If a person takes the time to investigate the difference between Christianity and all of the other religions of the world, they will notice a profound difference.
In all the religions of the world, each share a common bond: The requirement of that religion for the participant to perform in such a way, in order to be found acceptable.
Only Christianity declares that there is nothing you can do to earn your salvation, except believe the good news. Jesus Christ bore the sins of all people in his own body while on the cross. He performed all the work, paid the full price, and enables anyone who will believe it, the opportunity to have salvation and eternal life.
This free gift of eternal life is not true in all other religions of the world:
Islam:
In order to be found worthy enough by Allah to enter paradise, a follower of Islam must adhere to the rigid moral law of the Koran. If a person does not keep the strict law of the Koran, they can be found unworthy of eternal life.
As with all religions listed here, Islam is a works based method of salvation. With Islam, a person earns their way into heaven by keeping what is described as their “5 pillars of the faith”:
- A confession of faith that “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet.”
- A Muslim must pray five times a day: Just before sunrise, mid-morning, noon time, mid after-noon and shortly after sunset.
- Muslims must give approximately 2.5 percent of the income to their local Muslim place of worship.
- Observe the fast of Ramadan for one lunar month, sunrise to sunset. During this time they may not allow anything into their throat. In extreme Islam they would not even swallow their saliva during Ramadan, but spit it out.
- A true Muslim must make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, once during their lifetime.
Islam has no guarantee of eternal life. All works done during the earthly life of a person will be reconciled during the day of judgment. If your good works are greater than your bad works, you are saved. If it is found that you have done more bad during your life than good, you will go to hell. Even if your works were all good, in the judgement, Allah can still assign you to hell if that is his decision. A person who follows Islam never has any guarantee that paradise is theirs.
One other possibility is that a person can be assigned to hell to burn for their sins for a period of time, then released to go to heaven. This is a clear indication that salvation is controlled by the works of the person.
Under one specific case, a person can be guaranteed to enter heaven or paradise: If that person participates in “Jihad” or “Holy War”, they are guaranteed eternal life. The term Jihad means to “exert force for God”. An example of Jihad would be, to write a book about Islam, share the Muslim faith that would bring someone else to Islam. Any Muslim who dies during Jihad is guaranteed heaven. The irony of Jihad is that it often involves the murder of others, whether specifically guilty of anything or not. All non Muslims are considered “Infidels” and therefore can be killed and classified as Jihad, qualifying the killer for paradise.
For a detailed look at Islam CLICK HERE
Hinduism:
The path to salvation in Hinduism takes three main roads:
- By attempting to purify your own soul in keeping all of the Hindu laws , obligations contained in their scriptures.
- The total renunciation of your own life, and by knowledge, seeking salvation by mystical realization of identity with God.
- By total devotion called “Bhakti”, a person commits themselves completely to a particular god or goddess, this deity will do all the work for that person. If a person follows Krishna for example and totally devotes themselves to him, he will take care of my karma problems and bring me to his presence when I die.
Like Buddhism, Hinduism is an endless cycle of being reincarnated, due to earthly attachments, which cause bad karma. By one of the three ways above, a person can eliminate the cycle of birth, death and re-birth and finally live in eternal peace with god. In Hinduism, heaven is not a permanent dwelling, but a place from where you are sent back from, to earth, over and over again.
The common thread here is you must do certain things yourself in order to achieve or attain this state of eternal bliss. There is no real salvation guaranteed, and all the work is laid upon the one who wants to achieve eternal bliss. Contrasted with what Jesus has said and has done. He performed all the requirement of God’s law for us and allows us to have his same righteousness when we fully place our trust in him.
For a detailed look at Hinduism CLICK HERE
Buddhism:
The primary motivating factor of Buddhism is “karma”. Whatever you do returns to you. Buddhists are trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth called “Samsara”. According to Buddhist experts, the only way out of this endless cycle is through what they term “enlightenment”. Buddha said that the root of all suffering is man’s desires. These desires that we have, cause us to be attached to material things. This attachment is what brings us to so much suffering and contributes to the suffering of other people. This kind of behavior is called “negative karma”. If a person can stop their desires, they can cease to suffer themselves and bring an end to the suffering of others. Once all desire has departed the human soul, that person reaches “enlightenment” in the same way that Buddha reached enlightenment.
In Buddhism there is no real sin. There is no need for a savior. There is really no salvation. Only the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth until one achieves enlightenment.
Notice that the common thread of Buddism is again the performance of the individual that determines their enlightenment.
A final note: You can visit the grave of Buddha and find that his bones are still there. You can however visit the site where they say Jesus was buried and find that He is no longer there, He has risen from the dead. Over 500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus alive after he was risen and the fact of his resurrection has never been validly disproven. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most documented event in all of human history. Because Jesus has power over death, he is able to raise to eternal life all those who die trusting in his sacrifice for their sins.
To read the testimony of a former Buddhist worshipper who renounced this religion and began to follow Jesus Christ, CLICK HERE.
Mormonism:
Although Mormons claim to be Christians, they do not believe in the “Christ” of the Bible, and therefore are not Christians. In order to be a true Christian in the Biblical sense, a person must believe in the historical person of Jesus Christ as described in the Bible. The president of the Mormon church has categorically stated that “We do not believe in the historical Jesus of the Bible”.
For the Mormon, their Jesus is a man who became God, not the eternal God who humbled Himself and became a man. The Mormon Jesus was once a sinner who won his salvation by his obedience to God. In essence, the Mormon Jesus “earned his salvation” in much the same way that each Mormon follower must earn their salvation.
“…We must accept the fact that there was a time when Deity was much less powerful than He is today. Then how did He become glorified and exalted and attain His present status of Godhood? In the first place, aeons ago God undoubtedly took advantage of every opportunity to learn the laws of truth and as He became acquainted with each new verity He righteously obeyed it. From day to day He exerted His will vigorously, and as a result became thoroughly acquainted with the forces lying about Him. As He gained more knowledge through persistent effort and continuous industry, as well as through absolute obedience, His understanding of the universal laws continued to become more complete. Thus He grew in experience and continued to grow until He attained the status of Godhood. In other words, He became God by absolute obedience to all the truth, and thereby became the author of eternal truth. Therefore, the road that the Eternal Father followed to Godhood was one of living at all times a dynamic, industrious, and completely righteous life. There is no other way to exaltation.”
—Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages (Salt Lake City: Steven & Wallis, 1945), pp. 114-115
In order to continue in good standing in the Mormon church, a person must perform certain works throughout their life. No Mormon member is ever given assurance of salvation in this life. It is only after death that they will find out whether or not their life’s works were good enough to be accepted by God and gain eternal life.
It is stated by the founder of the LDS (Mormon Church) that no person makes it to heaven without the express permission of Joseph Smith.
This contrasted with true Christianity, in which each person who surrenders their life to Jesus Christ is given assurance that at the moment they believe, that they have the forgiveness of all their sins and eternal life.
For a detailed look at the Mormon Church CLICK HERE
Jehovah’s Witness:
The errors of the Jehovah’s Witness Church are great and profound. Essentially it is a religion that is based completely on the opinion of it’s earthly founder. The entire basis of authority for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, comes from their publication called “The Watchtower”. This newspaper holds higher authority than the Bible, which is considered to be full of errors. Only the Watchtower, written by modern day prophets of God is the true word of God to be trusted and obeyed. This allows for any particular doctrinal interest of the leadership to be taught as the word of God without any scriptural authority.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus Christ is God. He is taught to be a created being who is the brother of Michael the Archangel. Although the Bible is filled with many hundreds of references to Jesus being the eternal Creator and Jehovah God Himself, the Jehovah’s Witness organization make him simply a man.
In order to gain salvation and eternal life, a person must keep a strict code of conduct that is overseen by the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witness church.
For a detailed look a the Jehovah’s Witness Church, CLICK HERE
For this writer, the moment that I recognized this common thread of salvation by works that is universally seen throughout all the religions of the world, following Jesus became and easy choice. About 36 years ago, after an intense comparison of the Bible and the requirements of Christianity to those of other religions, I realized that Christianity is not a “Religion” at all, in the traditional sense. The emphasis in Christianity is on following Jesus and having a personal relationship with Him. In all other religions of the world, the emphasis is on performance and the keeping of the moral code set forth by the organization.
This then is by definition what a religion is: Following a moral code set forth by a religious organization.
The Bible describes the fact that Jesus perfectly performed all of the law of God for us. Knowing that none of us could ever completely keep the law, Jesus instead kept it for us. When a person places all of their trust in Jesus Christ, all His righteousness is accounted to that believer as their own. In essence, the Biblical definition of righteousness is the standard that Jesus set in his life upon the earth. Throughout his entire 33 1/2 years on the earth, Jesus never committed a single sin. In fact Jesus challenged the Scribes and Pharisees to convict him of any sin. The testimony from all those who were intimately aware of Jesus, is that he was “without sin”.
Could any other leader of any other religion make that claim? A person might claim to be without sin, but upon a careful examination of their life and the eyewitness testimony of those who knew those persons, it is always revealed that they were all sinners just as all human beings are sinners. The only person in the history of the world who is without sin is Jesus Christ. This fact is verified by everyone who knew Jesus and was closely associated with him. Over 500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus alive after his resurrection, not one person ever testified that Jesus did not raise from the dead.
Another important point that set Jesus apart from all men, is that he was conceived by supernatural means, by the Holy Spirit, and was therefore without sin at birth. Jesus lived a perfect life, absent from all sin. This perfect and Holy life, along with the fact that Jesus is the true and eternal living God, inside the body of a man, qualifies him to be the Savior of all other men.
No other man that has ever lived on the earth has lived without sin, and therefore could never be the savior of any other man. In order for any person to really be able to save another, requires that they first be a human being like us. God may want to redeem all men, but he could not do so as God. Neither could he simply ignore man’s sin and give him a pardon. God’s law required that every soul that sins, die. In order to satisfy this righteous requirement of God’s law, every sinner had to either die themselves, or a qualified replacement had to die in their place. Sin had to be punished, a death had to occur. Jesus did not make it possible for our sins to only be covered up, he removed them as if they never existed, because he paid the penalty for them.
A Word on those who claim to be “Atheists”:
Most people who have taken the designation of “Atheist” have done so because one or more common conclusions:
- There is no God because the world is far to cruel and chaotic for an all powerful and all loving God to exist.
- There is no God because evolution teaches that man evolved from lower life forms and therefore there is no need for God.
- God does not exist because the parents of this person taught them there was no God.
- The trauma of loosing a loved one, while a prayer was offered to God to saved them went seemingly unheard and the loved one died.
- A person who claimed to be a Christian was such a poor and pathetic example of Christianity, the conclusion was reached that such a religion was false.
- The person has not been taught the logical and credible evidence for God, when the search was conducted.
- The person simply chooses to not believe in God, thereby releasing them to live their life any way they choose.
Surprisingly the last of these reasons is probably the most common reason that a person choses to not believe in God. People like their sin and they want to live the way that they choose, without having to be accountable to any “God”. The ironic fact of this choice is that the person who is seeking to live a life unaccountable for their own sins, finds it unreasonable that everyone else commits sins against them. If sin is sin and if it is wrong, how did it become defined as wrong? In order for something to be classified as wrong, there must be an idea of what is right. Where did this moral law come from and who decides what is right and what is wrong? It is impossible that the evolutionary process produced a moral conscience inside of a human being that defines what right and wrong are. None of the animals that have evolved have this sense of moral right or wrong. How did man come by this quality that allows him to always know what human behavior should be like?
It is logical and reasonable that this knowledge was placed in all of us to give us a moral compass to guide our lives. Without this guide in us, we would all be sociopaths who have no conscience or concern for who we hurt, kill or destroy. Since nearly every human being has this moral sense of right, it is logical that it is inherited and passed down from one person to the next, or it is “hardwired” into the fiber of our being.
Since no one has ever found the “moral gene”, it seems obvious that it was created in each one of us.
The reality is that salvation has been made extremely simple for any person to understand and accept. God wanted salvation to be easy and just one way so that there would be no confusion over what he required for admittance into heaven. All of us are aware that there is something profoundly wrong with us on the inside, and that our tendency is towards wrong actions continuously. How do we free ourselves from all the guilt from those wrong actions and have peace in the process? It is by the surrender of one’s life to Jesus Christ who is the Creator and sustainer of all life. His promise is that if you come to him humbly and admit that you are a sinner in need of salvation by him, that he will provide that eternal ice and forgiveness for you as a free gift.
