In The City of God Augustine took time to interact with another philosopher who calculated that there were 288 different ways to get meaningful, personal peace. As it turned out, some of those paths could be considered the same, but whatever the exact number is, men have a variety of options to choose from.

Many people are pursuing many different paths today and, while Christians usually say that all paths don’t lead to the same place, what if we turned that around. I heard another pastor say years ago that all paths do lead to the same place. All paths lead to God; they lead to the judgment of God.

This is not the same thing as Universalism because there is only one way to get through judgment to peace. Only those who believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who bore judgment for those who believe, will have peace with God. All the other paths get to Him but men will receive from the Judge the punishment of eternal death.

Our weekly celebration of communion reminds us not only of the way to God, but of the way to fellowship with the Father. Judgment had to happen because of our sin, and we rejoice that we’re spared from judgment in the Savior. “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” and “access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).