This is Truth: “There is ONE body, ONE Spirit, ONE hope, ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism, and ONE God” (Ephesians 4:4-5).
This is False: “There is MORE than one body, MORE that one Spirit, MORE that one hope, MORE that one Lord, MORE than one faith, MORE than one baptism, and MORE that one God. Consider: can one be saved by believing and following a falsehood?
I fear that many, even in the Lord’s church, while they may not intellectually admit it, have the idea that “somehow” every fairly decent person is going to be saved even if the person doesn’t worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24); even if they don’t seek the kingdom first (Matt. 6:33); even if they don’t take up their cross daily and follow Jesus (Luke 9:23); and even if they have never been baptized into Christ for the remission of their sins (Acts 2:38).
The condition that promotes this fear is the steadily declining urgency to tell others about the Christ of the Bible. Many confess (by their action and attitude), that they don’t believe that I or anyone else has the right to challenge or question another’s faith! The Apostle Paul questioned the baptism of 12 men (Acts 19:1-7), and explained to them how their baptism was wrong, and then baptized them according to the Gospel. Today, to question another’s faith seems to be a cardinal sin!
God has only ONE plan of salvation, and that is His Gospel (Romans 1:16); and there is no “plan B.” We are either saved in the way God says we must be saved, or we are lost.
“What about people who have never heard the Gospel?” Well, if people can go to heaven because they have never heard the Gospel, then we would be doing them an injustice by trying to fulfill our Lord’s Great Commission. Why teach them and take a chance on them refusing it and being lost, when they could be saved if they never heard? Such logic assumes that people will be with God in Heaven for all eternity precisely because they never heard of Christ! That is, by their not hearing the Truth, they are assumed to have a free pass into Heaven!
Did Jesus, or did not Jesus say, “NO ONE comes to the Father by Me” (John 14:6)? Did Jesus mean that if you hear My Gospel and obey it, you can come to the Father, but if you don’t hear the Gospel you can come ANYWAY?!
Since there is no effect without a cause, and the effect is a deadening of our urgency to evangelize our friends and neighbors, we must determine the “cause” of this effect and correct it. Could the cause be that we are “drifting away from our great salvation? (Hebrews. 2:1-3). Paul writes, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith…unless indeed you are disqualified” (2Corinthians 13:5). –Toby Miller