The Perspicuity of Scripture
An easy way to see what this involves is to look at how a text that seems at first blush to outlaw pluralism is dealt with. Take the words of the Apostle Peter in Acts 4:12 as an example: “Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.” There we not only have an affirmation that there is but one savior but a negation that there is any other. From these words one might be forgiven for thinking that Peter was at pains to exclude all other “saviors” as much as to proclaim Jesus. Today, strenuous efforts are being made to argue that he did not have any such thing in mind. Two main paths have been followed.

First of all, it is pointed out in several commentaries that Acts 4:12 is set in a healing context and the word “saved” is a translation of the same Greek word as the word “healed.” At the end of verse 10 the word plainly means “well” or “in good health.” Why then may not the word “healed” be substituted for the word “saved” in verse 12? After all, Peter and John are responding to the question of the Sanhedrin stated in verse 7, “By what name did you do this?” Peter’s answer begins in verse 8 and goes on to verse 12. If he is talking about healing throughout, physical and by extension psychological, as is claimed, on what basis is this extended to include the need for social justice/liberty from oppression but not salvation from sin and its consequences? This amounts to freedom from every kind of socio-economic tyranny with all the deprivation which such oppression and concentration of wealth and power inevitably creates. While the verb does have that breadth of usage, by what rule is the spiritual dimension excluded so that it is not about salvation from sin and its consequences any more?

Secondly, it is claimed that Peter’s reply is not intended to deny the existence of other healings but to claim that all healing, all making whole, belong to Jesus, and so it is going beyond the text to make it a statement about other faiths. It is even added that Peter was speaking in the monotheistic framework of his day and so his remark should not be taken to exclude pluralism. As far back as 1984, a leading figure in British InterVarsity wrote,

These categorical statements about the one and only “specific remedy” for “the human sickness” and “the unique historic deed which we confess as the true turning point of universal history” do not of themselves exclude any one, except those who with open eyes persist in rejecting them.

But was Peter speaking only about physical healing and was he only speaking about Jesus in a positive way? He explained what he meant by “salvation” (v.10) by immediately referring to what a cornerstone or capstone does for a building (v. 11). Physical healing is a detail in and also an illustration of that completed work.

The words in verse 11 are taken from Psalm 118, which is a messianic Psalm. Jesus quoted it with reference to himself. It was one of the psalms sung at Passover time. The building referred to by implication in the statements is a temple—a place where God dwells with his people. The cornerstone begins the building and marks out its character, just as a stone at a corner determines the lines for the walls it joins by its own shape, or, as a copestone, it completes the edifice. The Divine Messiah brings the “new” temple into being and brings it to its completion. This stone is divinely chosen and divinely placed. It is given. “Other foundations can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ.”

It is the Messiah who was Jesus. And not any Jesus, for that was a common name, but a particular Jesus from Nazareth. Salvation is found in history, not philosophy; in fact, not myth; in a particular individual, not a cosmic being, an ineffable deity, nor even a High Creator God. Just as there is no Christ apart from Jesus the Christ so there is no God apart from the one revealed in Jesus the Christ. God is only personally and savingly knowable through Jesus Christ.

This is why Pluralism (whether inclusivist or syncretistic) has come to such horrid bloom in our day. It has had 250 years to grow. Its genesis lies in eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophy; its parents are Higher Biblical Criticism, and its offspring are a relativistic History of Religions and a postmodern view of reality and Scripture.

Responses to Pluralism from Bible-believing Communities
We will now see how Bible-believing folk have come to terms with Pluralism. It seems that what Peter intended to put pressure on the world has put pressure on the church—whether Evangelical or Reformed and to these we now turn. It is not surprising that a considerable stir has been caused in our circles by this endorsement of Pluralism because Pluralism raises the joint questions of whether those that have never heard the gospel may be saved and also whether they will be eternally punished. The literature on these questions is enormous, and sad to say the story is not all positive. Some surprising exegesis has indeed come to light in support of Conditional Immortality and even a Second Chance of salvation post mortem.

We will now review two responses made from our Evangelical and Reformed friends.