For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:10).
Have
you ever been confronted by the question, what is unique about Christianity?
In
other words, when you consider every other religious network of beliefs, every philosophical
worldview, or every ethical system known to mankind, what makes Christianity absolutely
different?
Why
the message of the Cross radically distinctive, unparalleled, absolutely
exclusive?
Author
Philip Yancey relates the story of an academic conference decades ago in
the United Kingdom. The topic of discussion was comparative world religions.
The issue on the table: when considering Christianity, what makes that
particular belief, doctrine, theology different from all others?
However, with each suggestion from the delegates, someone had a
rebuttal.
Was it the circumstances of Christ’s birth? God becoming Man? Jesus returning to life after His death?
But with each suggestion submitted, someone raised an objection – sometimes quite esoteric or obscure – of a parallel somewhere in religious creeds or mythological tales.
And so the debate continued until into the room walked C.S. Lewis.
Professor Lewis – seeing the animated discussion play out before him – asked, “What’s the rumpus about?”
When it was explained that the delegates were attempting to pinpoint the uniqueness of the Christian faith, Lewis is reported to have provided an instantaneous response, “Oh that’s easy, it’s grace”.
Having come to faith in
Christ in 1929 under various influences, including that of his good friend J. R. R. Tolkien, he related, “I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England,”
But Lewis was always deeply and profoundly impressed by God’s mercy in his own life, and the epic example of grace: the provision of salvation through the cross of God the Son.
Here’s another view of Christianity’s exceptional distinctiveness.
Episcopal author Fleming Rutledge: “the first element of this uniqueness is that the Christian faith glorifies as son of God a man who was degraded and dehumanized by his fellow human beings as much as it is possible to be... and that he died in a way designed to subject him to utmost contempt and finally to erase him from human memory.”
Dr. Rutledge identifies the 2nd unique feature: “is its central message of the justification of the ungodly”.
She continues, “Every other system…assumes some sort of distinction between godly and ungodly, righteous and unrighteous, spiritual and unspiritual.”
And yet the declaration of the apostolic Gospel is the total depravity of mankind – of every one of us: past, present and future.
As it is written: "There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3, 10,11,23).
In fact the Gospel was not – nor should it ever be – recognized as religion, if such is defined as teaching what we can achieve by performance to become godly. In other words, religion in this way encourages the ungodly to alter and modify themselves to become godly.
But the Gospel of Christ is never about human potential.
Understood historically, the Gospel of Christ was different in that multi-religious, comprehensive spectrum of the 1st century
milieu. The Christian message centered around a crucified Saviour, was recognized
as being foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18), a stumbling block (Gk scandalon in 1 Corinthians 1:23) and an offense (Galatians 5:11).
Brethren Bible scholar F.F. Bruce once explained in an interview, "An evangelical is someone who believes in the God who justifies the ungodly."
Takeaway: we’ve been challenged to commit to memory Romans 5:1-11 as part of our AWANA TruthScripts initiative.
Here’s the value: memorizing the text helps it to seep deep into our hearts and minds, reminding us of God’s grace as illustrated so graphically in Christ dying for us when we hated Him!
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:6,10).
