Apart from knowing Jesus. This is the central, exclusive claim of Christianity.
Confession: I have a soft spot in my heart for our pluralistic culture. I resonate a lot with those who have a hard time with the exclusive claims of Christianity. Which I guess is a sub-confession: I do, too. I get squirmy when anyone claims to have the market cornered on truth, in any field of study or in any aspect of life, when there’s only one right answer, or when any other possibility is categorically ruled out.
Still, Christianity does make some absolute and exclusive claims, but I don’t think there are as many as are advertised . Not if you really read the Bible. But this one—as hard as it might be to swallow—seems pretty exclusive:
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
John 1:18
That, to me, is a very relational way of saying: “If you really want to get to know someone, ask those closest to him or her, those who know him or her best.”
There are a lot of people throughout history (Christian or otherwise) of whom it is true to say that they knew God in some significant way—but no one quite like Jesus of Nazareth. I believe there’s something to be learned about God from every human being, (there’s some solid Christian theology for that)—but no one is a substitute for Jesus of Nazareth.
A Christian is someone who says, “I want to know God,” and then follows that up with, “so I always begin and end with Jesus of Nazareth.”
