Sermon Central
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The Uniqueness Of The Christian Faith
Contributed by Jeff Van Wyk on Oct 21, 2012 (message contributor)
Summary: Jesus Christ was unique in every way. From His complete deity to His perfect humanity, from His miraculous conception to His supernatural ascension, from His impeccable character to His incomparable teaching—Jesus stands above all other religious or mora
The Uniqueness Of The Christian Faith
John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
THE BIBLE IS UNIQUE
The Bible was written over a 1600-year span, during 60 generations, over a time-span of 1400 years. The writers themselves were a diverse group of people, not only separated from each other by hundreds of years and hundreds of miles, but belonging to the most different walks of life. In their ranks are kings, herdsmen, soldiers, legislators, fishermen, statesmen, courtiers, priests, prophets, a tentmaker, a physician, and many others.
The Bible was written in a variety of places and customs, during times of war and peace, on three continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe), in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).
Yet, when the Bible is analyzed as a whole, it speaks with amazing unity and harmony about hundreds of controversial subjects about which there are hundreds of opposing opinions.
The writings themselves belong to a great variety of literary types. They include history, law (civil, criminal, ethical, ritual, sanitary), religious poetry, didactic treatises, lyric poetry, parable and allegory, biography, personal correspondence, personal memoirs and diaries, in addition to the distinctively Biblical types of prophecy and apocalyptic.
Being written on materials that perish easily, having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press, did not diminish its style, correctness, nor existence.
Jews preserved it as no other manuscript ever has been preserved. They kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word, and paragraph. They had special classes of men such as scribes and lawyers within their culture, whose sole duty was to preserve and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity.
In regard to the New Testament, there are about thirteen thousand manuscripts, in Greek and other languages that have survived from antiquity. No other work from classical antiquity has such attestation.
In substance, the text of the Bible is certain especially in the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some form or another of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.
The Bible has withstood vicious attacks by its enemies as no other book. Many have tried to burn it, ban it, and outlaw it.
GOD THREE IN ONE
The uniqueness of Christianity centers around its view of an absolute unity of the essence of God – that there is only one God and its insistence that within this essence exists three distinct personalities known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Human beings are totally lost and corrupted by sin and no amount of moral living or law keeping, ritual, etc., could possibly earn one's salvation.
The doctrine of the Trinity is utterly unique to Christianity. While other religions have had triads of various sorts, none have held to the idea a strict monotheism with three persons involved. It also implies that God is absolutely independent of His creation.
The God of Christianity experiences unity, love, and relationship within His own Being and thus stands in need of nothing. His act of creating the world was done simply because it pleased Him to do so, not out of any sense of need.
Many religions believe in a God who is incomplete in Himself and who must therefore create a universe with people in order to experience love and relationship. God did not need to create the world. He was not lonely, as is often said. He already lived in relationships of absolute and perfect love in eternity past, before the universe was ever created.
CHRISTIANITY IS UNIQUE, JESUS IS UNIQUE
"The idea that Christianity, or even the Biblical faiths, have a monopoly on religious truth is an outrageous and absurd religious chauvinism." - Rosemary Radford Ruether.
"There are millions of ways to be a human being and many paths to what you call 'God'; ... there couldn't possibly be just one way." - Oprah Winfrey
John 14:6 - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Act 4:12 - “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
Christianity stands absolutely unique among the various faiths of the world and it presents each person with the necessity of making a radical choice. One may reject it as false, but the Bible does not leave it as an option that one could include Christianity among the other religions as simply a variety of the same thing.
