St. John the Baptist Preaching, c. 1665, by Mattia Preti
The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works I have shown you from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God.
John 10:31-33.
The talkative elderly gentleman with distinctive facial features had travelled a lot. He had come into contact with the Christian faith, but also with Islam and Judaism. He had been impressed by pleasing aspects of all three religions. His life’s maxim was: there is some truth in every religion, all adherents to them worship the same God. The main thing is to have some faith at all, for without faith one is in a solitary state in this world.
Many people hold this view nowadays. But can an indefinite faith actually help and save anyone? And that not just while we live on earth, but at our death and, above all, after? Let us consider the question more closely. Has Allah a son? Islam rejects Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God. Moslems consider Him merely a prophet alongside Mohammed. When the Jews heard Jesus call God His Father, they fully understood what that meant: namely, that Jesus was Himself also God. And that was why they rejected Him and crucified Him.
The earnest elderly gentleman had failed to take one thing into account: whoever takes Jesus Christ and His sayings seriously knows that the Son of God alone can show us who God is. And He alone can lead us to God (cf. John 14:6; 1 Peter 3:18).
Image: By Mattia Preti – The AMICA Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18915662