p. 4 | Only One Way by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 2, 1909

Only One Way

By C. M. S.

WHICHEVER way we turn, our eyes and ears are constantly assailed by human devices for the salvation of men. Says the great scholar, “A new religion is needed;” and he furnishes its framework, to be built upon and finished by human wisdom. Say the great philosophers, “A new plan of salvation is needed;” and they furnish the plan, which is based entirely upon human wisdom and power.

Restless humans, as unsatisfied with the plans of the Infinite in reference to their soul’s destiny as were Adam and Eve in reference to their future, turn from what God has to what man professes to have, and in that turning, start upon the long road that bears ever away from the one path that leads to eternal life. In theosophy (God-wisdom) thousands upon thousands are taught to find all that humanity can hope for in the eternal beyond. Perfect trust in that system, invariably eliminates Jesus from any share in the rewards of the soul beyond this life. He is not in all their thought—as a Saviour. The ancients built a tower from whose top they expected to step into heaven unaided by any power save their own. God smote it with the lightnings of heaven, and smote their hopes and shattered their trust at the same time. So will he do with the tower of theosophy and the trusts and hopes of the theosophists when their theories come up face to face with the great fact of his second coming.

The Unitarian sets forth a plan whereby, through a life of good deeds and moral thoughts, man advances, step by step, from the court of the Gentiles into the holy of holies, presenting himself as his own savior, and pushing aside Jesus, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world as “a ransom for many.” But the day must come when they who have put their trust in that system will see written over the door of the audience-chamber of the Infinite the words: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” That will be a sorrowful awakening.

The Roman Catholic is taught to believe that the sacrifice of Christ is insufficient for man’s salvation; that Christ must be sacrificed over and over in the mass as a propitiation for sin and to appease the wrath of God; that Christ can not, in justice, forgive sins, and that forgiveness can only be received through Mary. But in the morning of the Judgment day, how these wicked and foolish inventions of men will wither in the scorching blast of divine wrath! It will be a bitter day for the millions who have put Christ to one side and trusted in such a system as a substitute for him.

But the world is full of just such systems. It is a concerted plan to blind the eyes of men to the one essential of salvation. Not all will be attracted by one plan, so there are many. There can be but one way into the city of God from the wilderness of this world. Christ is that way. “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” “He that . . . climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”

Everything that is outside the plan of God will perish. All human plans for affecting the salvation of men are outside God’s plan; and when he brings in again the harmony which sin had destroyed, all those things will be among the ashes of sin’s overthrow. The antediluvians trusted in themselves rather than in God, and the flood came and took them all away. The postdiluvians trusted in their tower as the “gate to heaven.” God smote it and scattered them. The Jews finally came to trust in the cold forms of their temple worship. They forsook him to whom the temple and its services pointed, and crucified him. Then God declared, “Your house is left unto you desolate,” and he rent the temple veil and permitted heathen hands to desecrate the temple in which they trusted.

God has never yet recognized any human scheme which was designed to take the place of a divine plan, and he never will. “Every plant, which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up,” said Jesus. No human scheme can bring salvation. There is only one Saviour, and all these human devices seek to eliminate him. In them, therefore, there is no Saviour. All who turn from God’s one way, and put their trust in theories and schemes of men, will find themselves overwhelmed in the ruin of those schemes, as the antediluvians were in the flood of waters. There was salvation then in the ark and nowhere else; there is salvation to-day in God’s plan of redemption, and in no other. Those who trust in human plans are not only opposing God’s work, but their own best interests as well. The heathen of old trusted in their visible images which their own hands had made. Men and women out of the ark of safety to-day are trusting in images also, images of the mind which human brains have devised and placed in the very temples of God. And these are as surely leading them to eternal ruin as ever did the worship of the images of old. They have no Saviour. The way is narrow, and their load of sin is wider than the way.

But for us alone to know this will do such persons no good. They, too, must be made to know it. The time has come for every one who knows the true way to make it known to those who have been deceived by the glitter and the platitudes of the scores of false systems that are in the world to-day. The faithlessness of many of the professed followers of Christ has helped to make these human devices so successful in their delusive operations. This gives double reason for diligence now in making known the true way. Our own salvation waits on our faithfulness in this regard. A slow and wavering campaign is not in God’s ordering. Whatever shines will attract. Therefore, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” To a small people has been given a great message, but there is a great guaranty behind it. We have no reason to fear or doubt. The message committed to this people is as sure as the unshakable rock of God’s Word, in which we read it. And when that message has been given, another thing is sure—the coming of the Redeemer. May the glad day of that work’s completion not be postponed by our indifference or lack of faith or love of ease. In the midst of all the cries of false religions and false systems of salvation, let the message of the everlasting gospel ring clear and true, until the witness has been borne to the world and a people been gathered out whom Christ will not refuse to recognize as the sheep of his pasture.

C. M. S.