Commonality And Contrast In Religion

All religions teach basically the same thing in application, though their philosophies or worldviews may differ; however, Christianity is by definition, not a religion. Christianity is strictly a faith, seeing that is the virtue central to its plan of salvation, and that it holds to a body of faith.  Religions all instruct man to ingratiate himself with God or some deity or higher power and to gain this approbation by a system of good works, thus meriting salvation--they all stress salvation in their own way.  One must realize that all religions have an element of truth to them and just enough to inoculate a sincere person to the real thing!  Sincerity isn't everything though a requisite; however, there are many who are sincerely wrong.

We don't need to delineate all religions to see how they are all mutually contradictory and don't teach the same concept of God, salvation, or even make the same diagnosis of man's problem and the ultimate cure.  Dr. Karl Menninger, the psychiatrist who wrote Whatever Became of Sin?--yes, I read it and it's a good read and even a must-read for theologians and/or scholars--and this book shows Christianity's diagnosis of our dilemma as rooted in sin or rebellion against God, it's our Declaration of Independence from God, doing our own thing and going our own way--defined as "refusing the love of another [i.e., God]." This is a word psychiatrists are starting to use again in their quest for us being responsible and accountable for our choices--no sin means no ultimate accountability.

All religions have some noble goal to accomplish but they are optimistic about man's nature (i.e., he is basically or inherently good), and don't realize we cannot please God--all our good deeds are as filthy rags!  For instance, in Islam, they deny the Fall of man.  The point to note in a works religion, and all religion seeks to do some work for salvation, as man is incurably addicted to gaining God's approbation by good behavior, is that you can never know for sure whether you are "in" or not, in other words, of being saved and secure in it.  In contrast, only Christianity offers a full and complete assurance of one's destiny to heave, and even power over sin in the here and now. The only way you can be sure of your salvation or place in heaven is for it to be a gift, not something to be earned or deserved--not by merit, but grace alone.  If we had to do anything, we'd fail!  In the Bible, people would ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" (Cf. Acts 16:30; John 6:28).  This shows his orientation towards works and that he doesn't realize it's a gift to be received.

Creeds don't save!  Faith doesn't save!  Christ alone saves and it's the object of the faith that matters, not the amount of faith.  Meager faith in Christ saves, while a lot of faith in the Pope or the Church will not!  We must turn our creeds into deeds though!  Christianity is not only concerned with orthodoxy or right belief, but orthopraxy or right behavior, and we are not saved by good behavior, but unto good behavior (cf. Eph. 2:10).  Not by works, nor without them!  The Reformers formula was "by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone."  We will not be rewarded according to the amount of faith we have (cf. Rom. 2:6; Psa. 62:12), but the quality of our works and whether they stand the test of fire--some will be saved as if by fire (cf. 1 Cor. 3:10).

All religions teach the same applications in principle (Christianity is superior though, for instance, of all 52 known virtues, they are all depicted in Scripture, but no other religion comes close to covering all these bases).  Christianity must be admired even on the basis of its superior morals and virtues.  When they say that all religions teach the same thing--and George Lucas has come to the conclusion that all religions are true--they are basically referring to the application, not the philosophy or worldview.  For instance, they all teach the betterment of mankind, the value of virtue, and the necessity of good works, though Christianity raises the bar!  The Golden Rule, as an example, is the highest code of honor and ethics one can attain, compared to the Brazen, Silver, and Iron Rules are known in this rat-race and the dog-eat-dog world of the law of the jungle.

People are more interested in what the religion does for you, not it's doctrines, though they are also important--teaching without application leaves one cold.  They said of Jonathan Edwards, probably the clearest-thinking of all American theologians, that his doctrine was all application, and his application was all doctrine.  The end result of the validity of a religion is its effect on the convert and what it can do for him.  We stress what Christ has done for us, not what we do for God!  The conversion experience is a miracle of transformation of the soul and only is apparent in the Christian faith, whereby the person becomes a new creature in Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17) and gets a new lease on life and a new start.

The contrasts are manifold:  religion says "do"--Christianity says "done"; Religion reaches out to God--Christianity is God reaching out to us; religion is all works based; Christianity is all grace-based and its a gift that cannot be earned, deserved, or paid back; Religion gives no assurance; Christianity gives full assurance; Religion teaches you to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps; Christianity says that God can transform your life in His control; Religion says works are in order to gain the approbation of God; Christianity says we work out of gratitude to please God and are therefore a "therefore," not an "in-order-to." Man tends to ingratiate himself fourfold:  morality, good works, philosophy, and ritual or religion!  Religion itself is all a "do-it-yourself" proposition! You can distinguish the person of religion simply by asking him if he's saved!  The religious person doesn't know!  You can be very religious and not be saved, or even have a formal religion!

God is not so concerned that we get all our doctrines straightened out or nitpick and split hairs on them, as He is that we love and serve Him.  What matters most is whether our hearts are in the right place.  Don't be content just to be doctrinally correct!  We cannot avoid doctrine and must not reject it, but it's not everything--God wants us to learn to love, serve, obey, and know Him as the ultimate goal.  Most important thing about knowing God is just knowing Jesus--what a concept--everything we need to know about Him is expressed in Jesus for us to see--if you've seen Jesus, you've seen the Father! In the final analysis, a person's eternal fate or destiny will be decided at Judgment Day by his view of Jesus and what he did with Him at the final audit of his life and work.  How did he treat Jesus?

Instead of learning all the minutiae of the different religions we need to see the Big Picture and how unique our faith is so that we can readily tell the counterfeit--the Secret Service studies the real thing so they can recognize counterfeit bills!   We believe uniquely in a personal God we can know, and that especially loves is and even is love and that's His essence and defining trait.  We believe sin is the problem but God has solved the sin question by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.  We believe our salvation is complete, sure, knowable, and eternal in Christ and available to all who will believe.  We believe God's final word to man is in Christ and God became a man in the incarnation of Jesus to make Himself known.  We believe in the infallibility, inerrancy, perspicuity or clarity, sufficiency, reliability, accuracy, simplicity, authenticity, necessity, fidelity, integrity, inspiration, and authority of the Word--the battle cry of the Reformation was sola Scriptura, or by Scripture alone (as the sole rule of faith and authority).

Christianity alone postulates that God is a person we can know and is personal, has personality, and wants to get personal and go one-on-one with us as individuals He loves.  Our faith alone satisfies the deepest desire of man to have a meaningful relationship with our Creator, that just believing He exists or knowing about Him doesn't fulfill.  Contrary to popular opinion, the Golden Rule is not the essence of Christianity, but it's a faith that must be lived out and practiced by demonstrating it to the world by good works (as Paul would say, "I'll show you my works by my faith," and James would say the flip side, "I'll show you my faith by my good works").

The faith you have is the faith you show--is it any wonder that Mahatma Gandhi said that he'd become a Christian if he ever met one!  Even he admired the high ethics of Christianity, but Christians are not perfect, just forgiven works in progress, with perfection as the standard, but direction as the test!  In our faith alone, eternal life is equated with knowing God in Jesus' high priestly intercession in John 17:3!  Thus we can have a growing and living relationship with God as our Father, who loves us personally.

One must note the foundations of Christianity are based on fact and history, not fable, tradition, myth, or legend, no other religion can uniquely claim this; and as proof of Scripture's authority and of God's approval, Scripture alone has thousands of fulfilled prophecies--not just a few lucky guesses or self-fulfilling prophecies either.  Finally, with all due respect to world religions, Jesus alone claimed deity and no other founder did--not Buddha, not Confucius, not Muhammad, no one!  This is what turns people off to our faith: its exclusiveness and positing absolute truth that can be known through Christ as the personification of Truth with a capital T--i.e., truth is not relative, but knowable and fixed for eternity; we are accountable for it--willful ignorance is no excuse!  At Judgment Day one's fate will be determined by his answer to Christ's query to his disciples in Matt. 16:15, saying:  "Who do you say that I am?"  and He answered it in John 8:24 as, "Unless you believe that I Am ["He" is not in Greek manuscripts, stating His deity as the Great I Am], you will die in your sins." It doesn't matter what you think of these other false prophets, gurus, false teachers, the Pope, and even angels of light like Moroni, but it does matter what you make of Christ--whose Son is He?

One doesn't even have to believe in the Bible to get saved (as Paul found out on his missionary journeys to the Greeks), despite the fact that it's the only Holy Scriptures that claim God as the Author, saying over 2,000 times, "Thus saith the LORD," in the Old Testament alone!  The very existence and continuity of the Bible is a miracle in itself due to all the systematic attempts to destroy it throughout history, and it's fidelity and integrity are firmly established and plain to see.

To make things clear by contrast:  Religion lays down what man must do; Christianity lays down what God has done; religion is the best man can do; Christianity is the best God can do; religion is knowing a creed or the rules; Christianity is knowing a person; religion is a code of conduct, self-reformation,  a philosophy, or a catalog of rules; Christianity is a relationship, a renewal, and more abundant life!  Jesus said, "It is finished!" "Paid in full!" "Tetelestai!" This was stating that He had completed the work of our salvation on the cross and it's a "done deal" that only needs to be applied to believers who will receive it by faith as a gift in grace, undeserved, unmerited, and unearned.  You can be very religious without being a Christian and vice versa: you can be a Christian without being very religious! The ultimate question to ponder is whether one knows God, not has an opinion about some concept of God.

In sum, let me cite an old anecdote:  One preacher was interrupted by a man who said that he "tried religion for five years and it didn't work for [him]!"  The preacher countered that he "tried it for fifteen years and it didn't work, either!"  The man asked him to explain why he was a preacher then:  Then he "tried Jesus," was his telltale confession!   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Limits Of Our Freedom

"So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy"  (Rom. 9:16, ESV).
"So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed"  (John 8:36, ESV).
"The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"  (Gen. 6:5, ESV).
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  ["who can know it?" KJV]"  (Jer. 17:9, ESV).


We don't need free will to be saved--we need our wills made or set free!   Actually, our freedom is a curse because we are only capable of sinning apart from being saved (as Augustine phrase puts it, "Non posse non peccare," or, in English, the double negative, "unable not to sin"), whereby we gain the power not to sin by grace--but when we do sin, it's because we choose to do so without compulsion or impulsion--all lost people can do is sin and cannot please God and they sin because they want to sin!  We are not automatons though, nor dumb beasts who have no understanding!  Job 18:3, NLT, says, "Do you think we are mere animals? Do you think we are stupid?"

Our freedom of the will is very limited and actually has very little to do with our salvation (genes, lineage, parentage, upbringing, experience, national origin, not to mention friends, all influence and affect our wills to make them limited in total freedom and not unmoved or uncaused like God's will, which is what makes Him totally free and the one and only Great I AM).  Actually, Martin Luther wrote an entire book on this subject, The Bondage of the Will, or, De Servo Arbitrio, as written in Latin.   Remember Paul's words to the Philippians in verse 2:13, ESV, italics added, saying, "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

Our wills are part of our heart and soul and are depraved just like our minds and emotions--totally, though not utterly as much as possible. However, after the Fall, man has not lost the faculty of choice completely, just the ability to choose God and please God--his motives are wrong and basically selfish and for the applause of others. To be specific:  Have you ever convinced a girl to go out with you or convinced your wife to do something that she was ill-disposed to do?  God can likewise work on our minds, wills, and emotions to change us and give us a new heart after His will.  She maintained her freedom of choice and didn't do anything she didn't want to, but just had a change of heart caused by you. Note that God is the initiator and sole primary cause of our salvation: "Salvation is of the LORD," per Jonah 2:9; Heb. 10:38; Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11.  That's what repentance is:  a totally and radicalized change of heart from the inside out.  We make a complete turnaround after God works repentance in our hearts by grace and transforms us (repentance is granted according to Acts 5:31; 11:18; and 2 Tim. 2:25).

Only man has been given a choice to obey or disobey God, animals do not have this liberty of will.  Augustine said in a maxim that we are "free, but not freed"; meaning we have an independent will, but no liberty to exercise it-we do have a will of our own.  Why then is our will in bondage and the slave of sin and must be set free just like the rest of our soul?  We are not born free, but slaves to sin, and our whole heart is desperately wicked and deceitful according to Jer. 17:9!  God is the only Being that is totally free and can do His will without intervention or interference.  He is the unmoved mover and uncaused cause, meaning no one or nothing can influence Him or change Him and He alone is the sole primary cause of the cosmos and is the initiator of all events per Eph. 1:11---all things that perspire are orchestrated by Him through Providence.

We cannot come to the Father unless we are called and drawn or wooed by the Holy Spirit (cf. John 6:44, 65).  Matt. 22:14, ESV, says, "For many are called, but few are chosen." This doesn't mean permission to come, but ability--in a state of sin and rebellion and even stubbornness of heart we don't want to come on our own, but must be enticed; what it does mean is that don't have the ability to come to the Father in our state of sin!  We are not unmoved movers (even if we are movers and shakers!), nor uncaused causes, like our God and our faith must be quickened within us by an act of grace (cf. Acts 18:27).

Since our freedom can be changed and is changeable, in a state of flux, it is limited and influenced by God, therefore, not totally free--we don't negotiate our salvation from a point of neutrality but are biased and all our inclinations to good and to love God have left us in the Fall of Adam, with whom we are in solidarity with at birth. God desires all the glory for our salvation and doesn't' want us to have reason to boast as if we willed ourselves into the kingdom (cf. Rom. 9:16).

We must realize that our complete heart (intellect, volition, emotion) is depraved and in need of salvation.  God transforms each of them and gives us the heart to love God (will to obey and mind to know) at salvation.  The Bible speaks quite often about the stubbornness of man's heart and that he is in a state of rebellion--and condemns it in 1 Sam. 15:23, NLT:  "Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols...." Those who claim to have come to God of their own free will probably leave Him of their own free will and all alone too.

None of our freedoms are unlimited; no government allows absolute free speech or right to bear arms--only in restrictions of liberty is their freedom for all protected from the tyranny of the majority. Even God is not free to sin and we won't be either in glory!  In the final analysis, you must decide if you want your will to be saved (which is part of your heart), or you want to remain independent of God (for sin is merely man's declaration of independence from God) and be a spiritual lone ranger or lone wolf.

Salvation is a miracle of transformation of the heart to a new person, and the will is included; God metaphorically takes our "heat of stone" or stubbornness and gives us a "heart of flesh" (cf. Ezek. 36:26) or one inclined to do His will--a litmus test for believers is that we yearn for God's will, for we have denied, relinquished, surrendered, and substituted themselves for Christ, as He lives through us (cf. Gal. 2:20)!   We become "new creations" in Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17)!

We are empowered to live life by the Spirit as our enabler.  God indeed makes the unwilling willing and has the omnipotence to change us from the inside out, not by force though, which would be coercion or determinism or the use of outside forces as though we're puppets on a string or programmed to respond a certain way by an impersonal fate--we never do anything we don't want to do, but God makes us willing--what a concept!

A few words to the wise concerning God's providence over all should suffice:  Our destiny is ultimately in God's hands (Psalm 31:15, HCSB, says, "The course of my life ["of my future" or "of my times" in other versions] is in your power...").  Note that the only will that is free is one that is uncaused and unmoved like God's!  We cannot thwart God's will! As it is written in Job 42:2, ESV, "'I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted."

God's sovereignty is not limited by man's freedom either; it's absolute and total, including every spin of the dice (cf. Prov. 16:33), every ruler (cf. Prov. 21:1), and every molecule being micromanaged and ruled with no room for, and nothing to, chance or happenstance ("... [W]ho works all things according to the counsel of his will" Eph. 1:11, ESV, italics mine).

I do like to ascribe full and complete, absolute sovereignty to God, for what kind of God isn't in control of everything?  This is God's prerogative and right; he's no ruler like the "do-nothing" sovereign of GB--he rules and doesn't just reign (cf. Psalm 22:28)!  Let me close with this caveat from Paul in Romans 9:16, ESV,  "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault?  For who can resist his will?'"  Soli Deo Gloria!

Deferring To Tradition

"... So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God"  (Matt. 15:6, ESV). 
"So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths"  (Col. 2:16, NLT).

The Pharisees were bound by traditions which were merely the rules of men and they manipulated them to avoid doing God's will and obeying His commands.  Even today Catholics defer to tradition and break with Protestants on this issue.  Ever since the Counter-Reformation, at the Council of Trent (1545-63), the Romanists have deemed and valued tradition of equal status and authority with Scripture as the rule of faith--Protestants take issue with this and "dissent, disagree, protest," as they would say.  Traditions are not wrong or evil per se, but only when they controvert or invalidate Scripture.  There's nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas as a tradition, for instance!  We only defer to tradition when it's concordant with Scripture and/or not against sound doctrine.  We need to beware of adding to the Word or subtracting from it!

People basically have four reasons why they act when they don't have faith:  culture (everyone's doing it!); tradition (we've always done it!); reason (it sounds logical and right!); and emotion (it feels right and appropriate!).  Old traditions die hard and it's difficult to even start new ones.  But remember this lesson:  traditions must bow to conviction!  Protestants adhere to the conviction that Scripture alone is the rule of faith, and have made this their rallying cry since the Reformation (sola Scriptura).

We don't give any man authority if it isn't in harmony with the Word--we're all subject to God's Word:  ".... [For] you have exalted above all things your name and your word" (Psalm 138:2, ESV).  It is wrong to base far-fetched teaching on some obscure passage with some private interpretation though, for "no Scripture is of any private interpretation" (cf. 2 Pet. 1:20).  Hebrews 13:9, ESV, says, "Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings...." We must interpret Scripture with Scripture and with the whole analogy of the Word.  The Bible is its own Supreme Court!  We also must observe all inferential and sound reading interpretation rules:  narratives in light of didactive or teaching passages; obscure in light of the clear.  We must interpret it as written:  poetry as poetry; proverbs as proverbs; and narrative or history as such.

And we are not bound to observe all the traditions or commands of Scripture ("We are not under the law, but under grace" according to Romans 6:14; for instance, the Sabbath day observance laws have been rescinded and not applicable for Christians, but were meant for Israel (cf. Ezek. 20:12, 20).  Don't let anyone judge you by your own tradition of a holy day:  Col. 2:16 says this quite plainly.  Each believer should be convinced in his own mind (cf. Rom. 14: 5).  Family traditions are not necessarily forbidden--all tradition doesn't have to be religious!   Soli Deo Gloria!

Faith Has Legs

"For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith God has assigned"  (Romans 12:3, ESV). 
"... [Measuring] yourselves by the faith God has given you..." (Rom. 12:3, NLT, italics mine). 
"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him ... by faith Abraham obeyed..." (Hebrews 11:6, 8, ESV).  
"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race [course], I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7, NKJV, italics mine). 
"... I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3, ESV).
"[F]or we walk by faith, and not by sight"  (2 Cor. 5:7, ESV).

You've probably heard of the cliche that you don't have a leg to stand on; faith is like that as a contrast, it has legs to stand on! We have sound reasons to believe and haven't kissed our brains goodbye or committed intellectual suicide to become Christians!   Having legs implies you intend to go somewhere and are equipped for it, and even ready.  You are either going forward, backward or standing still!  In the walk of faith, you are supposed to be going forward, and not standing or going backward.

Faith is an abstract concept and must be seen to be understood.  It's something you do--, not something you have.  By faith the heroes did this and that in the hall of faith chapter of Hebrews.  Faith is not static or inert,  but active, living, growing and involved--bearing fruit.  Everyone has some kind of faith in something because we are hard-wired that way.  Secularists have faith in science or man's ability to solve his dilemmas and issues.  But it's not the amount of faith that's the vital link, but the object. Small but sincere faith in the right thing will bring results, but even much faith misdirected will be vain and fruitless.  The Israelites had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (cf. Rom. 10:2).  People in the North know there are two kinds of ice, and you can have a lot of faith crossing thin ice and you'll still fall through, but small faith in thick ice will get you from point A to point B.

The whole point of the Christian life is that you must grow in your relationship and mature in Christ, in other words, that you are going somewhere!  A walk with Christ implies you cannot tread water or stand in one place.  Ever heard of the "Nowhere Man" song of The Beatles?  He doesn't know where he's going to and doesn't have a point of view! We are not to wander aimlessly through the Christian life without purpose and meaning, because Christ gives us a reason to live and for our existence to find fulfillment--a more abundant life--some Christians never achieve this because of the so-called rat-race they get tied up with and are never set free spiritually to live victorious Christian lives in the power of the Spirit, not the energy of the flesh.

Faith must be illustrated to be conceived:  suppose I reach into my pocket and pull out something and ask you to tell me what's in my hand.  If you can't guess, let's say for the sake of argument, that I give you a hint that I had coins in my pocket.  Now you say that you believe I have a coin in my hand--that's faith, if I tell you that you're right, you take my word for it and have greater faith, but it's still faith!  Now, let me destroy your faith!  I'll open my hand and show you the coin.  Now you don't have faith anymore, but knowledge--see the difference--faith isn't absolute but has room for doubt and cannot be perfect, but God requires sincere, unfeigned faith, not perfect faith--it's evidence of the unseen (cf. Heb. 11:1)!

Now another illustration:  we must act on, or out, our faith.  If a tightrope walker tells you he can carry you across the rope and you tell him you believe him, that 's not faith unless you are willing to be carried across--you can say you believe, but your decisions may belie your so-called profession; there's a profession of faith or bogus faith, and a reality of faith or saving faith.

We are not rewarded according to our faith (cf. Rom. 2:6)!  We are rewarded according to our deeds and the good works we accomplished through God's Spirit with the faith given by God (cf. Romans 12:3 above). Note that faith is a gift: "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake" (Phil. 1:29, ESV); Peter writes:  "... [To] those who have obtained a faith of equal standing..." (2 Pet. 1:1, ESV).  We cannot boast of what God accomplishes through us (cf. Rom. 15:18; Isaiah 26:12).  God is simply using us as "vessels of honor" to accomplish His divine will and to bring glory to Him (cf. Isaiah 43:7).

Living faith grows and goes somewhere!  If your faith hasn't improved or accomplished something you can doubt it's being genuine and saving faith.  It must be validated by good works. We aren't saved by good works, neither are we saved without them, but saved unto them (cf. Eph. 2:10).   Paul would say, "I'll show you my good deeds by my faith!'  James would counter a complimentary statement:  "I'll show you my faith by my good deeds!"  These two can be distinguished, but not separated.  We are not saved by faith that stands alone.  We are saved by faith alone, but not be a faith that is alone, according to the Reformers' formula!


Antinomians insist that works don't have to accompany saving faith, or they believe we are saved by faith minus works!  No fruit means no faith!  Dead faith doesn't save and the only faith that saves is productive faith doing God's will!  Dead faith isn't profitable for anything and cannot go anywhere.  A person can be sincerely wrong, though sincerity matters, it's not the most vital link to salvation--it's not everything.  We are saved by grace through faith, and our faith is solely a gift of God, not something we conjure up or work up in our own efforts of the flesh. God quickens faith within us!  "So faith comes from hearing, and through hearing, of the word of Christ," (Romans 10:17, ESV), and God opens the heart (cf. Acts 16:14) to respond positively to the gospel, "who through grace had believed" (cf. Acts 18:27, ESV).

Saving faith is obedient and the only authentic test of faith is its obedience and it's always manifest through it, not by experience or emotions, feelings, or ecstasies.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, "Only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes."  Jesus also said that if we love Him we will keep and obey His commands (cf. John 14:21). Faith, it is said, is not believing despite the evidence, but obeying in spite of the consequences!   All faith must be tested for obedience, not emotions!  Some people are just hard-wired differently and are stoical and not demonstrative, even at concerts and sports events, not just worship!

Note that faith is not an end in itself; faith doesn't save, the object of the faith is what matters--Christ saves!  We don't have faith in faith!  When you say, "To defend the faith," you must be talking about the orthodox body of dogma of the Christian religion, not just your own personal faith, we are all called to be defenders of the truth and contenders of the faith (cf. Jude 3), and to be able to have an answer for why we believe, not just know what we believe (cf. 1 Pet. 3:15).  In the end result, it matters more how big your God is than how big your faith is!

The same word is used for faith and faithfulness in the Old Testament Hebrew (e.g., Hab. 2:4, "The just shall walk by faith [faithfulness]").  We must not divorce these two but realize they are juxtaposed and together like a coin with a flip side--they are complimentary! Good works is no substitute for faith, but proof it exists!  True faith always expresses itself!  We show our faith by being faithful to whatever gifts, talents, abilities, opportunities, time, resources, money, relationships, and so forth that are bestowed on us by grace!

Remember the words of Heb. 11:6 that faith is what "pleases" God, we can become emotional, wear our religion on our sleeves, or flaunt our religion, but that doesn't please God, if there is no genuine faith and obedience--even if there is no sentiment, for they don't save, but they will come from a life of faith in the order: fact, faith, then feeling--we must not be feeling-driven or emotionally crippled and dependent!  Jesus didn't say that if you love Him, you'll be on Cloud Nine, but that you'd obey Him!  Faith is a door to eternal life, not the destination:  we "believe in order to understand," for "faith precedes reason," according to Saint Augustine.

In the final analysis, the only happy believer is the serving one and a non-serving believer is a contradiction in terms, for we are saved to serve; even Christ came not to be served, but to serve (cf. Mark 10:45).  At the final audit of our life at the Bema or tribunal (called the Judgment Seat of Christ by some), we will have to give an account of what we did with the faith God gave us, and each is given a portion of faith (cf. Rom. 12:3).

To whom much is given, much is required (cf. Luke 12:48)!  With great faith, comes great responsibility and God will say that His grace is sufficient for us as He did to Paul about His thorn in the flesh (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9).  We must sow to reap, and he who sows sparingly will reap likewise!  We must sow and leave the results to God and focus on faithfulness, not success!

 As Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now canonized and recipient of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, said that God "calls us to faithfulness, not success!" It is said that if you've never made a mistake [failed], you've never made [tried] anything [challenging!]"  Failure doesn't always mean lack of faith or faithfulness.  We must remain faithful to the calling God gave us.  As Peter said, "... [Make] your calling and election sure..." in 2 Pet. 1:10, ESV.  Soli Deo Gloria!  

Forbidden Fruit

"But sin took advantage of this law and aroused all kinds of forbidden desires within me!  If there were no law, sin would not have that power"  (Rom. 8:8, NLT).

God had warned Adam of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as being off-limits, and not to partake of its fruit--i.e., the so-called forbidden fruit.  The very fact of it's being forbidden lured Adam all the more and made it even more desirable to Eve, who was deceived by Satan's deception and lie in the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden. Don't you also wonder why he never ate of the Tree of Life?   Augustine, in his Confessions, tells of eating forbidden (i.e., a stolen pear) fruit as a child and how it became all the more desirable because of that--the Law is likewise something that foments what it forbids.

We are all equally to blame for Adam's sin and cannot pin it on him alone--we would've done the same thing if we had been in his shoes. Adam's sin represented all sin and showed utter contempt for God's wisdom, sovereignty, grace, law, and justice, while Adam sought his own wisdom, goodness, and delight, he spurned God's best for getting his own way.  You cannot say that Adam knew what good and evil were, but they were completely innocent and were not choosing evil, but self over God.  That's the essence of sin--putting yourself in God's place and declaring your independence from Him.

Sin is now a virus that affects us all and is our legacy from Adam, as we are all born with solidarity with Adam, whether we want it or not.  We do have a choice to become free in Christ as we acknowledge the truth and lose sin's grip on our lives.  Sin doesn't demonstrate our freedom but shows our slavery.  And that's what sin is: it both alienates and estranges us from God, offends Him, and enslaves us.  We are not born free, but in bondage to sin, and must be set free by the Son (cf. John 8:36). Eve sought the here and now and to doubt God's Word ("Has God indeed said?" cf. Gen. 3:1), and then she doubted disbelieved it; then Satan told a lie and she believed him!  Finally, in an act of her willpower, she disobeyed God's Word and became a sinner--note that doubt is not sin per se, and may only be an element of faith, for no one's faith is perfect or it wouldn't be faith, but knowledge.

Adam got no second chance and dragged all mankind with him down the never-ending spiral of sin and rebellion.  For sin is ultimately a rebellion against God and His Word.  The biggest temptation Eve faced was that she wanted to be "as God."  She wanted to be a god, so to speak, and not godly--a sin that even Christians are guilty of to this day.  The theological axiom of Mormonism is that we can become gods, and this heresy traces itself to the garden and the original sin of Adam and Eve.

Adam's sin had to be atoned for in a multifaceted way:  He had to be redeemed from the slave market of sin with the penalty paid by the blood of Christ; the wrath of God had to be averted in God's temple by the propitiation of Christ on the cross; the righteousness of Christ had to be exchanged in God's court of justice and justice or giving sin its due had to be rendered; the relationship and fellowship with God had to be restored in Christ's act of reconciliation with His family.  Salvation can be seen as the sum total of all these events taking place in God's throne room and Jesus being the Savior of mankind securing the Father's plan and purpose and being applied by the Holy Spirit on our behalf.

As a consequence of Adam's sin, we are all born in a state of sin and inherit Adam's guilt and have lost all inclination to good, though we remain human with the ability to make choices; however, we make the wrong choices!   Our freedom is a curse since we choose evil and God must work grace in our hearts to bring us to repentance and faith (cf. 2 Tim. 2:25; Acts 18:27).  We don't need free will to be saved, but wills made free!  Adam had the ability not to sin and chose sin.  As humans before salvation, we have the inability not to sin, or all we can do is sin!

Upon salvation, we are being saved from the power of sin and have the ability not to sin and the ability to sin by our own choices.  Salvation is threefold:  we are saved from the penalty of sin by the crucified Christ; from the power of sin by the living Christ; and the presence of sin by the coming Christ.  Our salvation is past, present, and pending!  We are saved, being saved, and to be saved!   Our past is forgiven, our present given meaning and our future secured by salvation began in eternity past, completed in time, and looking forward to eternity.

Some think it's unfair to be charged with Adam's sin (by the disobedience of one person but we are in Adam who gets a bad rap).  We would've done the very same thing if we'd been in the Garden of Eden too! The point of all this is that "we are not ignorant of his [Satan's] devices"(2 Cor. 2:11) and know his trickery and schemes:  mind games; lies; deception; propaganda; sensual pleasure; lust or inordinate desire for anything, including power, riches, or fame; psychological warfare--indeed the devil fights dirty and will resort to any means to get our attention away from God, God's work, and Word, and unto ourselves, and he knows our weaknesses!  His tactics are not original, but he's basically an imitator and can only distort and debase the truth, and mask a little truth with a lot of error--for no heresy or false religion is completely void of truth; they all have an element of truth and just enough to inoculate you to the truth.

Adam turned his back on God's light and sought his own, we second that motion as we seek our own way and refuse to see the light. Erich Fromm, the famed psychologist, wrote a book, You Shall Be As Gods," in which he denied the existence of evil (and that sin is all in your head) and that you can make yourself out to be your own god; however, we either trust in God, or we make ourselves gods--it's that plain.

Adam was tricked into thinking he'd become free by his independent act of defiance, but he became a slave without any control over sin--he lost all inclination towards good and God.  He didn't break God's law, but God's law broke him!  He didn't become more human, but less of a man, for when we lose godliness, we lose true manhood too. The measure of a man is in fulfilling his relationship with God, not in human standards and opinions.  We must be what we are meant to be and not "quarrel with [our] Maker" (cf. Isaiah 45:9).

A lot of people assume that Adam chose to do evil, but he was innocent, not cognizant of evil and his eyes were only opened after his sin when he became self-conscious.  The epitome of sin is selfishness, or putting yourself first and becoming self-centered, believing that it's all about you.  They really made the choice between self and God, and in the process loss consciousness of God and became self-conscious in return and aware of their own shame and guilt.  Guilt is cognizance of wrongdoing and is the sign that we know we've done something evil or sinful.  Only in Christ can we become free from guilt by the atoning work of Christ on the cross, shedding His blood on our behalf. Just like Eve bought into Satan's rationalization, people today buy into today's secular worldview because of their ignorance of the Bible, as Eve doubted and didn't know the Word of God.

As we are born, we are sinners by birth, by nature, and by choice--we confirm ourselves in sin and the theologians say we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners (it's our very nature!).  We duplicate Adam's sin and verify that we would've done the same thing, having been there ourselves--we would've joined hands with Eve in rebellion too.

Adam was given just one simple rule to obey; and if he had been given no rules, it would not be possible to know if he was obedient to God willingly--he would be but a pawn of God.  Given the gift of choice, there had to be a test of his will to see where his loyalties would be.  Adam failed the test and we would've too, even in a perfect environment of the Garden of Eden.  Israel was given the Decalogue and promised to obey it, yet they fell short; however, the Law was not given to obey but to convict and show that they fall short of God's ideal and must be saved by grace, not obedience to the Law.  The Law was merely given to show we can't keep it and need to plead for mercy, not attempt obedience in the efforts of the flesh.

Adam committed every sin in the book by partaking of the proverbial apple in what is known as "Edengate," and it was the prototype sin extraordinaire:  "he rejected God authority; he doubted God's goodness; he disputed God's wisdom; he repudiated God's justice; he contradicted God's trustworthiness; he spurned God's grace" [source unknown, but well-known]. Adam's cover-up was also what we do when we run away from God and can't admit our sin and call a spade a spade in confession.  Our guilt can only be expiated by God's grace and sacrifice on our behalf as God clothed Adam and Eve to cover their shame.

A word to the wise is sufficient:  Eve didn't sin by doubting God's Word, nor by believing Satan, but only in disobeying God--doubt is only an element of faith, and God doesn't expect perfect faith without any doubt whatsoever, but sincere, unfeigned faith--for it isn't the amount of faith that saves or keeps, it's the object of it that saves and keeps! 

In sum, we can rejoice that we are not "under the Law, but under grace [cf. Rom. 6:14]," and that nowhere in the New Testament are believers told to obey the Law--we are under a higher law, the law of love, and we serve out of gratitude, not an obligation, as a "therefore," not an "in order to," that is we want to, we don't have to anymore!   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Religious Creature...

"He [the Antichrist] shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action ["will firmly resist him," NIV; "shall be strong, and do exploits," KJV]"  (Daniel 11:32, ESV). 

Man is the only religious creature; i.e., monkeys don't build chapels!  He has been called Homo religiosus (man the religious) or Homo divinus (man the divine) by scholars because of this tendency.  Only man has the will to obey God, the heart to love God, and the mind to know God--as creatures in His image.  Dostoevsky said, "Man cannot live without worshiping something."  It's our nature and what makes us uniquely human.  We are hard-wired or designed for God and can only be happy and fulfilled in God.  Bertrand Russell said, "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless."  Without God, we have no dignity or purpose and we can only find meaning in Him.  There's a void or "God-shaped vacuum" in man's heart that "only God can fill," according to Blaise Pascal, philosopher-mathematician.  And St. Augustine said, "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in You."

Conventional wisdom would tell you that the more gods you have the better off you are, and this was the assumption of ancient man, who worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses. The Israelites had resorted to henotheism, or that there are many so-called gods, but the LORD is the Most High.  They believed, for instance, that Baal was the fertility God, (flocks, field, and family) but the LORD was the God of their army and of victory in war (the Lord of Hosts).   But the Bible tells us that if we have God we have all we need and are complete in Him.

Man is empty without God and cannot live abundantly apart from His plan for our lives.  Jesus came to give us this complete and abundant life of fulfillment.  Man has always believed in a higher power and archeology proves this as fact, the belief in God is not mere superstition but universal--even to the point of having some sort of Creator-God or unknown God--and that man's concept of God has devolved, not evolved through the ages.  But we are to have no other gods before Him and acknowledge no other Savior (cf. Hos. 13:4).

Psychologists have tried to rationalize our faith in God as fear of the unknown, a throwback to our need for a father-figure, a method of evolutionary advantage, a mental virus, or as a system of contentment in hard times.  They think we invented God, as Voltaire said, "Man created God in his own image."  God is, by definition, the highest Being that can be (imagined or real). There can be no other so-called "necessary being," uncaused cause, or unmoved mover--someone began the chain link of cause and effect ad infinitum, since eternal regression is mathematically and philosophically inconceivable and impossible.  It has been proved now that man's earliest worship of God was of a monotheistic tradition, and not polytheistic, as first thought.  Man originally entertained the idea of the one true God, as Scripture unequivocally posits and depicts.

It should be noted that man is the only creature capable of being bored with himself and unable to entertain himself when he is down in spirits.  Boredom is meant for a reason, to show us we need God and to find purpose in life-- with purpose you seldom get bored!  This is only to show us that we need God in our lives for completion.

It is a fact that you can be religious without subscribing to a religion; Secular Humanism is a kind of religion without God, trying to be good without God's help or for the glory of God.  It is a proven fact psychologically that religious people tend to be happier than those who are not, and when we're not grounded in the truth we become highly superstitious and make up our own religion!  We all need to be set free by the truth and only the Son can do this (cf. John 8:32, 36).

It is a proven fact that society needs religion to maintain law and order and a precept of morality:  George Bernard Shaw said that no nation has survived the loss of its gods. Cicero saw religion's value in keeping public morals.  John Adams said, "... Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...."  G. K Chesterton said our nation has the "soul of a church!"  Eisenhower recognized the need of religion to maintain our way of life, and any religion would do--the point is that man needs religious and moral guidance to keep evil at bay.  The Pax Romana (200-year peace of Rome) worked for this purpose until Christianity changed its moral roots.

Real worship is the offering of ourselves to God; however, when we surrender our resources and ourselves to anything or anyone else in devotion, it's a form of idolatry, taking from God what is His due, for He alone is worthy.  True worship of our Lord is defined as being Christ-centered, God-focused, Spirit-controlled-and-led when we get our eyes off ourselves and onto Jesus who alone is the worthy Lamb of God, our Savior--we must draw the line at homage like Daniel!

In the final analysis, the only cure for the sin of idolatry is to have an adequate concept of God, not putting Him in a box or making Him one-dimensional, and knowing your God personally and not just second-hand.  Soli Deo Gloria!

Finishing Well

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus..." (Heb. 12:1-2, ESV). 

As Paul's swan song (2 Timothy) expressed: to get back his manuscripts while he was under house arrest;  his cry of exultation was, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race [course], I have kept the faith," (2 Tim. 4:7, ESV). We are all to run so as to win (following the rules) and not be encumbered with the worries of the mundane in our race, just like a soldier is unconcerned of civilian affairs.  Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, and our citizenship is in heaven (cf. John 18:36; Phil. 3:20, ESV).  Don't get too comfortable in this world, for we are mere pilgrims passing through to the heavenly city.

It doesn't matter how well you start if you don't finish well.  Our reward is not according to our faith, but our works, what we did with it (cf. Rom. 2:6; Psa. 62:12; Prov. 24:12); how we apply it.  The race set before us is not a sprint but a marathon, and endurance matters; however, there is the danger of spiritual burnout if we don't know how to balance our life and keep the main thing the main thing, keeping our eyes on Jesus (cf. Heb. 3:1: 12:2). Walking with Christ gives us the power to do anything in the will of God (cf. Phil. 4:13).

Col. 2:6 tells us that just as we "have received Christ as Lord, so walk in Him" as Lord.  Lordship decisions are not a one-time matter at salvation, but progressive as we are being constantly filled with the Spirit (cf, Eph. 5;18) and keeping on the straight and narrow.  Mother Teresa, now canonized, who also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, said that God doesn't "call us to success, but to faithfulness!"  The key is that we are faithful in the little God gives us, not to compare our ministry or mission to others. We all are unique in our calling and gifts.

Jesus did say that he who is faithful in little shall be faithful in much!  And to whom much is given, much is required.  An example is the widow who gave two lepta (copper coins) and Jesus commended her as having given more than anyone in the worship meeting.  Saint Theresa announced she was building a convent and was asked how much she had; when she told them only twelve pence, they said, "Not even Saint Theresa can do much with twelve pence!"  The reply:  "But Theresa and God can do anything with twelve pence!"

The important idea to bear in mind, is not to be conformed to the image of the world (i.e., the rat race, the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, etc.) and not to be achievement-oriented, for God doesn't want our achievements, but our obedience, and us!  What matters is not how much of the Spirit we seem to have but our obedience--how much the Spirit has of us!  Bear in mind:  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that "only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes."  Christianity is not about man's achievements then, but God's accomplishment on our behalf--we are to let God work through us (Hos. 14:8; Isaiah 26:12; Rom. 15:18) as "vessels of honor."

Jesus warned of the builder who didn't count the cost and had to abandon his building, and so earnest believers must be aware of what they are getting into--a life of self-denial, devotion, a discipline.  Jesus never encouraged lackadaisical, lukewarm, halfhearted, or insincere followers.  The reason other religions are so popular, namely Buddhism, is that you don't die to yourself.   In our race we are not in competition with each other, in the sense so as to compare ourselves with one another: who is the best Bible pastor/teacher in town are (or best exegete, biblicist, even Bible expositor, etc.)  God will level the playing field--who is faithful matters--results are up to God!

We all have our own calling and gift to present unto the Lord in a life of obedience, following Him wherever He may lead.  Maturity is never measured by emotion or feeling, though they are present even if one is stoical, not demonstrative, nor is it measured by ecstasies or experiences (according to Oswald Chambers), including dreams, visions, including audible or visual encounters, but solely by a life of obedience and faithfulness, which will be tested by fire to see if we grow bitter or better.  It is vital to know that the Christian life is not a contest to see who dies with the most toys, publishes the most books, preaches the most sermons, gives the most to missions or charity, and so forth, but "obedience to the heavenly vision," doing God's work and will, as it were, like Paul delineated our walk.

The song by ABBA, "Winner Takes It All," is a fallacious worldview since Jesus owns it all and shares the victory with us, we shall all have the opportunity to win an imperishable wreath that won't fade away, and a crown, if you will, for rewards of faithfulness. Remember one's last words are very telling of one's life work!   Famous last words:  Good intentions; poor follow-through!  Corrie ten Boom said, "Jesus is victor!" for us!  The Preacher of Ecclesiastes renders some timely, germane words of divine wisdom to conclude with:  "Finishing is better than starting..." (7:8, NLT);  "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all"  (9:11, ESV).  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Universal Fatherhood Of God

German Lutheran theologian, and skeptic of the supernatural, Karl Gustav Adolf von Harnack, "reduced Christianity to two essential affirmations, the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man..." (according to R. C. Sproul).  Using the German term Wesen  (essence) to depict the sum total of  Christianity and epitome of the gospel message.  Catholics also generally believe in the basic, inherent goodness of man, denying total depravity and assuming a so-called semi-Pelagian view of man being only half sick and able to earn merit towards salvation.

The opposite was taught by Augustine of Hippo, who said that man is incapable of anything but sinning (non posse non peccare, or unable not to sin).  Man's goodness is as "filthy rags" according to Isaiah in Isaiah 64:6 and Hosea says our fruit comes from God (cf. Hos. 14:8).  Indeed, all we have done in the Spirit that can please God is enabled by the Holy Spirit and God gets the credit and glory:  Paul wouldn't "venture but to speak of anything except what Christ had accomplished through him]" (cf. Rom. 15:8).  Isaiah confesses:  "...you have done for us all our works" (Is. 26:12, ESV).  Man cannot boast in God's presence--even our faith is a gift and we believe only through grace, the unmerited favor of God (cf. Acts 18:27).  God as Father is the covenant name of God for Christians, as their prerogative.

Jesus made it clear to the Pharisees that they were of the devil and not children of God!  Only when we believe in Christ do we have the right to become the children of God (cf. John 1:12), implying that we weren't before.  John says in 1 John 3:1 what manner of love this is, to be called the children of God. 1 John 5:19, NLT, says:  "We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one."  The highest privilege we have as believers is to be adopted into the royal family of God as heirs of the Father and joint-heirs of Christ.  Only as believers in Christ do we earn this privilege and "are family!" as "members one of another."

Even today some generally believe man is basically good and we are all to believe in the goodness of man; Scripture teaches the opposite: man is inherently wicked through and through and there is no vestige or island or righteousness or goodness left in him--he's totally corrupted or radically sick, though not utterly depraved or as depraved as possible, he's totally depraved in the sense that every part of his being is corrupt and incapable of good. And  Jesus sees through our veneer and knows the real us, that we all have a dark side like the moon doesn't expose that no one sees.  This is God's estimation of man, not man's!  God doesn't grade on a curve!

The fact is that we all have feet of clay and "we sin because we are sinners, we are not sinners because we sin," the theological axiom goes.  "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"  (Gen. 6:5, ESV).  Man doesn't know his own condition and Carl Gustav Jung, a one-time student of Freud who broke away, and a Christian psychologist who worked with AA, said that "man is an enigma to himself," and "the central neurosis of man is emptiness."   As Scripture paints him:  "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"  (Jer. 17:9, ESV); "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot"  (Rom. 8:7, ESV).  The Law shows our crookedness (cf. Rom. 3:20, Phillips).  The purpose of the Law is to show we cannot keep it! 

We cannot just turn over a new leaf and reform ourselves:  "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?  Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil"  (Jer. 13:23, ESV).  The point is that we all share solidarity with Adam in his sin, and we cannot clean up our act, but need the grace to change us from the inside out as God grants us repentance and faith by grace working in us.  We are very bad, but not too bad to be saved, we are as bad off as we can be, but not as bad as we can be--God restrains evil to a certain degree.

Our radical degradation is in toto and permeates to our core being--our complete heart, which includes our intellect, volition, and emotion.  We are more than flawed beings, we are incapable of pleasing God in anything we do and cannot merit or even prepare ourselves for salvation.  We all like to say we have our shortcomings and like to compare ourselves with paradigms of evil like Adolf Hitler and say that we are saints if you look at them, but we are all in the same boat--God levels the playing field! We may see ourselves as run-of-the-mill sinners, but in God's eyes, we are totally depraved in our sin state.  The adages "to err is human" and "nobody's perfect" take on a new dimension in light of the Bible and man's consensus.

The reason most Christians believe in the basic goodness of man is the philosophy and worldview of Secular Humanism, which promotes the goodness of man, dethroning God and deifying man in the process, trying to make a name for mankind while believing God is irrelevant and that we don't need Him anymore, even if He does exist.  Why am I painting such a pessimistic picture of mankind?  C. S. Lewis said in a famous catch-22 that we must "see how bad we are to be good, and we don't know how bad we are till we've tried to be good."

We do a man no favor by being optimistic about his fate, nature, and ultimate Judgment Day and reckoning, and we must make him realize like Jonathan Edwards preached in 1741 the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," from Deut. 32:35 (KJV) to inaugurate the Great Awakening:  "... [Their] foot shall slip in due time; the day of their calamity is at hand...."   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Uniqueness Of Our Faith

NB:  Every faith or religion is unique but Christianity stands out as one of a kind that contrasts with all others and really isn't even religion by some definitions.  Read and just check out all the differences. 

Some venture to compare Christianity with other world religions and put them in the same category of being merely a faith.  Christianity may rightly be called a faith because that virtue is so vital to its doctrine of salvation by grace.  Christianity is vastly superior and different to the other major faiths if one looks beyond the ethics--for they all teach doing good deeds.  Even George Lucas has concluded that all religions are true--this couldn't possibly be right since they are often mutually exclusive or contradictory and deny what the other proclaims (e.g., Islam denies that God is love or that you can know God!).

People wrongly believe that the Golden Rule or some ethical code is the essence of Christianity--some say their religion is the Sermon on the Mount!  This is a superficial observation that just looks at ethics or morals and not the faith or dogma that demands it.  It is true that faith without works is dead and cannot save, and true faith generates good deeds; we are not saved by good works, though; however, we are not saved without them either, and we are saved unto good works!   But Christianity is not against good works, just those done in the energy of the flesh, e.g., for the applause of man, and for the wrong motive--to gain the approbation of God.

I intend to show that Christianity is a one-of-a-kind faith, and cannot even properly be called "religion."  For religion seeks to reach up to and please God, while Christianity's God reaches down to man and initiates the relationship.  He makes the atonement and reconciles us, we don't offer Him our sacrifices to appease His wrath, mollify, or humor Him.  Religion simply says "Do!" Christianity replies simply "Done!" Salvation is a fait accompli or a done-deal!  The transaction is complete and paid for by God Himself!  We accept Christ's work on our behalf, to do what we couldn't accomplish, to pay a debt we couldn't pay when He didn't owe it.  God is not obliged to save anyone, or it would be justice, but He chooses to save by grace through the non-meritorious virtue of faith, which is a gift to be used to take that step of faith into the light, out of the darkness of sin, alienation, and bondage.

In religion, one seeks salvation by good behavior or good deeds, and one only hopes his good deeds outweigh his bad ones on Judgment Day.  In a works religion, you can never know if you have worked enough or achieved enough--Christianity is not about man's achievement, but God's accomplishment.  You can never be assured of salvation in religion, while Christianity alone offers assurance.  They both believe in good works, but in religion, they are an "in-order-to" behavior, in Christianity works are a "therefore."  We don't do them because we are obligated, but want to.

Actually, this all adds up to religion being a "do-it-yourself" proposition, or a lifting up of yourself by your own bootstraps, like saying, "God helps those who help themselves!"  This is a lie, and the qualification for salvation is to admit you're lost and helpless at God's mercy and you come to Him in faith and repentance.  The condition for salvation is to realize you're not qualified and can do nothing to ingratiate yourself with God--not good works, philosophy, religion, ritual, or morality!

Religion is, therefore, the best man can come up with, but God gave us Christianity by revelation and intervention into history.  People have tried religion and have found it falls short (religion may even work for some, but that's isn't the test of truth).  But Christianity isn't true because it works, it works because it's true!  Christianity is a revealed religion--the myth come true, as someone said, and no one would've thought this up. One spiritual seeker said to a preacher that he had tried religion for five years and it didn't work--the preacher replied he had tried religion for 15 years and it didn't work, then he tried Christianity!  It's an insult to tell the believer that he "found religion," for what he really found is a Savior to meet all his spiritual needs and to fulfill his life and make it more abundant.

Christianity is the religion of miracles and without them, it would fade into oblivion.  Take the miracles out and Christ would be but a footnote in history!   You can remove miracles from other faiths and their religion stays intact--not so with ours.  The problem with miracles is that they only bring about the desire for more miracles!  Miracles don't produce faith, but faith miracles!    Israel was shown many miracles and still rebelled (cf. Psalm 78:32), and Jesus did many signs and they "would not believe," despite them (cf. John 12:37).

Christianity is a faith of history and over 25,000 archaeological digs have verified its references.  Not once has an artifact controverted a biblical reference.  What's so sad though, is that if there's ever a difference in opinion between secular and religious scholars, the world buys into what the secular one says, because they believe religious scholars are biased.  If the Bible has never been proven wrong and has time and again proven reliable, why start doubting it?  The burden of proof is on the person objecting to the validity of a document, and legally they would have to disprove and discredit the Bible's authority and not automatically assume it's dubious. Christianity is a religion of facts, and the Christian with faith need not fear the facts--the skeptic should.  The Bible isn't a "once-upon-a-time" tale but based in history, like no other faith.  Jesus is a historical, not mythical or legendary figure!  Our God is not only the God of history but the very one who orchestrates it all to His will (cf. Eph. 1:11).  History is indeed headed toward culmination at the Second Advent of Christ to conclude time as we know it.  Either the resurrection was the "biggest hoax," according to Josh McDowell, or the most wonderful event known to man--there's no room for any middle ground!

Christianity is the religion of salvation since it alone offers the world a Savior that we must be saved through and He did it all for us, with the gift of salvation ready to be received.  There is only one Savior (cf. Hos. 13:4) and one way of salvation (cf. Acts 4:12).  Man is in a state of rebellion against God:  The Bible properly diagnoses man's problem and dilemma as the sin question and settles it by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  "[H]ow shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" (Heb. 2:3, ESV); there are severe consequences, and man is responsible to God for rejecting what he does know (cf. Rom. 1:28).  Remember, in a works religion, you are just never sure of your salvation, but Christianity teaches assurance is possible.

Christianity is the faith of prophecy and no other religion's god can tell you the future, while the Bible has over 2,000 predictive prophecies that were fulfilled (333 in Christ's first advent alone), and this is not just a few lucky guesses!  Muhammad tells no prophecy in the Koran, except the self-fulfilling one where he promises to return to Mecca.  The one and only true God knows and tells us the future before it happens.  Not one prophecy has been proven wrong!

Christianity is a faith of grace, a foreign concept to other faiths.  In other religions, one earns his salvation by merit or good deeds.  Faith is unmerited favor; we don't earn it, can't pay it back, and don't deserve it in the first place!  This concept is unique to Christianity and denied dogmatically by other faiths who believe in legalism and salvation by works alone.  With grace, one can be assured of his salvation and isn't dependent on the value and merit of his works for assurance.

The biggest contribution to religion though is probably that Christians address God as Father, and are considered the children of God.  We are adopted into God's royal family and have the honor and privilege of being "family."  We have the right to become the children of God by virtue of faith in Christ as we receive Him as Lord and Savior, even believing in His name (cf. John 1:12).

Lastly, of the contrasts, the Christian life is not just a list of dos and don'ts, but a vital and growing relationship with the Father and the Son by the power of the Spirit.  We grow in faith and our "chief aim is to glorify [God] and enjoy Him forever" (cf. The Westminster Shorter Catechism).  Christians share in the very nature of God and reflect His glory (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4; 2 Cor. 3:18).  The goal and mission is to know God and to make Him known respectively!  Our biblical mandate:  "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;.." (Hos. 6:3, ESV).

In the final analysis, we are not saved by service, but unto service (cf. Eph. 2:10, saying, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.").   The conclusion of the matter is that there may be an element of truth in every religion (enough error to be dangerous and inoculate one to the real thing), but the one in which is the personification of the absolute Truth with a capital T, and not a fraud or imitation, is Christianity alone!   Soli Deo Gloria!

In Beginning, God

"Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is useless."--Bertrand Russell, atheist mathematician and philosopher 
"Do you think we are mere animals?  Do you think we are stupid?  (Job 18:3, NLT).

Or, "IN THE BEGINNING GOD...."   It all began with God.   Athanasius said that the only system of faith that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point!  We must not start with man and explain God, or even attempt to explain away God.  There are only two possible explanations for reality and the world as we know it:  God created it; it evolved and just happened.  Secularist scientists believe that given enough time and chance, anything can happen with matter and energy as the input.

But some things will never happen no matter how much opportunity: could a tornado fly through a junkyard (even if the whole universe were filled with them) and assemble a Boeing 747?  This is called by some (namely, Sir Fred Hoyle) "junkyard mentality."  Monkeys pounding on typewriters forever could never compose a Shakespearean sonnet, even if given eternity to do it.  The chances of life arising by chance are like drawing a six on a die 5 million times consecutively, or like a blind man solving Rubik's cube--absolutely impossible.

What evolution did (and it is the most successful theory every postulated because of its impact on society and scientific thought), was give secularists a way to explain the universe without God in the picture.  Now they can be intellectually fulfilled without believing in God, which used to be the unquestioned default position.  We must begin with God and explain the universe, not begin with man and explain Him away!  Contrary to humanist thought, man is not the measure of all things.

Let me cite a famous philosophical maxim from Rene Descartes, the father of modern rationalism:  "I think, therefore I am."  This is erroneous for several reasons:  Only God can rightly say, "I am!" We can believe we exist, but knowing by virtue of self-consciousness is circular reasoning, and begs the question of how you can know anything for sure--all knowledge is contingent!  Augustine posited that all knowledge begins in faith; he said, "I believe in order to understand."  Just like a child learns things initially by faith. You must assume something you cannot prove to know anything!  We all have some presupposition we are willing to accept without proof.  However, we are always in a state of flux and are becoming something, while God is self-existent and needs no change, for He is already perfect, and cannot change for the worst because He is perfect.

Descartes was right in saying that thinking is the origin, but he was mistaken, to begin with, man or himself; he should begin with God.  Thinking does prove a thinker, though; a thinker precedes thought and thought requires a thinker.  But we were thoughts in God's mind before we were even born.  How does he know that God isn't thinking through him and using him, and how can Descartes conclude he has an independent thought separate from God and isn't merely a machine taking dictation.  God is the origin of all thought!


To Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, to think requires a thinker and that means he exists, but even to doubt he is thinking is a thought and requires a thinker; he concludes one cannot think and not think in the same relationship or manner at the same time so as not to violate the law of noncontradiction, the first law of being.  Without Him, there would be no thought (Logos means "expressed thought" or revelation), because God is the sole primary cause of the cosmos (causa prima).  We are all in the process of becoming, and all becoming requires causation; God is not becoming but merely is in the absolute sense of being that cannot change.  God is the uncaused cause, which by definition is also self-existent; there cannot be an uncaused effect!

Everything has its genesis in Him.  Scientists are always trying to come up with a "theory of everything," a "God-particle" that solves the universe's complexity, reconciling the known forces of nature.  Parmenides, the Greek philosopher of antiquity and forerunner of Socrates, said, "Whatever is, is!"  This is not nonsensical but the origins of contemplating God's nature, which is immutable and cannot change for the better or the worse, since He's is a being (by definition perfect).  Something cannot be and become at the same time; if it is in the absolute sense of God is, it cannot change or not be.  This was his understanding of the first law of being:  the law of noncontradiction.

We say that God is and was and ever will be--He cannot change.  God is self-existent, which violates no laws of science, logic, nor of reason, while we depend on someone or something and had an origin.  The law of causality or cause and effect says that everything that begins to exist has a cause, and something cannot be its own cause.  God is no effect and didn't begin to exist, being eternal without beginning, and therefore has no cause.  God just is and is the only Being who can say, "I am."

There is no such thing in reality as a God-hypothesis, but God is the necessary Being for anything else to exist--everything else is contingent on something, being in time, having a beginning, and to simply say that there is an endless series of finite efficacious causes is nonsense as well as silly, because logically, infinite regress is impossible--there had to be a beginning!  The Bible speaks of our beginning since we are captive to the time/space continuum, but God has no beginning, being the creator of time/space/matter.  There would be no time without space and matter, which He created, and time is merely the corollary of matter and space.  In theological circles they say God is "above and beyond," or transcendent, but they are merely quibbling about His address; however, He has no physical address in space that we can access but lives in another dimension or in other dimensions.  Even if we searched the universe we wouldn't find Him, for He created the universe and is transcendent or above and separate from it.

The first words of Scripture reveal that God has a plan, is in control, and that everything is going according to plan; God cannot fail and has all power over His creation.  We owe everything to God and everything had its origin in God.  Don't jump to the conclusion that everything had a beginning!  If you do, there would've been a time when nothing existed, and there's the self-evident adage that out of nothing, nothing comes (in Latin ex nihilo, nihil fit).  There must be something or someone who had no beginning and didn't begin to exist or there would be nothing now; because there is something now, there must be something eternal!  God is therefore called this so-called "necessary being."

The universe had a beginning, scientists now are nearly all in agreement about the Big Bang (even professor Steven Hawking of Oxford University is aboard).  If there was a beginning, there had to be a Beginner, by logical conclusion.  According to the laws of cosmology, things with a beginning don't just happen by themselves, but are caused--something caused the Big Bang, by deduction. Who pulled the trigger? And more vital: who programmed or dialed all the universal constants of the universe into it, so that it was fine-tuned for life support somewhere?  Explosions by themselves are pure energy and random energy, not usable or kinetic energy, which requires intelligence as input.  Photosynthesis is an example of a plant turning the suns random energy into stored, usable energy.

The missing ingredient to the Big Bang is intelligence or God's mind!  The universe, according to Einstein, seems like one vast mathematical equation of a "Pure Mathematical Mind."  Scientists believe that someday they will be able to explain everything in the cosmos, but this is not the same as sustaining it.  We will not become gods by understanding, but only prove that it contains an intelligent input by God no less.  The universe is one vast thought of God, for John 1:1 says that "in the beginning was the Word," or the expressed thought of God!

There aren't many possibilities for explaining the universe:  In the beginning God; in the beginning matter/energy; in the beginning no God; in the beginning nothing!  We will never know anything for sure unless we begin with God and don't leave Him out of the equation (cf. Prov. 1:7).  The only one that makes any sense if the first premise!  Pure energy has no intelligence and no plan or design, as we see evident in creation.  A design entails a Designer!  If there was a time with nothing, we couldn't have anything now!

If there was no God then, there would be none now either (unless you want to believe God evolved), but this is not in the domain of science to speculate about, just like ethics isn't (you cannot repeat, measure, control, observe, or test God), because God is not visible, audible, nor tangible, cannot be put into a test tube and there can be no laboratory conditions to experiment.  Let's say that with infinite time anything could happen as a given; then if the universe is infinitely old, wouldn't everything be perfect by now as a foregone conclusion?

The more they learn about the origin of the universe the more astronomers believe in God and find that He is the only explanation without committing intellectual suicide--keeping their intellectual integrity intact.  It's time we stop asking questions and start to look for answers, and the Bible is the only reliable source of revealed information.  There is a reason the Bible is self-attesting; if it appealed to some source for authentication, it wouldn't the final arbiter of all truth!  Our religion is a revealed one, not one thought of by man and there were no eyewitnesses to creation, so we need revelation from God!

The Bible doesn't begin, "Once upon a time!" God didn't create the universe for something to do--He wanted to express Himself.  As an example, God takes the initiative and cannot be anticipated.  We begin with God because, where you start virtually always determines where you'll end up.  For instance, secularists assume design is impossible, and conclude there's no design.  They won't let a divine foot in the door.  Purpose is a dirty word to them and the cosmos shows design and purpose at all levels, molecular to a galaxy.  Science assumes there's order in the universe and it's predictable with laws of nature.  The Big Bang was a one-time event and there were no eyewitnesses, we can only know by revelation, and, of course, this theory only begs the question of who pulled the trigger and got the ball rolling.  The theory of an eternal universe is untenable and scientists generally accept this theory of the Big Bang now.

We must be careful, though, to come to the conclusion that we will only believe what science can prove; not all knowledge is in the realm of science (ethics, for one example--you cannot measure 2 lbs. of justice or 3 ft. of love!).  Evolution was the alternative explanation of reality to creation, which was originally a working hypothesis, then championed as theory, then touted as unquestioned scientific fact by academics and scientists alike.  However, we know as a fact that pure energy explodes and doesn't have a plan, beauty, or design--we need the missing ingredient of intelligence to harness energy for productive use.

And so we see that the opening words of Genesis are the basis and foundation of all Christian worldview and dogma, since nothing can create itself, but something can rationally, scientifically, and reasonably be self-existent, therefore God becomes this "necessary being," for if everything had a beginning, there would be a time with nothing existing, and that is illogical (ex nihilo, nihil fit, or, out of nothing, nothing comes).  The only two possibilities are mind over matter or matter over mind--which created which?  This is not just spiritual or religious dogma, but philosophical and scientific reality.  You must start with God in the reckoning, for He is the moral center of the universe; worldviews go awry deifying man and dethroning God with no anchor or standard to live by.

In summation, we realize that there's a reason that the Bible is self-attesting and appeals to no authority, and makes no apology for God or attempts to prove Him, but unapologetically assumes Him and calls those that don't fools--if the Bible appealed to science, for instance, science would be the ultimate authority!  The whole purpose and point of there being a beginning is that there was a Beginner--that's why the secularist has a hard time admitting the truth of the beginning.     Soli Deo Gloria!