6 divine exclusivities that humans scoff at
Would you be concerned if your pharmacist sold you a different medicine than the one prescribed by your doctor? Most people tend to be extremely exclusive when it comes to their medicine. They reject wrong prescriptions for the sake of their health.
Ironically, the same thing does not apply when it comes to God, salvation, gender, marriage, sexuality and eternity. In those areas, man’s sinful nature scoffs at divine exclusivity. Some say, “It feels too restrictive.” Others maintain, “It seems arrogant to claim there is only one correct approach.”
In spite of such widespread scoffing, consider what Scripture says about each of these huge topics:
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1. One God
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me” (Deuteronomy 32:39).
“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:26).
“This is what the Lord says — Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 44:6).
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
2. One Savior
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36).
3. One plan for gender
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
Jesus said, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’” (Matthew 19:4).
“For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything is from God” (1 Corinthians 11:12).
4. One design for marriage
Jesus said, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So, they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19:5-6).
“Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28).
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).
“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4).
Jesus said, “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to commit adultery, and anyone who marries a woman so divorced commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32).
5. One plan for sexuality
“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body” (1 Corinthians 6:18).
“But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2-3).
“It is God’s will that you should be holy; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).
6. One design for eternity
“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2).
Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands …Then one of the elders asked me, ’These in white robes — who are they, and where did they come from?’… These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9,13-14).
“If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).
Jesus said, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41).
“God wants everyone to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
Is it any wonder that man’s sinful nature scoffs at divine exclusivity? Nevertheless, there are not multiple options that please the Lord. There is only one God, one way of salvation, one plan for gender, one design for marriage, one plan for sexuality and one design for eternity.
There have always been people who have scoffed at God’s divine design. And yet thankfully, God loves you so much that he sent his only Son to pay the debt for your sins that you could not afford to pay. Will you turn to the Lord today in repentance and receive Jesus by faith? (John 1:12).
Dan Delzell is the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska.
