Monopoly on Truth

Gamaliel, Paul’s teacher, was a remarkable man. The Jewish writings call him Nasi, “a prince.” He held a highly respected position in the Sanhedrin, the high court of the Hebrews. When Peter and the apostles refused to obey the high priests’ request to stop proclaiming the gospel, the Sanhedrin members were furious and wanted to kill them (Acts 5:29–33). Gamaliel reminded them how teachers like Theudas and Judas of Galilee rose, tried to start revolutions, and gathered people around them. Finally, nothing came of them (5:34–37). He concluded: “Leave these men alone! If their teachings and works are human, they will fail. But if they are of God, you can’t destroy them; instead, you’ll be fighting against God” (Acts 5:38–39).

Gamaliel believed that the Sanhedrin didn’t have a monopoly on truth. The Lord Jesus said this earlier.

In Capernaum, John the disciple said to Jesus that he and other disciples saw a person casting out demons in Jesus’s name, and they stopped him from doing that because he wasn’t one of Jesus’s followers. He might have expected Jesus to agree with him. Instead, Jesus said,

“Don’t stop him.” (Mark 9:39a)

That would have surprised John and the other disciples. After all, they thought they had a monopoly on truth. They were Jesus’s selected apostles!

Jesus explained,

“No one who is doing powerful things in my name can quickly speak evil of me” (9:39b)

Would someone who chased away an evil spirit from a person in Jesus’s name turn around and say, “That Jesus is evil”? If s/he did, people would wonder, “Then, why did you do the miracle in his name?” Those who did miracles in Jesus’s name did so because they admired or thought well of Jesus. So, the disciples should leave that person alone. In other words,

“Whoever isn’t against you [the disciples] is for you.” (9:40)

What? Yes, those who didn’t belong to the twelve disciples were equally disciples. They could be empowered to do miracles in Jesus’s name. Yes, anyone who wasn’t against the disciple, spoke well of Jesus, and did powerful things in Jesus’s name was not an enemy.

In C. S. Lewis’s Last Battle, Emeth, an Asian, narrates how he entered Aslan’s kingdom. He had seen Aslan, not as a lion, but as a giant elephant and fast as an ostrich. Aslan appreciated every good thing Emeth had done in the name of Tash, Emeth’s god, and let him in. Based on this, people accuse C. S. Lewis of universalism.

But in The Problem of Pain, he said, “Some will not be redeemed. There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.”

At the same time, C. S. Lewis also said, “I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow.” Further, “There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it.”

Whoever isn’t against Jesus is for Jesus.