The profound opening of John’s Gospel presents
us with the direct exposure to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.
In relationship to God, the Word, who is identified as Jesus (John 1:14,17),
is shown to be unique among any and every other historical figure who has ever
existed. Verses 1 and 2 declare the Eternity, the Deity and Personality of the
Word. He is equal with God, which means Jesus is Himself God, God the Son. Jesus
the Word is God expressing Himself. Therefore any religion that will lead us
to God cannot, at the very least, contradict God’s own Word. God has a
consistency of self-expression through Jesus His only Son.
He is unique in relation to every thing that exists. He is the Creator of space
and time. ‘Without him nothing was made that has been made’ (John
1:3)
This declaration that nothing came into being without Him speaks immediately
to the matter of comparative religion. What are we really asking when we raise
the question ‘Do all religions lead to God?’ It is a question based
on the confession that we have lost touch with God our Creator, and can’t
find Him. John’s purpose is to show that our restoration to a true knowledge
of God, which we have lost, can only be accomplished by the Word who is God
and who became Jesus the Son God. Why? Because it was by His power that all
things were created. Thus, whether the message of God to the world comes to
an agnostic student in Cardiff or a Confucian student in China it comes to them
on the same unique basis, viz., Jesus’ right to call us to bow to Him
is the right of our Creator. This means that the leaders of the world’s
religions stand in the same relationship to Jesus as you or I or any other.
He is the God of Mahomet, or Confucius or Richard Dawkins. We see the uniqueness
of Jesus in how He calmly accepts as His right the honour of worship due to
God alone. CS Lewis highlights this: ‘If you had gone to Mahomet and asked,
“Are you Allah?” he would first have rent his clothes and then chopped
your head off.’
He is unique in relation to humanity, ‘In him was life and that life was
the light of men’ (John 1:4), ‘the true light that gives light to
every man’ (John 1:9).
The Word who became the man Jesus is the Light-Life of humanity which accounts
for our distinctiveness from other animate life. The source, for example, of
our rationality is the enlivening and enlightening of the Word. A big question
today is what makes a human human. How can we explain the mannishness of man
over and above our machineness? Man is a chemical and biological machine, but
are we more than that? He is a responsible being, but how did we become different
to other animals? Does our personality die when we are clinically dead?
There is no real answer to the question of our significance and humanness apart
from the doctrine of the Word. Buddhism’s whole aim, for example, is to
be rid of the self and to reach Nirvana as a ‘dew-drop slipping into the
shining sea.’ It cannot help us to discover our personal identity. It
can only encourage us to lose it through escape from self. But we cannot do
this because our defining existence is tied to our Creator from whom we cannot
escape. What gives us our distinguishing marks as the human species is our relationship
to the Creator Word, the true light that lightens every man. He is the ground
of our rationality.
He is unique in being the source of humanity’s universal but obscure sense
of deity, ‘the light shines in the darkness’ (John 1:5).
This is crucial for our perspective on comparative religion, for why, we might
interject, if our powers of reason and personal responsibility are the result
of the enlightening influence of the Word, does not reason give us clear pointers
to God? Why are there so many religious viewpoints? Because, says this passage,
the light given to us at the creation now shines only dimly, ‘the light
shines in the darkness’, a darkness caused by the historic fall of the
human race. The fracture between God and humanity results in our religious reasonings
petering out into a kaleidoscope of errors and a labyrinth of efforts. Jesus
spoke to the heart of the problem when He said ‘If then the light within
you (as a result of Creation) is darkness (as a result of the Fall) how great
is that darkness! (Matt 6:23) The ‘light’ is the religious consciousness
and conscience of man and derives from the fact that the Word is the creator
and sustainer of his life. The ‘darkness’ is the religious confusion
of man which stems from the Fall which has darkened over the glory of our created
lives.
Again this speaks to the uniqueness of Christ as He is related to the world’s
religions. The confusion shows itself in the partial and distorted emphases
of the three most significant non-Christian religions. Hinduism is the religion
of the priest and ritual sacrifice. Confucianism elevates the wise man as the
object of veneration, Islam is the religion of the prophet–all central
religious themes. But they are only consistently and perfectly combined in the
unique person and work of the Lord Jesus who is our prophet, priest and wisdom.
He is unique in that the creation’s Creator has a human birthday, becoming
one of us, ‘The word became flesh’ (John 1:14).
The Word not only created humanity but then shared our humanity, ‘The
true light ... was coming into the world... he was in the world... the world
was made through him’ (John 1:9-10). In Jesus, the Lord of creation becomes
the man of Galilee. He steps into our shoes. He enters space and time that He
himself created. He has a personal history—a birth and death, but more,
a resurrection. And why a resurrection? Because Jesus is not just one other
religious leader; He is not just a child of his age; He is not locked into His
day; He did not end His life in the tomb because He did not begin His life in
the womb. He had power to lay down His life and to take it again in resurrection
because He possessed the power of an endless life, having come from God the
Father who sent Him.
So why did he die at all? ‘He came to that which was his own, but his
own did not receive him’ (John 1:11). This verse again shows another aspect
of the uniqueness of Christ in His relation to history. He is the focal point
of history because He comes at God’s appointed time to a people that God
had been preparing for forty centuries or more. The main theme of Old Testament
prophecy is the promise of a deliverer. A summary of that theme comes later
in John chapter 1, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of
the world!’ (v 29, 36). It’s the final signpost along the way. This
brings us to the great dividing line between Jesus and every other religious
figure. The Creator becomes man to bear the penalty of the creature’s
sin. Where every other religion teaches what a person must do to gain acceptance
with God, Christianity alone tells us what God has done, through Jesus, to save
us. This actually happened on a day in the Roman calendar and changed the way
we date our days.
He is unique in making known the truth about God.
To ask, ‘Isn’t one person’s guess as good as another’s?
Aren’t all religions equally valid?’ is only possible if we ignore
or reject the evidence of the uniqueness of Christ. Flashes of wisdom and morality
shine out from other religions because the light shines in the darkness and
darkness cannot put it out, but neither can the darkness understand the light
(v. 5). Grace and truth are needed. And they came by Jesus Christ (John 1:14).
The truth is true for all because it is true for God. There is finality about
Jesus who is both Word and Truth. He belongs to eternity and to history. He
answers the two main questions of the human heart
- Can God be known? Yes. Truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has ever
seen God, the only Son who is at the Father’s side has made Him known
(John 1:17-18). From eternity he was face to face with God. In time He was face
to face with men and women and was able to say ‘he who has seen me has
seen the Father’ (John 14:9)
- Will God accept me? Yes. How? ‘To all who received him, to those who
believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God’ (John
1:12).
Geraint Fielder
Geraint Fielder is now retired from the ministry. He has pastored
churches in Abergavenny and Cardiff in Wales. He is the author of a number of
books.
This article is reproduced from the Evangelical Magazine (February 2002) published
by the Evangelical Movement of Wales and is used with permission.