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We are a Christian Fellowship meeting in North London with a strong interest in teaching the Bible and understanding our time in
the light of Bible prophecy
Is God inclusive or exclusive?
Today we hear a great deal about the need to be 'inclusive' by which is
meant that there must be no discrimination against anyone on the grounds of
race, religion, gender or sexuality. Everybody is to be included in every
part of society and for those who refuse to go along with this a whole new
vocabulary has been invented. They are branded as 'racist' or 'sexist' or
'homophobe' and become the targets of hostility in the minds of those who
are 'politically correct.'
This set me thinking about whether God is inclusive or exclusive. The
conclusion I came to from looking at the Bible is that He is both.
He is inclusive because the extent of His love has always been all the
people in the world, whatever their race, religion or lifestyle. He chose
Abraham and his family out of all the families of the earth at that time,
but promised him that 'in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed' (Genesis 22.18). Through the prophets of Israel He promised that
the extent of his plan of salvation was the whole earth: 'Look to me and be
saved all you ends of the earth' (Isaiah 45.22). When the Messiah Jesus
appeared he told his disciples to take his message into all the world
(Mathew 28.19) because 'God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life' (John 3.16). It is not God's will that any should perish but that all
should come to repentance and eternal life through faith in the Messiah
Jesus (2 Peter 3.9).
God is also exclusive because he has set clear boundaries to the way we can
come to him and absolutely refuses to accept the possibility of mingling
worship of himself with the worship of other religions. When he chose
Abraham he took him out of the area of Babylon and into the Promised Land
and out of idolatry and into faith in the one true God who is creator of all
things. When he gave the commandments to Moses he began by saying 'You shall
have no other gods before me' (Exodus 20.3) nor make images or bow down to
them and worship them. The whole message of the Hebrew Prophets is a call to
Israel to turn away from the false religions of the nations around them and
be faithful to the Lord. Isaiah 45.20-21 compares the worship of the nations
who 'pray to a god that cannot save' with the worship of the Lord: 'There is
no other God besides me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none besides me.'
When the Messiah Jesus appeared he also made it absolutely clear that the
revelation he was bringing is so radically different from all other
religious or philosophical ideas that there is no possibility of mingling
this way with other religions. Because he came from heaven, he has unique
authority to reveal the way back to heaven. 'No one has seen God at any
time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has
declared him' (John 1.18). 'If I have told you earthly things and you do not
believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has
ascended into heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of
Man who is in heaven' (John 3.12-13). He will judge all people at the end of
this age: 'For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son
to have life in himself, and has given him authority to execute judgment
also because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is
coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come
forth - those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who
have done evil to the resurrection of damnation' (John 5.26-29). The way to
escape damnation and enter into eternal life in heaven is through repentance
and faith in the Messiah Jesus: 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except by me' (John 14.6). 'Nor is there salvation
in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by
which we must be saved' (Acts 4.12).
This is clearly totally exclusive as far as other faiths go. It means you
cannot be saved by keeping the 613 commandments of the Torah or the 5
pillars of Islam or the eight fold path of Buddhism or any other belief. If
you could be saved by these paths then the cross becomes an act of folly on
the part of Jesus and an act of sadism on the part of the Father. In the
garden of Gethsemane just before he went to the cross, Jesus prayed 'O my
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I
will, but as you will' (Matthew 26.39). The cup he was referring to was the
cup of suffering he was about to drink - the physical agony of the scourging
and the crucifixion, the public humiliation of being executed as a criminal
and above all the torment of having the sins of the world placed upon him
and being separated from the Father for the only moment in all eternity, as
he cried out 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Matthew 27.46,
Psalm 22.18).
If it was possible to be saved by following any other faith, why did not the
Father intervene and save Jesus from the cross, as he had the power to do
(Matthew 27.53)? Only through the sacrifice of one who was without sin could
those who are sinners be saved, for 'without the shedding of blood there is
no remission' (of sin) (Hebrews 9.22). On the day of judgement there will be
those who will be excluded from entering into heaven: 'But there shall by no
means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but
only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life' (Revelation 21.27).
To have our names written in the book of life we must be born again through
repenting of our sin and believing that Jesus is the Saviour, the one
mediator between God and humanity.
Since God is both inclusive and exclusive his followers should also be both
inclusive and exclusive. We are to be inclusive in that our desire is to see
all people saved and therefore we are to love them and seek to bring them to
faith in the Messiah. We are to be exclusive in that we do not accept any
mingling of our faith in the one God and the one way of salvation through
Jesus with 'gods that cannot save' and man made philosophies of improving
human behaviour. We are also to keep God's commands and not to be influenced
by the standards of the world. Comparing the church to a boat and the world
to the sea, if the boat is in the sea that is fine, but if the sea is in the
boat, it is sunk.
Today the major problem for the believing church is that we are being too
inclusive and allowing things into the church which should not be there -
low standards of morality, counterfeit spiritual experiences and the
ecumenical movement opening us up to merging with Rome and even with other
faiths. On the other hand there is the danger of being too exclusive and not
having a vision or desire to reach out to the lost, and of just having a
'bunker' mentality that we will preserve our little patch until the Lord
returns. A true understanding of the issues of the end times should spur us
on to do all that we can to redeem the time and get the message of the
Gospel out - to all people of all faiths and none.
For those who have not yet accepted Jesus as Saviour the following is a
prayer of commitment: 'Dear God, I admit that I am a sinner and need your
forgiveness. I believe that Jesus the Messiah died in my place paying the
penalty for my sins. I am willing right now to turn from my sin and accept
Jesus the Messiah as my personal Saviour and Lord. I commit my life to you
and ask you to send the Holy Spirit into my life, to fill me and to take
control and to help me become the kind of person you want me to be. Thank
you Father for loving me. In Jesus' name, Amen.
