Article XVIII
“They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of Nature. For holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.”
Acts 4:8-12
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is
“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone.’
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
John 3:16-19
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
We need to share the gospel with everyone who is not yet a Christian.
I’d like to start this morning by talking about scurvy. Hooray! That’s exactly why you got out of bed this morning to come and hear the vicar talk about scurvy. But it’s an illness caused by lack of vitamin C, as that illness will well know.
Now back in the age of maritime voyages, scurvy was the number one killer among British naval crews. More even than being killed by the enemy. For a long time, nobody understood what the cause was. So you have this terrible situation with lots of people dying of this illness that nobody knew what caused it. Some thought that it was bad air. Others thought that these poor sailors were dying of just plain laziness. Many cures were tried. People tried vinegar, herbs. People even tried sulphuric acid. Can you imagine that?
But it was not until the work of pioneering Scottish Dr James Lind that a cure was found. Because he divided one crew into six groups and gave each group a different treatment. A group which received oranges recovered very quickly. But here’s the thing, his insights were largely ignored. And tragically this meant more deaths. It was not until 50 years later during the Napoleonic Wars that lemons were given to sailors wholesale as a cure for scurvy. And it was wiped out overnight. (Just as an interesting little aside, later on there was a shortage on lemons. So they were given limes, which is why Brits are called ‘limies’ by some colonials.) So scurvy has one simple cause, lack of vitamin C. So there’s only one simple cure, more vitamin C.
And today we’re going to be unpacking the words of the apostles Peter and John from our Acts reading, our first reading. Peter said this: there is only one name by which people can be saved and that is Jesus.
Now we know actually historically why people rejected the findings of James Lind about oranges curing scurvy. And that’s because the mindset of the doctors at the time resisted it. They believed that illness was always due to some imbalance of fluids and liquids inside the body. And Lind’s insights didn’t fit with this view. So they were rejected with tragic results.
Now when Peter said salvation is possible only through belief in Jesus, it was very offensive at the time. In the Roman Empire, all religions were just different paths to the top of the same mountain. And they believed it was wrong to say that there is only one way to get to God.
And it’s exactly the same today, isn’t it? Our mindset today in our modern world resists the idea of only one true way, just like those old doctors resisted the idea of oranges curing scurvy. Because we feel a bit awkward about the statement, only those who believe in Jesus will go to heaven.
Remember why the doctors rejected Lind’s experiment with oranges? They had a fixed mindset. So rather than adjusting their mindset to the evidence, they adjusted the evidence to fit their mindset. They said oranges can’t be the cure. Because we already know that the only thing that causes disease is the imbalance of fluids in the body. So it can’t be oranges.
But if we could go back in time, we would shake them and say please change your mindset. People are dying because you don’t. This is exactly what Peter and John were saying in our reading. They were saying when it comes to salvation, please change your mindset. People are dying eternally because you don’t.
So let’s take a few moments to think about why it is that this is true. Remember the doctors couldn’t cure scurvy with vinegar because they had wrong ideas about what the problem really was. They thought they had to do with liquids in the body, but in fact it was about a lack of vitamins. In exactly the same way our culture has the wrong idea about what the spiritual problem really is.
I want you to imagine our culture as a doctor. Let’s call him Dr. West because we live in western culture. Now imagine that Dr. West is visited by a patient. Let’s call her Mrs. Seeker because she’s seeking for religious truth. Mrs. Seeker says to Dr. West, “Doctor, here’s my problem. I feel like there is a God out there. I feel like I really need to connect with my spiritual side. I really feel my life lacks meaning. What should I do?”
“Well,” says Dr. West, “here’s what’s going on. We can’t say anything definite about God because really science tells us what’s true and false. So science can’t tell us about God, so really we don’t know. So your problem is an internal one. It comes from a psychological imbalance. So just choose whatever religious system works for you and you’ll feel better.”
Can you see how this is like the old doctors? They would have said to a scurvy sufferer, “Your problem is an internal one. It comes from an imbalance of liquids.” But as we said above, if we could go back in time, we’d shake them and say, “No, you’ve got it wrong. And that will damage your patient.”
In exactly the same way, the apostles Peter and John and every faithful Christian since has wanted to shake the culture and say, you’ve got it wrong. The problem isn’t psychological. Scurvy has one cause, lack of vitamin C. In the same way, the human spiritual problem has one cause, lack of holiness. Scurvy has one cure, receiving vitamin C. In the same way, the human spiritual condition has one cure, receiving holiness.
Let me explain what I mean. We humans were made to be in perfect relationship with God. But God is totally morally pure. This is what holiness means. If something not 100% morally pure comes into contact with him, it’s like an asteroid coming into contact with the sun. Instant vaporisation. Nobody would say to the asteroid, you just need to try harder. You need to sort your problems out and then you can enter the sun. It’s nothing to do with effort. It’s just a simple law of physics. In the same way, when humans who are not 100% pure come into contact with God’s holiness, they’re not vaporised because of lack of effort. It’s just a simple result of God’s complete purity. So to say it again, the human spiritual problem has one problem.
So the human spiritual condition has one problem and one cure, holiness. Now religion in general, apart from Christianity, has this message, “You just need to try harder.” That’s what Buddha, that’s what Muhammad came to say, “Be a better person.” Just like the old doctors and just like the asteroid, this is to misunderstand the problem.
If we’re to come into contact with God to be in relationship with him, we need to be 100% pure. And no human is capable of making themselves 100% pure. That’s because to be like that means to have never done a single thing wrong, not even once. This is where Jesus comes in. In his death on the cross, he provides the cure in two ways. He removes our impurity and gives us his own 100% purity. We can’t earn it, we simply have to receive it. You can’t earn vitamin C when you’re lacking it. You just have to receive it.
And you see Jesus didn’t just send us the cure from above. He didn’t just kind of throw vitamin C at us. He drank the poison of our sin and gave us his own blood, his own life in return.
The cure cost him everything so we could be healed. And so we return to the words of the apostles Peter and John and to the theme of our current sermon series on what it means to be an Anglican. In agreement with the apostles, the Anglican church believes that people can be saved only through being a converted, born-again Christian, through faith in Jesus and in the sacrifice of his death.
So if you’re here today and you’re still figuring out what you believe, please hear this. We’re not saying Christians are better than everybody else. We’re saying we’re all sick people who have found the cure. And the same cure is offered to you today freely. Jesus is the vitamin C your soul has always needed.
What else does it mean for us today? Well first, it means we have to seek the conversion of people who are Christians. That doesn’t mean insensitive comments about their sinfulness. But it does mean we have to get the right cure. Not any old religion or God but only Jesus.
So this week I encourage you to write the names down of two people you would love to become Christians and to start coming to church. Set a reminder on your phone perhaps or a little post-it note on the fridge to pray for them.
Secondly, it means we have to go against the majority opinion like James Lind did. His discovery about oranges was not popular. He was rejected for some 50 years. In the same way our talk of “sorry, but only Jesus” won’t be popular. So this week, if someone or something challenges your faith, don’t get panicky or defensive. Remember that eventually we will be shown to be in the right like James Lind was.
And thirdly and most importantly we must each of us make sure we do not have spiritual scurvy. We must make sure that we are receiving the vitamin C of Jesus. Some of us may have been attending church our whole lives and yet still have that spiritual scurvy. We think “being religious” in inverted commas is the solution but it isn’t. You need to have consciously asked Jesus to take away your sin and to give you his righteousness.
If you’ve never done that, today is the day.