Archive article 9

“ For this is the will of my father,

that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life:

and I will raise him up at the last day.”

            Gospel of John 6 ⁴⁰

 

 We had just flown urgently back into Italy from the United States.  My wife was discovered to have an internal haemorrhage and although we were given special flight clearance the instructions were very precise: “As soon as you can, find a doctor who can operate on her as soon as possible. Here in the USA we only have a handful of surgeons who could do this, but I know that there are specialist surgeons in Italy.  Find him.”

 

It was in the middle of August when nearly all Italy is on holiday. How can you find a needle in a haystack?

However, after speaking with our own family doctor we travelled to a specialised centre. The Consultant surgeon

Immediately understood the urgency  of our plight and said: “the person you need is in Milano”.  He got up, went out and tried to phone him.  When he came back, unable to phone him, he sat down and began to scribble a hasty letter which we were told to take to him.  “Go to Dr. Azzarelli with this letter.  He’s the one who can help you.”

 

To tell all of the details of what followed would take a book, but it can be succinctly described, (and even though 12 years have passed I recall the events with great thankfulness).  Not only were we able to find the surgeon (who wasn’t on holiday!)  but he, with his colleague,  performed a 6-7 hour operation which was at the limits of human possibility saving my wife’s life.

 

The verse above has this same sense of urgency and uniqueness. When Jesus was alive there were many priests and teachers of the law who could all have directed an enquirer towards God. But Jesus knew that He himself was the fountain of salvation. He didn’t leave enquirers to go to others. He knew that is was only the person  “who sees the Son and believes in him”   that will have this fantastic joy of eternal life.

 

Our modern society doesn’t really favour this sort of approach.  Instead of the small  local grocery store we point people to the supermarkets: “you’ve got more choice”.  Whereas the shop next door might only have a couple of brands we know that that the supermarket will have dozens of them!  We’re used to choice.  However, when the issues comes down to medicine,  the number of choices comes down radically, and in our own case to just one!  

 

 This ‘single’ choice, however, is not poor because it’s the only one.  When we read in the book of the Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we read of Jesus appearing in a scene (chapter 5) where no solution was being found:

“. . . and I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.”

 

But it’s right at that point that we continue to read that:

 

“one of the elders said to me, “weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll” .

And the description of the scene that follows is of fantastic joy and celebration as Jesus, the lamb which was slain,  is now risen and sin and evil are defeated.

 

In fact, in all of the Bible there are never multiple ways of salvation.  There’s always just one! When Israel had left Egypt and the people found themselves at the Red Sea, they would have loved to have had more options, but there was only one, straight across the Sea. 

 

When Jesus was on earth, Satan came to him to offer an alternative plan of salvation to mankind when he said to Jesus:

“all these will I give you if you will fall down and worship me”. (Gospel of Matthew 4⁹)

 

But Jesus knew that there was only one way of salvation:

“You shall worship the Lord you God and him only shall you serve”.

 

Dear reader, this uniqueness of Christ is not a false limitation. It’s the uniqueness of the truth. When we go to out doctor we are not interested him giving us 3 or 4 versions of our sickness! We really don’t want to hear him say: “ Well it could be. . . . on the other hand you could think . . . or perhaps you could suspect that . . . or maybe it could be something totally different.”  Absolutely, no! You want to hear a clear judgment, precise, definite so that you can make a clear choice. . . and this is even true when it’s a severe sickness!

 

Jesus said to look at the Son – to contemplate him and to believe in Him.  And the person who does that will never be disappointed. Just as the episode with my wife could have only one solution, so we, too, to come out of our crises, there will be only one solution – believe in Christ and His Word and obey it.

                                                                                       Pastor Paul Finch