The ultimate answer to why Jesus is the only way to heaven is because of what happened on the cross. Although Satan was not defeated, he was disarmed. This is critical, need-to-know information for any Christian seeking to level up his armor of God, let alone the apologist wishing to defend Christianity in a world of religious pluralism.
Sin Nature and The Fly
In the 1986 film, The Fly, Jeff Goldbloom’s character Seth Brundle is working on teleportation. In his lab, he keeps two identical pods. One night, Brundle steps into one pod and successfully steps out of the other pod. But it doesn’t take long before he realizes something went terribly wrong. After running some tests, Brundle makes the frightening discovery that a common housefly was in the first pod with him.
Brundle: What happened to Fly?
Computer: Fusion.
Brundle: Assimilation? Did Brundle Absorb Fly?
Computer: Negative. Fusion of Brundle and Fly at Molecular-Genetic Level.
At this point, he realizes that he is no longer Brundle. He is Brundle-Fly. When he teleported, his DNA and the fly’s DNA were fused together. Terrified, he asks how Brundle and Fly can be separated again but the computer tells him it is impossible. They are now permanently one.
Nothing he can do can separate Fly from Brundle. He is forever Brundle-Fly.
Legal Transfer of Power
When God first created the world, He created humans perfect. We were all pure “Brundles.” But ver since our first parents ate from the tree, all humans and sin have been fused together (Rom. 5:12) like the fly was fused with Seth Brundle, we all became “Brundle-Flies” and nothing we could do could separate our sin nature from who we are (Eph. 2:9).
Worse still, Satan owns all humans tainted with sin. In the spiritual realm, because all humans are tainted with sin, Satan owns all humans.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the witch is unaware of the laws set up by the emperor (Aslan’s father).
She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.
Why would an innocent person take the place of a guilty person? Love.
This same type of allegory is used by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series. Why was the serial murderer Voldemort unable to kill one-year-old Harry? Because baby Harry was protected by his mother’s love, a magic Voldemort never bothered to learn because it was so far beneath his insatiable quest for power, control, and immortality.
Both Lewis and Rowling worked this legal framework into their world building. And it is the illegal breaking of this framework that allows the willing, sacrificial death of the innocent (Aslan/Harry) to overcome the villain (Witch/Voldemort).
This legal framework comes from the Bible.
The wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. (1 Cor. 2:7-8).
According to the Bible, if Satan and his minions had understood God’s plan, they would not have killed Jesus. Thus, the Old Testament was intentionally vague in this manner—Jesus mission to die was a covert coup d’etat.
From a spiritual standpoint, God had legally granted lordship of this world to mankind. Mankind—created by God as pure “Brundles”—rebelled against God and tainted themselves with sin, effectively turning the entire human race into “Brundle-Flies.”
Because they did all this at the behest of Satan, they inadvertently but nonetheless legally transferred lordship of this world to Satan, making Satan the legal god of this world. God promised that one day a Deliverer would come who would destroy Satan. But in the meantime, Satan is the legal wielder of the power of death over all mankind (Heb. 2:14) because all mankind was tainted with sin (Rom. 5:12).
Elohim: What’s in a Name?
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word elohim is translated God, gods, angels, and demons. In other words, elohim = a spirit being. We tend to use God (elohim) as synonymous with Yahweh (God’s name), but an angels and demons are also elohim.
Yahweh is the one and only uncreated elohim.
Angels and demons are created elohim. They were created by the elohim, Yahweh.
To make things even more confusing, in English Bibles, whenever you see The Lord in small caps, in the Hebrew it was Yahweh.
So for instance, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the Hebrew actually reads: I am Yahweh, the elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This is actually very crucial to understanding the gospel and what happened on the cross and why Jesus is the only way.
All nations rejected Yahweh as their elohim and deemed themselves his enemies (Rom. 1:21). They chose Satan’s minions as their elohim (gods) and happily went on their way (Deut. 32:8). But while Satan owned the nations, God chose Israel and the Jewish people as His nation, and vowed to be their elohim (Gen. 12:1-3; Deut. 32:9).
Because Yahweh chose Israel as his inheritance, He owned the Jewish people. But He owned only the Jewish people. Yahweh was the elohim of only the land of Israel. Satan legally owned the rest of the world. He owned every other territory in the entire world. Just as Yahweh was the elohim of the Jews, Satan, and all his minions, was the elohim of the Gentiles.
But then, at long last, the promised Deliver who would destroy Satan came to earth. Naturally, Satan assumed that Jesus had come to destroy him as prophesied. To Satan’s delight, Jesus came as human, stripped of his immortality. So without thinking through the consequences, Satan jumped on the chance to kill Jesus while he had the chance.
And just like Voldemort and the White Witch, that was Satan’s fatal mistake. Because he forgot that he only wielded the power of death over Brundle-Flies.
Jesus never sinned. Jesus wasn’t tainted by a sin nature. Jesus was a pure Brundle.
Thus, Satan was in breach of contract when he killed Jesus. Satan illegally killed Jesus, and by doing so, he forfeited his legal right of ownership over humans.
And that is why Jesus (and Aslan and Harry) could come back from the dead.
Satan Disarmed
Jesus did not defeat Satan on the cross. Satan is still the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4). This world is still under the control of the evil one (1 John 5:19). And Satan is still prowling around looking for Christians to devour (1 Pet. 5:8).
The Bible does not describe Satan as a defeated enemy. He has power, authority, and freedom—all things a defeated enemy is deprived of.
But Jesus did disarm Satan.
Because of Jesus’ death, God took away Satan’s legal right to own Gentiles. God nailed Satan’s documents of Gentile ownership to the cross (Col. 2:14).
He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. —Col 2:14-15a, NLT
From a legal standpoint, an elohim’s ownership of people is by territory. In the spiritual realm, ownership of people and territory cannot be separated. You could only properly worship the elohim of a certain territory if you were in that elohim’s territory.
So to properly worship Yahweh you had to be in the land of Israel. This is why David, on the run from King Saul, complained that he was being forced into pagan lands to worship pagan gods (1 Sam. 26:19). Because from a Biblical perspective, the only territory in the entire world in which holy soil could be found was the land of Israel.
This is also why the Syrian general Naaman, who “got saved” after being healed by the prophet Elisha, took soil from Israel back to Syria so that he could worship Yahweh while living in the territory of the Syrian elohim, Rimmon (2 Kings 5:17-18).
Naaman so clearly understood that he could only worship Yahweh if he was on territory that belonged to Yahweh, that he took as much Israeli soil with him as two of his mules could carry.
Even though Naaman converted, Yahweh was not the God of Naaman. Yahweh was still only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s descendants (the Jewish people). Other people could worship Yahweh and be granted eternal life due to their allegiance to Him (because Yahweh loves all humans), but legally He was not their elohim. Legally, He was only the elohim of the Jewish people and the elohim of the land of Israel.
But that’s what Jesus undid on the cross.
Because Satan was in breach of contract, he forfeited his legal right on the nations.
That’s why the temple veil was torn.
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, the Holy Spirit (the presence of Yahweh) was not limited to living only in Israel. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, Yahweh’s presence (now able to indwell human mobile temples) could legally infiltrate any and every nation in the entire world. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, now Yahweh could be the elohim of any country and of any person regardless of ethnicity or nationality.
Jesus is the Only Way: Conclusion
This is why Jesus is the only way to God.
Buddha did not disarm Satan and make it possible for Yahweh to be the elohim of all people.
Muhammad did not disarm Satan and make it possible for Yahweh to be the elohim of all people.
Confucius did not disarm Satan and make it possible for Yahweh to be the elohim of all people.
Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius and every other religious founder or leader were “Brundle-flies,” so even if they were persecuted or unjustly killed, their deaths could not have disarmed Satan or made it possible for Yahweh to be the elohim of all people.
Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. —Rom. 5:18-19
The gospel is the good news that Jesus disarmed Satan on the cross. While Adam made us all “Brundle-Flies,” Jesus’ death made it possible for us to become pure “Brundles” again.
