Is Jesus really the only way to God?

Yes. Jesus Himself said that we come to God through Him, and through no one else:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The apostles proclaimed the same message, in a city that had just crucified Him:

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

God’s saving love, and the one mediator

Why only Him? Because of who He is and what He did - and the Bible puts God’s desire to save and Christ’s unique role in a single passage:

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Read the whole of it. God our Saviour will have all men to be saved. And there is one mediator - the One through whom we are reconciled to God, who stands between God and men because He is both, and who gave himself a ransom for all. The universal desire and the single way are in one sentence, because the one is how the other is done. No prophet, teacher or founder is God and man, and none of them gave himself as a ransom. Eternal life is not a place reached by several roads. It is a gift, given in a Person:

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

”Isn’t that arrogant?”

It would be, if Christians were claiming to have earned something others have not. They are not. The Christian is saved exactly as he is inviting you to be saved - by a gift he did nothing to deserve:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Lest any man should boast. There is nothing in the gospel for the Christian to be proud of; he needed the same mercy he is telling you about. To say “Jesus is the only way” is not to say “I am better than you.” It is to say “I was drowning too, and this is who pulled me out.”

Jesus was honest that the way is narrow, and honest about the alternative:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Open to everyone who will come

The way is one, and it is open to anyone. Jesus called Himself the door - and then said what kind of doorkeeper He is:

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Any man. And the One at the door laid down His life for those who come through it. Paul says the same with a different word:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

To call on Him is to believe in Him - to come to Christ in faith, trusting Him, and Him alone, to bring you to God. That is the whole of what is asked.

What about people who have never heard of Jesus?

This is a sincere concern, and it deserves a careful answer rather than a confident one. You may be thinking of your own family, or of people far away, or of generations before the gospel reached them. Here is what Scripture says, and where it stops.

It says that people remain accountable to God even without the law, because God has made Himself known in what He has made and in the conscience:

For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law

It names Jesus as the only Saviour - the verses at the top of this page. And it assures us that God will judge justly:

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

He will. The Bible does not give a detailed account of how God deals with every person who died without hearing of Christ, and this page will not invent one. What it gives is the character of the Judge, and it gives the church a task:

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?

That is why the gospel is carried: so that people can hear, believe and call. It is a command about what Christians must do now; it is not, by itself, an answer to every question about the past, and the two should not be confused.

The Bible does record what God did for one man who feared Him without yet knowing Christ. Cornelius, a Roman officer in Caesarea, had heard of Jesus’ ministry but had not been told how to be saved. God sent Peter to his house:

Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.

And the words Peter brought were these:

through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.

That is one recorded example of God bringing the message to a man, not a promise stated about every seeker. But it shows what the message is, and that it was needed: even a devout man who feared God had to hear of Christ and believe.

He will receive you

Whatever you conclude about others, this is said to you:

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

One way. Open to whosoever. And the One who is the way - the door, and the shepherd who died for the sheep - says to the person reading this: Come. He has never once cast out anyone who did.