The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down and set him before them." Acts 22:30
The leader of the Roman soldiers who were detaining Paul was curious, “Why are these Jewish religious leaders so angry with this man, Paul, who like them, is so religious?” This passage got me to thinking about how non-religious people view “religious” people. Most often they see religions as all being essentially the same. In reality all religions are not the same. As has been said, “All religions (including Christianity) could be wrong, but they cannot all be right.” Why? Because they contradict each other in fundamental ways.
In the last two posts we sought to first show how the beliefs of the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are fundamentally not the same. Secondly, we sought to demonstrate that all of the world’s religions are not the same. We’ll conclude this consideration of world religions by clarifying how virtually all world religions have one thing in common about which Christianity is antithetically the opposite.
Virtually every religion under the sun has this in common: their adherents must do something to reach whatever each religion sets forth as the goal. That goal may be Heaven, nirvana. enlightenment, oneness with the universe, or whatever.
Contrariwise, Christianity (alone) says that humans are so sinful that we are incapable of doing anything to “save” ourselves. According to Christianity, our only hope is that God (and God alone) must do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And because God is infinitely loving and gracious, He has done that very thing for us. The only begotten Son of God, Jesus, became a man to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves: He lived sinlessly for us and then died and rose for us. By doing these things, He purchased our forgiveness and provided us with both His righteousness and a desire to follow Him. In so doing, He opened Heaven that was otherwise closed to us.
Who gets the benefit of what God has done for us? Not those who do, but those who believe or trust in Him. Christians gratefully follow Jesus not to gain Heaven, but because He has already secured our place in Heaven.
This fundamental difference between Christianity and all other religions has frequently been summarized with these words: There are two kinds of religion: Do and Done. All other religions are based on what we must do. Only Christianity is based on what God has done for us.