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Bible Study 4: No one comes to the Father except through me

Néstor O. Míguez (26 Septmber 2002)

Getting suspicious

When the "only way" is a road with a dead-end (the only way in economics).

When the "only truth" depends on so many lies (political strategies and dictators).

When the "only life" is the justification of genocide (the "conquest" of the Americas).

Those "only" are self-assertions that deny the reality of the "other" (other ways, other truths, other lives). They ignore the right of others to decide, and to decide differently.

Getting affirmative

But, in Jesus...

The "way" is an encounter with the other, as God comes to meet us in Jesus.

The "truth" is the quest for what sustains the witnessing community, trust in the other.

The "life" is plenitude, grace and joy, the hope for an open future.

Way, truth and life are the affirmation of the "other", the challenge to find meaning in love.

The Father comes to us

God has not only one way of reaching God's creation and creatures (Acts 14:15-17).

"Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good-- giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy."

God comes to us in the wisdom of creation, the life-giving logos. (Gen 1-2; John 1:1-4)

God comes to us in the liberating acts of Old, in God's intervention and through Patriarchs and prophets (I will descend... Gen 11:1-11; Ex 3).

God comes to us in the incarnation, in Jesus as the supreme expression of God's presence and love (John 1: 4-18).

God comes to us in the Spirit, as Guide and Revealer, as witnessing power (John 14; 16; Acts 2).

God comes to us in the narratives and love of the witnessing community (John 20:31; Acts 1:8).

God comes to us as "the Son of man" in our needy (the least) human fellow (Mat 25:31-46).

God does not have an "exclusive way" in coming to us, yet all of God's ways have one intention: the salvation and plenitude of human life.

Coming to the Father...

As the Father comes to us, we are invited to recognise God's presence and come to God.

Coming to God is living in God's wisdom, which is the wisdom of the Cross (wisdom dimension -1 Cor 1-2).

Coming to God through faith is to become God's justice and God's instruments for justice (ethical dimension -Rom 6: 10-23).

Coming to God is to enjoy endless love and learning to live in endless love (relational dimension -John 15:14-17).

Coming to God is getting in touch with the source of live and hope of Creation (ecological dimension -Rom 8:18-21)

Coming to God is receiving God's Spirit and celebrating God's presence (doxological dimension -2 Cor 3).

Except through me

Coming to the Father through Jesus is not an abstraction, but recognising God in man (in human beings, in the man Jesus as the total humanity).

It does not mean, neither, to praise the human as God, or human works as divine, but to recognise that there is no way to God without the presence and concern of the human.

Coming to God through Jesus is the possibility of revising our own biography (as persons and peoples) and produce our identity in the light of the Jesus narrative:

How God has been with us even without our being aware of God's presence.

How to treasure the memory of our ancestors as a heritage of humanity, as Jesus did.

How to be open to the dialogue with those who share with us the human adventure, as Jesus did.

How to share our vision of a future of life abundant, as Jesus did.

Identity in Christ is not an "essence", but a way of being in the world, built of memories, dialogue and vision, of understanding and hope. That "identity in Christ" is what unites us in Jesus and takes us to the Father.
Identity in Christ is prevention against the destructive forces of idolatry.

New idolatries take the place of God, trying to dominate human life.

The idolatry of the total market, the idolatries of technology, the idolatry of might. Idols demand blindness (the denial of other ways), uniqueness (truth as exclusion), and sacrifices (the way of pain and death).

Knowing God as the Father of Jesus, through the life and presence, the vision and the witness, the dead and Resurrection of Christ, is knowing the God, that demands justice, that empowers hope, that brings life.

Knowing God through Jesus is knowing a God, the God, whose love has decided not to be God without human kind. In Jesus we discover the God that becomes human, so we, as humans, can live our human condition in love, hope and faith, in joy and plenitude, in justice and confidence.

"No one comes to the Father except through me" is not the declaration of still another exclusion, but the announcement of the humility of the God that comes to meet us so that we may live in freedom and love. In the Freedom with which Jesus' truth makes us free, in the love with which Jesus' selfgiving makes us human.

See the full transcript for this study

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