Many ways to God?

A friend who grew up in the Christian church has latterly become uncomfortable with foundational Christian teaching. Such teaching, he fears, appears to see God as dividing men and women into two groups – those who trust Jesus as the only way into God’s heavenly dwelling and those who do not believe and so are denied entry. His problem is that it looks to him like relatively few people will be, as it is called, ‘saved’.

What my friend is experiencing is nothing new. When Jesus was ministering on earth, someone seeing the miracles of Jesus and hearing his wise words also started to wonder, ’Lord, are only a few going to be saved?’ Jesus didn’t answer directly but re-focused the question and directed it back to those around.

‘He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to”.’ On a different occasion Jesus said, ‘enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction…’

What is that narrow door or gateway to which Jesus directs us? It’s nothing less than entering through Jesus as though he were a gate. This is how to enter into life with God both now and for always. It’s not so much that the way is narrow to keep people out but to illustrate that the way to God isn’t like a mountain with more than one path leading to the summit; there’s just one path says Jesus.

So, what are we to make of my friend’s view about how many people will make it to ‘Heaven’? I can’t answer that in terms of numbers or percentages but the same Bible where we read about Jesus, also tells us that in God’s heavenly kingdom there will be a ‘great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language…’ This quote is from the last book in the Bible.