Redemption

I had a very interesting conversation this week where I was challenged to argue for the uniqueness of Jesus among, as he was described, other "enlightened beings". The wonderful gentleman with whom I had this delightful conversation believed, as many do nowadays, that all roads can lead to God. Whether you follow Buddha or Muhammad or Jesus, they all teach the same thing, he claimed. I tried to explain that while much of the moral code you would get from following any of these teachers is similar, the message Jesus teaches is unique. It has been said that all religions teach some form of karma. They teach that in the end, good and evil will be weighed and we will be rewarded for good and punished for evil. Even Christianity teaches this as the ultimate reality when it becomes institutionalized as a religion. What Jesus offers, however, is vastly different. The Bible fully affirms the truth of justice and that it is an attribute of God. God is holy and His standard for His creation is perfect holiness. Falling short of that standard is what the Bible calls "sin" and it is infinitely bad, no matter how seemingly small, because it is a transgression against an infinitely perfect God. As such, any and all sin is punishable by death. That is the standard of justice affirmed in the Bible. It is, in a sense, a system of credits and debits like all other religions but with a significant difference. Any debt is beyond repayment apart from the penalty of death.

That's where Jesus comes in. That justice is the bad news. The good news is that God, while upholding his justice, did not demand the payment for sin immediately but was patient with us. In His time He made the payment for us and offers us that redemption. Some, like my friend, object to the idea that Jesus is the only way to God, especially when so many others offer a way to God. That is where an important distinction has to be made between us finding a way to God and, uniquely in Jesus' case, God coming to us. The issue is clouded by the two millennia of history between when He came and the present time. Much has gone on, in His name, that does not represent the gospel He offers. If the standard, however, is what is written in the Bible and not what the religion of Christianity has done, the gospel becomes clearer.

What I came to realize during my conversation and afterward is that Jesus' uniqueness is found in the message of grace. He did what we could not do so that we could have a relationship with Him that we were otherwise incapable of having. To many that offer is unappealing. God is not someone they are particularly interested in having a relationship with. I suspect that is because they don't know who He really is. To others, the exclusivity inherent in the uniqueness of Jesus is just something they cannot accept. For those people, the problem is that so many people are born into cultures that have their own way of getting to God and, for that reason, will not accept Jesus. I think they are in good company. Jesus seemed to have a problem with that too. That's why He told His followers to go tell everyone about Him. He didn't come to found a religion that would teach people one of many ways to God. He is God come to us, all of us. He came to redeem. He came to take what is evil, painful and wrong about this world and make something good out of it.