Questions about religion: 1. Don’t all religions lead to God?

Don’t all religions lead to God?

In recent years the educational system and media have taught that all religions do lead to God. Religions are presented as just different paths going up the same mountain, all leading to the same summit. Simple logic, as well as the Bible itself, makes it clear that this cannot be true.

Imagine you were drowning in the sea. You would not want people to stand on the shore and shout instructions about how to swim – especially if they were shouting over each other so that none of them could actually be heard. Worse still, if their instructions and advice were contradicting one another, the situation would be hopeless. However, if somebody dived in and rescued you, how delighted you would be! That’s what you really need, not a list of instructions but a saviour – someone who is willing to jump into the water and risk their life at the cost of saving yours.

To put it very basically, all religions outside of Christianity are a list of “do’s and don’ts”. They aim to bring a person up to God. They are all about what we must do to save our lives, or reach heaven or its equivalent. True Christianity is different. Instead of us trying to reach to God, Christianity is about God coming to down to us. Jesus ‘dived into the sea’ to rescue us.

God is too big and holy for small, sinful people like us to try to reach Him. However, God took on Himself humanity, becoming a man, walking on this earth and dying to save us. God has come down to reach and rescue us. The Bible says that ‘…at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ (Romans 5 v.6 and 8) That is the amazing truth of Christianity that sets it apart from all other religions, ideas, formulas or sects. It is not about what we have to achieve, but rather what God in Jesus has achieved for us. The fact that He died in order that we might escape the separation we have brought upon ourselves, and that He rose again, is totally different from any other religious teaching.

Only Jesus was pure and sinless. Only He could die to pay the price of sin. God says that there is only one remedy for the sin that is in this world, and that is that Someone should be able to act as our Substitute-Saviour. It sounds extreme – but sin is extreme; it sounds serious – but God takes it seriously. Thankfully, because of His great love for us, Jesus (the One who never did anything wrong) died for us (the ones in the wrong) to bring us to God.

So Jesus died to pay the sentence that was hanging over our heads, but He also came back from the dead. That’s right – He died, and three days after dying He came out of His grave and was alive. It is another unique sequence of events in Jesus’ life. Only Jesus rose from the dead.

There is great historical proof that Jesus rose from the dead. One can visit the graves of Mohammed, Buddha, Marx, the gurus, etc, but Jesus’ grave is empty. Jesus is very much alive!

All religions do lead to God, in the sense that every individual will stand before God as judge. Every religion other than Christianity leads to God ‘on the throne of judgement’ whereas Jesus leads His people to God the Father ‘on the throne of grace’. Jesus said He was the only way to the Father (God), “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14 v. 6) Either He was and is an arrogant liar and we can ignore Him – or He is right and we should follow Him. Peter, Jesus’ disciple added, “God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4 v. 12 NLT) The Apostle Paul wrote, “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2 v. 5) If we examine it, and are willing to swim against the prevailing tide, we will find that all the evidence shows Jesus is who He said He is and we should worship Him.

Go to: Isn’t religion a matter of personal interpretation and sincerity?