Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
June 12, 1983
Why I Believe Christianity is Different
John 14:5-6; Acts 4:12 (NIV)
West Lafayette is a small town. We like it that way. You can walk down Main Street and usually you'll meet someone you know.
It has been said that the world is becoming more and more like West Lafayette - it has become a global village. What people mean by this is that distances and cultural barriers have shrunk. By taking a jet you can reach any spot on earth in twenty-four hours. Television and radio bring events right into our living rooms from half a world away. We can watch the coronation of a Pope, a battle in South America or millions of Moslems demonstrating in Iran.
Other cultures and religions have literally moved next door to us. A few months ago I visited a Hindu couple here in West Lafayette. She was wearing a flowing sari which is the traditional dress in India. Nearby, a candle burned in front of a poster that showed Hindu gods. One has six arms. Another had a human face with an elephant's trunk instead of a nose. This family is not alone. Just visit the doctor's lounge in Coshocton hospital and you'll think you are in the United Nations. These people are sincere, educated and intelligent. They are often interested in learning about Christianity and we may learn from them.
As we have contact with these friends overseas and become aware of their religious beliefs the question naturally arises as to whether or not Christianity is unique among world religions or is it just a variation on a basic theme running through all religions? To put it another way - "Doesn't the sincere Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu or Jew worship the same God as we do, except they give him a different name?" Or if you want to be very blunt - "Is Jesus Christ the only way to God?"
In answering this question, it is extremely important that we first get rid of a misconception that people can get very emotional about. When a Christian claims that Jesus is the only way to God and that apart from him there is no salvation, he is not saying that he thinks Christians are better than anyone else. Some people have the wrong idea that Christianity is a bigoted club, like the kind that excludes people because their skin is a different color or they don't have lots of money. These people say that if Christians were less bigoted they would change the rules and let in anyone who believes in God. "Why can't we just agree on God?" we're often asked. And this brings us to the fundamental issue.
Christians claim that Jesus Christ is the only way to God because the Bible says in Acts 4:12:
"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Christians believe this, not because we have made it our rule but because our Lord Jesus taught it - he's the one who says:
"No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
A Christian is faced with the problem of truth. If Jesus Christ is who he claims to be, then we have the authoritative word of God himself on the subject. If Jesus is God and there is no other Savior, then obviously he is the only way to God. Christians could not change this fact by a vote or anything else.
Here's another way to look at it. There are some laws that are determined by society. There are other laws that are not. For example, the penalty for driving through a stop light is determined by society. The fine could be set at twenty-five dollars or at five dollars or it could be abolished completely. Other laws have penalties that cannot be established by society. Gravity is one of them. The citizens of West Lafayette could vote unanimously to suspend the law of gravity for one hour but no one in his right mind would jump off the roof to test it. The penalty for violating the law of gravity is inherent in the act itself.
Just as there are inherent physical laws like gravity so there are inherent spiritual laws. One of them is that God has revealed himself to us through Jesus Christ. Another is that Christ's death is the only way our sins can be paid for. But remember - when a Christian says that Jesus is the only way to God he should not act like he's superior to everyone else. As D.T. Niles put it so beautifully, "Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food."
After defusing the emotional bomb it is then important to move on to the important question of truth. Sincerely believing something does not make it true, as anyone will testify who has ever picked a wrong bottle out of a medicine cabinet in the dark. Faith is no more valid than the object you have faith in, no matter how sincere or intense that faith is. A nurse very sincerely put carbolic acid, thinking is was silver nitrate, in the eyes of a newborn baby. Her sincerity did not save the baby from blindness. These same principles apply to spiritual things. Believing something doesn't make it true any more than failing to believe truth makes it false. Facts are facts, regardless of people's attitudes toward them. In religious matters, the basic question is always, "Is it true?"
Take for instance, the fact of the deity, death and resurrection of Jesus. Christianity says that these facts are at the heart of its message. Moslems, on the other hand, deny the deity, death and resurrection of Christ. On this very crucial point, one of these views has to be wrong. They can't both be true because they are contradictory. However, many Christians naively assume that other religions are basically the same but use slightly different terms. We often hear how similar the religions of the world are. There are similarities but the differences far outweigh them.
One of the similarities is the Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Almost every religion has this rule. Many people wrongly assume that the Golden Rule is the essence of Christianity. But if all Jesus Christ did was to give us the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule, he actually increased our frustration. We've had the Golden Rule since Confucius' time. Man's problem has never been not knowing what he should do. His problem, rather, has been that he lacks power to do what he knows he should do.
Fortunately, Jesus did more than just tell us how to live and this is a major difference between Christianity and other religions. Christ offers us his power to live as we should. He gives us forgiveness, cleansing and salvation itself, all as a free gift. He reconciles us to God. He does something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. Every other religious system, however, is essentially a do-it-yourself proposition. Follow this way of life, they say, and you will please God and eventually achieve salvation. In a sense, other religious systems see a drowning man and tell him how to swim. Christianity throws a life preserver. Because of this profound difference, Christianity alone offers assurance of salvation. Because our salvation depends on what God has done for us, we can say with the certainty of the Apostle Paul:
"Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:6)
In every works-religion it is impossible to have assurance. When do you know that you have done enough good works? You never know and you never can know. Fear persists because there is no assurance of salvation.
What salvation is and what we are pointing toward is quite different in the world's religions from what it is in Christianity. In Buddhism, for instance, the ultimate goal is nirvana or the extinction of desire. According to Buddha's teaching, all pain and suffering come from desire. When you overcome desire you achieve nirvana, which is total nothingness. You cease to exist.
In Hinduism the ultimate goal is also nirvana but the term here has a different meaning. Nirvana is the reunion with Brahma, who is the Hindu's God. This experience has been compared to the return of a drop of water to the ocean. Your existence as an individual is gone, you're just part of the ocean but you're not annihilated like in Buddhism. In Hinduism nirvana is achieved through reincarnation. As soon as you die you are reborn in another form. If you led a good life, your next life will have more comfort and less suffering. If you were bad, you could come back as a slug or a mosquito.
In Islam, heaven is a paradise of wine, women and song.[1] Heaven is achieved by living a life in which you abstain from the things that you'll be rewarded with in heaven. In addition, they have to follow the Five Pillars of Islam: repeating the creed, making a pilgrimage to Mecca, giving charity to the poor, praying five times a day and fasting one month a year. Once again, there is no possibility of assurance.
Even this brief look at heaven and how it can be attained shows there are great differences between religions. The fundamental concept of God is also different. Buddha, contrary to popular belief, never claimed to be divine. As a matter of fact, he was an agnostic.
Hindus are pantheistic. This means that every single thing in the universe is part of God. People, rocks and cars are all God.
In Islam and Judaism we find a God much closer to the Christian concept. God is not a rock or a slug but in Islam God, known as Allah, is responsible for evil as well as good and he is totally removed from men. The founder of Islam, Mohammed, gave them all their ideas about God. He himself said he wasn't divine.
The Jewish concept is closet of all. Again, however, closer examination shows that the Jews would not admit their God was the Father of Jesus Christ. In a conversation with the Jews, Jesus addressed this question. After the Jews claimed God was their Father, Christ says:
"If God were your father, you would love me." (John 8:42)
Here we have the clue as to what our attitude should be toward those who are sincerely seeking God. If they are seeking the true God, their sincerity will be proved by the fact that they will receive Christ when they hear about him.
Of all the great religious leaders of the world, only Christ claims to be God. It doesn't matter what you thing about Muhammad, Buddha or Confucius as individuals. Their followers emphasize their teachings. Not so with Christ. Hew made himself the focal point of his teaching. The central question he put to his listeners was - "Who do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:27)
On the question of who God is, the nature of salvation and how it is obtained, it is clear that Christianity differs radically from other world religions. We live in an age in which tolerance is a key word. Tolerance, however, must be clearly understood. It's not always good to be tolerant - truth by its very nature is intolerant of error. Two plus two does not equal thirty-one no matter how you add it. A person is not regarded as intolerant because he disagrees with thirty-one and insists the answer is four. The same principle applies in religious matters. We must be tolerant of other points of view and respect their right to be held and heard. We cannot, however, be forced in the name of tolerance to agree that all points of view, including those that contradict each other, are equally valid. Such a position is nonsense.
It's not true that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere, either. Hitler's massacre of six million Jews was based on a sincere view of race superiority but he was desperately wrong. What we believe must be true in order to be real. Jesus said:
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
If you want to know the true and living God in your personal experience, it must be through Christ, the only way to God.
Do you want to earn salvation? You're in the wrong place. This church holds that salvation is given as a free gift from Jesus. If you accept it, you will possess a salvation that will seem sweeter as the years go by. Do you have assurance?
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1. For confirmation of this, go to http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503548366.
Also see http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/heaven.html
Typed on May 9, 2006, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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