If only it were true! If only there were multiple ways to get to God, to obtain forgiveness and to secure one’s eternal joy. If there were, we could offer a kinder, gentler version of our faith that others couldn’t brand as intolerant. We could offer greater hope to the bereaved who might not believe as we do. Perhaps we could even eliminate religious wars that have wracked the world ever since Cain killed his brother Abel over a difference in religious practice.

Mila’s misplaced hope in alternate paths of salvation in the story “Skeptic at the Crossroads of Faith” has been shared by countless billions of people down through history. The story is told of a certain marshal in Napoleon’s army who was completely devoted to the emperor, and was mortally wounded in battle. As he lay dying in his tent, he called for Napoleon, who soon came. The officer thought the emperor could save his life. But Napoleon just shook his head and turned away. As the dying man felt the cold, merciless hand of death drawing him irresistibly behind the curtain of the unseen world, he was still heard to shriek out, “Save me, Napoleon! Save me!” In the hour of death, that soldier discovered that not even Napoleon could rescue him.

The urgency of Christian mission comes from the conviction that Jesus spoke the truth when He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). The apostle Peter certainly believed Him, boldly declaring to first-century skeptics that “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Because God’s Word is true, the most compassionate thing we as followers of Jesus can do is to confidently and graciously tell others that Jesus is the only way to God.