Q: What about other religions? What makes Christianity the real and only one? Can’t all religions be true?
A: There are thousands of religions in the world. The one thing they all have in common is that they are all created by men. But what kind of a god is a god that man makes? If we make our god, doesn't it show that we are stronger than our god? I'm so grateful my God, the true God of the Bible, is powerful and created me and all things. I did not create my God; He created me! I love what Psalms 135 and Psalm 96 say about all other gods and religions that are man-made:
"The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens."
Believing in a religion that is made by man isn't just silly because creators are stronger than the things they create, and man would then have to be stronger than God, and what is a god but a Being who is all-powerful? It is also silly because:
All other religions:
-Were founded by a man who died
-Teach you must improve yourself and be good enough to earn their god's favor, when we all continually mess up, no matter how hard we try. None of us can be perfect! That's why the message of Jesus Christ is such good news; Jesus was good enough for us. He lived a perfect life, then died, taking the punishment we should've had to take.
-Have holy books written by men, rather than God. Men lie and cannot be fully trusted. God can never lie.
Wanna see? Let’s take a look at the three main religions of the world and their problems, followed by an explanation of Christianity.
Hinduism:
-Worship thousands of gods
-The Hindu's life goal is to be reunited with the "World Soul"- All people, all of nature and even their gods are part of this World Soul. They believe that they are born from the World Soul into a body and go through continual stages of death and reincarnation until they finally live a perfect life, good enough to be reunited with the World Soul.
-One of the earliest known official religions (founded by Persians in Arya in about 1300 B.C. ) outside of Christianity which was founded at the creation of the world when God made all things, including man.
Problems:
-There cannot be multiple gods. A God must be infinite, and there cannot be more than one infinite Being, because an infinite Being can lack nothing. For there to be different gods, they must be different from each other in some way, and for a god to be different than another, he would have to lack something the other god had, and thus no longer be infinite.
-Cannot be true, because no one can ever live a perfect life. The only One to ever do so was Jesus, who was God, who lived, then died and rose again to pay the price for our sins.
Buddhism:
-Started by a man who didn't like the fact that Hinduism meant for him that he couldn't be reunited with his World Soul at death because he hadn't been born into the right family, meaning he wasn't good enough.
-The man changed his name to Buddha, meaning "enlightened one", claiming he had become enlightened about the meaning of life through meditation.
-Buddhism is founded on the principle that by doing good works, man can overcome his desires which cause evil, and stop his suffering, which is all he believed life was about.
-Buddha taught that if you were always kind to people, behaved well, and meditated on good things, you would be happy and would not have to be reincarnated at death. You would just cease to exist.
Problem:
-Too bad for followers of Buddhism that none of us is always kind, meaning none of us can escape "continual reincarnation". Also doing the right thing doesn't always make us happy; sometimes it can be really hard to stand up for what's right, as Jesus taught (Luke 6:14-33).
Islam:
-Founded in 610 AD (after the death and resurrection of Jesus) by a man named Muhammad who claimed to have seen an angel in a dream who told him that Allah, one of the Arab gods, wanted him to start a new religion, with him as Allah's prophet.
-Muslims (followers of Islam) follow the teachings found in the Koran, a book Mohammed wrote from the messages he claimed the angel in his dreams gave him.
-The Koran teaches that a person goes to heaven or hell based on whether they are a good person or not.
Problem:
-Mohammad claimed that Allah and the true God of the Bible were the same. He claimed Allah/God had sent many prophets to the world: Abraham, Noah, Adam, Moses, Jesus, and finally him: Mohammad. This could not be true, because then, God would be a God who changes or lies, since the Bible says that a person is not saved through doing good or being good enough but by trusting that Jesus lived a perfect life and was good enough to pay for their sin (Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8). The Bible also says that Jesus was God, but Mohammad said he was just another prophet. The Bible teaches God cannot lie or change (Numbers 23:19), so obviously, Mohammad's dreams of an angel were just that-dreams.
Christianity:
-Founded by God at the creation of the world. God, who is perfectly holy, has always existed and exists in three persons- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created man in his own image to glorify Him and enjoy fellowship with Him.
Problem:
-God gave Adam and Eve one rule, with the punishment being death and separation from fellowship with God, and Adam and Eve broke that rule. The Bible calls disobeying God sin, and says we all are sinners. The punishment for sin is death.
Solution:
-Unless a perfect person paid the price for our sin (death) for us, we would be separated from God forever. Jesus, who was God, came to earth. Being God, He lived a perfect life, then was killed to pay the price for our sin and take the punishment we deserved.
-The Bible teaches that all who trust what Jesus did as being enough to pay for their sin and get them to heaven, then choose to turn from their sin to follow Jesus will receive the free gift of eternal life.
Problem?
Does this mean the founder of Christianity died, too, just like all other religions? Yes and no. Yes, Jesus died, but no, He is not dead. He is the God who CREATED death, so He is stronger than it. He rose from the dead and was seen by over 500 people. The truth of Jesus' resurrection is not just found in the Bible, there are numerous historical records (at least 17) of people who saw Jesus alive after His resurrection.
Some people, after hearing all this will say, “It doesn’t matter what you believe or who you believe in as long as you’re sincere. You can believe what you want to believe, and I’ll believe what I want to believe. We each can take our own path to get to God.” Can all those religions be true? Can there be more than one way to get to God?
Logically, that doesn’t make sense. If I sincerely believe that 2+2=5 and you sincerely believe that 2+2=4, we can’t both be right, can we? No! There is only one correct answer to 2+2 and only one way to get that answer.
Jesus claimed to be the only way to God: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me.” (John 14:6) Others also claimed he was the only way to God: “Nor is there Salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
Mark Cahill tells a story of how he was talking to a couple people from other religions who told him there are many ways to get to God. They compared getting to God like climbing a mountain. At the top of the mountain, they pictured God. All around this mountain are many different paths that people choose to get to the top of the mountain to get to God. They believed that it didn’t matter which path someone took to get to “the top of the mountain”, or God, as long as they worked hard and got there.
Mark turned the illustration around, though, and asked them, “What if I told you that instead of us trying to work our way up to the top of the mountain to God, God came down from the mountain to where we are?” “That would be incredible!” the other men replied. But that’s exactly what God has done for us: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5)
We could never be good enough to get back to God, so God came to us in the form of a man-Jesus. Jesus can take us up the mountain and get us back to God because he has already done the work of living a perfect life, and he has already paid for our Salvation.
After reading all this, you can see that Christianity makes sense and Jesus is the only way to get to God. But that’s not enough; you must decide what you really believe. You can read more about this in “How can I become a Christian?”
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