The Truth: Jesus Said, "I AM The Way!"

7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came [a]before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a [b]hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.
17 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

John 10:7-18

Jesus makes it clear that He is the only Way to God. There is no other way, not even through religion.

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SW-User

[i]The only really absolute mysteries in Christianity are the self-communication of God in the depths of existence—which we call grace, and in history—which we call Christ.
[/i]
(Fr. Karl Rahner, Jesuit priest and theologian, 1904–1984)

Such grace and self-communication is not restricted to the understanding and creedal formulas of Protestant Reform Theology, nor their biblical hermeneutics.

The Catholic monk Thomas Merton spoke in his Journal of a passage from Irenaeus, one of the early Church Fathers .(A passage that my own understanding and experience associates with the Pure Land notion of "being made to become so (of itself) without/beyond the calculation of the devotee, where "no working is true working")

The passage was:- [i]If you are the work of God wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time........Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you........lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers......[/i]

Merton commented:-

[i]The reification of faith. Real meaning of the phrase we are saved by faith = we are saved by Christ, whom we encounter in faith. But constant disputation about faith has made Christians become obsessed with faith almost as an object, at least as an experience, a "thing" and in concentrating upon it they lose sight of Christ. Whereas faith without the encounter with Christ and without His presence is less than nothing. It is the deadest of dead works, an act elicited in a moral and existential void. To seek to believe that one believes, and arbitrarily to decree that one believes, and then to conclude that this gymnastic has been blessed by Christ - this is pathological Christianity. And a Christianity of works. One has this mental gymnastic in which to trust. One is safe, one possesses the psychic key to salvation......[/i]

The "encounter with Christ" is beyond the parameters set by any theology or creed.

GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M

@SW-User [quote]The "encounter with Christ" is beyond the parameters set by any theology or creed.[/quote]

So, what do you call my encounter with Christ? His Holy Spirit lives within my heart and converses with my spirit.

SW-User

@GodSpeed63 I have no idea what to call it, how would I know? But self testimony can be no testimony at all. It could well be presumption based upon lies - which I presume is how you view the self same assurances that those of other Faiths claim to have.

Whatever, I will not respond again.

All the best

GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M

@SW-User [quote]I have no idea what to call it, how would I know?[/quote]

Good question.

SW-User

@GodSpeed63 How would you know?

😀

GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M

@SW-User [quote]How would you know?[/quote]

By the Holy Spirit of Truth that God has placed within me when I became born again. Flesh gives birth to flesh and Spirit gives birth to spirit. You've had a physical birth, now you need to have Spiritual birth in order to know God on a personal basis.

SW-User

@GodSpeed63 Pure Protestant Reform Theology, born of time and place and not of the eternal.

SW-User

@SW-User The perfectly simple thing to see regarding "by whose authority", with the implication that one's "own" is "of God" while that of any who dispute with us is "of themselves", is to hear the self-same claim made by any Moslem, citing the Qu'ran.

It is [i]we[/i] who initially elect our "authority". To then sit back and claim that "ours" is "of God" as opposed to that of others is simply self-deception, and, indeed, shows a lack of true Faith.

Now I am finished with all this. Anyone else can take the floor.

Thank you.

GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M

@SW-User [quote]Pure Protestant Reform Theology, born of time and place and not of the eternal.[/quote]

Tell me, Sam, Do you think the Word of God (Holy Bible) is solid Truth or do you think it's all made up? Which is it?

LeopoldBloom · M

@GodSpeed63 The concept of a “personal relationship with Christ” originated with 17th century German Pietists.

SW-User

@GodSpeed63 I consider "revelation" to be all creation, all Reality, and that nothing has pre eminence.

Any moment can be one where grace is known, received, surrendered to. In that moment, it will have pre eminence. We are all unique individuals.

Thank you

GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M

@SW-User [quote]I consider "revelation" to be all creation, all Reality, and that nothing has pre eminence. [/quote]

You didn't answer my question.