No one comes to the Father but by me

Craig Adams is back blogging and writes an excellent post on a Methodist view of atonement.

no one can come to God the Father except through the grace & mediation of Christ! And, of course, this is true. There is only one source of light and grace for all people. From Jesus these words can be taken to mean: "there is no access to God except through my mediation." Modern evangelicals commonly take it to mean: "there is no access to God except through consciousness of Christ." From this misconception, the question arises: well, what about all the people who lived before Christ, what about the who were killed in OT times, what about those who have never heard of Christ, etc.

The older Methodist writers did not get into this tangle. They believed that God's grace was for all and that Christ was the one and only source of salvation and life for all. The more we know of Christ the better off we are.