By John I. Snyder, Theology Mix.
In this age of tolerance and openness, one of the questions we frequently hear is, Why can’t we all worship God in our own way?
The simple answer is, we can and we do. This is already happening. We claim to worship God, the gods, the god within us, or some such thing in a variety of ways of our own making.
But Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection confirm for us that there is only one true God. He really does exist! He has a plan and purpose for us and has prescribed the way in which he wants us to worship and serve him.
According to Jesus, we can’t worship or serve him properly by constructing our own homemade religions or attempting to please him by doing the things he hates and refraining from doing the things he loves.
We can’t please and honor the God of the Bible, for example, by engaging in temple prostitution, ruthlessly murdering those who disagree with our theology, feeding rats while allowing children to starve, or a host of other forms of callous human behavior done in the name of religion. Least of all can we please God by rejecting Jesus his Son, the one clear declaration of himself, and instead defining what we think he should be like.
Jesus tells us that God hates all forms of idolatry and wickedness, and it is by his holiness and purity he decides who enters his kingdom. What qualifies us to enter is his plan, his sovereign decree from the foundation of the world, to bring us from whatever far country of self-reliance and self-worship we dwell in and usher us into his presence by invitation. We enter the divine palace through the single doorway of his will and are escorted in by the worthiness and merits of Jesus.
So can people of all religions be saved by Jesus’ work on the cross?