CT - Catholic Telegraph

There is no salvation through anyone but Jesus

Fourth Sunday of Easter (B), Acts of the Apostles 4:8-12.

This Sunday’s first reading comes almost immediately after last Sunday’s text in Acts. Last Sunday we heard Peter addressing the crowd that had gathered after he and John had cured the lame beggar in the name "of Jesus Christ the Nazarean."

At the end of that speech (Peter’s second public discourse) the religious leaders of the people, including the Sadducees, arrested Peter and John because they were proclaiming the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees were priestly aristocrats who vigorously rejected the whole idea of resurrection. The apostles were kept in custody overnight and the next day were brought before the "leaders, elders, and scribes ... and the whole high-priestly class." These religious leaders demanded to know from the apostles how they had brought about the cure of the lame beggar.

This is where our reading begins. The Lectionary gives us the entire text of this, Peter’s third post-Pentecostal speech.

First he addresses the question of the cure. "If the issue is how this blind beggar was cured," he says, "it was in the name of Jesus, through His power. You crucified Him and the Father raised Him from the dead." Note that there is no attempt to diminish their guilt by invoking ignorance as was the case in Peter’s prior discourse. Now he was dealing with the leaders, not the ordinary people.

Next Peter addresses a much more basic issue than the cure of the lame beggar. He speaks of the meaning of this Jesus. He first cites Scripture to describe what the leaders had done and what the outcome of their doing was. The stone that the builders had rejected had become the cornerstone. This is a verse from Psalm 118 and describes the good fortune of the nation of Israel which other nations had looked down on. But Peter here invokes it as a prophecy about Jesus.

Then comes the sweeping proclamation: "There is no salvation through anyone else." If you are not saved by Jesus, you are not saved at all.

Our reading stops here, while the text of Acts goes on to describe how the religious leaders reacted to this breathtaking assertion that Peter had made. The editors of the Lectionary obviously want us to pay attention to what Peter had said.

Peter is giving us the basic Christian Good News, namely that Jesus had risen from the dead and that Jesus is the only source of salvation for us human beings. Salvation is an appropriate thing to think about during the Easter season, because Jesus’ resurrection identifies Him as the savior sent to us by God.

Salvation means at least two things. First of all, being saved means being delivered from threat or danger. A drowning person is saved from death by the lifeguard. "Saved by the bell," we say after a narrow escape from harm.

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the life of the risen Jesus that we share through baptism save us from all sorts of threats and dangers. Without the example, the teaching, and the ongoing life of Jesus we would be overwhelmed by the natural inclination to selfishness that we all share. Our propensity to sin would get the upper hand. We would surely go under if we were not saved from ourselves by the Lord Jesus.

Saving also means recognizing or conferring worth on someone or something. When we clean out a closet, we throw some things away because they are of no further value. But other things we save: "Save that. It’s too good to throw away." We save money, because it can serve us in all kinds of ways. Likewise, when we say that Jesus saves us, we mean that He confers a worth on us that makes us precious to Him. It’s not because of what we are or what we have achieved that we are important to God but because of what the Lord Jesus has conferred on us, a share in His own risen life. That’s what constitutes our salvation.

Of these two meanings of salvation, the second is the more fundamental. Being saved means being made into a new Christ. That’s where our worth comes from. That’s what liberates and protects us from threat and danger.
It’s clear that if salvation means being enlivened by the life of the risen Jesus, then, as Peter so clearly said, "there is no salvation through anyone else."

There are all sorts of false salvations, false ways in which people seek to find worth and defend themselves from hurt and harm. But there is only one true salvation: the Lord Jesus that the apostles proclaimed at the beginning and that the church proclaims even now.

For reflection and discussion

What does being saved by the risen Christ mean to me?

How have I sought salvation elsewhere than in Christ?