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洛桑猶宣國際網絡(LCJE) —匈牙利 巴拉頓湖 (Lake Balaton)

戴偉思，美國彌賽亞團契 (國際)

2007年 8月20日

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 LCJE International — Lake Balaton, Hungary
Wes Taber, AMF International
August 20, 2007

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在1999年, 我和羅以 (Lori)  於美國長島 (Long Island) 霍夫斯特拉大學 (Hofstra University) 舉辦的洛桑猶宣國際網絡 (LCJE) 會議期間，藉著「紐約猶太人」，享受了一個「實地考察」。在巴士上，我們有幸坐在一位推動彌賽亞運動的年長政客的隔鄰。他對這座城市的歷史見解，豐富了窗外景物的質感。途經布魯克林的皇冠高地(Crown Heights, Brooklyn)時，這位親愛的弟兄說：「在天堂時，我們會看到很多相信正統猶太教的猶太人，儘管他們從未知道要信靠 Yeshua (Yeshua是耶穌的希伯來名字) 為救主。他的看法叫人吃驚； 我知道這位紳士曾欣然接受並公開宣佈耶穌為他個人的救主。他曾為了在猶太同胞中見証「彌賽亞」信仰受了很多苦。當我問他為何有此信念時，他真誠並同情地表示， 一位充滿愛的神又怎會譴責真誠、虔誠的猶太人（包括他自己的家人），讓他們往地獄去。

 當進行猶太福音事工時，我們經常要處理關乎神選民的問題，當中涉及神透過立約給予祂選民的特別應許。很多有思想的人，在某些時刻，都會苦苦思索「誰能上天堂及怎樣上天堂」這個問題。對很多耶穌的跟隨者來說，這是非常個人化及情感上的想法，因為他們想保留一絲希望，渴望離世但仍未信主的親友，能夠上天堂。其他出於公平感的人，提出「神義論」的理念，試圖將神從食人魔的罪名中被釋放出來。他們認為神不會責備和永遠刑罰嬰孩、智障人士、其他宗教的真誠跟隨者及從未聽聞耶穌的人。試問有甚麼事情，或情感上的負擔，相比我們人類永遠的命運，還更重要？我們聲稱，上天堂只有一個方法(當然是我們所指的方法) ，這豈不是極度自信和大膽的言論嗎？

調查的議題

所指定的題目，就是「普世宗教所隱藏的基督」。調查的主要目的，就是回應哪些聲稱「基督存在於所有宗教裏面」的人(當中包括基督教部份人士) ，儘管其存在的方式，是隱藏或詭秘的。他們認為，與其宣揚福音(我們的福音版本) ，我們更應做的，就是透過公開對話，與其他宗教的信徒一起學習。

這個調查，針對我們信仰的核心 -- 耶穌基督這個人物及耶穌基督的工作。這個調查，對本文的作者而言，更是一個心靈更新的學習。該主題，面臨不可思議的挑戰，因它觸及多個主要領域，而這些領域已超越神學 /基督論 / 救恩論的範圍，當中包括知識論（1），比較宗教（包括相同的哲學，心理學和社會學），釋經學，護教學和宣教。各類型的系統神學家、聖經神學家及宣教學家，積極參與討論這個議題，熱情地表達其內心信念。這些討論，都是在多元化世界的背景下進行。這個多元化世界，越來越不能容忍「排他式的救恩觀」(exclusivism)的任何聲明或絕對真理的講論 (或世上有真理及真理的知識) 。

現時的情景：

公元一世紀，使徒保羅警告年輕的提摩太：因為時候要到，人必厭煩純正的道理，耳朵發癢，就隨從自己的情慾，增添好些師傅； 並且掩耳不聽真道，偏向荒渺的言語。(提後4:3-4) 。(2) 在往後多年的教會歷史中，神學家都一直關注，並竭力保存純正的教義。2005年4月，在 “邁向2010” （為1910年愛丁堡世界宣教大會百年慶典做準備）的聚會上，溫奈 拉馬尚德拉 ( Vinoth Ramachandra) 在所發表的論文中指出：

[世界宣教會議] 一直提醒其讀者：「福音和現存宗教二者關係的問題」，在基督徒開始宣教的初期，已出現兩種想法，即特土良(Tertullian) 和俄利根 (Origen)的想法 — 指出哪些宗教的各種邪惡和藉著福音而有的新生；另一種想法，就是所有藏於古老宗教內最崇高的東西，已經成就在基督裏。這兩種想法，可追溯到基督教的最初時期和新約全書的內容。顯然，從基督教思想的完整性來看，這兩種想法都是必需有的。(3)

 從某個角度來看，很多現時備受關注的神學理論，查實早已不斷重覆出現在以往的多個世紀。過去五十年，西方世界出現了翻天覆地的改變。拉馬尚德拉(Ramachandra) 說：「雖然西方基督教教會接受現代化的體制和文化的年日遠遠多過亞洲基督教教會，但是，多元式的救恩觀 (religious pluralism)，大約在1960年代開始在教會出現，並且成為西方國家的生活方式的普遍特徵。(4) 事實上，1960和70年代，法蘭西斯‧薛華（Francis Schaeffer）撰寫了有關 “後現代基督徒的世界” 的文章，他觀察到西方教會對聖經真理的堅持有所下降，並預測教會在神學方面的發展，將會是貧乏和嚴峻的。(5）

 史丹·格特里(Stan Gthrie)在其著作＜第三個千禧年：給21世紀的21個關鍵＞ (Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Keys for the 21st Century )，指出 “神學漂移” (theological drift) 是我們這一代福音發展的重大挑戰：

 教會現時正面臨巨大的壓力--被要求不再堅持「唯獨信靠基督和地獄的終結」的福音信息…基督徒現時與回教徒、佛教徒及印度教徒工作及生活在一起，他們當中有許多人，看來比基督徒更有道德。基於同情心、容忍分歧及和諧相處的願望，許多福音派信徒淡化有關失落和地獄等令人困擾的聖經教義。宗教的真理主張，通常不被視為普遍真理，而只是個人喜好的表達，人可以選擇接受或拒絕。（6）

 將很多不同的神學觀點，歸納為個別狹義的類別，難免模糊當中細微的差別，於是令人質疑有關神學觀點，是否流於過度概括。但是，為簡潔起見，我們在這裡必須這樣做，要提醒大家，本文提供的大致框架僅用作調查。隨著文化不斷改變及神學理論不斷發展，我們需要繼續研讀和分辨相關的神學觀點。(在某些情況下，即「進一步審查之後」，神學家會修訂其觀點。)

多元式的救恩觀 (Pluralism) 、兼容式的救恩觀(Inclusivism) ，及排他式的救恩觀 (Exclusivism) 的定義:

有關「救贖的範圍及方法」的神學觀點， (7) 通常可總結為三大類：(i)多元式的救恩觀(Pluralism)、(2)兼容式的救恩觀 (inclusivism) (“有更廣闊的盼望”) 及(3)排他式的救恩觀(Exclusivism) (或是桑德斯 (Sander) 命名的限制式的救恩觀(restrcitivism ) 。多元式的救恩觀信徒，認為所有宗教及它們對神或超現實的概念都是同樣正確，或者至少 “所有宗教的共同根源，就是救贖的根源” 。（8）「廣義上，多元式的救恩觀的最佳表達，應算是普救論 (Universalism) 。即是條條大路都可以上天堂 (. 實質上，每一個人都可以上天堂) 」拉馬尚德拉宣稱：

雖然多元式的救恩觀  在基督教傳教的早期已經出現 (無論是在亞洲還是在希臘羅馬世界) ，並且亞洲的基督教神學家也一直努力，以切合其他信仰的思想方式交流基督；但現時的情況，卻引致一個新的現象出現，即有顯著數量的基督教學者和教會領袖，確立對多元式的救恩觀 的認可，不僅作為社會事實，也是「基督教信仰和其他信仰的關係」的一個神學新見解。（9）

孔漢思 (Hans Küng) (瑞士天主教神父，因與羅馬教廷關係欠佳而被圖賓根大學(University of Tübingen) 的天主教學院辭退；但仍可保留其神父身份。) 推廣的 “更廣闊的普世教會合一運動” (wider ecumenism) ， 超越了基督教所表達的多樣性。孔漢思尊祟基督教作為 “一種非常特殊且非凡的救贖方式” ，但也容許非基督教信仰作為“普通” 的救贖方式。

 宗教哲學家約翰希克 (John Hick)( 英國長老會) 和保羅尼特(Paul Knitter) (美國天主教會) 所編輯的書籍 - 《基督教獨特性神話》(The Myth of Christian Uniqueness)  經常被引用(10) 。 這本書當中的一些作者，採用多種方法，推廣教會合一運動。在根本上，否定了聖經的神性權威地位 (或任何啓示) 、放棄拿撒勒人耶穌的神性，並破壞基督教的福音（在彌賽亞的替代死亡和復活之外，尋找救贖和寬恕）。將字句重新定義 (有時甚至扭曲其意思至相反的地步) ，及篩選世界宗教兼且重新包裝（11）（那些宗教追隨者通常都不會確認其選取的方式），目的是為世上所有宗教建造類同路徑，以達至相同的最終命運。

 多元式的救恩觀信徒，呼籲我們在所選擇的宗教道路上，加入他們的陣營 (只要我們也接納其他人所選擇的宗教道路) ，以便我們在地球村，和平生活 – 每逢以宗教之名行使暴力的新聞出現時，這個目標便看似更加虛幻。“現在需要的是完全承認其它主要宗教都是有效的救贖方法。我們生活在同一世界，共同面對多種文化、宗教和意識形態。我們現有的選擇：一是承認多元式的救恩觀的合法性，或是威脅世界和平共處的可能性。我們期望政府、企業和其他機構各司其職，在保持世界多元化的前提下，共同建構一個有利人類世界團結的環境。世界的宗教，又豈能不盡其責呢？” （12）

 我們想問一問，進入這個全球俱樂部的代價是多少。（13）1993年，世界宗教議會在芝加哥舉行會議，主題為“團結或滅亡”。慕迪教會（Moody Church）的埃爾溫·魯澤（Erwin Lutzer）博士講述訪問該議會的感受，他詢問各種非基督教的宗教教徒代表，他們的宗教，是否能提供一位能夠完全清洗罪孽的救主，正如耶穌基督所作的一樣。答案是沒有。然而，很多非基督教教徒代表，願意給予拿撒勒人耶穌一個崇高的地位。魯澤博士問：“試問佛陀，克里希納，巴哈拉和瑣羅亞斯德怎能和基督相提並論呢？像基督一樣，這些領袖和其他人，也教導了一些崇高的道德觀念。即使我們說，基督高過其他的宗教人物，我們又有否給予基督所當得的地位？又或基督是否將會被放置在一個完全不同的層架上？(14)

當多元式的救恩觀信徒容許每種宗教，都各有其通往神的道路時，兼容式的救恩觀信徒確實將耶穌放在 “不同的層架”上。他們承認耶穌的獨特性，即耶穌就是 “那一位” 彌賽亞（而非任何一位彌賽亞，(15) 並且承認，救恩必須建基於耶穌在十架上的救贖工作。然後，他們努力將耶穌的贖罪工作，與尚未親自信靠祂的人聯繫起來。“簡而言之，兼容式的救恩觀信徒僅在基督裡，確認「救恩的特殊性和終結性」，但卻否定「認識基督的救贖工作」的必要性。言下之意，他們認為耶穌的工作，在本體上，是救贖的必要條件（沒有它，任何人都無法得救）。然而，救贖的知識，卻不是必要的得救條件。（一個人，不需要意識到這項工作，也可從中受益）。” （16）

 在那些自稱是拿撒勒人耶穌的追隨者當中，我們可以找到各式各樣兼容式的救恩觀（17）。萊斯利·紐比金(Lesslie Newbigin)指出：

最近的羅馬天主教著作聲稱，透過非基督教宗教，神的救恩是可以臨到那些尚未接觸過福音的人。卡爾·拉納（Karl Rahner）辯解如下：神定意拯救所有人。因此，他以恩典與眾人相交，“縱使人有罪性，按照推斷，這些影響是可以接受的。”  再者，拯救性的宗教，必須是社會性；因此，非基督教宗教具有積極的救贖意義。 ……因此，非基督徒的信徒被視為匿名基督徒。但是，一個基督徒，“相比匿名的基督徒，獲得救贖的機會要大得多。” （18）

 托德·曼格姆（R. Todd Mangum）進一步闡明：“我相信他們（兼容式的救恩觀信徒）已經充分闡明，他們為兼容式的救恩觀所提出的爭辯，並非植根於錯誤觀念（他們自己所認為的）。這個錯誤觀念，就是人可以透過各種有效方法，直接來到神面前 (即多元式的救恩觀) 。相反，他們的論調，就是神只設立一個救贖的方法，讓人透過不同的路徑，從而在神的救贖裏有份。這不在乎「已經與神和好」的人對真正(本體論）的救贖方法有多少認識”  (19) 。

 眾所週知的是“整個基督教世界” 正面對翻天覆地的改變。自本篤二世以來，羅馬天主教已經離開其過往立場 (extra ecclesium nulla salus ) (20) ，即在教會之外，沒有救贖。（21）其他主流基督教教派，已經自豪地加入了兼容式的救恩觀的遊行隊伍（儘管聖公會的保羅·豪斯（Paul House）提醒我們，有些“自由” 教派還帶著 “福音派”的身分）。但是，一些自稱是福音派的人也持有類似立場。克拉克·平諾克（Clark Pinnock）成為“高等的基督論” 的發言人，表示其他信仰的追隨者，都可基於「信心」的原則，得以進入天堂。 （22）平諾克(Pinnock)為我們勾畫該議題的重點：

 兼容式的救恩觀（23）表揚兩個重要的神學真理。第一個是特殊性公理 ，它說神已經明確地將自己啓示出來，道成肉身，成為人的樣式，為全人類作成救贖的工作。第二個是普遍性公理，它說神愛罪人，希望拯救所有的罪人。神學面對的挑戰，就是要公平地看待這兩個真理，不容讓其中一個真理抵消另一個真理。（24）

第三個主要觀點，當然是排他式的救恩觀，它反對倡議 “多條道路皆可上天堂” 的多元式的救恩觀和兼容式的救恩觀的觀點，即 “被耶穌拯救了，但也許不知道這事（或基督）”。排他式的救恩觀認為得救贖的唯一方法，就是相信救贖工作的完成是透過耶穌的死、埋葬和復活。W.加里·菲利普斯（W. Gary Phillips）將排他式的救恩觀的立場總結為 “絕對性，普遍性和無條件” 的以下三點：“（1）耶穌基督是得救的唯一途徑。 （2）基督在十字架上的工作果效歸給所有得救的罪人。 （3）要獲得救贖，就必須直接相信耶穌基督為他或她的救主，否則死後會面臨永恆的咒詛。” （25）

 排他式的救恩觀信徒，被某些人標榜為無同情心、傲慢的西方（26）頑固派。因為他們堅持唯獨他們掌握了真理，而其他絕大部份人肯定將會下地獄 (27) 。( 人們常常有此想法，認為排他式的救恩觀信徒會很高興看見他們有此下場。不幸的是，一些排他式的救恩觀信徒所作的演講，很容易給聽眾留下這種印象。）這種 “經典”的福音派立場，在我們這一代，顯著地被削弱了。根據一項研究，在基督教大學和神學院，有三分之一的學生質疑基督的獨特性。 （28）羅納德·納什（Ronald Nash）估計：“……超過一半的福音派領袖、宣教領袖、福音派學院和神學院的教授，可能相信人無需向基督認罪悔改和尋求赦免，也能夠被基督拯救。 ” （29）

耶穌是福音的中心

本文的焦點，彌賽亞這個人物及彌賽亞作為救主所作的事工。

因為   “……除他以外，別無拯救，因為在天下人間，沒有賜下別的名，我們可以靠着得救。”（使徒行傳4:12）我們可以衷心地說，在一切事情之上，我們必須認定這一點。對於使徒保羅來說，他的事工就是傳講耶穌： 

“因為十字架的道理，在那滅亡的人為愚拙；在我們得救的人卻為神的大能。就如經上所記：我要滅絕智慧人的智慧，廢棄聰明人的聰明。智慧人在哪裏？文士在哪裏？這世上的辯士在哪裏？神豈不是叫這世上的智慧變成愚拙嗎？ 世人憑自己的智慧，既不認識神，神就樂意用人所當作愚拙的道理拯救那些信的人，這就是神的智慧了。  猶太人是要神蹟，希臘人是求智慧；  我們卻是傳釘十字架的基督。在猶太人為絆腳石，在外邦人為愚拙； 但在那蒙召的，無論是猶太人、希臘人，基督總為神的能力，神的智慧。” (哥林多前書1：18-24)

 基督教的福音面臨一個巨大的挑戰，就是具有學歷並能與 “基督教出版社” 接觸的博學學者，對基督的屬性進行攻擊。哪些自認是基督教多元式的救恩觀信徒，剝奪耶穌的神性，取而代之，使耶穌成為一個軟弱的模範者，無能力作救主。正如約翰·希克（John Hick）所說：若道成肉身的耶穌，三一神的第二位在人間生活，以致基督教的信仰是建基於神親自以人的身份生活在世上，那麼便很難逃避傳統的看法，認為所有人都必須歸入基督教的信仰。” （30）

 但希克已加入了那些“否定” 的隊伍，他們都不接受耶穌基督道成肉身的真理。他藉其作品（包括《神道成肉身的神話》中的“耶穌與世界宗教”）。約翰·希克（費城：威斯敏斯特出版社，1977年）“Jesus and the World Religions,” in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. John Hick (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977) 和《基督教宗教神學：信仰的彩虹》（路易斯·威斯敏斯特·約翰·諾克斯出版社，1995年）(A Christian Theology of Religions: The Rainbow of Faiths (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) 發揮其影響力、闡明和確立他的立場。（儘管這位作家不同意希克的立場(31)，或卡爾·布拉滕(Carl Braaten ) 於評估希克的觀點時所作以下的總結評論：

 英國伯明翰的約翰·希克教授，在新教徒當中，率先呼籲進行“哥白尼革命”，旨在推翻所有基督教排他式的救恩觀(Christian exclusivism) 最基本的基督教教義。希克認為提利希(Tillich) 所講的“潛伏教會”或拉納(Rahner) 提出的“匿名基督教” ， 都不足以擴大基督徒的救贖之道。[他們都是兼容式的救恩觀信徒] ……希克說得更深入，是把斧頭放在排他式的救恩觀的基督教學根源上。他說：“從字面上理解，「神的兒子，聖子，神道成肉身」意味著神只是通過耶穌，將自己充充足足的表明出來，並且作出回應。因此，除了猶太-基督教的信仰外，所有人類的宗教生活都被排除在救恩範圍之外” （引自希克的“耶穌與世界宗教”，第179頁）(Hick’s “Jesus and the World Religions,” 179.) 。 若我們承認世界上的各種宗教，與引領到神所賜的永生殊途同歸，那麼多元式的救恩觀 (Pluralism) 與全人類的團結是配合一致的。神是信仰世界的中心。耶穌只是通向神的眾多方式之一（基督教的方式）。衪不是神唯一的獨生子、世界的主宰和人類的救主。每種宗教都有自己的方式，並以它們各自的方式來完成這項工作。這樣，約翰·希克（John Hick）便成功地根除了排他式的救恩觀的最後痕跡。 （32）

 要公開宣佈排他式的救恩觀已經死亡，也許還為時過早。瀏覽福音派的宣教訊息，神學期刊及書籍時（33），仍可見到能幹的作家願意挑戰多元式的救恩觀的錯誤，並與兼容式的救恩觀展開鬥爭。還應該指出，在世界宣教的領域裏，仍可找到優秀的排他式的救恩觀代表，精確地強調耶穌基督的獨特性（即堅守排他式的救恩觀的必要條件）。他們當中的一些人，從實踐者的角度出發，就相關的討論，作出了貢獻。

 排他式的救恩觀的著作，證明神的一般啟示為普及性的（神不讓自己沒有任何見證）。再者，現代福音傳教學主張使用「實況化」(contextualization) 的方法，配合非基督教宗教和文化在福音上所起的正面作用，預備其追隨者接受福音。唐·理查森（Don Richardson）在1974年發行的《和平兒童》(Peace Child) ，向宣教界介紹了“救贖類比”( redemptive analogies) 的概念，隨後是《地球之王》(Lords of the Earth )（1977）和《他們心中的永恆》(Eternity in Their Hearts)（1981）。理查森(Don Richardson) 堅持，正如舊約的事件和文物（文物：民數記21的青銅蛇；實踐方法：獻祭）預示了新約的應驗 (約翰福音3：14 –“摩西在曠野舉蛇一樣；約翰福音1：29 –“看哪，神的羔羊”）一樣，每種文化 / 宗教的元素都是指向耶穌。

 贖回類比(Redemptive analogies)可以是一般性的（隨著時間遷移，可見於許多文化之中），例如農業（農民/農作物）或特別針對某一個民族。理查森在《和平兒童》中講述了交戰部族之間，為了實現和平而交換兒子。他講述這種文化如何有助打開理解神差遣祂的獨生子的意義的大門。 “義” 這漢字由“羔羊” 和“我” 兩個字組成：可以理解為“我”在 “羔羊” 的下面。這樣的類比，可能是較早前已知的真理遺跡。它們成為溝通聖經教義的橋樑（34）– 類似約翰使用希臘文“道” (logos) 的概念或保羅在雅典“阿里奧巴古斯” 對“未知的神” 所用的引喻（使徒行傳17）。

我們是怎麼來到這裡的？

在這裡可能需要說明一點，正如人所認識的權威一樣（例如，聖經是神的無誤啟示），一個人的預設和起點，在很大程度上會影響其方向和目的地。例如，我們先以聖經講述神愛世人作為起點（約翰福音3：16）。因此，衪不願有一人沉淪，乃願人人都悔改。（彼得後書3：9）祂差遣衪的兒子為普天下人的罪作了挽回祭。(約翰一書2：2）。在這準則下，大多數人應該最終都可進入天堂。但是，若開始時，我們所講述的神是聖潔的（利未記19：2）、嫉妒（出埃及記20：3-5），並且審判罪惡的，那麼結果又會有何不同呢？– 神因找不到十個義人而毀滅了所多瑪（創世記18和19章）；又或當世界充滿敗壞和暴力時，在挪亞洪水的日子，神在全地只保留了八個人的生命。這樣看來，我們不至消滅，是出於耶和華諸般的憐憫。（哀3:22）。的確，透過耶穌的教導：「引到滅亡，那門是寬的，路是大的，進去的人也多」（馬太福音7:13），我們對這種看法有更深入的認識。彼得斷言：「義人僅僅得救」（彼得後書4:18）。但是，約翰卻描述了“有許多的人，沒有人能數過來，是從各國、各族、各民、各方來的，站在寶座和羔羊面前，身穿白衣，”（啟示錄7：9）。我們可能會得出一個結論，就是神的救贖計劃涵蓋了許多領域。但正如耶穌應許衪的跟隨者，天家會有地方為他們預備。同時，祂也傳講地獄是千真萬確的事實，是為不信的人所預備的。（例如，約翰福音3:17）。

 除了個人的預設，所提出的問題亦會對討論的方向有重大影響。腓立比獄卒的問題， “我當怎樣行才可以得救？” 聖經為我們作出回答：“當信主耶穌，你和你一家都必得救。（使徒行傳16:31）。另一方面，“那些從未聽聞耶穌的人會如何呢？” 這不是聖經文本中直接問（或回答）的問題。愛的神為從未有機會相信的人預備永恆的折磨，這種想法實在令人難以接受，以至兼容式的救恩觀信徒提出了各種解決的方案，目的是“使神脫離困境”。 （35）每一種神學立場的推廣者，都各自援引經文支持其看法。

 我們想問一問，兼容式的救恩觀信徒所提出的觀點，對福音事工會有什麼影響。如果人的得救是無需憑著保羅提出的方法 (“你若口裏認耶穌為主，心裏信神叫他從死裏復活，就必得救。 因為人心裏相信，就可以稱義；口裏承認，就可以得救。” – 羅馬書10：9-10），試問甚麼是傳福音的推動力？因為「凡求告主名的，就必得救。」（10:13），「然而人未曾信他，怎能求他呢？未曾聽見他，怎能信他呢？沒有傳道的，怎能聽見呢？ 若沒有奉差遣，怎能傳道呢？」 (10:14-15) 。兼容式的救恩觀信徒說，這不是人可以相信的唯一方法；排他式的救恩觀信徒則說，這是規範的方式。耶穌命令跟隨祂的人要去，使萬民作祂的門徒（馬太福音28：18-20）。彼得講道，數千人在耶路撒冷得救（徒2章）；腓力講解以賽亞書53章，埃塞俄比亞的太監得著拯救（徒8:26 ）；彼得向羅馬百夫長哥利流傳講福音，儘管百夫長哥尼流是個義人和敬畏神，他仍需要聽聞福音，才能得著拯救（使徒行傳10章）。我們可以把傳播福音的其他方式理論化 (世界各地的人有很多軼事證據：夢境、異象(36)、以及遇到耶穌的特別經歷。) 這些軼事能否免除我們的責任，不聽從救主的命令，去使萬民作祂的門徒呢？

 可以肯定的是，兼容式的救恩觀信徒，也被計算在鼓勵宣講福音的人之內。改革宗神學家曼格姆(R. Todd Mangum) 是兼容式的救恩觀信徒，堅持知道自己得救是大有好處 (有充足把握得救) 。因此，我們應該繼續推廣宣教事工。“儘管如此，” 曼格姆寫道，“我仍會爭辯，因為聖經沒有排除我們的猜測，也沒有使我們完全失去期盼，這期盼就是一些未曾知道福音明確要求的人也能得到救贖。神可以通過非凡的方法，儘管完全是基於基督的贖罪工作，拯救了一些自己未完全確定得救的人（在認識論上）（37）

 因此，我們有需要進一步提出警告。尋找一個中間路線方法的一種推動力 (在這種情況下，以兼容式的救恩觀為代表），可能是為了避免使用強硬措詞，免得令尋求信仰的人對福音不感興趣。約翰·桑德斯（John Sanders）在他的軼事中說明了這一點。他與一位自稱無神論的大學生談話。當該學生描述 “他所不相信的神” ，就是把未聞耶穌的人送去地獄的哪一位神時，桑德斯說他也不相信這位神。這樣的回答無疑為桑德斯贏得了一次聆聽的機會。從純粹營銷的角度來看，擁有每個人都想要的產品是有利的。多元式的救恩觀信徒無疑在這裡佔有優勢。但是，“唯獨基督” 的方法 (scandal of particularity) 並不是排他式的救恩觀信徒所發明的。耶穌自己說：“我就是道路、真理、生命，若不藉着我，沒有人能到父那裏去。” （約翰福音14：6；約翰福音10：9所指的 “門”；參考提摩太前書2：5）。

 當那位富有兼且年輕的官聽到嚴格的訓誨時，他就走了。（馬可福音10：17-22）。當許多跟隨耶穌的門徒退去不跟隨祂後 (在耶穌說出另一句強硬的說話之後 ：「若不是蒙我父的恩賜，沒有人能到我這裏來」 ) ，耶穌問衪的門徒，“你們也要去嗎？” （約翰福音6：65-67）。當「和平的君」表明衪的追隨者將會為衪的名而普遍地受到憎恨、承受最惡劣的紛爭和分裂所帶來的痛苦，或甚至受到最親密的家人迫害。（馬太福音10：16-20）我們就此可得出什麼結論呢？若避免衝突至為重要，恐怕我們進入了錯誤的行業！當站在講道的平台上，對相信聖經的會眾說， “我不以福音為恥” 是不太困難的。但在不信的人中，在最好的情況下，人視福音為娛樂；或在最壞的情況下，福音被視為世界和平的真正威脅時，我們會用同樣的力度說出這句話嗎？

得救的信心

當進行猶太福音事工時，我們當中有誰在一個月內沒有引用羅馬書1:16？保羅將彌賽亞的福音等同神的救贖大能。若罪是導致死亡的疾病，那麼福音就是神提供的解毒劑。以此類推，多元式的救恩觀信徒則被指控為將生命處方的效能稀釋（在某些情況下，使其符合所有宗教的“全球標準”），以致效力消散。接受者更容易被灌輸反對聖經的信仰，而不是被稀釋了的多元式的救恩觀所高舉的“福音” 拯救。[我相信，在大多數情況下，他們的信息會吻合保羅所指的、哪個會使人受咒詛的 “另一個福音”（加拉太書1：6-8）。

 兼容式的救恩觀信徒有正確的解藥：神羔羊的血。他們與別不同之處是神所使用的「傳福音方法」。排他式的救恩觀信徒必定說：「一個人必須知道自己感染了罪病，並自願報名接受治療。同時間兼容式的救恩觀信徒卻說：「神會以某種方式將解毒劑分發給那些甚至不知道自己生病的人，更遑論他們知道自己得到治療。這說法在理論上有可能嗎？前景看來實在使人高興，但我是否願意在這事上將人的生命作為賭注呢？（將此說法套用在另一情況下，如果我是居住在歌珊地 (Goshen)的希伯來奴隸的長子，當摩西發出關於在家裡的門框和門楣上塗血的指示時，究竟我會否在遵循神的明確啟示之外，認真考慮接受其它或許也能免我一死的想法？

 最終，我們應該作出感謝，因為靈魂的永恆命運不在於神學家和哲學家的謊言，而是在於將來審判活人死人的彌賽亞耶穌（提摩太後書4：1），並且祂認識誰是他的人（提摩太後書2：19）。回應亞伯拉罕的問題，“審判全地的主豈不行公義嗎？” （創世記18:25），我們可能會滿有信心、響亮地回答 “是！” (38)。保羅警告不要質疑全能者在選擇上的主權和作為（羅馬書9：19-21）。他以「窰匠的智慧和陶罐」作為比較的例子，恰當地反映一個事實，即神的意念高過我們的意念（以賽亞書55：8-9）。創造者的判斷何其難測 （羅馬書11：33-34）。儘管神選擇不告訴我們一切事情（申命記29：29），但衪所揭示的，是世世代代可信賴的。在耶和華降罰的日子，我們就全知道，如同主知道我們一樣。在以色列的至聖者面前，我們看見罪惡的恐怖，並曉得人類墮落和叛逆的深處，再沒有人反抗神，說祂作出的審判不公平，好叫各人都要閉嘴。（羅馬書3：19）

彌賽亞運動帶來的影響

對某些人來說，“神學理論化” 是無休止和無益處的活動（想起「跳舞的天使與別針頭」(dancing angels and pinheads ) 的辯論）( 在這裏， 我並沒有使用這兩個術語來談論神學家)。有關救贖的範圍和方法的教義，經驗豐富的哲學家和年輕的神學家已爭論了幾個世紀，為什麼還要為此議題而浪費更多墨水呢？我們得到的提醒，就是當前的話題是關乎「進入永恆」- 我們的救恩論的觀點，將有意或無意地，傳達我們對傳福音的熱誠，以及我們福音工作的焦點。教義確實非常重要– 正如我們現在所見，現代彌賽亞運動一直進行的辯論，正正就是全球教會現時狀況的縮影。

 當對哪些沒有彌賽亞而迷失的人的關注減弱時，傳福音的熱情可能也減退。我們每個人都可以多次展示生命改變的奇蹟。本文一開始，我提及在布魯克林關乎信奉正統猶太教的猶太人的談話內容。在本文的結尾，我將會講述一個以色列信徒於本年三月分享予我和羅以的見証。作為正統猶太教的積極實踐者，艾爾 (A1 )是在極端正統猶太教法典研究院（haredi yeshiva）任命的一位拉比領袖的核心圈內。在某日談及對「人死後」的看法，這位著名的拉比領袖說：“我知道死後我要去的地方。我將會去地獄。”

 艾爾感到非常震驚，便問他怎會這樣想。拉比回答說：“我知道我做過的壞事。當然，我將要去地獄。” 拉比的回覆是促使艾爾尋求保證自己得救的部分原因，最終他決定相信耶穌。

 當考慮 “世界宗教所隱藏的基督” 這題目時，我們必須想到猶太人的屬靈需要 - 包括那些不信耶穌的虔誠猶太教信徒。除了相信神所啓示的救贖條款之外，我們是否被哄，滿足於「希望得到」的救贖？ 或我們有否聽從聖經清晰的教導，就是那些對律法書最熱心的人，也需要通過相信基督耶穌才可尋得公義。

 願神幫助我們這一代忠於祂的話語，並且服從衪的命令。願我們的生活能如實反映神藉著聖靈在我們裏面的工作，使我們能以誠實正直，來宣揚福音的信息。願以色列的至聖者得榮耀，我們願以恩慈、謙卑、憐憫及熱情的態度，向垂死的世界傳講如何白白得著神所賜的生命，就是通過相信那位全豐全足的救主耶穌，因衪已完成救贖的工作。有一天，在救主耶穌面前，萬膝必向祂跪拜，萬口必向祂承認，耶穌基督是主。

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“認識你獨一的真神，並且認識你所差來的耶穌基督，這就是永生。” – 耶穌（約翰福音17：3）

“我們既領受人的見證，神的見證更該領受了，因神的見證是為他兒子作的。信神兒子的，就有這見證在他心裏；不信神的，就是將神當作說謊的，因不信神為他兒子作的見證。這見證就是神賜給我們永生，這永生也是在他兒子裏面。  人有了神的兒子就有生命；沒有神的兒子就沒有生命。” （約翰一書5：9-12）

..

During the International Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism held at Hofstra University on Long Island in 1999, we enjoyed a “field trip” through “Jewish New York.” Lori and I were privileged to be seated on the bus with an “elder statesman” of the Messianic movement whose personal insights into the city’s history gave rich texture to the sights outside the window. While passing through Crown Heights in Brooklyn this dear brother expressed his opinion that we would see many Orthodox Jews in heaven – even though they never knowingly put their faith in Yeshua (Jesus’ Hebrew name) as Savior. His statement came as a surprise; I knew this gentleman had both embraced and publicly proclaimed his personal faith in Yeshua, and indeed had endured much for living out his messianic faith among his Jewish kinsmen. When I questioned him as to why he believed this to be so, he remarked with genuine compassion that he couldn’t see how a loving God could condemn sincere, devout Jews (including members of his own family) to hell.

While we who work in Jewish evangelism are most apt to deal with the question of a special provision for God’s chosen people to whom specific covenant promises were made, most thinking people at some point wrestle with the question of who gets to enjoy paradise, and how. For many followers of Jesus this is an intensely personal and emotional matter; they desire to have a ray of hope for departed loved ones who never made a profession of faith. Others out of a sense of fairness embark on a theodicy, seeking to release God from the charges of being an ogre who would condemn to eternal punishment infants, the mentally handicapped, sincere followers of other religions, and those who never heard about Jesus. Could there be a more important – or emotionally laden – issue than the eternal destiny of our fellow human beings? And isn’t it the height of chutzpah to insist that there is only one way (ours, of course) that leads to heaven?

The Subject Surveyed

The assigned topic “The Hidden Christ in World Religions” essentially calls for a response to those (including some in “Christendom”) who claim that “Christ is in all religions,” albeit in a hidden or mysterious way. Their view is that rather than proclaiming (our version of) the gospel, we should rather learn from an open dialogue with adherents of other faiths.

That this assignment addresses the very heart of our faith – the person and work of Yeshua Hamashiach (Jesus the Messiah) – made it a soul-refreshing study for the writer. The incredible challenge of this topic is the number of key areas which it touches beyond theology/Christology/soteriology: epistemology (1), comparative religions (including the philosophy, psychology and sociology of the same), hermeneutics, apologetics and missions. A wide array of systematic and biblical theologians as well as missiologists have weighed in on the subject, passionately presenting heart-felt convictions on the matter. All this is set against the backdrop of a pluralistic world that is increasingly intolerant of any claims of exclusivism or to absolute truth (or the existence and knowability of “truth” at all).

The Current Scene:

In the first century AD the Apostle Paul warned young Timothy, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). (2) For all the ensuing years of church history theologians have been concerned with preserving sound doctrine. In a paper given at the April 2005 gathering of “Toward 2010” (preparing for the centennial celebration of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh), Vinoth Ramachandra stated:

[The World Missionary Conference] continued to remind its readers of “two types of thought on the question of the relation of the Gospel to existing religions” which have existed from the earliest days of the Christian mission: namely, “the type exemplified in Tertullian and in Origen—the one dwelling most on the evils of those religions and the newness of the Gospel; and the other seeking to show that all that was noblest in the old religions was fulfilled in Christ. This duality of type goes right back to the very beginnings of Christianity, and is found in the New Testament itself. It seems quite clear that both types are necessary to the completeness of the Christian idea.”(3)

In one sense, many of the theological concerns faced today have been recycled over centuries. But in the last five decades a sea change has been occurring in the Western world. Ramachandra states, “Although Christian churches in the West have had to come to terms with the institutional forces and cultural dynamic of modernity for far longer than their counterparts in Asia, the encounter with religious pluralism has only become a pervasive feature of Western life since perhaps the 1960s.” (4) Indeed, it was in the 1960s and ‘70s that Francis Schaeffer wrote about the “post-Christian world” as he observed the decline of commitment to biblical truth in the West and forecast a grim future for a theologically anemic church.(5)

In Stan Guthrie’s Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Keys for the 21st Century, “theological drift” is identified as a significant challenge to the advance of the gospel in our generation:

The pressure to soften the exclusive claims of Christ and finality of hell is intense. …Christians now work and live alongside Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, many of whom seem more moral than they. Compassion and a desire to tolerate differences and get along have encouraged many evangelicals to dilute troubling biblical doctrines on lostness and hell. Claims of religious truth are often not seen as universally true but as expressions of personal preference, to take or leave as one chooses.(6)

Distilling a wide range of theological views into tight categories, thus blurring nuanced distinctives, leaves one open to the charge of generalizing. For sake of brevity we must do so here, with the caveat that the necessary “broad brush stroke” serves only as a survey. Continued study and discernment are needed in the midst of a changing culture and evolving theologies. (In some cases, theologians revise their own viewpoints “after further review.”)

Pluralism, Inclusivism, and Exclusivism Defined

Theological views on the extent and means of salvation (7) are most commonly summarized in three categories: pluralism, inclusivism (“wider hope”), and exclusivism (or, in Sander’s nomenclature, restrictivism). Pluralists hold all religions and their concepts of God or transcendent reality to be equally valid, or at least “that the common root to all religions is precisely the salvific root.” (8) [The broadest expression of pluralism would be universalism, which has all roads leading to paradise (i.e., virtually everyone gets to heaven).] Ramachandra declares:

Although religious pluralism has been recognized from the earliest days of Christian mission (whether in Asia or the Greco-Roman world), and Christian theologians in Asia have long grappled with the task of communicating Christ in thought-forms appropriate to those of other faiths, the modern situation has thrown up a new phenomenon: namely, the endorsement of religious pluralism, not merely as a social fact but as a new theological understanding of the relationship between the Christian faith and other faiths, by a significant number of Christian academics and Church leaders (9) (emphasis mine).

Hans Küng (Swiss Roman Catholic theologian who was removed from the Catholic faculty at Tübingen for being more at odds than in harmony with the Vatican, though he retains his status as priest) promotes a “wider ecumenism” that reaches beyond the varieties of Christian expression. Küng esteems Christianity as “a very special and extraordinary way to salvation,” but allows that non-Christian faiths are the “ordinary” way.

Philosophers of religion John Hick (British Presbyterian) and Paul Knitter (American Catholic) edited the oft-cited The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. (10) The contributors to their volume take a variety of approaches to advocate an ecumenism that essentially denies the divine authority of the Bible (or any revelation), discards the deity of Jesus of Nazareth, and deconstructs the Christian gospel (finding redemption and forgiveness in something other than Messiah’s substitutionary death and resurrection). Words are redefined (and sometimes so distorted that their opposite meaning is adopted), and world religions (11) are sifted and repackaged (often in ways that the followers of those religions likely would not affirm), all with the purpose of constructing parallel paths in world religions that reach the same ultimate destiny.

Pluralists call for us to join them on whatever religious road we may choose (so long as it is accepting of the paths of others) so that we may live in peace in our global village – a goal which seems ever more illusive with each news report of violence perpetrated in the name of religion. “What is needed now is a full acknowledgment of the other major religions as valid ways of salvation. We are living in one world with a plurality of cultures, religions, and ideologies. Either we acknowledge the legitimacy of this pluralism, or we threaten the possibility of living together in a peaceful world. We expect governments, corporations, and other agencies to do their part to cooperate in establishing conditions which drive toward the unity of the human world without diminishing the plurality of its forms. Why should not the religions of the world do their part?” (12)

We do well to ask the cost of entry to this global club.(13) With the theme “Unite or Perish,” the Parliament of the World’s Religions convened in Chicago in 1993. Moody Church’s Dr. Erwin Lutzer tells of visiting the Parliament, asking various non-Christian representatives if their religion offered a savior who was sufficient to completely cleanse from sin, as Yeshua does. None did – however many were willing to grant high status to Jesus of Nazareth. Lutzer asks, “Does Christ belong on the same shelf with Buddha, Krishna, Bahaullah, and Zoroaster? Like Christ such leaders and others have taught some rather lofty ethical ideas. Even if we say He stands taller than the rest have we given Him His due? Or is He to be placed on an entirely different shelf altogether?” (14)

Where pluralists allow that each religion has its own road leading to God, inclusivists do put Jesus on that “different shelf.” They acknowledge the uniqueness of Jesus as “the” (not “a”) Messiah,(15) and the necessity of His atoning work on Calvary; they then endeavor to link Yeshua’s atoning work to individuals who have not personally placed their trust in Him. “Briefly, inclusivists affirm the particularity and finality of salvation only in Christ but deny that knowledge of his work is necessary for salvation. That is to say, they hold that the work of Jesus is ontologically necessary for salvation (no one would be saved without it) but not epistemologically necessary (one need not be aware of the work in order to benefit from it).” (16)

Varying shades of inclusivism (17) may be found among those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Lesslie Newbigin states:

Recent Roman Catholic writing affirms that the non-Christian religions are the means through which God’s saving will reaches those who have not yet been reached by the gospel. Karl Rahner argues as follows: God purposes the salvation of all men. Therefore he communicates himself by grace to all men, “and these influences can be presumed to be accepted in spite of the sinful state of men.” Since a saving religion must necessarily be social, it follows that the non-Christian religions have a positive salvific significance. …The adherent of a non-Christian religion is thus regarded as an anonymous Christian. But a Christian who is explicitly so, “has a much greater chance of salvation than someone who is merely an anonymous Christian.” (18)

R. Todd Mangum further elucidates, “I believe that they [inclusivists] have sufficiently clarified that their contention for inclusivism is not rooted in (what they themselves deem as) the false belief that humans can obtain a variety of valid means to God [i.e., pluralism]. Rather, their contention is that the single means of atonement may be so constructed by God as to make various avenues of participation in that means available to human beings, some based on more, some based on less, accurate understandings of what is the real (ontological) means of their having been brought into favorable relationship with God.” (19)

It is no secret that sea changes are ongoing in the “wide world of Christendom.” Since Vatican II the Roman Catholic Church has moved away from its historic stance, extra ecclesium nulla salus (20) (outside the church there is no salvation). (21) Other mainline Protestant denominations have proudly joined the parade of inclusivists (though Episcopalian Paul House reminds us that some “liberal” denominations yet have “evangelical wings”). But some who identify themselves as evangelicals are taking similar positions. Clark Pinnock serves as an articulate spokesman for a position which holds a “high Christology” but allows for people in other faiths to enter heaven because of the “faith principle.” (22) Pinnock limns the issue for us:

Inclusivism (23) celebrates two central theological truths. The first is a particularity axiom that says God has revealed himself definitively and has acted redemptively on behalf of the whole human race through the Incarnation. The second is a universality axiom that says God loves sinners and wants to save them all. The challenge to theology is to do justice to both these truths and not allow one to cancel out the other.(24)

The third major view, of course, is exclusivism. Countering the “many roads lead to heaven” views of pluralism and inclusivism’s “saved by Jesus but maybe don’t know it (or Him)” premise, the exclusivist finds redemption solely through a cognizant faith in the atoning work accomplished through Yeshua’s death, burial and resurrection. W. Gary Phillips summarizes the exclusivist position as that which affirms as “absolute, universal, and unqualified” the following three points: “(1) Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. (2) Christ’s work on the cross is imputed to any and all sinners who will be saved. (3) To receive salvation one must place direct faith in Jesus Christ as his or her Savior in this life, or face eternal damnation in the next.” (25)

Exclusivists have been tagged by some as uncompassionate, arrogant Western (26) bigots who insist that they alone have a corner on the truth; everyone else can – and most certainly will (27) – go to hell. (And too often the perception is that the exclusivist will be happy to see them reach that end. Unfortunately, presentations by some exclusivists all too easily leave their audiences with that impression.) This “classic” evangelical stance is significantly undermined in our generation, with one third of students in Christian colleges and seminaries questioning the uniqueness of Christ in one study. (28) Ronald Nash estimates “…that more than half of the evangelical leaders in denominational or missions leadership and of missions professors at evangelical colleges and seminaries may believe that people can be saved by Christ without specifically turning to him for forgiveness of their sins.” (29)

The Centrality of Yeshua

The focus of this paper is on the person and work of Messiah as Savior. Since “…there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved”(Acts 4:12), one may say with heartfelt conviction that above all else it is essential that we “get it right” on this issue. For the Apostle Paul, ministry was all about preaching Yeshua:

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God [1 Corinthians 1:18-24 (emphasis mine)].

A great challenge facing the Christian gospel is the attack on His attributes by erudite scholars with academic degrees and access to “Christian publishers.” Those who self-identify as Christian pluralists and strip Yeshua of any attributes of deity are left with an anemic substitute who may serve as a model man, but is impotent as a Savior. As John Hick states, “If Jesus was literally God incarnate, the second Person of the holy Trinity living a human life, so that the Christian religion was founded by God-on-earth in person, it is then very hard to escape from the traditional view that all mankind must be converted to the Christian faith.” (30)

But Hick has joined the ranks of those who have “escaped” the doctrine of Yeshua’s incarnation. The influence of his work [including “Jesus and the World Religions,” in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. John Hick (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977) and A Christian Theology of Religions: The Rainbow of Faiths (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995)] is such that further elucidation of his position is warranted (though this writer could hardly disagree31 more strenuously with Hick’s position, or Carl Braaten’s concluding comment in his assessment of Hick’s views, which follows):

Professor John Hick of Birmingham, England has taken the lead among Protestants in calling for a “Copernican revolution,” which aims to overturn the Christological dogma at the bottom of all Christian exclusivism. It is not enough to broaden the way of Christian salvation by speaking with Tillich of a “latent church” or with Rahner of “anonymous Christianity”[both of whom are inclusivists] …Hick goes deeper and lays the ax at the Christological roots of exclusivism. He says, “For understood literally, the Son of God, God the Son, God-incarnate language implies that God can be adequately known and responded to only through Jesus; and the whole religious life of mankind, beyond the stream of Judaic-Christian faith is thus by implication excluded as lying outside the sphere of salvation” [quoting Hick’s “Jesus and the World Religions,” 179]. Pluralism is compatible with the unity of all humankind if we acknowledge that the various streams of religion in the world carry the same waters of salvation leading to eternal life with God. God is at the center of the universe of faiths; Jesus is only one of the many ways–the Christian way–that leads to God. He is not the one and only Son of God, Lord of the world, and Savior of humankind. Each religion has its own, and they do the job in their own way. In this way John Hick has successfully rooted out the last vestige of exclusivism. (32)

Perhaps this pronouncement of exclusivism’s demise is a bit premature. A scan of evangelical missions and theology journals as well as books in print (33) turns up able writers willing to take on the errors of pluralism and wrestle with the challenges of inclusivism. It should also be noted that exclusivists who do stress the uniqueness of Jesus Christ (a solid commitment to which is the sine qua non of exclusivism) are yet well represented on the mission fields of the world. Some of them are contributing to the discussion from a practitioner’s vantage point.

The view of the universality of God’s general revelation (not leaving Himself without a witness) is in evidence in exclusivist writings. Further, the positive role of non-Christian religions and cultures in preparing their adherents to receive the gospel is notably seen in contextualization efforts in modern evangelical missiology. Don Richardson introduced the missions world to the concept of “redemptive analogies” in the 1974 release of Peace Child, followed by Lords of the Earth (1977) and Eternity in Their Hearts (1981). Richardson maintains that just as Old Testament events and artifacts (the bronze serpent of Numbers 21) and practices (sacrifice) prefigured their New Testament fulfillment (John 3:14 – “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness”; John 1:29 – “Behold, the Lamb of God”), so elements in every culture/religion point to Jesus.

Redemptive analogies may be general (seen in many cultures over time), such as agricultural (farmer/crop) or specific to a particular people. In Peace Child Richardson tells how the exchange of sons between warring tribes to bring peace opened the door of understanding the meaning of God sending His only Son. The Chinese character for “righteous” includes two symbols: “I” under “lamb.” Such analogies may be vestiges of earlier known truth; they become bridges for communicating biblical doctrine (34) – similar to John’s use of the Greek concept of “logos” or Paul’s allusion to “the unknown God” in the Athenian Areopagus (Acts 17).

How Did We Get Here?

It may prove helpful to note here that, as with the authority one recognizes (e.g., the Scriptures as God’s infallible revelation), so one’s presuppositions and beginning point largely influence both direction and destination. For example, one may begin with the Scriptures which tell of the God who so loves the world (John 3:16) that, not wishing for anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9), He sent His Son to die as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). In this paradigm, most of humanity ought to end up in heaven. But what if one begins with a God who is holy (Leviticus 19:2), jealous (Exodus 20:3-5), and who judges iniquity – destroying Sodom for lack of finding 10 righteous persons (Genesis 18 & 19) or sparing only eight souls on the whole earth in Noah’s flood when the world was corrupt and violent, for example? Then one is left with the sense that indeed it is only of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed (Lamentations 3:22). Indeed, that perspective is reinforced by Yeshua’s teaching that “the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13). Peter affirms “the righteous one is scarcely saved” (1 Peter 4:18). Yet John describes “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes” (Revelation 7:9). We may conclude that God’s redemptive plan encompasses many, but just as Yeshua promised His followers a place in heaven, so also He preached hell as an undeniable reality for the nonbeliever (e.g., John 3:17).

It is not alone one’s presuppositions that inform the direction of the discussion; the questions asked will also exert substantial influence. The Philippian jailer’s question, “What must I do to be saved?” is answered for us in Scripture: “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). On the other hand, “What about those who have never heard of Jesus?” is not a question directly asked (or answered) in the biblical text. The thought of a loving God preparing a place of eternal torment for those who never had a chance to believe is so unpalatable that various solutions to “get God off the hook” have been propounded by inclusivists. (35) Supporting passages are adduced by proponents of each theological position.

We do well to ask what impact the inclusivist view may be having on the gospel enterprise. If people may be saved apart from the Pauline formula (“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” – Romans 10:9-10), what is the impulse for missions? Calling on the name of the Lord results in salvation (10:13), but calling occurs only when one believes, which requires hearing the message, which happens with proclamation, which results from a preacher being sent (10:14-15). Inclusivists say this not the only way one may believe; exclusivists say this is the normative way. Jesus commanded His followers to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Peter preached and thousands were saved in Jerusalem (Acts 2 ff); Philip expounded Isaiah 53 and the Ethiopian eunuch was saved (Acts 8:26 ff); Peter presented the good news to the Roman centurion Cornelius who, though described as a devout, generous God-fearing man, still needed to hear the gospel before he was saved (Acts 10). We may theorize about other possible means of the gospel being spread (and anecdotal evidence abounds about dreams, visions36 and special encounters with Jesus people around the world are having). Does any of that release us from the Savior’s command to go and make disciples?

To be sure, inclusivists are to be numbered among those who yet encourage gospel proclamation. Inclusivist (and Reform theologian) R. Todd Mangum maintains that, since there is great benefit for a believer to knowingly be saved (and have full assurance of the same), the missions enterprise should continue. “Nonetheless,” writes Mangum, “I will also contend that Scripture does not preclude our speculation nor completely discourage our hope for the salvation of some who have never been confronted with the explicit claims of the gospel. God may, through extraordinary means, albeit fully on the basis of the atoning cross-work of Christ, gain the salvation of some who are denied full assurance (epistemologically) of their salvation. (37)

A further caution is in order. Part of the impulse to find a via media (in this case, represented by inclusivism) may be to avoid the hard sayings that turn off seekers. John Sanders illustrates this in his anecdote about addressing a university student who professed atheism. When the student described “the God he didn’t believe in” as the one who sends those who haven’t heard about Jesus to hell, Sanders won a hearing by saying he didn’t believe in that God either. From a purely marketing point of view, it is advantageous to have a product everyone desires. Pluralists decidedly have the edge here. But the “scandal of particularity” wasn’t invented by exclusivists. Yeshua Himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6; also, “the door” in Jn. 10:9; cf. 1 Timothy 2:5).

The rich young ruler went away when he heard a difficult teaching (Mark 10:17-22). After many of His disciples turned away from following Him (after another hard saying, “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father”), Yeshua asked His disciples, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” (John 6:65-67). And what shall we conclude when the Prince of Peace indicates His followers will be universally hated, and will suffer the worst kind of conflicts and divisions even among the closest of family for the sake of His name (Matthew 10:16-20)? If conflict avoidance is a high value, we are in the wrong business! It is not so difficult to say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” when standing on the platform of a Bible-believing congregation. Do we say it with the same force when out in a culture in which that very same gospel is seen as an object of amusement at best or genuine threat to world peace at worst?

Faith That Saves

Who among us in Jewish evangelism goes a month without quoting Romans 1:16? Paul equates the gospel of Messiah with the power of God for salvation. If sin is the disease that causes death, the gospel is the divinely provided antidote. In this analogy, pluralists can be accused of so diluting the life-giving prescription (in some cases, so that it will meet the “global standards” of all religions) that its potency is dissipated. Recipients are more likely to be innoculated against biblical faith than saved by the watered down “gospel” of pluralism. [I believe in most cases their message would fit the category of “another gospel” that Paul anathematizes (Galatians 1:6-8).]

Inclusivists have the right antidote: the blood of the Lamb of God. Their distinctive is in the “delivery systems” God uses to disseminate it. Where exclusivists essentially say that one must know one is infected with the disease of sin and voluntarily sign up to receive the cure, inclusivists say God will somehow deliver the antidote to some who aren’t even aware they are ill, much less that they are getting treated. Is that theoretically possible? As delightful as that prospect might be, would I want to stake someone’s life on it? (Put in another context, if I were the first-born son of Hebrew slaves living in Goshen when instruction was given by Moses regarding application of blood on the doorposts and lintels of my home, how seriously would I entertain the thought that perhaps my life would be spared apart from following God’s explicit revelation?)

At the end of the day, we should be grateful the eternal destiny of souls does not lie with a panel of theologians and philosophers, but with Messiah Jesus who will judge the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1) and who knows those who are His (2 Timothy 2:19). We may have confidence that the answer to Abraham’s question, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do justly?” (Genesis 18:25) is a resounding “Yes!”38 Paul warns against questioning the sovereign choices and acts of the Almighty (Romans 9:19-21). His apt analogy of the “clay pot” railing against the wisdom of the potter reflects the reality that God’s thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9); the Creator’s judgments are unsearchable by the creature (Romans 11:33-34). Though God has not chosen to tell us everything (Deuteronomy 29:29), what He has revealed is reliable across generations. In the great day of reckoning, we will know even as we are known. Seeing the horror of sin for what it is in the light of the Holy One of Israel, and understanding the depths of human depravity and rebellion, no one will rail against God for being unfair in meting out judgment. Every mouth will be stopped (Romans 3:19).

Implications for the Messianic Movement

For some, “theologizing” is an endless exercise of no profit [think of dancing angels and pinheads (by neither term are we referring to theologians here)]. Considering the fact that seasoned philosophers and young theologues have argued for centuries over the scope and means of redemption, why should more ink be spilled? We are reminded that the topic at hand is of eternal import – and our soteriological views will, consciously or not, inform both our zeal for evangelism and the focus of our evangelistic efforts. Doctrine matters – and as we are seeing, the ongoing debates in the modern Messianic movement are a microcosm of what is taking place in the global Church.

When an awareness of the lostness of those without Messiah dims, evangelistic zeal may also fade. Each of us could illustrate many times over the marvel of a transformed life. I began this paper by relating a conversation about Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. I will close with the testimony an Israeli believer shared with Lori and me in March of this year. As an active practitioner of Orthodox Judaism, “Al” was in the inner circle of a leading rabbi ordained by a haredi yeshiva. In conversation one day about the hereafter, this famed rabbi said, “I know where I’m going when I die. I’m going to hell.”

Shocked to the core, Al asked how he could think such a thing. Replied the rabbi, “I know the bad things that I’ve done. For sure I’m going to gey hinnom.” That admission was part of what spurred Al to seek for assurance of his own salvation, which culminated in his coming to faith in Yeshua.

When considering “the Hidden Christ in world religions” we must make application to the spiritual needs of the Jewish people – including those devout practitioners of a Yeshua-less Judaism. Will we be lulled to complacency by a hoped-for salvation apart from faith in God’s revealed provision for redemption? Or will we heed the clear teaching of the Word that even those most zealous for the Torah need to find righteousness through faith in Messiah Jesus?

May God help us to be faithful to His Word and obedient to His command in our generation. May our lives reflect the reality of the inward transformation God is working in us by His Spirit so that our message will ring with integrity. May the Holy One of Israel be glorified as we speak graciously, humbly, compassionately, and fervently to a dying world of the life freely offered through faith in the completed atoning work of the only sufficient Savior, Yeshua, before whom one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess His Lordship.

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“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” – Yeshua (John 17:3)

“If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”

– Yochanan (1 John 5:9-12)

….

ENDNOTES

[1]. See Paul Hiebert=s helpful Taxonomy of Epistemological Positions in Appendix 1.

[2]. All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995).

[3]. Vinoth Ramachandra, AThe Missionary Message in Relation to Non-Christian Religions@: The Edinburgh 1910 Commission IV Report and Beyond [www.towards2010.org.uk/ downloads/t2010paper04ramachandra.pdf], April 2005, 4.

[4]. Vinoth Ramachandra, The Recovery of Mission: Beyond the Pluralist Paradigm (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), viii.

[5]. See e.g., Francis A. Schaeffer=s The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1970).

[6]. Stan Guthrie, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century (Bucks, UK: Paternoster Press, 2000), 45.

[7]. AIf we are told there is salvation in the other religions, there is no a priori reason to deny it. It depends on what is meant by salvation. …If salvation is striving for humanization, for development, for wholeness, for justice, for peace, for freedom, for the whole earth, for what not, there is salvation in the other religions, in the quasi-religions, and in the secular ideologies.@ Carl E. Braaten (Professor of Systematic Theology, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago), AThe Uniqueness and Universality of Jesus Christ@ in Mission Trends No. 5: Faith Meets Faith (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), 82-83. [NOTE: For our purposes in this paper, we are chiefly concerned with the salvation that results in an individual=s restoration of fellowship with a holy God through forgiveness of sin, and the promise of life everlasting.]

[8]. Peter Cotterell, APluralism@ in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, A Scott Moreau, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 761.

[9]. Ramachandra, Recovery, ix.

[10]. John Hick and Paul Knitter, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987). In the preface the editors write, A>…the uniqueness of Christianity=… has taken on a larger mythological meaning. It has come to signify the unique definitiveness, absoluteness, normativeness, superiority of Christianity in comparison with other religions of the world. It is this mythological sense of the phrase, with all that goes with it, that we are criticizing in this book.@

[11]. God gave explicit instructions to Israel regarding foreign gods (1F,I9 !B-J%F* B Joshua 24:20,23, e.g.) and idols/images (Deuteronomy 27:15, e.g.), and made clear their connection with demons (Deuteronomy 32:16-18, e.g.). Ramachandra (Recovery, ix) provides an example of how false religions keep their adherents blinded to the truth of the gospel: Peter Cotterell, himself a missionary in Ethiopia for many years, has complained that Ain the contemporary debates about the world=s religions the religions are hopelessly idealized…. The horrors of Canaanite religions are still with us, the shaman still claims the power to manipulate his gods, witchcraft still flourishes, the credulous are exploited, human achievement is exalted, the rich are filled with yet more good things, and it is the poor who are sent empty away. The fact is that religions do not prepare their adherents for the revelation of Christ.@

[12]. Braaten, 71.

[13]. Joseph M. Stowell illustrates the scandal of standing for Yeshua in our generation B and gives biblical encouragement for doing so B in The Trouble with Jesus (Chicago: Moody Press, 2003).

[14]. Erwin W. Lutzer, Christ Among Other Gods (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994), 13.

[15]. We must distinguish between Asubstitute@ Messiahs (what the Apostle John would term Aanti-Christs@) such as Athe Mahdi@ in Islam (Shia Atwelvers@ hold Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Ali to be Muhammad al-Mahd§, the 12th imam and ultimate savior of mankind),AChrist figures@ (such as the Acosmic Christ@ or other supposed incarnations of Athe Christ@) and distortions or incomplete portrayals of the biblical Messiah.

[16]. John Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1992), 215.

[17]. R. Douglas Geivett describes the challenge of defining terms thus: AWhereas inclusivists seem to agree that there are varieties of inclusivism, self-described inclusivists do not agree do not agree about what counts as a variety of inclusivism. Thus, from the point of view of one self-described inclusivist, another self-described inclusivist may not be an inclusivist at all.@ [AMisgivings@ and AOpenness@ in Who Will Be Saved: Defending the Biblical Understanding of God, Salvation, and Evangelism, Paul R. House and Gregory A. Thornbury, eds. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000), 111.

[18]. Lesslie Newbigin, AThe Gospel Among the Religions@ in Mission Trends No. 5: Faith Meets Faith, Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, C.S.P., eds. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1981), 8.

[19]. R. Todd Mangum, AIs There a Reformed Way to Get the Benefits of the Atonement to >Those Who Have Never Heard?=@ JETS 47/1 (March 2004) 121-36.

[20]. Millard Erickson [How Shall They Be Saved: The Destiny of Those Who Do Not Hear of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996) 33] reminds us that Athe Catholic Church has not always been monolithic in its view on this issue@ and that even those using the term may mean different things.

[21]. In his first papal encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, John Paul II makes reference to each man as Aincluded in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery@ (Par. 13), and Abecause manBevery man without any exception whateverBhas been redeemed by Christ, and because with manBwith each man without any exception whateverBChrist is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: >Christ, who died and was raised up for all, provides man=Beach man and every manB>with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme calling=@ (Par. 14) [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp‑ii_enc_ 04031979_redemptor‑hominis_en.html].

[22]. Clark Pinnock, A Wideness in God=s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992); see chapter five, AHope for the Unevangelized.@

[23]. Geivett (Who Will Be Saved, 112-113) distinguishes between Pinnock=s AStrong Inclusivist Condition@ (which holds that Anon-Christian religions have some sort of saving value@) and Sander=s AWeak Inclusivism@ (which does not).

[24]. Dennis L. Ockholm and Timothy R. Phillips, More Than One Way? Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 141.

[25]. W. Gary Phillips, AEvangelical Pluralism: A Singular Problem@ in Bibliothecra Sacra 151:602 (Apr 94) p. 144.

[26]. The gospel is not a Western invention. The authors of the biblical texts which exclusivists use to argue their points were Levantine Jews, Luke excepted. Though the apostles lived under Roman rule, they were scarcely Hellenists. Further, some of today=s chief apologists for a knowing faith in Christ alone are Asians: Ravi Zacharias (India); Ajith Fernando and Vinoth Ramachandra (Sri Lanka). Their faith in the Lord Jesus was forged in Buddhist and Hindu contexts.

[27]. As with pluralism and inclusivism, distinctions may be drawn within exclusivism. For example, Brad Johnson (AA Three-Pronged Defense of Salvific Exclusivism in a World of Religions,@ 1998 at http://www.leaderu.com/theology/salvific.html#text8) differentiates between exclusivist views such as: 1) God only uses human instruments for sharing the gospel; 2) Apessimistic agnostics@ who say special revelation is necessary, but make no further conclusions than what Scripture explicitly teaches about how the gospel is communicated to the lost; and 3) Aoptimistic agnostics@ who allow for the possibility that God may have other means of getting the gospel to the lost that He has not revealed in Scripture.

[28]. Paul Borthwick quoting a study by James Davison Hunter in Six Dangerous Questions to Transform Your View of the World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1996), 39.

[29]. Guthrie, 45 (quoting Nash=s Is Jesus the Only Way, 1994).

[30]. John Hick, God Has Many Names (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), 19.

[31]. For a detailed critique of Hick=s philosophy, see Ramachandra=s Recovery, especially pages 120-125. Here is a brief sample (from page 125): AThis [intellectual] imperialism is also prominent in Hick=s attempts to rewrite the reports of individual traditions in such a way that they can be accommodated within a Neo-Kantian worldview. Among the candidates suggested for mythological reinterpretation are the following: within Buddhism, the doctrine of rebirth…; within Judaism, the notion of Israel as a chosen people of Yahweh…; within the Christian tradition, Jesus= virgin birth, bodily resurrection and ascension, the divine incarnation…. The finished product, in each case, is unrecognizable to most adherents of the respective traditions. The price for resolving the problem of conflicting truth-claims in this manner is considerable.@

[32]. Braaten, 71-72.

[33]. Two books this writer would commend for their thoughtful, biblical treatment of the issues at hand in a highly readable format are Ajith Fernando=s The Christian=s Attitude Toward World Religions (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1987) and Ida Glaser=s The Bible and Other Faiths: Christian Responsibility in a World of Religions (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

[34]. As an important clarification on Aredemptive analogies,@ Don Richardson writes, AFor these reasons I propose that these particular facets of Mbaka lore be described as >redemptive.= (Note: >redemptive,= not >redeeming=! >Redeeming= would mean that Mbaka people could find relationship with God through their own lore, apart from the gospel. >Redemptive= in this context means >contributing to the redemption of a people, but not culminating in it.=) >Redemptive lore= contributes to the redemption of a people solely by facilitating their understanding of what redemption means.@ Eternity in their Hearts (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1981, 4th printing 1983), 61.

[35]. W. Gary Phillips lists the following options which inclusivists have postulated: 1. Eschatological B either Alater light@ (salvation is preached to those who have never heard after they die, based on 1 Peter 3:18-22), or annihilation (rather than everlasting judgment, a merciful God at some point causes the souls of the nonbelievers to cease to exist). 2. Election B an omniscient God knows all contingencies, and thus knows who would have believed had they only heard the gospel. Based on that Amiddle knowledge@ of a hypothetical world, God elects unto salvation those who would have believed. 3. Exception B just as Achronologically premessianic believers@ (e.g., Old Testament saints) were Agrandfathered@ (my word) into the later cross-work of Yeshua, so that same grace is effectively granted to those Ainformationally premessianic believers@ who (albeit post-Calvary in time) have not heard B as indeed it is to those incapable of believing had they heard (Phillips, 147).

[36]. Interestingly, the angelic messenger didn=t give the gospel to Cornelius, but instructed him to send for Peter in Joppa (10:3-6) to hear his message (10:22).

[37]. Mangum, 125.

[38]. Cf.1 Peter 1:17; Revelation 16:7; 19:2