Friend distraught over verse: "No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)

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Please help me correctly point out a Catholic stance on this verse.

Today my best friend and I got to chatting over the phone, (she’s away visiting family) and the subject up that she had been a bit, almost depressed for a while because, “She knows some of her family and friends she has here won’t be going to heaven.”
For reference my best friend is a non-denominational Christian in the,“Bible is the ultimate/only authority and source of truth” sense.
I was surprised to hear how adamant she was. Even more so when I asked who it was she she was concerned over and she listed off some acquaintances I know.

The third party she listed she knows personally since she was their neighbor for a brief period and gotten to be good friends. I know of them because they’re catholic and attend the same parish. I asked her what exactly it was about them in particular she was so sure that they wouldn’t be able to get to heaven. In summary the people of her concern “haven’t asked Jesus in their heart and/or don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus”. The reason of her concern over mutual acquaintances was for the latter. Basically stating she see’s their reason of even attending church was because of obligation and not even sure whether any of them have any real belief in God.

I tried to console/explain the best I could, but the only thing I think I could seem to muster was stating how incredibly bold that was to be so certain they would be damned to hell only because they specifically didn’t have such a personal relationship with Jesus in the same sense that she means? I don’t recall what words exactly I used, or what it was I was even trying to say, but just really anything along the lines of that’s not our call to make, and even so we don’t know the bounds of God’s mercy that for whatever reason we really won’t know any of that for certain.

She was insistent that’s how its explained in the Bible, and its that black and white. She couldn’t recall any specific verses at that time, but I somewhat knew and assumed she meant “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6). I was insistent it wasn’t that black and white, but I couldn’t exactly figure out words to explain a point i wasn’t sure that I was trying to make.

We decided we’re going to hash it out in person when she gets back, which won’t be for a few weeks yet. Now here’s another issue, she studies her bible and all, so anything of the issues of salvation etc she’ll bring up from a one particular verse. I, on the other hand, not unlike a far to big of majority of other Catholics cough cough really, really should but don’t study/read the Bible. I own one, but I don’t utilize it. Of course its a Catholic one, and anything she uses is most likely KJV.

Note: Neither of us mean this as a ‘method of conversion’ or shoving down our beliefs over the other. We’re just discussing differences of religion.
So as a Catholic really what would be the best way of explaining the Church’s stance over
1.) (John 14:6) The Bible verse stating salvation through what she interprets to be ‘personal relationship’ of Jesus alone.
2.) What the church teaches of the Bible itself and how its meant to be read or interpreted.
3.) Why we use more than the Bible as authority.
Or any other points of interest that would pertain to this.
Thanks. God Bless.
 
John 14:6 is indeed about Jesus being the sole savior and mediator between God and man. We as Catholics do believe that. Acts 4:12 also puts it this way: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. Earlier Jesus made this same claim when he gave an allusion to him being Jacob’s ladder (He then added, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” John 1:51)

So yes, we as Catholics do believe one has to have a ‘personal’ relationship with Jesus Christ. We stop far short of declaring that someone else doesn’t have one. Where as I can be certain whether or not I have a relationship with Jesus, I cannot judge another person not to have one. Nor can I say that someone who has never been introduced to the name Jesus Christ has not come face to face with God in a way that I cannot fathom. It’s still my duty to try and bring them to the church and to tell them about Jesus, but I cannot judge their eternity based on what I perceive in them. I can’t know their heart.

See also CCC 661, 2466

The Catholic church teaches that the bible is one of the pillars of our faith. That we should indeed read it and study it, and that we should do so prayerfully and in light of Tradition. The reason we use more than just the bible is that the Apostle’s used more than just the bible. The apostle’s studied the Old Testament in light of both their tradition AND in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself on the road to Emmaus expounded on the scriptures and showed that he himself was the key to understanding them.

So then the Apostles wrote down their Tradition. This Tradition is one of the other pillars of our faith. You see, anyone who reads the New Testament is reading tradition. It is the written down version of the oral messages that the Apostles were teaching. This is why we believe in both the Bible and Tradition, because the very men who were around Jesus believed in Bible and Tradition.

The bible is fairly clear that we should use scripture to build our tradition. It never says not to have tradition, it says not to have hollow tradition, that is tradition that is empty of love.

Here is a very good link to read more and get some scripture to support it: Scripture and Tradition
 
There is also the doctrine of invincible ignorance (found the catechism of the catholic church) which holds out the possibility of those who do not know Christ through no fault of their own (invincible ignorance). This reconciles, for example, verses that speak of God’s desire that all be saved, yet others where God supernaturally blinds some (e.g., Israel in part) and verses where Jesus said to some they would not have had guilt but for the fact that they knew him (saw his miracles) and still remained blind to the truth. Even those saved through invincible ignorance are saved “through Christ’s sacrifice”.

We “know” the path of salvation lies in faith in Christ -we trust in God’s mercy for those who have been blinded to the truth or, for example who never heard the name Jesus.

A great difficulty, I believe, with the belief that one must know and confess Jesus by name to be saved is that in the moments after Jesus death and resurrection, only about 1% of the world even heard of Jesus - do they really think that 99% of the world at that time, who prior to Jesus’s death had the possibility of salvation, suddenly lost it?

Any way - our task is to share the gospel and share the good news - God will act on people’s hearts through the Holy Spirit - some early in life, some late in life, some in the moments before death. As the prior respondent said, we don’t “know” what another truly believes in their heart (this is true for “apparent” Christians, and those who appear to have no relationship with Christ to us).

Blessings,

Brian
 
Thank you for your responses. You’ve articulated much of what I meant to say but was too bewildered to find words for. 🙂
I know that a personal relationship is important as well, but I think I missed the mark on defining the context she presented that as. Actually I still don’t know that I could, but there was also one other thing I could use some words of advice for discussion.
For her church is not seen as an obligation, and when/if/where she attends is more a matter of details. So ‘church’ in her context is important but not necessary to part of a ‘relationship’ to Jesus. For me personally as a Catholic its very important to my relationship.
I have my own reasons, but is there anything on why attending Mass is a priority? If I really got to thinking about it, she probably finds it strange I’m at church random days of the week. (Daily mass, or Holy Days of Obligation.) But she’s never questioned it.
 
Allow me to perhaps sway from topic, but only in specifics only to address Acts:17, where Paul speaks to the “Altar of the Unknown God”…a friend pointed out to me something really beautiful. Even in the midst of paganism, God could work…the following is even explained in secular wiki:

22So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

—Acts 17:22-17:31, ESV

Because the Jewish God could not be named, it is possible that Paul’s Athenian listeners would have considered his God to be “the unknown god par excellence”.

We can and should believe that God wishes all to be saved, and all will have their day…

We don’t always know the mind and ways of God…God Bless!!!
 
John 14:6 is very clear. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you are going to heaven. Likewise if you have no relationship with Christ, you are sadly doomed to hell. All Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists are going to hell. We are given a gift and we can choose to either accept or reject it. Steve Jobs may be a great buy, but because he had no faith in Christ, he’s somewhere where I hope none of us reading this message will ever be.
 
DFWChristian said:
John 14:6 is very clear. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you are going to heaven. Likewise if you have no relationship with Christ, you are sadly doomed to hell. All Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists are going to hell. We are given a gift and we can choose to either accept or reject it. Steve Jobs may be a great buy, but because he had no faith in Christ, he’s somewhere where I hope none of us reading this message will ever be.
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Explain what you mean by that. Most protestants use that general expression to cover a multitude of things.
Believing in Christ is not sufficient.
 
DFWChristian said:
John 14:6 is very clear. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you are going to heaven. Likewise if you have no relationship with Christ, you are sadly doomed to hell. All Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists are going to hell. We are given a gift and we can choose to either accept or reject it. Steve Jobs may be a great buy, but because he had no faith in Christ, he’s somewhere where I hope none of us reading this message will ever be.
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Read this, and then tell me you still think that.

You also forget Purgatory, which is entirely Scriptural.
 
IMO “Jesus” and “Christ” have different implications.

I see Jesus as the man who walked the earth, through which God demonstrated what a sinless man would look like.

“Christ” is not actually Jesus’s name, but His title. Thus I would think “Christ” is actually a reference to a spiritual entity (one and the same as God Himself) which the human mind is capable of allowing to infiltrate and adopt, giving whoever has embraced this mentality a connection between the carnal and the divine side of ourselves.

Thus Jesus isn’t telling us that in the flesh we must go the same path as Jesus did. He did it already; if we tried to do it again it would indicate a lack of faith that Jesus got His job done. So we can trace Jesus’s steps if that helps align our mind, hearts, and will with his, but if we have faith, we can get the same benefit by walking our own paths from a human viewpoint, while guided by the Spirit exactly as Jesus Himself was.

Tell your friend not to worry about it. If you obey Jesus’s commands and work toward the same ends He was working toward then you are on His side whether you say you are or not. Thus you can go to God through “Christ” without necessarily uniting our flesh with His, just our faith. Jesus said, “He who is not against us is for us.”

Jesus didn’t come to show us how to be divine. We are that by nature. He showed us what being a good human looks like. A good human surrenders and aligned his will with the Father’s. When that happens, God gifts us with “Christ Consciousness” for lack of a better term, which means you will create as direct and pure form on unity with the divine as possible based on overcoming the ego.

So if we do what Jesus said, we will condition ourselves as human beings, to allow Christ to come in as His Spirit and renew our hearts and minds, making us each Christ Himself, but not Jesus the man. So I can become Christ like Jesus in that the carnal mind has yielded to the divine mind, which is one. I don’t become like Jesus the Christ except to the extent that I become (a) Christ just like Jesus – although my path to that will be different than His. I used parenthesis for (a) because God is not bound by human ideas of quantity, so to God whether I become “a” Christ, or “the” Christ, or just “Christ” is another way of saying the same basic reality viewed with different ways of describing it to a human being. Whichever term works comes closest to making sense for any given individual is as valid as the others; it is a term that reminds us that we can, while still walking the earth, open our minds and hearts to let Him in. Christ, that is.

So to me, to say nobody comes to the Father except through me, is Christ speaking through the incarnation of Christ we call Jesus. (Every person is a potential incarnation of Christ, original sin being a password protection kind of thing which keeps us safely detached from full communion with the spiritual world, so that we won’t be connected until we are ready – so original sin could be viewed as spiritual training wheels. Once we advance to a certain stage, we can petition Christ to take off the training wheels. You see, until we are born of the spirit, the law of sin and death is useful for pointing us at least in the right general direction. This signals we have sufficiently put our carnal mind “to death” and our Christ consciousness can kick in and open our eyes to the guidance of the spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, which is actually within all people, and Christ, through Jesus, gave us back our faith eyes that Satan stole from us in the garden, so that we may see God.

The real Good News is not that Jesus is God (Christ) made man. To me, it is Better News that Christ gave me the keys to unlock the separation between the carnal mind and the Christ. In modern examples, I view the key as whatever you need to have in order to open the barrier … or I also see this akin to removing the bushel from over our light. Our spirits are always one with God’s but our carnal mind and its false self are capable of scrambling the connection – thus the key to open it. Peter was the first human who recognized that Christ had gifted him the key, through Jesus. At the second coming, the keys of those who are to have them, are revealed to them. Jesus can’t explain the key to us in human words, though, but shows us through empathy a Way to the Truth that is guided by the Light.

Alan
 
Great collection of responses and scriptural references!

Jesus is, indeed, THE JUDGE. He decides.

I would suggest reading also, John 6, verses 20 to 70 and ponder those. At no point, when His listeners turned away in disgust … “eat my body and drink my blood” … did Jesus say “just kidding, come back”. And as a result, this “sets the stage” for understanding what Catholics call The Real Presence. Very important … and is basically the centrality of Catholic Worship.

In addition, I would also say that Jesus, the Judge, has a “weak spot” … a point of vulnerability: His Mother. Jesus loves Mary, His Mother, in a very special way … and she is the ONLY human person that Jesus “obeys” … Her words, at the miracle of the wine at the Marriage Feast at Cana … “do what he tells you”. Jesus was somewhat upset with Mary, but nonetheless, He did what she implied she wanted Him to do. She did not even have to tell him directly.

So, I would add: “be nice to His Mother” … we have been given the prayer of the Rosary. So, say the Rosary daily. You don’t have to be Catholic to say the Rosary.
 
Mimi20 said:
She was insistent that’s how its explained in the Bible, and its that black and white. She couldn’t recall any specific verses at that time, but I somewhat knew and assumed she meant “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6). I was insistent it wasn’t that black and white, but I couldn’t exactly figure out words to explain a point i wasn’t sure that I was trying to make.
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This is another verse that is used for the “ask Jesus into my heart” teaching.
Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
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We should absolutely have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but that verse in no way implies a formal process of walking up to the altar and saying “I accept Jesus as my personal savior”. As much as some Protestants are against Tradition, this is in fact a tradition in some evangelical circles.
 
Mimi20 said:
Please help me correctly point out a Catholic stance on this verse.
The third party she listed she knows personally since she was their neighbor for a brief period and gotten to be good friends. I know of them because they’re catholic and attend the same parish. I asked her what exactly it was about them in particular she was so sure that they wouldn’t be able to get to heaven. In summary the people of her concern “haven’t asked Jesus in their heart and/or don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus”. The reason of her concern over mutual acquaintances was for the latter. Basically stating she see’s their reason of even attending church was because of obligation and not even sure whether any of them have any real belief in God.

So as a Catholic really what would be the best way of explaining the Church’s stance over
1.) (John 14:6) The Bible verse stating salvation through what she interprets to be ‘personal relationship’ of Jesus alone.
2.) What the church teaches of the Bible itself and how its meant to be read or interpreted.
3.) Why we use more than the Bible as authority.
Or any other points of interest that would pertain to this.
Thanks. God Bless.
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#1
“…Jesus replied, 'Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand towards his disciples he said "Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is by brother and sister and mother.’ "
Mt. 12;49-50

That answer is as personal as it gets. The persons under your discussion are doing just that, namely, doing the will of His Father by attending Sunday Mass.

#2 & #3
While Jesus lived, He never told his Apostles to write down anything.
While Jesus lived, He Himself never wrote down anything.
Jesus died around 30 AD and left this earth.

The first book written was by St. Paul around the year 50 AD.
For 20 years, there was NO New Testament. The four Gospels, Acts, Letters, Revelation
didn’t exist.

For the space of 20 years between Jesus’ death and the first book being written by Paul,
how were they saved if the bible is necessary for salvation? The only thing that was
available was VERBAL teaching about what Jesus had said and done.

Jesus’ teaching was passed on verbally thru the mouths of those who had first hand seen
and heard Jesus. There was no New Testament, only verbal teaching.
If the written teaching were that important, then why wasn’t it written down immediately?

In addition, the last book written was around 90 Ad. This would mean that the COMPLETE
New Testiment was not available for 60 years after Jesus left this earth.

Now while the early christians were holding worship services during this time the New
Testament was non existent, what did they use? They used what Jesus had taught them
which was embedded in their hearts and minds, and related vocally to one another what
Jesus had instructed them to do and believe and what He had done(Tradition).

Now at the time the New Testament books were being written, there were other books
also being written which were very similiar to the books of the New Testament.
These other books were called ACTS “of this” and ACTS “of that”, and the Gospel
“of this” and the Gospel “of that”, and well as “this” letter and “that” letter mixed in with
all the books that we honor as the New Testament today. The real books of the N.T.
were not defined until a century or two later depending on one’s point of view. But nevertheless, how was one to know what were the REAL books of the New Testament?
During this time of confusion and doubt about which of them were the authentic books of the Bible, what would the early christians do to determine the real books?

The authority to do this was put in place by Jesus himself when he established his church.
The church would authenticate and define the real books later.​

New Testiment dates when the books were written are approximate.

Mathew -best estimate is 70 - 80 AD.
Mark - Traditionally, written shortly before 70 AD in Rome.
Luke - Most say written after 70 AD
John - probably 90 - 100 AD.
Acts -written after 70 AD.
Letters of Paul - early 50’s AD and later.
James - about 90 - 100 AD.
Peter - 70 - 90 AD
John - 90 AD
Jude - 90 AD or later.
Revelation - 81 AD - 96 AD
 
Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think your friend is all that interested in John 14:6. She will probably acknowledge that the people of her concern have an intellectual understanding of Jesus, but that they lack a personal relationship with Jesus. In other words, they know about Jesus but they don’t really know Jesus. There is no scripture that mentions “personal relationship”* per se*, but she probably has in mind passages like these:
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5.
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28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.
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I don’t know that I can give you a Catholic perspective on these passages but maybe others reading this tread can. It sounds like you and your friend are in for an interesting discussion.
 
First of all, not everything is in the bible. John 21:25
“But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written,I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
Also scripture is clear that we are to follow tradition. 2 Thess. 2:15 “Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to your traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”

There is no scripture supporting following the bible alone. If you are in conflict, it doesn’t say turn to the bible for your answers. It says to go to the church. Matthew 18:17 “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.” 1 Timothy 3:15 “the church of the living God, is the pillar and foundation of truth.”

Maybe point out that it wasn’t until 397 that the Council of Carthage defined the canon.
Code:
Also, if at our judgement, through Jesus’ mercy we are saved, how does that conflict with John 14:6? She’s making assumptions here that we can not know.
 
I’ve thought long and hard about a ‘personal relationship with Jesus’. I think we should indeed have one. My problem is that as a Protestant I heard this all the time. Yet no one ever clearly defined it. It was something to the effect of declaring my faith publicly, be baptized, and try not to sin. Pray when I needed something, worship on Sunday, and well that was a good start. Read my bible, and memorize as much as I could so I could quote it to everyone else word for word.

Yet, how much more personal can you get than receiving the Eucharist? If we truly believed that we wanted a personal relationship with God we’d want to receive Christ fully into our body. In fact, Jesus tells us specifically that if we do not eat his body and blood we have no life in us! (John 6:53) The word he uses there doesn’t suggest ‘figuratively’. Most of the time we Catholics get yelled at for taking something allegorically, then when we take it literally (as the text suggests) we are the ones in the wrong. Chew, gnaw, rip and tear and consume. That is what the word used for eat suggests.

If we truly want a personal relationship with Christ, we would do what he says and receive him into our bodies.
 
Our words have no authority to an atheist, so make the argument using non-religious terms. Or if you use religious terms, make sure that it is clear in the atheist’s mind what you meant by them.

Consider investing some time (at least 5 minutes, and up to 38 minutes) watching a video an atheist friend posted on facebook, that does a rather impressive job of explaining the relationship between God, man, and the physical universe, and the unity of God.

If they watch this video, then should totally understand why Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” If they don’t, it will help us as Catholics understand it.

Unity Consciousness, Part 1 of 4 (38 minutes total)

As brothers in Christ, we actually all have the power of attorney to give out the keys to the kingdom. The problem is, our keys are encrypted and they aren’t ready to use by the average mortal mind until that mind has been Christ-conditioned by the Holy Spirit. So once you are born of the spirit, the knowledge of the kingdom starts rolling in, and you will then be authorized to give out the pure keys. So that would be the spiritual equivalent of the priest witnessing transubstantiation.

So when we are fully transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ, using the same template Jesus used to connect up the Eucharist with Himself, then we too can have His authority. That is amazing. Jesus was amazingly clever as a human; hence He is not only the Good Shepherd, but the dishonest servant. At a fundamental level, Christ is actually the substance of any and every character in any of Jesus’s parables, as Christ looked within Himself with the eyes of Jesus, and tried to explain His experiences which transcend the human word, using human words to give an image that shows His followers one piece to the puzzle. Peter was the first one to guess the picture; the picture is of God, and is God.

Alan
 
bmullins said:
I’ve thought long and hard about a ‘personal relationship with Jesus’. I think we should indeed have one. My problem is that as a Protestant I heard this all the time. Yet no one ever clearly defined it. It was something to the effect of declaring my faith publicly, be baptized, and try not to sin. Pray when I needed something, worship on Sunday, and well that was a good start. Read my bible, and memorize as much as I could so I could quote it to everyone else word for word.

Yet, how much more personal can you get than receiving the Eucharist? If we truly believed that we wanted a personal relationship with God we’d want to receive Christ fully into our body. In fact, Jesus tells us specifically that if we do not eat his body and blood we have no life in us! (John 6:53) The word he uses there doesn’t suggest ‘figuratively’. Most of the time we Catholics get yelled at for taking something allegorically, then when we take it literally (as the text suggests) we are the ones in the wrong. Chew, gnaw, rip and tear and consume. That is what the word used for eat suggests.

If we truly want a personal relationship with Christ, we would do what he says and receive him into our bodies.
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You are right. If you receive the Eucharist, it doesn’t get any more personal than that.

Other than that, it’s a matter of training, how to communicate effectively with Christ so that you may fully realize your powers and bask in His glory, and in time perhaps build sufficient trust so that you can get your own keys that have the function, albeit via a different mechanism, as the ones He gave brother Peter through our brother Jesus, of allowing you free access to the kingdom.

Alan
 
The verse says it all. Good people like Steve Jobs reside forever in hell because he did not trust in Jesus Christ. Let his demise be a lesson for you.
 
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