Jesus, The Door

John Bunyan's 'The Pilgrim's Progress' is an exciting book where the characters have interesting names.  Bunyan writes that the character Ignorance, who accompanied the two travelers, Christian and Hopeful, to the Celestial City, goes up to the Pearly Gates but cannot enter the City of gold!  He is seized by the order of God and tossed through a door into Hell.  Into Hell right from the Gates of the Celestial City!   After taking up the long and arduous journey, Ignorance lands in Hell because he did not collect the scroll at the Wicket-Gate!  The Wicket-Gate symbolizes Jesus Christ as the savior of sinners.  Ignorance claims that he lives a good, religious life and is confident that this is enough to get him into the Celestial City. Ignorance also has many thoughts about God, encouraging him to believe he will be accepted into Heaven.  Ignorance says, 'I know my Lord's will, and I have been a good liver.  I pay every man his own.  I pray, fast, pay tithes, and give alms. …. And as for the Gate that you talk of, all the world knows that that is a great way off of our Country'.  Ignorance thought good works and thoughts of God were enough to enter the Celestial City.

Bunyan upholds Christ as the only one to redeem people from the sin that bars them from Paradise.  Jesus said, "I am the door.  If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture" (John 10:9).  The wicket-gate symbolizes Jesus Christ as the savior of sinners because Jesus is the only Way to Heaven.  When Christian knocks at the Gate and introduces himself as a needy sinner, he is warmly welcomed unconditionally.  But self-proclaimed pilgrims who try to bypass the Wicket Gate, like Ignorance, are ultimately rejected at the Gate of the Celestial City.  Praying, fasting, tithing, and giving to the poor are all essential, but those works cannot save or take us to Heaven.  People who depend on their own inherent goodness and good deeds will discover that they have been deceived.   

My friend, the Bible says, "how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him,…" (Heb. 2:3).  Today is the day of Salvation, and Jesus is the Saviour because He paid the price for our sins on the Cross.  Come and be saved!

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