worship – Authentic Hope for Answers

Maybe some think that my referencing Christianity and the Bible as the source of true and valid answers shows disrespect for other religions. Why not turn to them instead?

Apparently there are about 4,000 religions in the world – a statistic that reveals humankind’s innate religious disposition. In every country people discern there must be some Higher Power, some transcendent Reality, some Deity. Allied to this intuition is the reflex that God must be the fount of all goodness and justice, and that we, by contrast are not totally good and pure. People therefore fear divine judgment – sometimes perceived as the intervention of evil spirits – and they feel the need for God’s protection and his mercy.

The brightest and noblest minds, therefore, giving thought to these uncertainties, propose varying theologies, moral systems, and religious practices with a view to connecting with the Divine, or appeasing the powerful Spirit, or obtaining peace of mind by God’s forgiveness. Christianity deals with these same troubles of the human spirit, but with a radical difference that sets it apart from all other religions of the world. The essence of Christianity’s uniqueness is that while other religions issue from humanity’s deep religious thinkers, the religion of the Bible comes by the initiative and intervention from out of this world – from God himself who became incarnate in Jesus.

I have written an (unpublished) book: “Only Christianity: why Christianity is truly unique and uniquely true”. Interestingly, the 12 or so reasons why the Christian faith is unique correspond to reasons why it is true. Let me give you some of them.

Firstly, Christianity is anchored in history: it is not a mere religious philosophy proposed by man. God’s interventions in history are recorded throughout the Old Testament – Creation, the call of Abraham, the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt, their entry into Canaan, and ultimately of course the absolutely unique incarnation of God in Jesus, his historic life, death, and resurrection, recorded by the apostles. That God thus became incarnate should be known throughout the world!

Secondly, the unique fact of fulfilled prophecy. Blaise Pascal, impressed by this fact, enumerated in his Pensées (§489ff/693ff) numerous Old Testament predictions that were subsequently fulfilled. “I see a number of religions in conflict,” he wrote, “and therefore all false, except one. … But I see Christianity and find its prophecies, which are not something that anyone can do” (§198/693). As a statistician, Pascal found this convincing.

Thirdly, it provides a conscience-appeasing atonement. The sacrifice of Christ, bearing our sins and our punishment, is an historical accomplishment by which alone the requirements of Justice are satisfied. Only the atoning death of the God-man, Jesus Christ, could permit the Righteous God and Judge of all to grant forgiveness in a way that does not undermine the whole justice of the universe.

Fourthly, the promises of Jesus Christ offer a full and perfect remission of all sins – not as earned by one’s religious practice or deserved according to one’s efforts at holiness, as all other religions propose – but by a life-transforming experience of God’s grace that makes believers God’s children.

This conversion experience is also unique to Christianity: it makes saints out of sinners as they receive the risen Christ into their hearts in repentance and by faith.

Finally, Christianity offers a love relationship with a loving God and saviour which is beyond imagining. Believers may be overwhelmed when they grasp the love and faithfulness of their Saviour and the lengths to which he went to save us from hell.

Could any other religion rival all that?

Clive Every-Clayton

If, as I have been maintaining, the real purpose of our existence, and the way to true human fulfilment is to be in harmonious relationship with God, some may wonder which God I am referring to. I have emphasised that God is our Creator who designed our human faculties, making our species originally in his likeness. This first principle comes from the first page of the Hebrew Bible, to which Christians refer as the Word of God.

It follows therefore, as is recorded in the same Bible, that the Creator continued to communicate with mankind, particularly to Abraham to whom the Lord promised offspring through which the whole world would be blessed. Further on in the Scriptures we read of God’s prediction of a coming Messiah, a descendant of King David, and when Jesus began his ministry it was known that he was of the offspring of Abraham and of the tribe of David.

“God so loved the world that he sent his only Son”, said Jesus, referring to himself. He many times referred to God as his Father, specifically as “my Father” and “the Father who sent me” (John 10.29, 5.37). “The Father knows me and I know the Father”, he declared (John 10.15), and he even asserted, “I and the Father are one” (John 10.30).

Jesus’ miraculous life, his unblemished holiness, his profound wisdom, his authoritative declarations about God, his unsurpassed excellence in moral teaching, his love in giving himself as a sacrifice for others, and his powerful resurrection from the dead – all unite to corroborate that here, for one time in history, there appeared on earth a man who had truly come from God.

What are we to make, then, of the gods that religious thinkers have set forth in the innumerable religions of the world? They all testify to the foundational reality about our human species – that we feel deep down that we were made by God and that he must be there. All religions are peoples’ various attempts to get in touch with God, to guess what his nature must be, to propound ways of pleasing him – because it is in our very human nature to discern that there must be a God “behind” this glorious creation.

But how to discover him? God has given signs of his existence in two complementary ways: first in his works of creation, and secondly in his words of revelation. “The heavens declare the glory of God”, wrote the biblical poet (Psalm 19.1). The beauty of nature, the mathematical precision of the universe, and the human conscience disclose something of the greatness, power, and holiness of God. But human minds are darkened in such a way that we cannot correctly perceive – from nature alone – who God is and how we can truly know, love, and worship him.

God therefore revealed himself in clearer ways – by communication in words to those like Abraham and the biblical prophets, notably Moses who received the Ten Commandments from God and saw his glory (Exodus chapters 20, 33 and 34). All this prepared the most astounding and unique revelation of God in world history, when “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law” (Galatians 4.4-5). Having “spoken” in previous ages “through the prophets, God has ultimately “spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1.1-2). Jesus renders us the ultimate service of being the supreme revealer of his Father, “the one true God” who sent him (John 17.3), and also the unique redeemer of mankind.

Clive Every-Clayton

Tag: worship

Why not other religions?

Which God?