WWUTT 942 No One Gets to the Father but by Jesus?

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There is no other way to know God except through Jesus Christ. There is no other truth about God except what

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Jesus has said about him. There is no life with God except through Christ when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of the Gospel of John 14.

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I'm gonna start reading in verse six and we'll read through verse 11. Jesus said,

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I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the

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Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my

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Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

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Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have

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I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the

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Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the

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Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the

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Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the

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Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

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Jesus makes an exclusive claim about himself. He is the only way to God.

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The only way to have a relationship with God is through our Savior Christ.

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Paul says in 1 Timothy 2 .5, there is one mediator between God and man, and that is the man, the

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God -man, Jesus Christ. He is our forgiveness of sins.

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He is our fellowship with God. People who stand outside of Christianity, they hate that idea.

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They don't want there to be this idea that there's only one way to God, and that is through worshiping Jesus Christ. So they will make up their own philosophy.

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They'll follow their own religion and say there are many ways to God. It's as if everybody is standing at the base of a mountain.

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We're looking at God at the very top. And there are many ways that you can start this journey on the mountain and get up to God, but everybody's gonna end up in the same place.

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We might walk different roads. We might walk different pathways, but everybody's gonna get to the top of the mountain and that's where God is.

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So that's kind of the worldly philosophy of everybody being able to have a relationship with God and whether or not you're aware of it.

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As you hike your trail of your life and you're going up this mountain, eventually you're gonna get to God, whether you were even looking for him or not.

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The Buddhist, he thinks he's walking the path of the Buddha and he's gonna attain this enlightenment and not even aware that what he's actually journeying toward is

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God. He's just gonna be surprised when he gets to the end of his road. The Hindu, same thing. The Muslim, hey, he hates

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Jesus Christ, but Allah, God, you know, really what's the difference? He's just walking his own path, but eventually he's gonna get to the same

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God that even the Christian is worshiping. Then you've got the atheist. He hates God with every fiber of his being, blasphemes him with every breath that he has, but whether he likes it or not, once he gets to the end of the path that he is on,

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God is who he is going to find at the end, laughing at him and saying, ha, see, you were coming at me the entire time and you just didn't know that I was leading you to me.

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This is the way the world thinks about our journey toward God, but here's the trouble with that analogy.

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God at the top of the mountain, everybody at the base, everybody's walking their own path up the mountain and everybody eventually gets to God.

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Here's the problem with that analogy. No one can even touch the mountain in the first place. Like you go back to Exodus 19 and 20, when

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God descended down on Mount Sinai and he's at the summit of Mount Sinai and all the people of Israel are down there at the bottom and this is where God in his booming voice, thundering loud, lightning, peals of thunder, deafening to the people, this is where God gives them the 10 commandments.

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They hear the law of God spoken from Mount Sinai, but he says to Moses and to the people that they cannot draw near to the mountain, they cannot even touch the base of the mountain or they will die.

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This is the holiness of God. So incredible, so unbelievable, we can't even look upon it or it would burn our eyes right out of their sockets.

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Hebrews 12, 14 says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the

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Lord. You must be holy to enter into the presence of God. The people of Israel were not holy.

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They had not yet been purified. Nobody could come to the mountain and touch it or it would kill them. And this is the problem with that analogy of God being at the top of the mountain and we're all just kind of walking our own path, but eventually we're gonna get to the same spot.

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No one can even set foot on the mountain to begin with. But here is God in his mercy and his grace and his love toward us.

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He came down off the mountain to us. God sent his son to become a man in human flesh.

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He could dwell with us and it wouldn't kill us being in the presence of his holiness. The disciples nearest to Jesus, Peter, James and John, they got the privilege of seeing

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Jesus in an unveiled face. What I mean by that was his humanity was peeled back and they saw his glory and the transfiguration and Moses and Elijah with him.

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And it terrified them and they fell on their faces and the voice of God came from heaven. This is my beloved son.

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No one would have been able to be in the presence of Christ if he were to walk around among us like that and the glory that he had with the father.

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So it was in human flesh that he came, that he might fulfill the law in human flesh, becoming that perfect sacrifice for us, but also in his humanity, his glory was veiled so that it wouldn't kill everybody that he was walking around with as he was here on this earth.

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All of us who are wretched, pitiful sinners, who are unclean, we are unworthy to be in the presence of such a holy, perfect, righteous

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God. So no one can even go up to the mountain and touch it. If we were to do so, we would be destroyed.

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But God in his mercy came down to us and Jesus becomes our access to God.

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He is the only way to even set foot on the mountain and ascend the mountain and get to God.

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And Jesus has even bridged that gap for us because it is not by our works that we would have been able to ascend the mountain and get to God.

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Jesus does that for us. He has come down, he has died for us, he has made the way, he has ascended back to the father and then a day will come when we and our bodies will die and angels will carry us to that place to be with God forever on high.

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Jesus in Revelation chapter three, even saying, I will give a place for you to sit with me on my throne.

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So this is God in his mercy toward us, having given his son to die for our sins and rise again from the grave so that whoever believes in him, our sins are forgiven and we are justified before a holy

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God. We are made right before him, accepted by him, adopted by him into his family.

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Jesus is the only way to God. And all the way through the scriptures, we saw types and shadows of this.

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The sacrificial system that God had given to his children, Israel. After God spoke to them from Mount Sinai, they refused to listen to any more.

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They said, this is terrifying, we can't do this. Let's go back to the arrangement where Moses goes and talks to God and then he comes to us and tells us what it is that God has said.

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So because Israel rejected this gift that God was gonna give to them to make them a nation of priests to the world, but Israel rejected that, so God established the priesthood.

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And in Leviticus chapter 16, we have the laws related to the day of the atonement.

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Aaron is the only one who can walk into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and this he can do only one day per year.

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And when he does this, he is atoning for the sins of Israel. He is making sacrifice for them, making peace with God.

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He is, he serves as that priest between God and men, one who speaks to God on behalf of the people, a representative of the people.

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Now we have a great high priest who has fulfilled that priestly system and that is

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Jesus Christ. And it is through Christ, according to 1 Peter chapter two, that we now are even being made into a kingdom of priests, that we might go into the world preaching the gospel for God.

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He has commissioned us to do so, that we would be his mouthpieces to the world, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ so that others may hear this word and turn from their sin and believe in Christ and so live.

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His blood covers over them and their sins are forgiven. They are made right before a holy

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God. So the system of types and shadows that we have in the scriptures and never at any point is anyone allowed to make their own way to God.

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God establishes the way to come to him. And in the old Testament, it was through the holy of holies until Christ fulfilled all the law and then he is our access to God.

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We enter into God's presence through him and we can do it from anywhere at any time. Jesus said to the

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Samaritan woman in John chapter four, I tell you, there is an hour that is coming and is now here when worship will not be on this mountain or in Jerusalem, but worship will happen in every place.

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How is it that that is done? It is through Jesus Christ. We worship God from anywhere because Christ is our access to God.

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It is through Christ that we have fellowship with God. He is the way to God. And anyone else who tries to make their own way to God, it turns out to have some pretty disastrous results.

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Leviticus chapter 10, you had the death of Nadab and Abihu. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire, strange fire before the

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Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them and they died before the

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Lord. Why? Because these men were trying to worship God their own way, not according to the way that God said that he is to be worshiped.

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So they offered up strange fire. They did something contrary to what God had said in his law was acceptable, not just for the people, but also for the priests themselves representing the people before God.

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And if the priest were to do that wrong, God would strike him down and he would die. He made an example of Nadab and Abihu so that all would stand in fear.

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In 2 Samuel 6, David desires to bring the Ark of the

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Covenant out of the house of Abinadab and he creates this beautiful cart for it.

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So we'll place the Ark of the Covenant on a cart, the way that the Ark of the

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Covenant is meant to be presented before the people and on a beautiful ornamented cart, not according to the way that God said that the

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Ark was supposed to be carried by the priests of Levi using poles and that the priests are supposed to go ahead of the children of Israel.

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No, David decided that he had the way, he had the idea of how the Ark of the

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Covenant should be presented so that it would receive the grandeur that it was due and all the people would celebrate.

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So he puts it on a cart. And when that cart hits a bump and the Ark begins to fall off of the cart, a man by the name of Uzzah reaches out to grab the

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Ark and he touches it, which God had forbid any person from doing. And in touching the

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Ark, he was struck dead on the spot. He had disobeyed God.

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David and all of Israel tried to worship their own way and it cost a man his life.

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Now, Uzzah had good intentions. He thought he was doing something right by reaching out and catching the Ark. I don't want it to get muddy.

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We don't want the place where the 10 commandments are kept, where God's presence would be there on the mercy seat.

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We don't want that to touch the mud. So Uzzah thought he was doing something good, but they had disobeyed

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God. And a man died as a result of it. In Numbers chapter 12,

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Miriam and Aaron opposed Moses. Miriam even said, hey, we're every bit as good as Moses is.

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Why can't we be doing the things that Moses is doing? Let's let us lead for a little while.

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And the Lord gets angry with Aaron and Miriam and strikes Miriam with leprosy.

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And the children of Israel are not able to move on until Miriam is healed. All these different occasions that we have throughout the scriptures of persons trying to worship

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God their own way. They're even worshiping the true God, but they're trying to do it on their terms instead of God's terms.

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They don't have the fear of the Lord. They think that their actions in and of themselves are holy and righteous.

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What do I need God for? Look, I can do this just fine on my own. And God will show his power to them in a very judgmental way.

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And he will do the same to you and I. None of us should ever presume on the riches of God's kindness, not realizing that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.

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We shouldn't look at his patience and his grace toward us as an excuse to be able to worship him the way that we want.

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We must know him according to who he has said that he is in his scriptures.

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And he is a God of wrath as much as he is a God of love. He is a God who judges those who sin, but he is also a

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God who shows mercy. We must know that we are unholy and what we deserve is judgment before we can truly appreciate the love and grace and mercy and kindness he has shown us through his son,

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Jesus Christ. God is holy and we are not. Not every road leads to God.

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It is only the way that God has provided. And that is through his son,

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Jesus Christ. Now, even though there are not many paths to God, there are certainly different ways in which a person will walk and God will use the different paths in that person's life to draw that person to him.

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But everybody gets saved exactly the same way. It's by the hearing of the gospel that we hear in the gospel, our need for a savior.

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We know that we have sinned before a holy God and we need saving and God has provided that way through his son,

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Christ. By faith in Jesus, we are saved. Everyone comes to God only that way, but God may use the different circumstances in our lives to draw us to him through the hearing of the gospel.

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Like for example, I was raised in a Christian home. So my parents taught me the gospel and I was saved at a very young age, but you have somebody else who was not raised in a

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Christian home. Their parents were not Christians and it may not be until later in life when they're living on their own that they hear the evangelist preach or a pastor in church or a friend shares with them the gospel and they turn from sin and believe in Christ and they are saved.

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God used the different means in their life, different persons that were presented before them that they might hear the gospel.

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So there are certainly different paths one walks within their own life that they come into the hearing of the gospel, but there is only one way to the father and that is through Jesus Christ.

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Somehow along the way in that explanation, we've gone from taking that many paths understanding that all of us are walking a different road and we've taken that understanding and we've applied it to this mountain on which

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God sits at the top and everybody is walking a different road up that mountain, but all roads eventually lead to God.

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So we've contorted that analogy into something that is inaccurate when it comes to how one is saved.

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Everybody is saved only one way. And when I say everybody is saved, I mean only those who come to salvation.

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Everybody who comes to salvation is saved. They're all saved, but they only come to this salvation through one way and that is through Christ.

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Faith in Christ, the hearing of the gospel, the repenting of sin, the worship of God through our savior

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Christ. That's the only way anybody is saved. And those who do not know Christ will perish. They will perish in eternity and an eternal lake of fire when the wrath of God will be poured out upon them forever.

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We can't even fathom eternal life in glory. Try fathoming eternal life in hell and judgment.

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And it is with this understanding, the reality of this that will fall upon all those who do not believe that we must understand the importance of sharing the gospel with others that they may repent and so live.

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Jesus is the only way. He is the only truth. Everything that we can ever know about God, we know through Jesus Christ.

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As the apostle Paul said to the Colossians, in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

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You can know God no other way except through Christ. And what Jesus has said about him, the way that he has revealed the father.

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Philip says to Jesus, Lord, show us the father and it is enough for us. But Jesus said to him, have

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I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the father.

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The fullness of God dwelling in Christ. It is through the face of Christ that we know the glory of God.

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He is the truth about God. Whoever does not know the son does not know the father either.

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So the Muslim is not worshiping the same God the Christian is. It is a completely different God, a fabrication that was made up by Muhammad.

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It is only through Jesus Christ that one knows the true God because it is in Christ that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

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And Jesus is also the life. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our

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Lord, Romans 6 .23. So apart from Christ, we're as good as dead men and women.

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The judgment of God is upon us. The wrath of God remains on us according to John 3 .36.

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But in Jesus Christ, the wrath of God has been appeased. He is our propitiation, the forgiveness of sins.

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So it's in Christ that we will not perish under the judgment of God, but we will have life forever with God.

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And in this way, we come to know that Jesus is the only way to God. He is the only truth about God.

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He is the only life in God. It is all in Jesus Christ our Lord. No one comes to the father except through him.

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Jesus said to his disciples, if you had known me, you would have known my father also.

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From now on, you do know him and have seen him. And that same promise has been given to us.

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If we know Christ, we know the father and we have fellowship with God.

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Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of the church family committed to gospel teaching.

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And we thank you for including us in your Bible learning. If you would consider a gift to this ministry, please visit www .utt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Give online or send a check in the mail.