Don't All Paths Lead to Heaven?

Don't all paths lead to heaven?  That's the question being asked in countless classrooms and break rooms around the globe.  Our world is under the impression that every faith and religion that exists is equually effective in saving one's soul.  It doesn't matter if someone is a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever else.  What they believe doesn't really matter.  All that truly matters is their sincerity about what they believe...right?

No!  Jesus indirectly, but definitively, answered this for us in Matthew 26:39.  On the night before He was crucified, Christ cried out to His Father, "if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me."  What was He saying here?

The "cup" refers to His Father's wrath toward sin, which Jesus would taste on our behalf on the cross.  Notice that Christ asked to be spared this experience "if it is possible."  In other words, Jesus was saying.  "Father, if there's any other way to satisfy your wrath toward sin, if there's any other way out there for man to be saved, if there's any other path that leads to heaven...then please spare Me the horrors of the cross."

But the Father didn't grant this prayer, He didn't allow the cup of His wrath to pass from Jesus, because He knew there was no other way to satisfy His wrath toward our sin.  There was no other way for man to be saved.  There was no other path that would lead us to heaven, if there were, then the cross would not have been necessary.

Don't all paths lead to heave?  the answer is no...and the cross declares this by virtue of its very existence.  The only way to heaven is through the blood of Jesus Christ!