Is Christianity Just Another Religion?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

In this segment of our program, we’re going through Dave Hunt’s book Seeking and Finding God and we’re at the end of Chapter 4. Now Dave, just to remind our listeners if they’ve been tracking with us and to remind me to remind you—because, although this is a weekly program, sometimes there’s a bit of a gap between one program to the next—so we need to remind each other what we talked about. And last week, we were talking about the world’s religions versus biblical Christianity. And on the one hand, we mentioned how diverse the world’s religions are and certainly different from biblical Christianity, yet there’s a common belief and practice among all the world’s religions and that is they’re going to attain heaven or paradise, or nirvana, whatever it might [be], through their own works, through their own efforts.

Dave: Or sacraments…

Tom: Ritualism…

Dave: …rituals—hocus pocus, you could call it—that, of course, does not count with God. It’s a matter of justice. We have broken His laws and you can go to any court on earth and you don’t get off by doing yoga. You don’t get off by obeying the law perfectly from then on. You don’t get off by some ritual. You can’t even get off of a parking ticket by promising the judge you won’t misbehave as far as parking is concerned or that you have really parked legally more times than you haven’t.

Tom: Yeah, if it’s a just judge and a just system...

Dave: Right.

Tom: …but a few of those aren’t.

Dave: But Tom, you were raised in the Catholic Church, and you know that many people think that Mary will get them in. They’re praying to Mary, incredibly, asking Mary to obtain for them the salvation that Christ obtained on the cross. How’d he do it? By paying the penalty for our sins and I facetiously sometimes—I don’t want to offend anybody—but I say you know, yeah sure, I was doing 120 mph in a school zone of 20 mph with children present and the police caught me and I’m going to be in front of the judge next week. And “wow,” they’re gasping, “they’re going to throw the book at you.”

I’d say, “don’t worry about it, I know the judge’s mother.”

We call that corruption. And yet that’s what many Catholics are thinking. That Mary somehow will get them out. I remember being in Spain during Holy Week, beginning with Good Friday, and I watched the parades with Christ, His body supposedly in a coffin they’re carrying and its glass sides, and you can see what they have in there, you know, just a wax figure, or whatever—and I heard people with my own ears say, “If you’re going to die, this is the time to die”—between Friday afternoon and early Sunday morning—because Jesus is in the grave and Mary will get you into heaven. Well, that’s not justice. And the Bible says there must be a just basis for God to forgive us. He doesn’t decide to forgive some and not others. Unfortunately, this is the impression you would get from Calvinism. God has from eternity past, chosen, predestined certain ones to heaven and others to hell. But on what basis? They’re all equally guilty. So on what basis would God then predestine and choose certain ones to heaven and damn the rest—let the rest go to hell. There’s nothing in God that would…He doesn’t play favorites, he’s not—God is no respecter of persons and there’s nothing in human beings—we’re all the same—so on what basis would God then distinguish? Why would he send some to heaven and others to hell? Well, the Calvinist falls back on mystery. “Well, it’s a mystery of His will,” but that’s a cop out. You can’t do that. There’s only one just basis and that is [that] Christ paid the penalty, and you either accept it or reject it. And then they would say, “Well, yeah, but if you can do that, then you’re in charge, if man can decide his own destiny.” You’re not in charge; God makes the rules. You either accept salvation on God’s terms or you reject salvation. But the problem with all religions in distinction from biblical Christianity and that would include false Christian faiths that claim to be Christian—they’re going somehow to appease God. The pagans would talk about that—you’re going to appease the gods. I’ve seen it in India. Trying to appease the gods, you know, and there are millions of gods. You’re going to do rituals, good works, as we already said.

Tom: Or suffering Dave. Let’s go back to Mary just for a quick aside. You see, the Catholic Church understands in a sense what you’re talking about because Mary is promoted from my youth until today, she has been promoted as the co-redemptrix: that she suffered this penalty supposed vicariously by being there, by going through the Dolorous Passion. From a woman standing aside, watching over this and vicariously experiencing what Jesus did. So, there’s a sense of understand that it is still good works…

Dave: Right.

Tom: …whether it be suffering or whatever you might call it.

Dave: This is what purgatory is about. No matter how much Christ suffered for your sins, that is for the eternal punishment. You must suffer for the temporal punishment in the flames of purgatory, whatever that means. No, you don’t pay for your sins in that manner. Christ paid the full penalty. He said, “It is finished.” But Tom, I’ve seen them at Lourdes, I’ve seen them at Fatima, in Portugal, all over the world. I’ve seen them on their pilgrimages; I’ve seen them on their knees, bloodied knees; I’ve seen them on their knees going around and around some sarcophagus where a saint is supposedly in there pleading for forgiveness. But I’ve seen it in India, the same thing—perambulating around the altars to the gods and so forth, or the effigies of the gods in the courtyard of the temples.

Tom: Dave, how about Islam. Self-flagellations. You find it all within Islam: the same thing.

Dave: Well, self sacrifice. Blow yourself up as a suicide bomber and you take quite a few people into eternity with yourself. But you’re going to paradise and they’re not. What kind of a god opens the door to paradise to murderers? Anyway, the point is, it’s an effort. It’s something that we try to do. But that won’t work. And Tom, you referred to Mary, co-redemptrix, bearing the suffering along with Jesus, and you would find that in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. Mary was right there along with Jesus, bearing the burden.

Tom: Dave, that’s stations of the cross. She is called Stabat Mater, standing mother, observing, vicariously going through all the things that Jesus went through.

Dave: Right.

Tom: That’s what it’s all about. Now Dave, the world’s religions versus biblical Christianity: we have works versus grace. But it’s also works versus faith. I want to quote from your book. You write, “How amazing that religions relying upon good works and rituals are considered to be faiths. Faith can only engage the unseen and eternal and therefore it does not mix with works and ritual. In search of a serious faith, it is folly to look at that which is visible. Even to look at a visible cross or crucifix is of no merit. What occurred on the cross for our salvation was invisible and must be accepted by faith.”

Now that’s going to startle some people because you know, we are image-oriented. You mentioned the movie, you mentioned Catholicism, crosses, crucifixes, others...

Dave: But Tom, this is what the Bible says and when you think about it, it’s logical. The penalty has to be paid. We can’t pay it. God is infinite. His justice is infinite. The penalty is infinite. We would be eternally separated from God; we would be in the lake of fire—this is what the Bible calls it—paying the penalty for our sins forever. Now, the penalty has to be paid. We can never pay it. That’s—we know that.

Tom: We have to suffer the consequences if we don’t turn to Him, but you’re right.

Dave: We could never….

Tom: It’s an infinite penalty.

Dave: Right, we could never pay it. Some one had to pay it for us. I love that little chorus—in fact, how many years ago, forty years ago at least, my wife and I met this dear lady up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that you know quite well. And she was living up there with her husband and she wrote that song, and she sat at the piano and played it for us, this little chorus: “He paid a debt he did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay, I needed someone to wash my sins away, and now I sing a brand new song, amazing grace, Christ paid the debt that I could never pay!” Very simple chorus, but….

Tom: Content.

Dave: It’s true! It’s true. So now, then what do we do? Well, we’ve got to try somehow to merit this forgiveness that Christ attained for us. No, you can’t merit it. (Chuckling) Grace is unmerited. If you merit it, then you are helping to pay the penalty. That’s the problem with Catholicism, the problem with all these religions. “Well, I’m going to pay a little bit. It can’t be a free ride. I mean…”—this is what faith is. Faith simply accepts, believes. “Believe,” Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

You mean that’s all I’ve got to do? That’s all you can do. If you try to get your efforts in here, you are suggesting that Christ’s efforts were not enough. That Christ didn’t fully pay for it. But He cried out as we mentioned a number of times on the program, “It is finished.” And the Greek word was tetelestai. They stamped it on promissory notes. It meant “paid in full.” Now if you try to get your efforts in there, you’re going to pay for part of this? Well, then Christ didn’t pay it all! It’s a little bit difficult for human beings to accept this. It’s rather humbling, isn’t it?

Tom: Dave, it’s interesting you say humbling, because sometimes I wonder—there are a number of scriptures, Ephesians:2:8-9 [8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.
See All..., right in there it says, “Lest any man should boast.” Why is the Bible concerned about us boasting? It isn’t just a matter that we can’t pay the penalty even though we think we can, but boasting comes into this.

Dave: Now Tom, that’s an interesting thought, because it enters into something else. There are people who say that Christ paid the full penalty, but now I’ve got to live a good enough life to keep my salvation, because they don’t believe in what they deride as “once saved, always saved.” Jesus said, “I give my sheep eternal life, they will never perish.” Now, if I receive eternal life from Him, I have eternal life right now, but if tomorrow I don’t have eternal life, it’s a strange kind of eternal life. Why wouldn’t I have it? Well because you didn’t live a good enough life. The Calvinists—it’s not perseverance of God, it’s not the keeping power of God, perseverance of the saints, okay? So the Calvinist really doesn’t believe in eternal security, either. He’s not secure in Christ. He has to do good enough works.

Now the person that denies eternal security, one day when he’s walking the golden streets up there, he can say, “Well yeah, I know it’s wonderful about your grace and your mercy that you paid the full penalty, but I lived a good enough life. I kept my salvation.” And he would have something to boast in too, but that is absolutely excluded.

Tom: Mm-hmm. Well, you know, that’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit, Dave. It’s amazing how the Bible just takes it out, just clears the deck of anything that we think that we may be doing that’s going to be helpful and so on. It’s not that we’re not to do things to please God, but not for salvation, but because of salvation…

Dave: Right.

Tom: …because of all that He’s given us. But it just clears the deck. Whether it be boasting, whether it be something I need to do…there’s nothing we can do. I mean, you said it.

Dave: Okay, so now how did Christ pay this penalty? Well, you wrote the book about it Tom, and I don’t want to get into this again, but Mel Gibson’s film would give you the impression that Christ paid the penalty by being scourged, by suffering physically for us. Physical suffering will never pay the infinite penalty and it certainly couldn’t have been administered by some evil Roman soldiers in the few moments that they were beating him. Something else happened. It happened on the cross. Scripture says that it pleased Yahweh, it pleased Jehovah, it pleased God to bruise Him. “Thou hast put Him to grief. When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin.” I don’t understand it, Tom, but this is a moral, a spiritual payment that Christ had to make. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we’ve turned everyone to his own way. But Yahweh, God laid on Him the iniquities of us all.”

What does it mean that He laid on Him our sins? That wasn’t Roman soldiers beating Him. That wasn’t even nails being driving through His hands and feet and the agony of the cross—although that occurred in fulfillment of Scripture and it showed the evil of man , what man would do to Him, what he would do to his Creator when He comes, “rejected, despised, and crucify Him” and so forth—but to lay on Him our sins. And the scripture says it happened on the cross! Whatever it took to bring about our salvation, it happened on the cross. “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” Scripture says.

So, it’s the spiritual suffering. That was why Christ in the Garden sweat, as it were, drops of blood. Not in fear of having nails driven into His hands and feet, or fear of being tormented, or mocked, or scourged, but of being made sin. We don’t understand that. “He made Him to be sin for us, He who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” So Christ was treated by God as though He were sin itself. He had to endure the judgment, the infinite judgment of God against sin itself, okay? That is something we could never pay part of. We could never have any real understanding of this and we are not to have an understanding of this. It says He tasted death for every man. No human being has yet really tasted death. That includes the second death in the lake of fire forever. And Christ endured on the cross—He’s God, He’s infinite—and in those hours on the cross when he cried out, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” He cried out, “I thirst.” He endured the very punishment, the judgment that will be meted out to I suppose billions of people for all eternity in the lake of fire and Tom, I think it involves remorse on their part: a horrible realization that they don’t have to be there; that Christ paid the penalty, but it’s their rejection of Him, the horror of their sin. You can think of what…I think Hitler is going to know what he did. I think he’s going to know the horror of the evil and he will be smitten with painful agony as he realizes what he did to others, and yet Christ endured that not only for those who will be in the lake of fire, but for those who escape it because they accepted His payment. He endured that eternal separation from God: the eternal punishment for every person who ever lived or ever will live. And it’s only because of that that then God can be just, because Romans 3 raises the question—Paul is dealing with it—well, how can God be just and yet justify sinners? Only one way: Christ paid the penalty for their sins, and all they must do is believe in Him.

Tom: Dave, I hope someone in our listening audience that hears what you’re saying, comes to the understanding. They may be thinking, “Oh yeah, well, God could never forgive me for this or never forgive me for that.” You mentioned Hitler. We could go down the line. Stalin…Jesus covered every sin, every one! So anyone listening to us that thinks, “Oh no, God couldn’t forgive me for this or for that,” you’re not hearing what we’re saying: that Jesus paid the full penalty!

Dave: And what we’re saying is simply what the Bible says.

Tom: Yes.

Dave: Tom, we can look down on a Hitler, or a Stalin, or whatever, but we don’t understand the evil of just self-centeredness—selfishness. It began with Eve in the Garden. She trampled on the rights of Adam. She was thinking of one thing: “How delicious that fruit will taste. How wise it will make me; how beautiful it looks, you know, how appealing.” This is selfishness. So I haven’t committed any murders, or I haven’t embezzled, or whatever, never committed adultery, and so forth. Well yeah, but have I been selfish? And you can see it. You hand a plate of cookies to a bunch of little kids, they don’t all hang back and let the other guy have the biggest cookie, they’re grabbing for it and if there happens to be an extra one, who gets it? Well, they don’t say, “Oh well, somebody else take it.” It’s in us, Tom. Selfishness is what put Christ on the cross. It’s self over God. It’s my way, not God’s way. But I’m going to do what I want to do and this is why Jesus said, “Except a man deny self and take up the cross, and follow Me, he cannot be my disciple.” And as you earlier said, Tom, that’s not in order to get saved, but it’s in gratitude to Christ. “We love Him because He first loved us.” You’ve got Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons knocking on doors and so forth, particularly Jehovah Witnesses, they’re doing it in order to earn their salvation, to get points with God. That’s the same thing we’ve been talking about. No, no, Tom, I’ve literally knocked on thousands of doors to bring the gospel to people. Not in order to earn my salvation, but out of gratitude to the Christ who paid the full penalty for my sins on the cross. So that’s what changes everything.

Tom: We’re going through Dave Hunt’s book Seeking and Finding God. Dave, I think it’s a terrific book. I’m a little biased, but it’s the kind of book that gets right down to the basic questions, has the answers to those that you’ve been looking for something to give to someone, to give them an understanding. The scripture says Proverbs:4:7Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
See All..., “Get understanding, get wisdom.” Understanding is the thing.

Dave: Tom, I’ve been getting a number of phone calls and the book is just barely out there. I just had one from someone yesterday: a dear lady, about my age. She probably thinks she’s a Christian, but this is why I sent the book to her. She said, “Wow, I’ve been reading that book. That is wonderful! I’ve ordered three more to give to my friends.”

Well I hope that this book will be a great help to many people.

Tom: It’s going to point you to the Scriptures, point you to the truth. The name of the program is Search the Scriptures Daily. Whatever we produce here, it’s to point people to God’s word and check us out, folks.