IS JESUS THE ONLY SAVIOR?

Is Jesus the Only Savior?



Is Jesus the Only Savior?

This book is essentially a restatement of the Christian adage, “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus,” which affirms that Jesus Christ is the only savior and that there is no salvation outside the Christian church. Nash attempts to show why this exclusivist stance is still espoused by many Christians. This significant book assesses the rising power of inclusivism and pluralism as over against conventional Christian exclusivism. Pluralism replies the book title with “No.” Inclusivism responds the book title with “Yes, but . . .” or that demise of Jesus' for our sins is the essential grounds for salvation, but explicit faith in Him is not compulsory. Nash protects exclusivism, which answers “Yes, full stop.” 1

Biblical and philosophical arguments of Nash's in opposition to these bogus visions of salvation are powerful and well-aimed. Occasionally, his new theological place annoys against Free Grace thinking, but these little incidences are secondary to his major claims. Actually, Readers would discover it appealing that an “improved” theologian was pleased to consult salvation in creative expressions of “faith in Jesus Christ” when eliminated from the Lordship dispute. He first talks about pluralism of John Hick's, then consults the Clark Pinnockand John Sanders' inclusivism. In both cases, Nash competently indicates the practical, logical, and theological dilemmas of both inclusivism and pluralism. Most critically, he demonstrates how they challenge or even refute the soundness of proclamations of propositional fact, the truth of the Bible, and in the grounds of pluralism, the Christ's deity. 2

Paradoxically, acceptance of either inclusivism or pluralism will act to trouble the masses that its supporters so would like to comprise in salvation. Both visions, universalism (the faith that all persons will be freed) as well, take the momentum from duties. In preference to an requirement, evangelism turns out to be a good idea. People must be worried about Nash's guess of the power of inclusivism in evangelicalism. He asserts over half of theological educators & missions leaders and Evangelical Christian denominational are inclusivists. If it is right, then his book becomes more significant.3

The major part of the book is devoted to a significant assessment of two major tactics to non-Christian faiths: pluralism, which maintains that Jesus is not the only savior, and inclusivism, which holds that God's salvific action covers also those who have not embraced the Christian faith. The primary element of the book is mainly a refusal of the theory of John Hick. Nash describes two major stages in the development of Hick's theology. The first attempts to make God, not Christ, the center of theological reflection, a position that Nash thinks is contradictory because it stresses a personal God, thereby excluding those religions where the concept of the deity is impersonal. The second stage replaces the theocentric model with a salvation-centered one, a view that Nash finds “too elastic and vague”. Besides, Hick, in Nash's opinion, denies both the historical and orthodox Christian understanding of ...