The generosity of God in the Synoptic Gospels and Jesus’ Teaching: What the Synoptic Gospels, and Jesus’ teaching in particular, tell us about ‘entering into right relationship with God’

Note: In the following references I point to some of the numerous occasions on which Jesus taught about ways of entry into and living in divine relationship that did not involve any ‘belief in’ or ‘commitment to’ himself. I am of course fully aware that there were many other occasions when he did speak in this ‘believe also in me’ way.

The point I am making is that while the evangelical church has said there is only ‘one way’ into a valid relationship with God, namely through conscious belief in and commitment to the risen Christ, Jesus clearly did not restrict ‘salvation’ to just this one way of entry. In the synoptics, Jesus repeatedly teaches that there are other heart-based attitudes and their resulting ‘goodnesses’ which also receive the smile and welcome of God and his Christ. Whatever Jesus meant when he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me," he could not have meant it in the way the evangelical church has interpreted it.

Later I will give what I believe is a far more likely interpretation of John 14.6 and similar passages - an interpretation that does not assign ninety percent of the world’s population to hell!

The visit of the Magi at the birth of Jesus: Matthew 2

It is a startling fact that three Zoroastrian astrologer-priests from the region of modern day Iran were in enough of a relationship with God to find themselves included in the great drama of the birth of the Christ. Certainly, if a committee of evangelical church leaders had done the deciding as to who was to be part of this great event they would have rejected out of hand the very notion of including pagan astrologers.

While not a direct teaching on ‘salvation’ as such, this remarkable inclusion does say a lot about the truth stated many times in the Psalms and Prophets that God is not just the God of Israel but the God of the Nations as well. It is also a classic example of the fact that at no time had God left himself without witness. The involvement of the magi in Christ’s birth powerfully confirms the Prophet Hanani’s assertion (2 Chronicles 16.9) that not only do “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro across the whole earth” but that what counts, at a essential level, are hearts committed to God and directed away from ‘self’.

The Beatitudes - The way of ‘Good Heart’: Matthew 5.1-12

Here, in perhaps the most famous and important of all Christ’s teachings, he lists the qualities which clearly establish and maintain a relationship with God. At no point does Jesus teach that in order to live in this state of ‘blessedness’ any type of ‘believing in’ or ‘commitment to’ him is required. While some have tried to argue that the ‘blessedness’ talked about here is something less than salvation, even the conservative Amplified Bible translates the word ‘blessed’ as "spiritually prosperous [that is, with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favour and salvation]."

Another favourite defence against the obvious implications of these teachings of Jesus is, "Oh, but these people are already followers of Christ; they are already ‘believers’." However, it is abundantly clear that the first seven of the Beatitudes apply to all ‘those’ who are poor in spirit, ‘those’ who mourn, or are meek, all ‘those’ who hunger and thirst after righteousness or are merciful, all ‘those’ who are pure in heart, who make peace or who are persecuted because of their right heart and actions. This use of the ‘general plural’ by Jesus is a deliberate reference to and implies the deliberate inclusion of all those who do these sorts of things, and not just some tiny select group. These first seven Beatitudes are universally ordained immutable Divine principles which apply to the entire human race.

The inclusiveness of these initial Beatitudes is made even clearer when, in verse 11, Jesus deliberately narrows the application, changing the ‘the’ and ‘those’ to ‘you’, as in ‘you disciples of mine’. Why? Because here in this beatitude he is speaking specifically just to his disciples about the inevitability that they will undergo persecution because of their loyalty to him. This change in language shows that the first seven beatitudes have to be addressed to ‘any and everyone’ who does the things mentioned.