Jesus Was In The Boat

One of the harder beliefs to accept, especially for our modern world, is the exclusivity of Jesus Christ – the claim that Jesus is the only way to salvation. In general, people are hesitant to single out just one correct way of doing things, which is fine if we are talking about how to make pancake batter, but decidedly not fine if your diseased body needs a very specific medication. 

The exclusivity of Christ is therefore a difficult concept for a society that has embraced “tolerance” and loves to camp out in the grey area of not being certain about really important, foundational truths. “To each his own” is the common mantra, especially in regards to religion, which has been kicked out of the public square and relegated to the confines of personal belief.

As Christians, we can certainly feel the pressure, and perhaps temptation, to downplay the exclusivity of Christ. After all, doesn’t it come across as arrogant to claim that we have arrived at the truth and others are still wallowing in foolishness and falsehood? Don’t other religions also possess great wisdom and traditions?

But salvation is exclusive because at bottom is not about a set of beliefs, traditions or rituals. It is about a person. A person who is unique and unlike anyone else on earth or in heaven. It is about Jesus. 

In Mark 4, we come across the story of the disciples caught in a nasty storm. The waves are washing into the boat and its occupants are at the point of drowning. But then suddenly they are saved. In a moment, the tempest is tamed and the wind goes silent. The disciples are saved.

Why? Why did twelve fisherman drowning in the middle of the lake make it out alive? Because Jesus was in the boat.

Buddha wasn’t there. Mohamed wasn’t there. Thor wasn’t there. Vishnu wasn’t there. The Virgin Mary wasn’t there. Saint Peter was, but he was one of exhausted and exasperated disciples crying out for help!

But Jesus was there. The second person of the Triune God, in human, bodily form, was in that fishing boat in the middle of a lake in Galilee. It was Jesus who stood up and rebuked the wind and waves. It was Jesus who saved the disciples from the ferocious storm. 

It is the same with our salvation which was accomplished on a cross outside Jerusalem on a hill called Golgotha. It was Jesus the Christ who hung on that wooden pole with nails in his hands and feet. It was the blood of Jesus that was poured out onto the ground at the foot of the cross, offered as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. It was Jesus, and no one else. 

And that is why we insist that salvation cannot be found in anyone else or by any other means. It is not because Christians like being exclusive or think that their story of salvation through Jesus Christ is better than all the other salvation stories told by all the other religions of the world. Rather, we insist on the exclusivity of Jesus because he truly, and historically, came to earth to be our salvation. 

Nobody else could and did do what Jesus did for us. If some other god had been in the boat with the disciples during that stormy night, they would have drowned. There would have been no salvation. In the same way, if you trust in some other god to save you, they won’t be able to. It is only Jesus.