Is anyone qualified to answer if Jesus is the only way to heaven? I’m just a farm boy from Iowa. If you looked at my resume, you wouldn’t see anything that qualifies me for such a position.

Perhaps I need to interview: a scholar, the pope, an Islamic Imam and the Dali Lama. I could take a consensus of their thoughts to formulate an answer. However, I have a problem with trusting these people. I’m sure they’re nice people, but they don’t speak from experience. If you needed to have double bypass surgery you would never go to a first-year resident. You would go to a heart surgeon who has performed the surgery so many times they could do it in their sleep. Likewise, none of these people have ever died and come back to tell us for sure what things are like on the other side. Their answers would be nothing more than an educated guess. Frankly, I’m not willing to place my eternal destiny on the answers of people who have never been there.

We all need someone with ample authority to answer this question. It quickly becomes clear that only God has the authority to know if Jesus is the only way to heaven. No one is above God. If 5 billion people say no, but God says yes, God holds the trump card. To see God’s plan we need to go back to the first 2 people who ever lived. The record of their lives tells us that from the very beginning God was promising that He would send one and only One who would save the people from their fallen state (Genesis 3). God sent many prophets throughout the ages to confirm His promise and to remind the people of God’s coming Redeemer (see Isaiah 9:6-7 and Isaiah 53).

The Creator did not plan on having many ways to Himself. He has always told us that there would be just One Way. Galatians 4:4 tells us, “But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son.” Jesus did not show up purely on His own initiative, He was sent from God the Father.

Hebrews 1:1-2 tells us, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” Wow, now we’re getting a real qualified individual. Einstein did his best just to understand the complexities of the universe which Jesus created.

The qualified one now tells us clearly if He is the only way for salvation. Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yes, Jesus is indeed the only way. He is the only one qualified to make a statement, being God himself, and he states that he is the only way.

What is our response? Well, God covered that one as well. “God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). Jesus is the only way for all people, everywhere, at every time.