WHAT SETS CHRISTIANITY APART FROM OTHER WORLD VIEWS AND WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN IT?
BY: S. LOZANO
What sets Christianity apart from other world views?
Christianity is vastly different from other religions and world views. It’s not merely a religion but the truth, the truth of the world we live in and the truth about eternal life. For starters all other major religions of the world have the believer working their way up to God, to God’s love or to God’s approval. We call this a work-based religion because receiving the reward depends on their works. Christianity is the ONLY one where you don’t work up to salvation. It is a grace-based religion because salvation is a gift from God that we don’t deserve, all we must do is accept the gift.
In Christianity God humbled Himself becoming human in the person of Jesus. Jesus went through and felt what we go through here on earth. He made friends, laughed, prayed, wept, and suffered. Jesus is also mentioned in other religions but simply as either a good man or a prophet. Christianity is the ONLY religion where God came in human form, not to experience what we go through but to become THE sacrifice for ALL our sins, past, present and future.
Christianity also teaches that Jesus was sinless and was no mere man. Even in His darkest hour being spat on, whipped, tortured, and killed, He never wanted revenge or to cause harm to any of those who were hurting Him. Rather He was sinless and must die to pay the ultimate price of sin that humanity deserves. But instead of cursing His enemies He prayed “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. He could’ve called on all the angles of heaven and had the planet whipped clean but instead His love for the world kept Him there while He endured a pain unlike any other. It also teaches that Jesus performed countless miracles which the disciples could not write all of them down. One miracle which is the biggest in the entire Bible and the sole reason Christians believe and worship Jesus is, the resurrection.
The Christian Bible also stands alone in explicitly mentioning that all humans are created in the image of God. Jesus, the founder, also claimed to be God where no other religious founder has ever made this claim. There are more differences and ask that study for yourself, however, there are many questions regarding WHY Christianity so let’s dive into it.
Why should we believe in the Christian world view over any other religion?
The holy book for Christians is the Holy Bible, which makes a lot of claims including who Jesus is. Now the first question is, how do we know the bible is historically accurate in its claims. For if there were just ONE falsehood, we would have grounds to question it in its totality. This is a good question that most believers aren’t always aware of how to answer. For starters let’s look at what most do agree on when it comes to Jesus. Most scholars, historians, and theologians can all agree on three things when it comes to the Bible and Jesus.
1. A man named Jesus of Nazareth did indeed exist.
2. He was crucified under the rein of Pontius Pilate.
3. His tomb He was buried in was indeed empty.
Now you’re probably asking how we came to these agreements. Simply because there were not just Christian accounts of the life of Jesus but in fact there are many NON-Christian accounts of Him. For time and space purposes I will only name three well known ones but there are many more that you can research yourself. One is Josephus who wrote the “Antiquities of the Jews” and in it he mentions John the Baptist, Jesus, Jesus’ followers, and the death of James, Jesus’s half-brother. In Josephus’ book he describes Jesus as a very wise man and mentions how Jews and other nations became his disciples and how his disciples never abandoned Jesus’ discipleship. He also mentions the fact that Jesus was crucified under Pilate’s rein and that His body was reportedly missing after 3 days, and that Jesus had allegedly appeared to His disciples.
Another would be Thallus who wrote about the history of the mediterranean world, 12 years after Jesus’s crucifixion. He wrote about the crucifixion of Jesus and the darkness that occurred that he observed during this period. This darkness or solar eclipse that Thallus wrote about also fell around the exact time the Bible records it, right after Jesus’s death. This aligns perfectly with what the bible had said happened immediately following the death of Jesus.
Yet another would be a man named Cornelius Tacitus. Cornelius mentions Jesus’ existence and the crucifixion but claims His body was stolen from the tomb. Cornelius is a non-believer so it would make sense that he would think that the body was stolen but I will address this theory soon. He also mentioned how Jesus’s followers were persecuted for their faith in Jesus.
Now there are plenty more accounts, but I will just leave those 3 for now as I explain the Gospel sources of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Gospel means, the good news. The good news being that God came down to earth in the personhood of Jesus to be a sacrifice for all sin, so that any who believe in Him will have eternal life.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not mere stories told by people from generation to generation. Rather they are accurate eyewitness accounts that have been proven by scholars all around the world with historical tests. Some tests include the literacy and consistency test, eyewitnesses, and historical document analysis. In the gospels we read about the life of a man named Jesus of Nazareth who not only claimed to be God in human form but proved it by fulfilling prophesies about the Messiah, the promise one. Some prophesies include the virgin birth, some about the son of God and much of the prophecies the book of Isaiah. All prophesies make up about 351 from the Old Testament about the messiah. Jesus also proved His claim by His works and miracles, some of which include healing of the blind, lame, lepers, and many more diseases. But most importantly by the resurrection.
Now the big one. Jesus claimed to be God numerous amounts of times as well as the disciples calling Him God. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 “if Jesus did not rise from the dead than our faith in Him is bankrupt”. This now leads us to the evidence that Jesus is God and really did raise from the dead. Now when Christ rose from the dead, He appeared to over 500 people in a span of 40 days before going up to heaven. The question is how do we know the disciples and all these people really saw Jesus’ body physically alive after the resurrection? Well, here is where we will now use the literacy and consistency tests mentioned above, also known as truth tests. Whether you know these tests or not, we use these tests every day in our lives and in our court system to determine if someone is telling the truth or lying. Let’s use these truth tests against the major theories against the resurrection of Jesus Christ to see what’s reasonable and where the evidence points towards and conclude if the disciples were really telling the truth or not.
The first theory is whether the disciples were flat out wrong. Some skeptics believe that Jesus survived the beating and didn’t die but rather appeared after He recovered. The problem with this theory is that while yes, it may explain the empty tomb and sightings of Jesus, it fails to explain what the disciples observed and experienced when they pulled Jesus off the cross. Usually when someone dies the first thing you always do is check for any signs of life, and it doesn’t take much to check if someone is truly dead or not. The disciples would’ve checked to see if Jesus was still breathing or had any signs of life. Dead bodies are also always cold to the touch and are rigid, meaning they remain in the shape they were in when they died. Basically, dead bodies look, feel, and respond different from living ones. The disciples would’ve spent time wrapping, treating, and preparing the body for burial. Don’t you think the disciples would’ve noticed if He rescinded to any of His injuries if He was slipping in and out of conscious?
In John 19:34 we also see that a Roman guard had stabbed Jesus in His side and observed both water and blood pouring out from His body. Now modern medicine didn’t exist back in those days so, obviously John was probably completely taken back at what he was seeing. Warner Wallace in his book Cold-Case Christianity says with modern medicine we can say that this was more than likely either pericardial effusion or pleural effusion. Both are the result of when someone is injured to the point of death and fluid starts to leak out and surround either the heart or the lungs. John was not a medical professional, nor did he know anything about effusion. If Jesus was already dead when the soldier stabbed Him, then effusion would make sense, it is highly unlikely and unreasonable that John would’ve put this forensic detail to convince the reader when nothing like that was even known to have existed at the time and wouldn’t be made known for centuries. In addition to this we also must keep in mind 5 things.
1. Many first century and early second century non-Christian Roman sources along with Jewish sources acknowledged Jesus was crucified and died, proving these events did happen.
2. Roman guards faced death if they allowed a prisoner to survive crucifixion. This proves these events did happen for the Romans would not allow this embarrassment unless it did in fact happened with hundreds as witness.
3. Jesus would’ve had to been able to control His blood loss from the beatings, crucifixion, and stabbing to survive, yet was pinned to the cross making it impossible to move or control blood loss entirely.
4. After the crucifixion and resurrection Jesus displayed wounds but never acted as if wounded, even appearing to 500 people in 40 days.
5. Jesus also managed to disappear entirely from historical records after the resurrection and was never seen again. The odd fact is that if He had survived, He would’ve been mentioned throughout history and live well beyond the age of 33.
Another Theory is what if the disciples lied about the resurrection? Some claim that the disciples stole the body and made up a story about the resurrection. While this explains the empty tomb and sighting of Jesus, it fails to account for the changed lives of the apostles. In Acts we read how they were ruthlessly preaching without fear of being persecuted but before the resurrection the apostles were afraid. They were afraid of what would happen to them just for being associated with Jesus. In Acts they knew they would be persecuted and maybe even killed, which 11 out of the 12 were, yet they persisted on keeping true to what they have seen, Jesus’ resurrection, no matter the consequences. Only the truth of the resurrection could change all the apostles’ lives in such a way. They held on to what they claimed to have seen, even being brutally tortured and killed, something no one would do if it was just a lie let alone all 12 apostles.
Is it also reasonable to believe that the 500 people who didn’t have any significant relationships and sufficient means of communication, sustained a lie over an unreasonably amount of time while enduring large amounts of pressure and persecution? Of course not, unless they all were telling the truth. This theory that the resurrection is simply a lie requires one to believe that these men were completely transformed and emboldened not by the miraculous appearance of Jesus’ risen body, but by a conspiracy without any benefit. The only thing the disciples got out of it was a mass persecution and a very horrible and slow death. In addition to this theory, you also must consider 4 things:
1. Jewish/Roman’s authorities took great lengths to make sure the tomb was guarded and sealed, knowing that if the body was stolen it would allow the disciples to claim Jesus had risen (Matthew chapter 27:62-66).
2. The alleged 500 people that Christ also revealed Himself to, would’ve known it was a lie and would have willing be subjected to persecution. Which makes no sense, why would 500 people do that if it was not true.
3. The disciples had zero reasons and motivation to create such a lie with the only gain of a horrible death.
4. The disciples transformation following the resurrection is inconsistent with the claim that it was all a lie. How could their lies transform them into courageous evangelist that would eventually get them brutally murdered. An example would be how Peter denied knowing Jesus 3 times, then was crucified upside down because Peter felt he was not worthy to be crucified the same way as Jesus was. Another big example would be Paul. While Paul wasn’t with the apostles and Jesus before the crucifixion, Paul claimed that Jesus had appeared to him after the resurrection while on the way to persecute and arrest Christians. This event radically changed his life, and he became one of the most if not the most influential and talked about apostles in all of scripture
Another Theory is that the disciples were delusional, that they all somehow imagined seeing Christ risen from the dead and that it was all just a hallucination. At first glance without thinking this may make the slightest bit of sense but when you apply the truth tests with reason and logic then you will see why this is the weakest of them all. First, this doesn’t account for the fact that Jesus also appeared to over 500 people in a span of 40 days, in various locations and at various times. Its highly unreasonable and illogical to think that the disciples, plus the 500 people, were simply hallucinating. There are also other things to consider when facing this theory:
1. While individuals hallucinate, there are no examples ever in history of large groups of people all experiencing the exact same hallucination.
2. While short momentary group hallucinations may seem reasonable, long sustained, and very detailed hallucinations are unreasonable and unsupported throughout history.
3. Not all the disciples were initially believers that Christ had risen. In fact, some skeptics like Thomas himself didn’t believe until he put his hands through the nail holes of Jesus and the side where He was stabbed by a spear.
4. Non-believers of Jesus such as, James the half-brother of Jesus, didn’t believe until he saw Jesus after the resurrection. Not to mention Saul who was an enemy of Jesus persecuting all who believed in Him, later came to believe after experiencing Jesus after then resurrection. After this experience Saul received a new name Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament.
5. If the resurrection was simply a hallucination, then what happened to Jesus’s corpse? The absence of the body in the tomb is still left unanswered.
The next theory is that the disciples were fooled by an imposter. While this explanation accounts for the sightings of Jesus, there are many concerns with this theory. Let’s go over a few.
1. The impersonator would need to be familiar enough with Jesus’s statements and actions to convince the disciples. The disciples knew Jesus better than anyone else and wouldn’t have been fooled so easily.
2. Some disciples were skeptical and wouldn’t believe unless provided with proof or evidence. For example, Thomas was skeptical until he put his fingers into the nail holes of Jesus’s hands and into the area where Jesus was impaled by the spear.
3. The impersonator would need to have been able to perform miracles or provide evidence of miraculous powers. In Acts 1:2-3 we read that Jesus gave convincing proofs after the resurrection, something an imposter would not be able to do.
4. Also, who would want to continue a religious movement as an imposter knowing it could lead to death as it did with the true founder? Therefore, we must follow the evidence to where it leads and conclude this theory to be false.
Some also believe the disciples observations were distorted and amplified as the story of Jesus grew. They think Jesus was just merely a wise teacher but argue the resurrection did not happen and was just an exaggeration overtime. If we accept this theory, we must then accept the missing body was removed/stolen which we covered. That said, let’s go over other concerns with this theory.
1. In the earliest activities of the disciples after the crucifixion, they are seen proclaiming the resurrection as their primary piece of evidence that Jesus is God. From the earliest days of the Christian movement, eyewitnesses were making this claim and were heavily persecuted and killed for it. This was not an exaggeration overtime.
2. The students of the disciples also recorded the resurrection was a key component of the disciples’ eyewitness testimony.
3. The earliest known Christian creed or oral record as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15, included the resurrection as a key component.
4. This explanation also fails to account for the missing body of Jesus. The body was never produced to demonstrate this was an exaggeration.
With the biggest theories out of the way and following the evidence to where it leads, we can conclude that Jesus’ claims and actions are true. It’s the only logical and reasonable answer. This conclusion is far superior to the other theories when approaching the resurrection. We must conclude that Jesus rose from the dead and lives on to this day changing the lives of many across the world. Christ is King and He is coming back to Judge the world. As I stated in the beginning, Christianity is not merely a religion but the TRUTH. The truth about God, the truth about eternal life, truth about our world, and the truth about our purpose in life. Thank you and God bless.
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