The fat skinny on who gets saved

There is a raging argument in my neighborhood about who gets saved. We have Buddhists from mainland China, Catholics from Mexico, and of course Orthodox and Muslims . . . all on my short little street! The Buddhists/Confucianists/Taoists from PRC maintain that all people are on their path toward enlightenment or Nirvana. My Catholic friend next door insists that Mary is the key to eternal life, my Orthodox friends are genetically Orthodox as far as they are concerned and so is God, ‘nuff said, and the Muslim says that those who get to heaven are those whose good deeds outweigh their bad ones. And then there is little old us here.

Is there truth/light in these other religions? This is one I have been chewing on for all the years I have been a missionary. This pot of coffee has been percolating for 12 plus years . . . and I still am not sure. No, I am not a chicken to say what I really think, I really am undecided. (And my decision is irrelevant in the end anyhow. God’s decision is the one that carries weight, not mine) And some might think that the question unimportant and all that reveals, is that they have never shared their faith against another major world religion. The question matters.

So why am I undecided? Well it’s complicated. When a Buddhist says, “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do to you” it sounds suspiciously like Matthew 7:12 (There is something similar in 21 of the World Religions see see here) Or when a Muslim prays the words, “God is all-forgiving, all-compassionate,” well . . . he is speaking the Truth, is he not? And there are countless other examples . . . these two Hesslegrave gives and for time’s sake I used his.

When I talk to people, the truth can easily get all twisted up in endless little traps and corners. Logic is rarely a friend to Faith, unless you have a mind like Ravi Z, which I certainly do not. My mind is much more of the holy variety, er, I mean full of holes. I am starting to come to the conclusion that God’s glory shines into all corners of the world, and that to some extent includes religions. But I also believe that systems that point people in the opposite direction of where God can be found, are not conveyers of the Truth, even though they may have truthful statements within their systems. The revealed Truth of God seems to consistently point to the fact that God is in the business of bringing people back to Himself. And ultimately and finally it seems equally apparent that Christ is the only means of that reconnection. There has never been someone like Him in the history of the world. In the end, one has to decided what to do with Jesus. He just doesn’t go away.

So the fat skinny on who gets saved is this, only sinners do. No matter where our religious affiliations may lie, we are all abject sinners . . . and that is good, because those are the only kinds of people He saves. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance . . . THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE . . . For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And that is the fat skinny.