Roman Road Hall
Jesus of Nazareth lived in Palestine two thousand years ago. Our calendar is reckoned from the time of his birth, which many celebrate around the world at Christmas. His life story and teaching are recorded in the four Gospels in the New Testament. But there are also many prophecies in the Old Testament, written hundreds of years before his birth, which were fulfilled in detail by his life and death. The prophecies tell us, for example, that Christ would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, that he would ride into Jerusalem on an ass and be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus himself said he would be killed but would rise again on the third day.
Remarkable Claims
The Bible makes many remarkable claims about Jesus. lt says that he is the Son of God (John 3:18) He is also God (John 1:1). He is without sin (Hebrews 4215). He performed miracles (Matthew 14:13-36). He raised the dead to life (John 11). He himself rose from the dead (Matthew 28:6). ln fact the entire Bible is about the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is, what he has done and what he is going to do. The people who lived with Jesus, and observed his life at close quarters, took his claims very seriously. Othervvise, they would not have recorded his teaching and miracles as sober truth, as they did in the New Testament writings. It is interesting that modern man so easily dismisses both Jesus and the New Testament as mythological. Yet those who saw what Jesus did and heard what he taught were willing to die for him.
The only way
We began by asking if different religions are simply different paths to the same God. The Bibles answer is:No, Jesus is unique He himself claimed to be the only way to God. He said,I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
A way back to God
The good news (the gospel) is that when Jesus Christ died on the cross,he bore the sin of many and saved them from Gods anger against sin and the judgement they deserve. He alone was innocent of sin and could act as a substitute -- he stood in our place and took the punishment his people deserved. He died,the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. By his death he not only turns away Gods anger,
but also reconciles to God all that the Father has given him.
Jesus is Gods way to salvation, which is why he is the only way.
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is no ordinary person. He is God become man. He left heaven to seek and save the lost. When Jesus came to earth in Bethlehem at the first Christmas, angels thrilled at the salvation he was bringing and sang his praises. Thirty-three years later when Jesus died on the cross there were no angels singing. They must have been amazed when they realized what the cost of manly salvation was to be. Perhaps they said to God,Not him for them! Not the holy, sinless Jesus for the hell-deserving rebels that all men and women are ! But that was Gods way.
Gods Love
God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to be our substitute, to take our punichment and to die instead of us, so that 'To all who receive him, to those who believed in his name, he ave the right to becone children of God.
Jesus dies for sinners
Jesus died an agonizing death on a Roman cross. But his greatest suffering did not lie in physical pain, but in the condemnation he endured from God the Father, as he bore all the sins of his people. On the cross, 'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us that we in him might become the rightousness of God. The cross was God's supreme act of love and grace. At the cross we see God, in all his divine holiness, dealing with human sin. At the cross, God removed the sin that seperates his people from him by making his Son, the Lord Jesus, responsible for guilty sinners' violations of divine law. At the cross, God credits our sin and guilt to Jesus, while crediting Jesus' rightousness to us. At the cross God's wrath fell upon his Son instead of us.
Jesus Satisfies all of Gods requirements
Sin is punished as God prescribed that it should be. There is new nothing further that divine justice can demand because Jesus has paid the debt in full. Jesus is the only way because he alone is the way that God has provided for us. The Bible says of Jesus Christ that Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men
by which we must be saved.
Jesus now says to you, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I w|ll give you rest" - he will deal with your sin and make you acceptable to God.
You come by realizing that you are guilty and that you do not deserve pardon. But pardon is what you need. To 'come' means to believe in Jesus as Gods only answer to deal with your sin and to provide pardon for guilty sinners. It means to trust what he did on your behaIf on the cross and to Iook to him also for forgiveness and salvation.
