Jesus is…

Jesus is… philosophically unique– in a class all by himself.. holy

Several questions come to mind when discussing the philosophical uniqueness of Christ.

Aren’t all religions basically leading to the same goal? Is it not arrogant of Christians to claim their way is the only way to God?

Here is an illustration that is often used to answer these questions.

Imagine that the goal of eternal life is the top of a mountain. There are many different paths that lead to the top. A person might be on one particular path and think they’re on the only path that leads to the top, but there are really paths on the left and on the right and around the mountain that lead to the top. The assumption is that it doesn’t matter which path you’re on. As long as you keep walking it, you’ll get to the top.

A revealing question that exposes the faulty logic behind the colorful illustration above is, “Where does a person have to stand to know that all paths lead to the top?” At the top of the mountain, perhaps? No, that doesn’t really work. One would have to get higher up. If all paths lead to the top of the mountain, where does a person have to stand to know that all paths lead to the top? The perspective must come from somewhere above the mountain—the bird’s eye view that only God might have. That would mean that if a person thinks they know that all paths lead to eternal life they would be claiming to know something that only God would know.

Then the question emerges: Who appears to be arrogant then–the one who thinks they’re following Christ, or the person who claims he has the bird’s eye view, to be God amongst us? The second choice appears to be quite arrogant when it is put in that light. It is an appropriate concession to say that at the surface all religions may appear similar, but once one scratches the surface, one realizes they are all saying very different things at the heart of their messages.

Jesus framed all of his claims, his whole message, in reference to Himself. Therefore, Christianity is unique in all world religions, beliefs, ways of life, or experiences. Christianity hangs and falls in the Person of Christ. He is central. Jesus asks this question in the Gospel of Matthew, “Who do you say that I am?” (16:15,ESV). In American culture there is an attempt to recreate and redefine Jesus from The Simpson’s to South Park. The answer to that question is at the heart of the Christian message–God reveals himself ontologically in His only begotten son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is not merely one who teaches a path to God. He is God and the only way to eternal life.

There is none like you, O Lord, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears (1Chronicles 17:20).

Christianity is not rooted or grounded in one or a combination of three categories that any other belief or system of thought falls into. Jesus Christ claimed to be God himself. He framed his whole claim and message in a category by and in himself–the ontological category. That is in His being, in His essence or body.

This differs from belief systems that may be defined as epistemological. This category has do to with the intellect. It asserts that the main way to succeed or reach any goal is thinking and the necessity of being conversant with certain ideas.

Then there is the existential category, in which feelings are the key to everything, that to feel a certain way or engage with a mystical experience in life will define life.

The last main category is the pragmatical. This category focuses on doing certain things. It is a to-do-list that ensures people that if they do these things certain things or live a certain way, they will reach their intended goal.

The attitude of Christ, His humility and meekness, the authority of His teaching, and the purity of His life is extraordinarily unique . The person of Christ is not distinct from His message. The historian W.E.H. Lecky, who was a skeptic, said in his book, A History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne:

The character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incentive in its practice and has exerted so deep a influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists (Lecky 143).

In contrast, if one were to ask any Muslim scholar the question, “Do you have to have Muhammad to have the Qua ran; are they equally important?” The scholar would answer, “No, it is Muhammad that we believe to have received the revelation from God, but God could have given the revelation to anyone. We believe he gave it to Muhammad.“ Further east is the teaching of Buddha. Buddhism is based around the enlightenment and thoughts that Buddha achieved. It follows that Buddhist study and meditate on the writings of Buddha. Could anyone have experienced the enlightenment, or did it have to be Buddha? It would be honest to admit that Buddha and is teachings are distinct. Buddha continually reminded his followers not to look to him but his Dharma, or teaching. Christianity is not about what anyone can achieve to or become to be right or the right religious exercises, but what Christ achieved in his body, absorbing the wrath of God for us. Christ does not want his believers to only know His teaching, but to actually to know and see Him as the image of the invisible God and experience the supernatural in them producing new life and authentic change.

To think of taking Christ out of Christianity would be unthinkable. One would have no redemption or transformation because there would be no savior. One would be in the same lost, broken, hopeless, condition because Christ does not only claim to know the way to God, He shouts that He is the only way, and that He is even God himself. In John 14:9, Jesus’ disciples ask a serious question. They demand, “Just show us the father!” We can all identify with this question because sometimes we wish, “O’ God just show me yourself and I’ll believe.” Jesus’ answer to this question with what is the essence of the Christian Faith. He says, “Do you not know If you have seen me, you have seen the father.” Later in the New Testament, Paul explains it as Jesus being the image of the invisible God. James Stuart, the famed Scottish theologian, spoke of the paradoxical excellence of Christ and divine personality:

He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the Glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming yet he was so genial and approachable that the children loved to play with him, and they nestled in his arms (Zacharias 17).