The Gospel According to Oprah
Posted by southcitychurch on November 6, 2007
Please watch this video from a recent Oprah Winfrey Show broadcast.
OK. So, the question is: How does someone who never heard the name Jesus, get into heaven?
We believe that Jesus is the only way – John 14:6. But, it’s obvious that it’s not the name of Jesus, but the person of Jesus. We know his name because we’ve been introduced to him through the New Testament. I think what people get hung up on is that there are many people who have never heard of the name Jesus and yet do many wonderful things and we want to believe that they are going to heaven because of what they do. But what Abraham and David and Noah and all the great men and women of Scriptures knew was not the name of Jesus Christ, but that there was to be a Christ. They knew that there was no way they could go to God, but they knew and trusted that God would come to them, and he did. They knew that there was no way that man could make it to God without God coming to man. That is what Jesus did! He was God on earth – Immanuel!!! God with us!!!
The woman in the audience, when posed with this question, would have been better to say – “You know, Oprah, that’s a really a good question and one I grapple with myself. I know that Jesus is the only way and I know this because I know him. I can see that you have put a great deal of time and effort in trying to find the answer yourself and that you struggle with understanding yourself. I don’t have the answer to your question and I apologize for not being prepared to answer it. I would be willing to continue this discussion later because it is something that I should have a better understanding. There is not a ’10-second soundbite’ answer. It requires a close examination of Scripture and that takes time.” Or something like that.
Brian said
I sympathize with your desire not to have to give a soundbite. The architecture of the debate is obviously stacked against you when you disagree with Oprah! But I don’t think the Bible gives us the leeway to say “People might be saved by Jesus apart from his name.” Rather, it is very explicit that there is no other name under heaven by which one can be saved. (Acts 4) and if one still might say,
“What if they’re saved by the name, but they don’t know the name?” Paul replies,
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
Rom. And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom 10:14-15)
The problem is not that God is unjust, it’s that sin and punishment are not plausible to people today. When sin is not really a plausible idea, we have the sense that we are not really guilty. It then follows that we deserve to have salvation offered to us. But if we really are a bunch of rebels who have ruined God’s beautiful world (and are really responsible and guilty for this) and if God really is gracious to chase us down and salvage us and his world, then our sense that we all deserve the offer of salvation is called into question.
So I guess my 10 second answer would be, “Those whom God saves don’t get saved because they’re better, or more respectable, or more clever or better informed than the rest of us. In our present state, the gospel is too offensive for the humblest of us to accept. We’re too far gone. The environmentalists and pacificists are right to point to the huge mess that humanity is making of the world. And the only hope for the world is that God refuses to leave us to our designs. He chooses to rein some of us in, and he does it in a way that nobody could predict: through the name of Jesus. I don’t know why he does it that way. But that’s what he does. I’m glad that he’s doing something, because I know that left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have any hope.”