One
God, One Way It's
as old as the Garden—the notion that there are many paths to God. But today,
that false doctrine is more widespread than ever. Author Dan Story offers the
facts you need when your unbelieving friends challenge your conviction that
Christianity is the only true revelation of God.
Many people claim that all religions will ultimately be acceptable to God
because they represent mankind's attempt to find religious truth. They say that
even if Christianity is God's only true revelation, He will still accept other
religions because they represent sincere attempts to find Him.
This simply isn't true. Non-Christian religions are not an attempt to find God
but are rebellion against Him and unacceptable to Him. I'll demonstrate this by
giving some examples of how the major world religions differ from Christianity,
focusing on their views of the nature of God and their willful rejection of Him,
and summarizing why God chose one particular plan for the redemption of man.
God of Gods, Lord of Lords Christianity, like many other religions, claims to be God's only revelation
of spiritual truth, maintaining that Jesus is the only path to salvation. Jesus
said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father but through Me" (John 14:6, NAS). The New Testament writers agree:
"there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven
that has been given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
The Bible reveals that God is a personal Being who is perfect. He is Creator of
the universe and thus stands apart from His creation. God also upholds and
maintains the universe. God is not one in essence with nature (pantheism), but
He is sovereign over all He created and reveals His existence and power through
His creation (general revelation). God is also holy and can tolerate no sin.
Indeed, He will punish wrongdoing.
A brief look at the nature of God taught in the major non-Christian belief
systems demonstrates that their gods are incompatible with the God revealed in
Scripture. The majority of the world's religions fall within the following
divisions.
Eastern Religions Eastern religions (such as Hinduism) and its Western offshoots (such as the
New Age movement) differ in many ways, but most of them accept the same basic
picture of God, which is pantheistic. This view denies a personal creator
and identifies God as being one in essence with nature. In other words, the
universe and all that is in it is an extension of God, and this extension is
frequently viewed as an illusion. What appears to be material may not really
exist.
In addition to a pantheistic concept of God, most Eastern religions entertain a
pantheon of lesser gods, many represented by idols.
Pantheism clearly contradicts Christian theism. God cannot be both impersonal and
personal, no creator and creator, the greatest God and the only
God. Either pantheism is true or Christianity is. Their views of God are not
even remotely similar.
Animism Animism covers the religious expressions of the early American
Indians, Australian aborigines and many other preliterary cultures. Although
most animistic religions possess a concept of a supreme God, generally their
religious beliefs focus on spirit beings that indwell both animate and inanimate
objects such as stones, mountains, lakes, lightning, manufactured articles,
trees and animals. These spirits often have great power and cunning and exhibit
the spectrum of human emotions, including hate, joy, anger, jealousy, fear and
love. Spirits influence every aspect of life (sickness, injury, marriage,
childbirth, hunting, agriculture), so animists seek to appease the spirits by
paying proper respect through prayer, offerings, sacrifices and other appeals to
the spirits' often capricious egos.
Obviously, the godlike creatures of animism and the God of Christianity have
next to nothing in common.
Islam The Islamic concept of God is much closer to the Christian concept. In
Islam, God is both personal and creator. However, Islam denies the trinitarian
aspect of God and, therefore, Muslims reject Jesus as the Son of God.
"Allah," as the Muslims call God, takes little interest in his
creation. He is generally strict, aloof, capricious and unpredictable, and he is
responsible not only for good but also for evil. Allah sorely lacks the
attributes of love, grace, forgiveness and holiness so clearly revealed in the
God of Christianity.
The Cults A cult can be defined as a perversion of biblical Christianity. Most
cults claim some affiliation with Christianity and even accept the Bible (with
their own modifications) as one of their holy books. However, all cults reject
many of the central beliefs of the Christian faith, including the Trinity.
Consequently, all cults reject Jesus as the eternal Son of God. The views of God
found in the cults run the gamut from nontrinitarian monotheism (Jehovah's
Witnesses) to polytheism (belief in many gods, such as Mormonism) to pantheism
(Christian Science). None of these views square with orthodox Christianity, and
their gods are far different from the God revealed in the Bible.
Because the nature of God differs fundamentally in the cults and the world's
many religions, it is impossible to harmonize them and conclude they all mirror
the same God. A religion's view of God will influence all of its subsequent
doctrines. The doctrines of sin, salvation, man and other beliefs taught in
these religions all conflict with Christianity. Either Christianity is true or
some other religion is, but only ignorance and irrationality could maintain that
they all point to the same God. The Christian God—and He alone—deserves and
demands our worship. When people turn to other gods and worship them, the only
true God declares that totally unacceptable, worthy of judgment.
Excerpted
from Defending Your Faith by Dan Story
Religious
Rebellion The Bible teaches that God has revealed Himself to man in two ways. One is
through special revelation, which is directed to specific peoples at
specific times in history and includes very specific information about God (for
example, that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone). Special revelation is
recorded in God's written Word (the Bible) and is most explicit in the person of
Jesus Christ.
The other way God unveils Himself is through general revelation, which is that
revelation that can be understood by all people at all times throughout history.
It is a perpetual or continuous revelation, and it occurs in two primary ways:
nature and the moral consciousness God has placed in all human beings.
General revelation in nature, according to Romans 1:20, reveals to everyone
everywhere that God exists, that He is infinite and almighty, created and
governs the universe, and judges evil. From this evidence, all people have the
opportunity to know God.
General revelation through moral consciousness exhibits itself in a number of
ways, but one profound way is in a fundamental, worldwide moral code that finds
expression across cultural, religious and historical barriers. God is a moral
being who created a moral universe. Man, created in God's image, is
instinctively aware of God's moral law. It is seen in every culture through
prohibitions against such sins as murder, stealing, rape, lying and betrayal.
Like nature, this moral consciousness is designed to point people to God, the
moral lawgiver. When we respond positively to this intuitive moral code, we
respond to its divine author.
Because God has revealed Himself to all people through nature and a moral
consciousness, He expects all people, including those who have never heard of
Jesus, to respond favorably to Him. He has revealed enough information about
Himself so all people have the opportunity to seek Him. Non-Christians who have
never heard of Jesus will be judged according to whether or not they respond to
God's general revelation. Thus people who have never heard of Jesus Christ are
still accountable to the God of Scripture because He and the God of nature and
morality are one and the same.
Knowing the God of Scripture Since the personal-infinite-creator God we read about in the Bible is the
same God revealed in nature and our moral consciousness, we can be sure that
general revelation will not contradict special revelation. This is the key to
understanding why other religions are not acceptable to God. If God has revealed
Himself to all men equally through general revelation, and if people choose not
to respond to this revelation and instead seek other gods, then they are guilty
of rejecting the God of Scripture. Thus, other religions are forms of rebellion
against God.
It was only after the dispersal of humanity into various cultures and God
beginning to focus His special revelation on the nation of Israel that we see
the rise of false religions. Except for Israel, the nations of the world quickly
turned away from their previous knowledge of God. They rejected God's general
revelation of Himself and began worshiping idols and practicing polytheism and
other deviant religions. Israel alone practiced monotheism and worshiped the one
true God. So pantheism, polytheism, animism and all the other false views of God
grew out of human rebellion, not genuine searching.
Today anthropologists and ethnologists have proven that most primitive animistic
religions have a latent monotheistic belief, even though they also believe in
other spiritual forces. This is a common element in the oldest cultures on
earth. Belief in an all-powerful supreme Being also predates polytheism and
pantheism in Eastern religions. Similarly, an original concept of a supreme God
is found in the early histories of Sumeria, Egypt and other ancient
civilizations.
Only One Way One final question needs to be answered. Why did God choose Christianity as
the only means by which one can be saved? To a large degree, the answer should
be clear. Only Christianity preserves an accurate picture of God as He is
revealed in both general and special revelations. Nevertheless, let's probe a
bit further.
Christian theology teaches that in his fallen state, man is totally unable to
reach out to God. The apostle Paul writes that the mind of man is hostile toward
God, and man does not subject himself to God because he "is not even able
to do so" (Romans 8:7). It is natural for fallen man to "suppress the
truth" (Romans 1:18) and "not see fit to acknowledge God any
longer" (Romans 1:28). Thus for man to become reconciled with God, God
Himself must take the initial step to achieve reconciliation. God has
taken this initial step by providing all people with an innate awareness of His
existence that includes the ability to respond to or reject saving truth,
whether it comes through general or special revelation.
However, the Bible also clearly teaches that the possibility of salvation is
made available in only one way. Out of His immeasurable love for man and His
creation and of His own sovereign will, God chose to make a fuller revelation of
Himself. God came to earth as the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile
humanity to Himself.
The reason Christianity claims to be the only path to salvation is because it is
the one true revelation of God, and it is the only way God has ordained for
mankind to become reconciled to Him. All other so-called paths lead away from
the true God of Scripture and the work of Jesus on the cross. That Jesus
actually had to die on the cross proves there is no other way to God. If there
were, God would not have sacrificed His beloved Son.
In light of all this, we can clearly see how irrational it is for someone to
say, "It doesn't matter what I believe so long as I am sincere."
Sincerity is not the issue. One can be sincere and still be wrong. The facts are
facts, whether one understands, accepts or rejects them. Believing does not make
a thing true any more than disbelieving makes it false. Christians say that
Jesus is the only way to God not because they invented the concept but because
God Himself said it. Christ is the only way.
One
God, One Way
