The Uniqueness of Christ in World Religions, Part 2

Do you realize, in order to explain unity and diversity in the effect, I am more and more convinced there would have to be unity and diversity in the first cause, and only in the Christian dogma is there unity and diversity in the doctrine of the Trinity in the first cause. You see the unity and diversity within the doctrine of the Trinity and the community that has established distinction yet identity and purpose of being one in all of that.

How does this work out in life? You hear it all the time from skeptics. All religions are fundamentally the same.

The fact is, they aren't. Hello and welcome to Let My People Think. Last week, RZIM's founder, the late Ravi Zacharias, shared how the claims of Christ stand apart from all others. When you examine his life and his teaching, you find that only he provides an answer to the dark reality of human nature. Today we'll rejoin Ravi as he continues that thought and presents two more vital points that set Jesus apart in the conclusion of his series, The Uniqueness of Christ in World Religions.

So we've established the law of non-contradiction, that the laws of logic apply to reality. We've established the fact that we have been attacked by one principle of the philosophy around our belief system around today, but that belief system self-destructs in its philosophical assumptions. So let me take the person of Christ and his uniqueness in the religions of the world. And if you bear long enough, you will see how marvelously the applications move from one mind to another, each with its distinctive strength. First is Jesus's description on the reality of human nature, the reality of human nature.

He knew what was in the hearts of men and women. Evil is not victimless. It victimizes the very person. Like one of the judges at the Nuremberg trial said, after I took the life of the first innocent man, I was no longer the same person. What do you do with this? How are we going to change it?

How are we going to change it? I have a beautiful story that I tell. I love it so much.

Nothing expresses it better. Of these two very wealthy men who were rather immoral people, both of them were pretty bad in their behavior, and they were notorious in the city. And all of a sudden, one of them suddenly died. And so the surviving brother went to the local preacher and said, would you preach at my brother's funeral? And the preacher didn't want to do it, but the surviving brother said, I'll give you a fat lot of money and name the amount. He said, I'd like you to preach at the funeral and only do me one favor. In the middle of your eulogy of my brother, he assumed there was going to be a eulogy. He said, in the middle of the eulogy of my brother, will you just refer to him as a saint?

And I'll pay you what I said I would. The preacher was a good business manager and decided to take on the challenge, and the day of the funeral came, and he waxed eloquent, and he said, the man you see lying here in the coffin is a murderer, he's a liar, he's an adulterer, he's duplicitous, he's done every dirty, rotten, stinking thing your mind can think of, but compared to his brother, he's a saint. Who are you compared to someone else? You may be a saint compared to someone else, but the Bible describes sin not only in transgression, it describes sin as coming short of the glory of God. Coming short of the glory of God. And I want you to know that the powerful treatment that Jesus gives to this whole issue of the nature of man and sin is felt more and more in our world today than ever before. Just think about it, the 20th century has been the most bloodletting century in history.

Think about that, and we are supposedly in the age of progress. I think of the hurts around the world, I think of the slaughter of infants, and all the rights that we now claim to ourselves. I think of the tragedy so much so that one recent appointee of President Clinton, when he was being quizzed by the Senate Committee for his confirmation, described the world as a thousand points of darkness.

A thousand points of darkness. One of the men I had as a hero in my teenage years was the great tennis player Arthur Ashe, who just died of AIDS very recently. He was a gentleman on and off the court and through a blood transfusion contracted that disease and died.

I did not hear it directly, but my sister quoted it to me and I was using it at Harvard University some time ago speaking, and all of the students nodded their head when I said it, so I assume it was exactly as it was communicated to me. I have lived with a lot of pain in my life, including AIDS, having gained it innocently. He said, but nothing has hurt me more, please hear me, than the pain that I have felt for the rejection of my race. Think of that. A man dying of AIDS saying to you, not to me, you and me, to the world, nothing has hurt me more than the pain I have experienced, be it forbid the rejection of my race.

The lips of dying men seldom lie. How are we going to change this? How are we going to change this?

Please believe me, it will never happen just because we institute new laws in any land. Unless we understand the nature of the human heart and the unique answer that Christ gives, we will never be able to change it. Robert Maurer, one-time president of the American Psychological Association, who ultimately ended up committing suicide, and the American psychologist in 1960 said this, for several decades we psychologists looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus, and acclaimed our liberation from it as epoch-making. But at length we have discovered that to be free in this sense, that is to have the excuse of being sick rather than sinful, is to quote the danger of also becoming lost. This danger is, I believe, betokened by the widespread interest in existentialism which we are presently witnessing. Becoming amoral and ethically neutral and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with neurotics themselves find ourselves asking, who am I?

What is my deepest destiny? What does living mean? The reality of human nature is best portrayed in the teaching of Christ, and even secular atheistic psychologists, as Hobart Maurer was, said something has been lost when we lost the understanding of the dogma of sin, and he said when he wrote that article he received more letters to him than any other thing he'd ever written. He was trying to recover a concept of sin.

The reality of human nature. Secondly is the spirituality of genuine worship, the uniqueness of Christ, the spirituality of genuine worship. Jesus rescued us from the tyranny of limiting worship to geographical boundaries and buildings.

You hear that? He rescued us from the tyranny of restricting worship to geographical locations and buildings. Do you know that entire tragedy which India Today captured under two words on the front page of their cover of the India Today magazine?

India's shame is what it called it, the destruction of the mosque by some fanatics because they said it was holy ground and belonged to one of the gods of their mythology and so on. How tragic to inflict things like this while men and women were killed, children were killed because worship was restricted to a certain geographical location. When you go to the Old Testament, you see something fascinating happening. God is describing the tabernacle for Moses. He says this, make it so high and no higher, so wide and no wider, so long and no longer.

You're such and such a material, you're such and such a person, you're such and such colors. There were very specific directives. There was no equivocation on it.

This is the way it had to be. And Moses complied. But you see, in our day, we have church buildings. We don't have tabernacles or temples of old where specific directions were given.

Why is that? Because as Christ taught us, we don't go to the temple anymore. We take the temple with us.

So when 300 people gather together for worship, it is not 300 people going into a sanctuary, but 300 sanctuaries gathering at a point so that we could be rescued from the tyranny of a locational worship. And how this body has become sacred because of that, to think that on these flesh and bones, God himself has branded the fact that I can house the very living God. Christ in me.

That's what David Livingston, the last words he etched on a rock. Christ in me. David Livingston, Christ in you as a believer. Jesus gave us the reality of human nature, the spirituality of genuine worship. Thirdly, the purity of his own person. Which of you convinces me of sin?

I find no fault in this man. But what I think I want to draw here is very significant. I know the last time I was here, I gave you that beautiful thought, which is like a treasured nugget in my own life now. Remember what I mentioned to you, how the pursuit of the Hebrews was light, the pursuit of the Greeks as knowledge, and the pursuit of the Romans was glory. The Hebrews pursued light, Greeks knowledge, and Romans glory. And I said how the apostle Paul said God has caused his light to shine in our hearts to give to us the light and the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. Remember how in the convergence of the person of Christ, light, knowledge, and glory converge? Let me stretch that point a little more.

Please follow now. Anything you create at best will be somewhat different from you. Anything you create at best will be somewhat different from you. It may be similar, but never be essentially the same.

So an artist can do a self-portrait, a sculptor can do a self-portrait on stone, and you can create all kinds of pieces of music, of works of art, and so on. It may be a similarity to you, but it will be different to you. Only that which is begotten is identical to the begetter, and Jesus Christ is the begotten of the Father. I and the Father are one. And in that garden of Gethsemane, this one who is begotten of the Father, impeccable and spotless, prays, and in his prayers he refers to God as his holy Father, as his holy Father. Now here's the dramatic truth in Christian faith. When the Holy Spirit works within our heart, that internal touch, we become begotten of the Spirit. And when we are begotten of the Spirit, and the Christ comes and lives within us, we can lay claim because of his purity, his work, and his regeneration, we too can turn to God and call him holy Father. So the purity of Christ is not merely an abstract dogma, that purity which is so marvelous that light, knowledge, and glory converges. There is no religious teacher in history.

I repeat that. There is no prophet in history. There is no apostle in history. None of them can ever affirm what Jesus did.

Even, in fact, the Qur'an refers to him as born of the virgin without any fault. Do you realize that the greatest pursuit of the philosophers has been to find unity in diversity? To find unity in diversity. Socrates tried it. Plato tried it. Aristotle tried it. Aristotle's best known student was Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great tried to take Aristotelian philosophy and unify the world in Greek language and Greek thought. Unity in diversity has been a historical pursuit. In fact, the very word university means trying to find unity in diversity. In the American coins, you have these words, e pluribus unum, which means out of the many, one, the melting pot but finding unity. The very word quintessence, which literally means the fifth essence, comes from the Greek philosophers when you think back that they said there were four essences, earth, air, water, fire.

Somebody said, what is the fifth essence that unites these four essences? What is the quintessence of life? So whether it's e pluribus unum, university, unity in diversity or whatever it is, do you realize in order to explain unity and diversity in the effect, I am more and more convinced there would have to be unity and diversity in the first cause and only in the Christian dogma is there unity and diversity in the doctrine of the Trinity in the first cause. You see the unity and diversity within the doctrine of the Trinity and the community that is established distinction yet identity and purpose of being one in all of that.

How does this work out in life? The unity and diversity doctrine coalesces my own life. It coalesces my own life in the worship of Christ whom I can worship in spirit internally and in truth within boundaries that he's established. Archbishop William Temple defined worship in these words. He said, worship is the submission of all of my nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness, nourishment of mind by his truth, purifying of imagination by his beauty, opening of the heart to his love and submission of will to his purpose. All this gathered up in adoration is the greatest expression of which we are capable. Quickening of conscience by his holiness, nourishment of mind by his truth, purifying of imagination by his beauty, opening of the heart to his love and submission of will to his purpose.

The coalescing of all of my faculties in the unity of worship. Do you remember the film Chariots of Fire? How the Scottish runner Eric Little is challenged by his sister in that film. She says, Eric, you're giving up so much in order to win this gold medal. And he says to her, Jenny, God has made me for a purpose for China. But he's also made me fast.

And when I run, I feel his pleasure. You see, not only his missionary activity was an expression of his worship of God. So was his running on the track and field. And when his gold medal was over with, it was over with.

He had won it. He was gone onto a missionary in China and he lived his life of worship, which was coextensive with all that he did. So we worship not only when we take the Lord's Supper.

We worship even if we are out in a tennis court taking the exercise that the body needs as an expression of my gratitude to God. Worship is the unity in diversity. So we've got here in Jesus the reality of human nature, the spirituality of genuine worship, the purity of his own person, the unity in life's diversity. And lastly, the continuity of life beyond the grave, the continuity of life beyond the grave. It is interesting to read in the Quranic writings where they describe that Jesus did raise people from the dead.

That is found in the Quran. Very interesting that he did raise people from the dead. Of course, today, our entire Christian doctrine hangs on that peg and Paul said, If Christ be not raised from the dead, then our faith is all in vain. But put yourself in the place of the disciples who all of a sudden lost it when they saw him on two pieces of timber, dying such a shameful death. And then his body is taken and tucked away.

They were hiding like a bunch of frightened boy scouts, not knowing what to do with their tomorrow themselves. And as they pondered that in the marvelous breaking of the chains of death, as Jesus emerged alive, as he prophesied he would destroy this temple, he said, and in three days I will raise it up. And you go back right to the Old Testament, you see the prognostication of his resurrection.

You see it in the New Testament, very different to some of these mythic legends that people espouse, some remote mystery religion somewhere. But here it is, he said death would not be able to hold him. He was going to go back to be in glory with his father, prepare a place so that we could go. And that dogma of the resurrection fuses life with such hope and such guarantee because our home is not just here for now, but our home is ultimately in a realm with God himself.

Have you ever pondered on this one idea? What would you do to frighten Lazarus after he'd been raised from the dead? Is there anything you could do to say to him, I'm going to scare you, Lazarus, i.e., I'm going to kill you?

There is a well-known play by Eugene O'Neill entitled Lazarus Laughed because Caligula is going around killing the Christians and everybody is getting scared. Antley bumps into Lazarus and he says, Lazarus, I'm going to kill you if you're a Christian. Lazarus goes, ha ha ha. And the argument goes back and forth and finally says, Lazarus, one more ha ha ha out of you and you're going to be a dead man. And Lazarus bends over an uncontrollable laughter now, comes up for air and says, haven't you heard, Caligula, death is dead, death is dead.

How do you frighten somebody who's already been there and knows the one who's going to let him out? G.K. Chesterton wrote it so beautifully. In the words, he put words into Lazarus' bound body coming out of the tomb. He says this, after one moment when I bowed my head and the whole world turned over and came upright, I walked again where the old road shone white and heard what men said. The sages have a hundred maps to give that trace their crawling cosmos like a tree. They rattle reason out through many a sieve that stores the dust and lets the gold go free. And all these things are less than dust to me for my name is Lazarus and I live.

All these things are less than dust to me for my name is Lazarus and I live. Billy Graham said once he was in the offices of Conrad Adenauer, the mayor of Cologne and the chancellor of Germany succeeding Hitler. And Adenauer asked for Billy Graham to come and visit him. And he looked at the young evangelist eyeball to eyeball, asked him a lot of questions.

And then he went over to the window looking across the ruins of his city. And he says, Mr. Graham, I want to ask you a question. He said, do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Do you really believe in the resurrection of the dead, those who are in Christ? And as he looked over the debris of his befallen city, Billy Graham, the nervous young evangelist said, Mr. Adenauer, if I didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead because of Christ, I would not be preaching the gospel. And Adenauer continued to look outside and this great 20th century statesman said this to the young evangelist. He said, Mr. Graham, outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I know of no other hope for mankind.

Outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I know of no other hope for mankind. I promised to read you these words earlier on. Let me end with this and then I'll be through.

Believe me, I've clipped a lot, but you're grateful for that too. G.K. Chesterton ends his classic book, Orthodoxy, with these words. Because I think of the joy that awaits us when we see him face to face. Our Lord in all of his purity and his splendor. And in his high priestly prayer, he prayed that we would be with him so that we could see him in his glory. I think of Peter, James, and John at the top of the mountain, so stunned by the transfiguration.

What is heaven going to be like? Because was it not Don Wertzen, the songwriter who said, when engulfed by the terror of tempestuous seas, unknown ways before you roll, at the end of trials and so on is your destiny. And when fear and conflict seizes your soul, he said, but just think of stepping on shore and finding it heaven, of touching a hand and finding it gods, of breathing new air and finding it celestial, of waking up in glory and finding it home. That's the destiny, the bliss. Here is the marvelous way in which Chesterton ends his book, Orthodoxy. I love this stanza. I wish I could quote it verbatim, but I'd lose some of the beauty he has here. Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.

Listen to that again. Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. You see, because for the pagan, only the peripheral questions are answered.

The fundamental ones are not. Therefore, joy is peripheral for him and sorrow is fundamental. For the Christian, joy is fundamental and sorrow is peripheral. So joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume, I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came.

And I'm again haunted by a kind of confirmation. This tremendous figure of Jesus, which fills the gospels, towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed his tears.

He showed them plainly on his face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of his native city. Yet he did conceal something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger.

He never restrained his anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the temple and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of hell. Yet he restrained something.

I say it with reverence. There was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that he hid from all men when he went up to a mountain to pray.

There was something that he covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth. And I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth. I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth, his joy, his laughter. And I say to you, that is the glory that John saw in the Revelation and the beauty of what was going on.

No longer everyone fell down and said, holy, holy, holy. This Christ, who understood the reality of human nature through his purity, bringing unity and diversity, ultimately has the continuity in our lives to take us to our very heavenly dwelling. There is no one in history like our blessed Lord Jesus.

And that is the truth as he is unique amongst the religions of the world. You've been listening to the conclusion of a message from RZIM's founder, the late Ravi Zacharias, titled The Uniqueness of Christ in World Religions. As he compared Christ's reality with the man-made religions of the world, we hope the thoughts and insights he shared have encouraged you and given further understanding to the person of Christ and the gift he offers to each one of us. Though his plan for our lives is not always easy, he offers the fulfillment, purpose and love that no other worldview can. And this complete message is available in both audio and video formats.

If you would like to order a copy, be sure to call us at 1-800-448-6766 and ask for the title The Uniqueness of Christ in World Religions. If you'd like more answers and insights than we're able to present in the short time we have available on the radio, we invite you to visit RZIM.org. Our resources, audio downloads, articles and daily emails will help you keep your mind sharp and your heart in tune with the truth.

That address is RZIM.org or RZIM.ca for those in Canada. Are you interested in becoming better prepared for conversations about life's biggest questions? If so, be sure to check out Everyday Questions, our nine-week DVD-based small group curriculum. Everyday Questions was developed with pastors to prepare small groups to love their neighbours while sharing their faith in a complex world. Featuring Ravi Zacharias and many other great speakers, we hope you'll take advantage of this amazing resource. Go to EverydayQuestions.org to learn more. Let My People Think is a listener-supported radio ministry and is furnished by RZIM in Atlanta, Georgia.