John 14:6 doesn’t limit God’s ways to offer salvation



Circuit Rider is a United Methodist publication sent to all active pastors, retired pastors who request it and laity who subscribe. A recent issue dealt with John 14:6: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Since that is an often quoted and misunderstood passage, I was intrigued by articles from seven authors, including our own J. David Trawick of Northwest Hills UMC, San Antonio. He has a good word from his perspective.
All seven articles were provocative. They represented a variety of viewpoints about the exclusivism of the text and the possibilities of a broader interpretation.
For fundamentalists and evangel-icals the issue is clear: Jesus is the only way.
For Christians who are pluralistic or universalistic in their thinking, the passage must have another interpretation. As one in that camp, here’s my look at John 14:6:
John’s gospel is different from the synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke). John was written much later and reflects the development of Christology not present in the other gospels.
In the synoptic gospels, Jesus doesn’t give long speeches. He speaks in short, memorable parables,
aphorisms and reflections.
John does what Thucydides admitted in his historical writings. Thu-cydides put into the mouth of Cicero what he thought was appropriate for the occasion.
For conservatives the thought that Jesus might not have said what John has him say isn’t only offensive but heretical. Yet I have to affirm (with the Jesus Seminar scholars) that Jesus didn’t say much of what John has him saying.
The Johanine community, out of which this gospel came, joined the Jesus of history with the Christ of faith. Christ, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, was the redemptive and reconciling activity of God found in the Jesus story.
That reality led to some typical oriental hyperbolas: Jesus wasn’t just the begotten son of God, as were all Davidic kings. Jesus was the only begotten son. In John 14:6, Jesus wasn’t a way to God. Jesus was the only way.
“Except through me”? Who is this “me”? The Jesus of history or the Christ of faith?
Christ is more than Jesus. Christ is that activity of God represented in the Hebrew scripture as well as in the Jesus story.
Christ is that light that has been part of humanity since the beginning, that awareness of the other, that consciousness of a dimension of life more than what we know with our physical senses. John Wesley referred to that presence as prevenient grace, that love present even before we know it.
The “through me” of John 14:6 is more than through Jesus of Nazareth. It is that to be sure, but the “me” includes the larger dimension of Christ or the activity of God from the beginning. The narrow exclusivism of 14:6 needs the corrective of 10:16. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.”
That concept opens the way to a pluralism that enables us to embrace the integrity of other religions and their way to wholeness of life or salvation.
Bishop William H. Willimon’s characterization of the passage as the “extravagant poetry of love” expresses what I can embrace about the text.
I don’t have to ask the question Mr. Trawick does about heaven. Heaven isn’t a place with geographic coordinates. It’s a state of being. That state can be found, I’m convinced, through many religious and philosophical positions.
The “me” is the presence and activity of God that I have found in and through Jesus of Nazareth but others have found in their own faith traditions.
Finally, the issue isn’t exclusivity but inclusivity because the Universal One hasn’t let that self be without witnesses among any people.