, which is the most repugnant idea to the Greek mind you could possibly imagine. Like the Greek mind thinks, you know, there's the spiritual realm up above, and there's this horrible carnal fleshly realm down below, and never the twain shall meet. And Paul's saying, Look, you don't know anything unless you begin with Jesus, and he's the Jesus in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. And so, you know, he's he's taken the most scandalous truth, actually, and he said, Unless you begin with that scandalous truth, you're not gonna know God. Uh and he does something similar in uh in one Corinthians one, that you know, Greeks demand wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Um even says in one Corinthians one that since through their wisdom they did not know God, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. So according to Scripture, we don't reason our way to God as though there's this ladder, and through our good thoughts we climb our way up into heaven. That is that is kind of ruled out by the Reformation. The Reformation is not about us climbing our way to heaven. The Reformation is Christ comes down and meets us in our ignorance. So in the in the realm of knowledge of God, we don't climb our way to heaven, Jesus meets us in our ignorance. In the realm of salvation, we don't climb our way towards heaven, Jesus meets us in our sin. And that I guess is the is the sort of the the second truth that uh Christ alone really means. It means that we are saved, uh saved only by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00So we've been thinking we've mostly been thinking about how we know God in Christ, but we think a little bit now about uh being saved by God only in Christ. Um what do we say to people who want to say, surely there are other ways to be saved? What are the major ones that people want to say? Mm-hmm. How do you respond?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I guess you know, you've got the five pillars of Islam, that might be a way. Although isn't it isn't it interesting actually when we talk about salvation, it's that's a deeply Christian idea. And when you when you start talking about can you be saved in other religions, actually, again, as a truth, a s a simple truth of comparative religion, um Islam does not save, right? Allah does not save you. Because literally, there is no word for salvation really in Islamic theology. You know, it uh the the closest thing to salvation in Islamic theology is being successful. You know, there are those who are successful in getting to paradise, and there are those who are the losers, and they don't get into paradise. There's the successful and the losers. There's not the saved and the damned, it's the successful and the losers. Because that just there just is no salvation. No one no one gets saved in Islam. You you're either a good Muslim or you're a reality. Make your own way. Make your own way. And it's and it's similar in you know Buddhism and and how we how are you going? How's how's your karma? You know, how how's it all going? So actually, when you look out there at the religions of the world in terms of an alternative source of salvation, actually you just conclude that Jesus alone saves. Like it's it sounds like a really like narrow dogmatic theological truth. Actually, it's just a really obvious, you know, observation from comparative religion. Only Jesus saves.
SPEAKER_00He's but no one else here is claiming to actually save anyone. Yeah, exactly. So it's yeah, it's not controversial really to say this is the one guy saying that. Yeah, exactly. But seemingly it is like it is controversial.
SPEAKER_01How dare you say only Jesus saves? And you say, Well, would you know much about the other religions? Because like that's not what they're on about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's it's just part of this whole it's kind of a Western imperialism. The way we do comparative religion is we basically say, Well, we know what religion is because we grew up going to church and that sort of thing, and you know, and you know, as a culture, it's like we've we've gone to Sunday school and so we kind of know what religion is and we basically think it's like Christianity. And so we you know, Westerners, whether they're Christian or not, they just basically think that all religion works like Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know Islam is just kind of Christianity, but it's a little bit more Muslim.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. In an Arab voice. It's just Christianity in an Arab voice. And and but it's just so colonial and racist to think in those terms because actually Christianity is Christianity in an Arab voice, because there's plenty of people I I think after your Chinese German accent earlier, don't think we're in any position to I didn't say that it was Chinese, Paul.
SPEAKER_00That was all coming from you.
SPEAKER_01But uh he who has he is. Is it because I'm Australian? Is that why? I I get your game. But yeah, so so is there an alternative to Jesus saving? Actually, no, it seems seems like there's not. You know, the the cavalry is not coming, it's just this guy. But I guess the the other alternative, um to Jesus alone be my salvation, I guess, is to say Jesus plus me. Um which is not not a great doctrine, is it?
SPEAKER_00Nope.
SPEAKER_01It used to be said of John McEnroe that the greatest doubles team in in tennis would be John McEnroe and anyone. You know, it's like John McEnroe and anyone would win Will Wimbledon. And uh like if you want to say that it's a partnership between you and Jesus, you know, like Yeah. You you bring you bring nothing to the table, really. He's carrying you. Which again, which again is just makes the Christ alone thing such a beautiful truth. It's it's not a narrow, nasty truth. It's the beautiful truth that Jesus kind of shoes us off the the stage and puts us into the audience and we're just eating the popcorn, watching as Jesus does it all.
SPEAKER_00And I guess we kind of touch on that a little bit more when we think about grace, grace alone. That it's not like Jesus is the motivational coach who G's us up to go and do it ourselves, you know, go get 'em. Yeah. Um, like you say, spectators, absolutely spectators on the sideline.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um sit down, Paul. I've got this one. It's that kind of thing. Christ alone who saves. So hopefully we see this as good news, good news for the world. And uh do stay tuned for more on uh these alone statements of the Reformation. We've got four more to come. Gonna think about grace alone, gonna think about faith alone, scripture alone, and all to God's glory alone. But uh that's about all we got time for. If you uh would like to press into these truths a little bit more, we've got our great videos uh that are out there on Facebook right now. If you go to Speak Life UK, search for Speak Life UK and you'll find our Facebook page. Please do like us, and uh please do click on the videos, have a watch, and do have a share. Sharing is caring, and this is the way that we get the message out there. Uh, if you're not already subscribed to the Evangelist Podcast, please do uh subscribe. And if you've got a minute, why don't you uh give us a rating and a review that uh helps us to get seen by more people? Well, Paul, it's been a pleasure to uh chat Christ Alone with you. And uh we look forward to everybody's company next week when we look at Grace Alone. Yeah, it's been good. I'm looking forward to it. Awesome. See you guys.