Notes of Faith July 25, 2024
No Other Name
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Acts 4:12
In his book Jesus: The Only Way to God John Piper wrote, “It seems to me that the very people who have historically been the most joyfully and sacrificially aggressive in world evangelism are losing their nerve. In our shrinking, pluralistic world, the belief that Jesus is the only way of salvation is increasingly called arrogant and even hateful. In the face of this criticism, many shrink back from affirming the global necessity of knowing and believing in Jesus.”1
The apostle Peter didn’t hesitate to proclaim to his critics that there was no salvation in anyone other than Jesus. Jesus said that no one could come to God except through Him (John 14:6). He alone is both God and human, born of a virgin, resurrected from the dead, ascended to heaven, and coming again. He alone is Savior.
Keep John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 at the forefront of your mind, and don’t be intimidated in sharing this Good News with the world. Through Jesus Christ we can know God, experience peace, and enjoy eternal life.
Jesus alone can offer eternal life because He is the only one who lived a sinless life and provided the perfect sacrifice for our sins by His death on the cross.
Billy Graham
1. John Piper, Jesus: The Only Way to God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2010), 7.
Acts 4:8-12
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers and elders of the people, 9 if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, 10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead — by this name this man stands here before you in good health. 11 "He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. 12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
Truth will always be rejected by those who will not submit to the authority of the one and only true God. These people create their own God, even if they seem to follow another earthly God, they follow only as far as they get what they want. This is not the true God of heaven and earth. God the Father sent His Son Jesus into the world that He might be sacrificed, crucified, to pay for the sin of mankind, and that through belief in Him, every believer might be saved, forgiven, given the very power of God through the Holy Spirit living within him, to be set free from the bondage of sin, and receive eternal life…victory over death! This is possible only through Jesus Christ! Praise God for faith to believe in Jesus and the eternal life only He can provide.
Pastor Dale