A number of my recent posts have been focusing on what we see around us,  in “Nature”, that points to the reality of there being an intelligent creator God. God tells us in his Word, the Bible, that all of us are given two witnesses of His reality. The Bible explains these two witnesses as follows:

Romans 1:18-20 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Romans 2:14-15 “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

So these two witnesses are, the internal witness of right and wrong that God has given each of us (our conscience) plus what we can see and surmise about the things around us and within ourselves by examining (learning) how we are made and how our earth, solar system, galaxy and universe have been made and function. As of late, we are learning far more that we ever imagined about how intricate and precise all things within our universe are constructed and function but people in times past, who have studied nature have long known of the beauty, purpose, order and interconnectedness of our earthly environment.

God expects us to use our “common sense” and comprehend and understand that only an Highly Intelligent God could have created and put all of this together. In other words, this all didn’t happen by chance. There is purpose and meaning behind all of what we see.

So lets say that you get that. How would you expect this highly intelligent God to communicate with us without overwhelming us, so that we have a choice as to whether we want to know Him, want to understand?

That’s where the a revelation from God would need to come in. Christianity has that, both via a book of scared scriptures (the Bible) and a visitation of Himself in history, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

I could go through all of the major world Religions and their particular beliefs but you can easily do that yourself by doing a Google Search. In this post I would like to point out three things that are unique about Christianity from all other world religions.

What Separates Christianity From Other Religions

1.  Every other religion teaches us to earn our way to God. They are performance based . Christianity is the only religion that teaches that God accepts us as we are now. Our acceptance is based on faith, not works.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus died for us before we did a thing for Him. God didn’t wait for us to get things right before He sent His Son to die. In fact, God sent his Son because He knew we could never get things right apart from Jesus.

2. Other religions have systems of rules to appease their god. Christianity is a relationship with God. Other religions give us a list of things to do and not do. Some religions call them laws or pillars. These are things that you do in hopes of getting into heaven.

Psalm 145:18-19 tells us, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.”

We don’t have to appease God to receive His favour. He already showed us His love for us by sending Jesus to die on a cross in our place, for our sins. The separation between us and God was appeased, and we don’t have to earn our acceptance. Our faith in what Jesus accomplished on our behalf puts us in a new birth (born again) experience where our new life is based on fellowship with God our Heavenly Father, Jesus our Saviour and the Holy Spirit, our constant Helper. Christians go to church, read the Bible and obey God’s commands, not because we have to but because we want to. We want to learn about this God who would go to such great lengths for us. We want to show our thankfulness for His grace by representing Him well with our lives. And we choose to follow His plan, knowing that a God who loves us enough to sacrifice His Son for us has our best interest at heart.

3. No other religion has an empty tomb. We’re the only people who follow a leader who died and came back to life.

Every other major religious leader is dead. People have been looking for Jesus’ body for thousands of years, and they still haven’t found Him! The tomb is empty, and the body is not hidden and will never be found, because Jesus rose from the dead and now sits on God the Father’s right hand in Heaven, and He is returning. Read in Acts and the Epistles what transformed the Apostles and the early Christians. In 1st Corinthians 15:19 the Apostle Paul states: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” The Apostles including Paul himself and up to 500 disciples saw, touched, ate with and spoke with the risen Jesus. That reality is what turned the world upside down!

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 NIV, Paul the Apostle says: “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,  and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.“

Jesus proved who He said He was, He came to us so that we might know the will of our Heavenly Father, so that we might be in fellowship with Him here now and live eternally with Him when we leave this earthly life behind. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is the reason why all of what we see was created. This is the choice before all of humanity.

Filed under: Apologetics, Christian, Intelligent Design, New Testament, Old Testament, Religion