“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and
will not be able.” Luke 13:24
A man asks Jesus the
question, “Lord, will those who are saved be few”? Most likely, this man has been following
Jesus and has heard Him teach that the salvation is not going to be automatic
or based simply on genealogy as some had thought. The rabbis had taught the people that God was
offering salvation to all those who had been born as a part of the Jewish race,
that this gift was confirmed by the symbol of circumcision and maintained by
the works of the Law. The average Jew
took heaven for granted because they held the view that all Jews were saved and
a few Gentiles would be saved by becoming Jews.
But then Jesus came along and taught over and over that God the Father
offered salvation only, exclusively, by grace through faith in Him as the
promised Savior, the Narrow Door.
Whether you are aware of it
or not, the prevailing theology of our culture today denies judgment. Some are nihilistic who believe that when you
die you cease to exist. Some are
optimistic believing that since God is love He will let everyone into
heaven. And some are fatalistic believing
that if there is a hell, it can’t be that bad because they’re friends will be
there with them. Is salvation
necessary? If so, from what must I be
saved?
Jesus declares the Law: The
door to the banquet feast of heaven is a NARROW door, and MANY will not fit
through. So how does one fit through?
Martin Luther quotes on this text:
“Why, for what reason can they not enter?
For the reason that they do not know what the narrow door is; for that
is faith in Jesus, which makes a person small, yea, altogether nothing, that he
must despair of his own works and cling only to God’s grace, forgetting all
other things because of that. But the
saints of Cain’s kind think that good works are the narrow door; therefore,
they do not become humble, do not despair of their works, yea, they gather them
with great sacks, hang them around themselves, and thus endeavor to get
through; but they have as little chance to go through as the camel with its
great hump has to pass through the eye of a needle.”
Faith in Jesus makes us
small. John the Baptist was the first to
say that as he saw Jesus and said, “He must increase, I must decrease.” Jesus would later say, “I tell you the truth,
anyone who will not receive the Kingdom
of God
Jesus tells us to strive to
enter through the narrow door. Our
striving has nothing to do with earning a right to enter through the narrow
door. The Greek word for striving is an
athletic term which literally means, “passion for only one alone.” It’s how the athlete trains - with passion
for only one goal alone. The follower of
Jesus strives with a passion for only one alone - Christ - for with faith in
Him, the Narrow Door, we have all we need for eternity!
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