Through Christ Alone
Acts 21:40–22:22
Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Acts 22:21
Paul had been doing everything possible to stress how Jewish he was, but as soon as he uttered the word “Gentiles,” the mob reacted violently and would have killed him if it could have.
Why did they object to that word? They were objecting to Paul’s persuasion that Gentiles could be saved without adhering to the law of Moses, without becoming Jews.
But God saves people his way, and his way is through Christ.
If you are a Gentile, you can come as a Gentile. But it must be through Jesus Christ alone.
If you are a Jew, you can come as a Jew. But you must come through Christ alone.
If you are an Englishman, you can come as an Englishman. But you must come through Christ.
If you are Japanese, you can come as a Japanese. But you must come through Christ.
Why must we come in this way and not in some other way? Why can’t we invent our own way? It is because God sent Jesus Christ to be the Savior. This is how God has done it. So when we talk about the gospel today, we are not talking about a religious opinion, though the world would like to make it that. We are talking about reality, about truth. Once I talked to a woman on an airplane about spiritual things, and every time I said something about the gospel, she said, “But that’s just your opinion.”
I replied, “That’s true, it is my opinion. But that’s not the point. Whether it is my opinion or not does not matter. What matters is, is it true?”
When I explained something else, the same thing happened. “But that’s just your opinion,” she said.
I replied, “Yes, that is my opinion. But the point is not whether it’s my opinion. The point is, is it true?” We went on that way for about an hour, and at the end I knew even she was beginning to get it, because she was laughing. She knew what was coming.
Paul had met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and that meeting turned his life around. God sent Jesus Christ to be the Savior. If you rebel against that fact, you are doing exactly what the Jews did. You are saying that you have to do something first and you want others to do it your way. If you are thinking like that, it is no wonder you despise and even hate a gospel as humbling as this gospel is.
It may be simple and it may be humbling, but it is still the gospel, and it is the way to be saved. May God give you grace to embrace it wholeheartedly.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.