The Way

The only Door, the only Path

The only Door:
“Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me.”(John 14:6) “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ” (1 John 2:1) We have but one advocate. “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Only He can cleanse us. “Nor is there salvation in any other, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”(Acts. 4:12) “Through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men”(Rom. 5:18) “I am the door, if any man enter by Me he will be saved.” (John 10:9)
“The one thing for us to know is Christ, ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’ ‘this is life eternal’ he said, ‘that they might know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”(ST Jan. 6, 1898) “If these looked to Jesus..they would realize the truth of the words, ‘without Me you can do nothing.”(Ibid) “..with His own body Christ bridged the gulf that sin had made.” (Ibid) “Christ is the ladder to heaven. The base of the ladder rests firmly on the earth, brought to the very level of humanity, while the topmost round reaches and rests firmly on the throne of God.” (Ibid.) “We can reach heaven only by the mystic ladder, Jesus Christ.” (Ibid.) “Had it not been for Christ, the way to heaven would never have been known by the fallen race.” (TMK 82) “Since the first gospel sermon was preached, when in Eden it was declared that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, Christ has been uplifted as the the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (ST Jan 13, 1898) “Christ was the way by which the patriarchs were saved…enshrouded in the pillar of cloud and giving directions to Moses to be given to the children of Israel. There was plenty of light in the old way to lead every soul to the abodes of bliss.”(Ibid.) Only through Him could salvation even be possible-“Since the divine law is as sacred as God Himself, only one equal with God could make atonement for its transgression.” (CHS 19)
Jesus is the only Way, the only Door, the only ladder, the only Bridge. The sanctuary service of the Old Testament illustrates this beautifully. There was only one entrance, one door, to the way of salvation, “through” Him. (Rom. 5:19, 10: 9,10) I enter and claim the sacrifice that He made and He alone could make. I step forward to the laver and am cleansed of all my sin by Him. In faith I enter the Holy Place and to my left is the 7-branched candlestick and I see Christ as the “light of the world.” To my right is the table of showbread, where Jesus has told me “Take eat, this is my body,” and has told me “I am the living bread which came down from heaven”(John 6:48) I know that Just knowing about Christ is not enough, I must “eat” the bread, I must internalize Christ and take Him into my life as an integral, living part of me.(CHS 33, Rom. 2:13) I step forward with Jesus to the altar of incense where He Himself sends my prayers and confessions to God, and He Himself is my advocate with the Father.(CHS 32), and I know “No one comes to the Father but by Me.”(Rom. 8: 26,27, 34) In faith, with Him, I pass through the veil, which is His body (Heb. 10:19-22) and where He took all my sins upon Himself. And at last, I stand at the mercy seat, the throne of God, where perfect love and perfect justice meet, and I stand there in the pure white robe of Christ’s righteousness with my High Priest, and I know I am only there because He has given His blood to redeem me from my sins. Every step I have taken has been because of Him and what he has done for me, and only Jesus could take me here. There is no other way. Justification and sanctification is all about Jesus. (As one stands back and views the sanctuary from above, the furniture forms the form of a cross (Path To the Throne of God by Sarah Peck 269) and this is only right, for the cross explains the character of Christ. “The mystery of the cross explains all other mysteries. In the light that streams from Calvary the attributes of God which had filled us with fear and awe appear beautiful and attractive. Mercy, tenderness and parental love are seen to blend with holiness, justice, and power.” (GC 571))

The only path:
“Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matt. 7: 13,14, HP 266) “Search me O God and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:24) “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.” (Ps. 143) “Righteousness shall go before him (that fear Him) and He shall set us in the way of His steps.”(Ps. 85:13) “The way of the Lord is strength to the upright.” (Prov. 10:29)
The way of righteousness involves recognizing our sin, confessing it, asking forgiveness for it, and giving up our will to follow the will of God, and some day soon attaining His kingdom in heaven.. This is the only way to salvation. E.G. White describes this way in many terms, which include the way as: path of obedience, peace, light, of holiness, righteousness, for the pilgrim, consecrated by His footsteps(YI May 21, 1903), truth, leading to eternal life, where God leads, to the paradise of God, will grow clearer, will be illuminated, marked out, will grow brighter and brighter, of self denial and sacrifice, of God’s providence, open, that God has chosen, safe. “It is a difficult path.” (ST June 22, 1904)
“The way of righteousness is Life”(Job 12:28) we are told. This way has two main characteristics, following the law and scriptures, and giving up one’s will to God ( which in truth are one and the same). As to following the law it describes “the way of Thy testimonies…Thy precepts..of truth..of Thy commandments, of Thy statutes.” (Ps. 119) “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” (Prov. 6:23) Giving up one’s will to God is mandatory to follow this path. “But the way of life is narrow and the entrance straight. If you cling to any besetting sin, you will find the gateway too narrow for you to enter. Your own ways, your own will, your wrong habits and unchristlike practices, must be given up if you would keep the way of the Lord.” “Toil, patience, self-sacrifice, reproach, poverty, the contradiction of sinners against Himself, was the portion of Christ, and it must be our portion, if we ever enter the Paradise of God.” (ST June 22, 1904) “The first step in the path of obedience is to surrender..the path of faith and self-denial is an upward path.” (BEcho April 6, 1903) “What man thinks is for his spiritual and temporal interests may be altogether at variance with the experience he must have in order to be a follow or Christ.” (HP 266).
This upward path, hanging on only to the “ropes” of giving up the will and leaning only on Christ was so clearly shown to E.G. White in Her vision of the narrowing upward path she received in August 1868. (2 T 594-597)
“The path of righteousness is as the light of dawn, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”(Prov. 4:18) “This is the way, walk ye in it” is a command we must all follow to attain the kingdom. To attain His “perfect day.”
This path is illustrated so well in the work Pilgrims Progress, written in 1678, by John Bunyan. E.G. White stated that he “breathed the very atmosphere of heaven” as he wrote this.(GC 224)


“What a change would be wrought in our world if men would keep the way of the Lord, giving supreme love and loyalty to God, and manifesting love and respect for their neighbors.” (RH Oct. 1, 1895)
“Christ is indeed the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There are not many ways to heaven. Each one may not choose his own way. Christ says: ‘I am the way..’No man cometh to the Father but by Me.’ Unless we are individually in this way, we can not reach the heavenly mansions. The question for each one to ask himself is, Am I following Christ because I know that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life?” Am I in the path that leads to perfect obedience?” Those who walk in this way will never lose their strength, but constantly receive new power for their heavenward march” (ST Jan. 13, 1898)
“The pathway to heaven is narrow, but no one need fail of finding it. It has been plainly marked out by the Father’s hand. Not one trembling sinner need fail of walking in pure and holy light. Altho the upward path is sometimes difficult and often wearisome, although the Christian may have to endure toil and conflict, yet let him go forward in rejoicing, trusting as a little child in the loving guidance of Him ‘who keepeth the feet of His saints,’ knowing that the path he is traveling will bring him at last to the mansions that Christ has gone to prepare for those who love Him.” (ST June 22, 1904)
Following the path of righteousness is a daily, step by step process. It is a series of choices to do the right thing, as God has shown us in His revealed will. These choices decide our destiny. If John the disciple wrote verse, I am sure he would have penned words much like Robert Frost in his poem The Road Not Taken:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I..
Took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.




The followers of Mohammed and Buddha are not on different paths that all lead to salvation. There is but one path. Part of the “new theology” is expressed in the book The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, where the character who is a personification of Jesus states: “You will grow in the freedom to be inside or outside all kinds of systems and to move freely between and among them.” “Remember, the people who know Me are the ones who are free to live and love without any agenda.” “I have no desire to make them Christian.” (The Shack 183, 184). This is not following the way. There is one path, one Shepherd, one Way. “To the law and to the testimonies, if they speak not according to these, there is no light in them” and “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5) speak of one way, one true belief. The Bible has no room for ecumenism.
This being said, Jesus said “Other sheep have I that are not of this fold”(John 10:16) He was speaking of Gentiles to the Jews, but His message was directed to the world also, Desire of Ages tells us. Those who have not had opportunity to learn of Him and His way but are living according to the light they have, and are living lives of love, may be saved. “Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”(James 4:17) “Love is the fulfillment of the law” applies to them, and Christ died for them too. “Wherever there is an impulse of love and sympathy, wherever the heart reaches out to uplift and bless others, there is revealed the working of God’s Holy Spirit in the depths of heathenism, men who have no knowledge of the written law of God, who have never even heard of the name of Christ, have been kind to His servants, protecting them at the risk of their own lives. Their acts show the working of a divine power. The Holy Spirit has implanted the grace of Christ in the heart of the savage, quickened his sympathies contrary to his nature, contrary to his education. The ‘Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,’ is shining in his soul; and this light, if heeded, will guide his feet to the kingdom of God.” (RH Dec. 24, 1908) God knows the heart, and can see the love in it, and knows they are “safe to save.”
Our prayer should always be “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.” (Ps 143) Our response should be obedience when “Thus says the Lord; Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16)