Before you choose a religion, you need to know about the person who is centred around (icon) in that religion. Ask yourself, what good qualities you can follow in that leader. Why did he come? How did he live? What did he teach? Where did he come? Where did he go?
Look for Ten good qualities in that leader. Look for ten good qualities of the followers. Look for ten good qualities of that religion or faith.
Ask yourself again, where would you end up if you follow that person and his teachings in your life. You are trusting someone completely and following that person for your eternal destiny. This is the most important decision you take in your life. Any decision in your physical life can be changed, though you may suffer or lose something for the wrong decisions you had taken in the past. But when it comes to your spiritual life, the destiny can’t be reverted! You have no second chance!
Is Christianity unique, or is it just one of many other ways of faith in the world to reach God and the Truth? Does Christianity truly stand out among the many religions around the world? If it does, then what makes it so? If you are a genuine truth-seeker, with a little effort on your part will bring the truth closer to you.
A Christian makes several claims that others do not. Firstly, all other religions teach man to reach up to God through their own efforts of sacrifices and good deeds. Christianity is the only way of faith where one believes God reached down to man. Secondly, other religions profess systems of do-s and don’ts to please God; but Christianity reveals a wonderful relationship of man with God when he or she believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings.
Thirdly, Christians consider the Bible as the only source of Truth and the infallible Word of God. God has preserved His Word despite the unintentional failings and intentional attacks of human beings. There is absolutely no evidence that the Bible has been revised, edited, or tampered with in any systematic manner. The sheer volume of biblical manuscripts makes it simple to recognize any attempt to distort God’s Word.
Every single religious leader and social reformers died, and none had ever come back to life and made a claim that he is alive. Unlike any other religion, only in Christianity, the Lord Jesus Christ claimed to be God, performed many miracles to prove His claim of divinity, died and rose from the dead, and claimed that He alone is “the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.
Christianity is the only religion which talks about the mystery of having a direct relationship with God. Other religions give us a list of things to do and not to do. Some religions call them laws or pillars. Christians are the only people who follow a leader who died and came back to life. All other religious leaders were dead and are lying in their graves. Men have been putting their efforts in looking for Jesus’ body remains for hundreds of years, and they still haven’t found Him! With all the advancements in scientific technology, no one has been able to solve this “mystery” in the world of science. The tomb is empty, and the body is not hidden and will never be found because Jesus rose from the dead.
Another fundamental difference is this. If you study the life of any religious leader, you will find many flaws in their personal life. They were born, lived and died like any other human being. Some of them were probably good externally and had words of human wisdom which identified them to be superior to others. But in their personal daily life, they failed in their behaviour very often. By reading their life stories, people can find many faults with them. But Jesus Christ was different. Since the day He was born until the time He died, no one ever could find a single fault in his personal or social life. What He preached was He. If you are a truth seeker and honest in your approach- you will find out Jesus Christ stands out from all others!
Let’s summarise the major differences between other religions and Christianity
In Judaism, if a person wants to make it to heaven, they must be righteous (obey all the Torah i.e. the law of Moses), this includes having to practice deeds of lovingkindness to others.
In Buddhism, if a person wants to attain nirvana, the place of perfect peace and happiness, they must walk the eightfold path.
In Islam, if a person wants to get to heaven, they must perform the five pillars, or other good works so that their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds in the final judgment.
In Hinduism, if a person wants to achieve moksha, which is freedom from the reincarnation cycle, they need to be released from the cycle of death and rebirth by achieving one or more of the four paths that are described in Hinduism. These paths or yoga are devotion, knowledge or intellect, selfless service and meditation.
What makes Christianity different, is that the Christian faith is the only religion in the world that says, “You could be saved by grace and not by works.” Ephesians 2:8 / Titus 3:5. In other words, Christianity is the only way of faith in the world which says a person can be saved based on what Someone else has done and not based on what we must do.
Christians do everything God wants them to do, not for salvation, but because they are motivated by His love for us, John 13:33-35 / 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 / Ephesians 4:32 / 1 John 4:19. The work of salvation begins and ends with grace. If Christ did not come, there would be no basis for faith, leave alone the promise of salvation, Acts 4:12 / Titus 2:11-14.
No other “religious leader” can be compared to Jesus Christ. Every other religious leader is either alive or dead. Jesus Christ is the only one who was dead and is now alive. Indeed, He proclaims in Revelation 1:17–18 that He is alive forevermore! No other religious leader dares make such a claim, which, if not true, is utterly absurd.
If we Consider some of the statements Jesus had made, no religious leader ever could claim what He had claimed of Himself.
– He claimed He existed before Abraham (who had lived hundreds of years before him). (John 8:58)
– While speaking to the seventy followers, He claimed to have seen Satan fall, an event occurred before the creation of the human race. (Luke 10:18)
– He told His followers He would always be with His people unto the end of the ages. (Matthew 28:20)
– He called Himself “The resurrection and the life,” “the way, the truth, and the life” and “the bread of life”. (John 11:25; John 14:6; John 6:35)
– He called Himself “The Lord of the Sabbath” and “The Son of Man” (titles Jewish people would recognize as the titles for the promised Messiah). (Matthew 12:8)
– He said He had the authority to forgive sins. (Mark 2:5)
Nothing could have been more offensive to the Jewish leaders who heard Him that when He said He was equal to God. He took the Divine name “I AM” for Himself (John 8:58 from Exodus 3:14). He said that the way to the Father is through Him (Matthew 11:27/John 14:1-7). He made Himself equal with God. That’s why they picked up stones to kill Him for this kind of blasphemy. (John 8:58-59). When He claimed to be able to forgive sins, they reasonably responded, “Why does this man speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mark 2:5-7)
It’s hard to improve upon C. S. Lewis’s insight about all this. Here’s how he put it:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Geoffrey Bliss, 1952; this edition, HarperCollins, 1980), p. 52)
If you are a truth-seeker and consider seriously what Jesus said, His claims, remarkable as they are, make every sense. If the God who created everything and could do anything He is pleased with, wanted to take on human flesh, that wouldn’t be beyond His ability! And If He did so, the kinds of things Jesus said about Himself would qualify perfectly with what we learn about God from the Hebrew Scriptures – He’s eternal, powerful, all-knowing, and the only one qualified to forgive sins.
Moreover, if you agree that Jesus was different than other religious leaders (note that Mohammad, Buddha, and others never claimed to be God), the faith He proclaimed would be different than other ways of religions. And that is exactly what we find when we read the New Testament.
Other religions proclaim laws to keep for reaching God. Jesus said, no one could keep the laws of God inwardly up to the standard of God’s holiness. Man can act and appear to be externally pious to impress people around, but his inner life is full of sinful thoughts and self-centeredness. That’s the reason God Himself came down as a man to help His creation and He had taken our place in fulfilling God’s law. Only a perfect God could offer such a provision of salvation. Instead of us searching for God—God is searching for us! Instead of us reaching up to God—God is reaching down to us! This is why Jesus Christ is so important, because He came down from Heaven to do for us what we could never do for ourselves: bring us to God. God is perfect and holy, and we are separated from Him by our sins. No matter how hard we try, we cannot erase the stain of sin by ourselves. But by His death and resurrection Christ did this for us.
That’s why Jesus could make this bold and liberating invitation: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Another important difference between Jesus and other religious leaders is found in the very nature of Christianity. The very essence of Christianity is Christ, the One crucified, resurrected, ascended into heaven, and returning someday. Without Him—and without His resurrection—there is no Christianity. In many passages, He claims to be equal with the Father (see, for example, John 10:29–33). To Jesus are ascribed all the prerogatives and attributes of Deity. Yet He was also a man, born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–56). Having lived a sinless life, Jesus was crucified in order to pay for the sins of all men: “He Himself is the satisfaction of God’s wrath for our sins; and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2), and then He was resurrected from the dead three days later. He is fully God and fully Man, the theanthropos [from the Greek for “God” (theos) and “Man” (anthropos)]; yet He is one person. Islam and Judaism claim that Jesus is not God, whereas Christianity claims He is.
God’s promise is for you: “Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
By Pastor Renji George
Comments
Post a Comment