Being reconciled with God through Jesus... What does that mean?

[eastkygal]

I never dreamed I'd be asking this question, but here I am. I have another thread in Spirituality going http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1162085, but this is a study question so I wanted to post it here.
Is the only way to God through Jesus getting "saved" as it is traditionally done in many Protestant churches and definitely evangelical ones. You pray with someone, ask Jesus into your heart, and then you are born again.
I ask because of this... a statement from something else I was reading.
"That is a fairly loose translation of the foundational Quaker perception known as "The Doctrine of the Light," one of the few perceptions that are stated as "doctrine." The one that struck me most is the idea I first heard in an Episcopal community that the well-known statement of Jesus that "I am the Way, the Truth and the Light..." was never intended EXclusively, or requiring belief in the name of Jesus to have "Truth," but INclusively, or that anyone who has "come to the Father," HAS come in the Way embodied and taught by Jesus."
This would indicate that one could be of another faith or go another path, find God (they believe), but still have done that by the teachings of Jesus and accepting them without being "saved" in the Baptist belief of the word. In a way, they have still come to God through Jesus??? Like the Dali Lama or Ghandi... or someone like Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa. It is hard for me to believe that they are not "Holy" human beings as much as a person can be Holy. Yet, they aren't Christian. How does one figure this out. DH and I were talking about this and he thinks it is all about intention. What are you motivated by? It's about your heart. You could be the best person. A model believer of whatever your religion is, but have a heart corrupted by selfish motives and still not be "saved".

[cappuccinosmom]

It is hard for me to believe that they are not "Holy" human beings as much as a person can be Holy.

That is the point of the belief that humans need a reconciler. Even the holiest of human beings cannot be perfectly holy. In Christianity, we say that our human righteousness is like filthy rags compared to the holiness of God. In earthly life, it is *good* to be righteous, and that is something worthy to strive for *but* it is not a "free pass into heaven" because in comparison to God's perfection, our goodness is nothing.

I believe God is good, and loving, and wants all of us to spend enternity with him. And I do believe he gives every single human being the choice to be reconciled to him through Jesus, and that happens in various ways. But I do not believe that negates Jesus as The Truth or the need we have to be covered by his righteousness as ours is inadequate to stand before the Holy One.

[Bluegoat]

Well, theologically, from a Trinitarian understanding, any relationship we have with God is through the Word, no matter who we are. This even includes people who come to an understanding of God through natural religion.

So, let's use Virgil as an example, since he was what is commonly called a "noble pagan" and a pre-Christian. There seems to be no question that he understood many profound things about the nature of God. He did not, however, have any doctrine of the Trinity or the Incarnation, and he was missing some other consepts as well, from a Christian perspective. But a good man.

How did he know what he did about God? Through observing the world, and nature, and other people, and looking into his own soul. And from other people who had done the same. That is what natural religion is.

What does Christianity teach us about these revelations God made of himself through creation, and about how God creates? It says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Or in the Creed "And in one Lord Jesus Christ...very God of very God...through whom all things were made".

Philosophically, the Trinity and the Incarnation solve a huge problem that had confounded the pagans - how can a perfectly unified, self-sufficient God create, or in any way relate to creation?

So, in this sense the Episcopalians you met were quite correct. All knowledge and relation to God comes through Christ. Keep in mind this is not a new, or radical understanding. Any theologian or likely even layperson in the early or medieval Church would have known this.

On the other hand, thiis does not mean that you can simply take the words of Christ in that passage as a kind of abstract philosophical statement. To say that it means that there is no necessity to evangelize, for example, is suspect both philosophically because it implies that more accurate knowledge of God is totally irrelevant; and Scriptural it ignores things like the great commission which make it clear that spreading the message of Christ isa necessity for Christians.