The more advanced our thinking about theology becomes, the simpler our assumptions must become to understand God’s heart. A complicated faith does not work. 

Over the years, I have reduced my theology to two simple truths – Jesus is the only way to God, and those who have received Him are now one in Him, without the divisions we have been told to believe.

When the disciples asked Jesus about the way of truth, the Lord responded, “You know the way to the place where I am going. To which Thomas responded, “We don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:4-5). Like us, the earliest disciples wanted answers to profound questions.

After Thomas asked his question, Jesus told His Jewish disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). There was no national salvation. It was by a personal salvation offered only in Jesus that a person can be saved. 

John wrote, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). It’s the “whoever believes in Him” part, where a one-on-one encounter with Jesus takes place and where that person’s salvation happens. Salvation in Jesus erases our separating biases and sees each person, no matter their national origin or political persuasion,  as a person made in God’s image and worthy of the saving grace of Jesus.

The second clarifying point of my theological understanding came from Paul, ”In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3: 26-27). 

As a result of an individual commitment to Jesus, my second guiding principle emerged, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

The prophet Joel spoke of what God would do when these distinctions are dissolved by a work of the Spirit, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike” Joel 2:29-30).

In this New Covenant, the distinctions that separated us into groups were abolished. Being a Jew did not give a person special privileges, nor does being a man or woman, or being from a particular age group. In Christ, all the dividing walls have been removed, and we are now one in Christ. 

I’m never free to reduce the Lord’s salvation to a special group or bloodline, or whether we are a woman or a man, young or old. It is a great freedom because it opens our eyes to a greater, more expansive work of God. 

It will also be an open door for those who have suffered under the bondage of distinctions that God’s love has removed. Knowing those simple truths is a place of freedom, opening us up to experience a deeper understanding of God’s love.