While the other reasons that we’ll go through are convincing concerning why the Bible is divine and therefore should be believed, I personally think that what most persuades me towards Christianity (in a rational sense) is the Bible’s unique message. I believe that because of its uniqueness, the Bible has divine origins.There are several ways in which it is unique.
- No other major religion teaches the Bible’s unique way to salvation in order to enter a type of paradise
- No other major religion has a similar view of their god’s relationship to humans
- No other major religion has a central figure that is resurrected
For this post, because I value so much the uniqueness of the Bible I will only address the first point. The other two points will be in following posts.
1.No other major religion teaches the Bible’s unique way to salvation in order to enter a type of paradise
Many major religions (Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Biddhism, etc) describe some sort of a path to a blissful afterlife, Others like Shintoism, Sikhism, and the Baha’i faith don’t exactly define the nature of an afterlife as strictly as other beliefs. Nevertheless, none of them quite match Christianity’s perspective as to WHY we need a positive afterlife and HOW to get there. In Christianity, we desperately need and want a positive afterlife because we need saving FROM something and to be connected TO something. To sum up what I will write…we believe we need saving FROM sin and to be connected TO God. The point of a blissful afterlife, then, is to enjoy God forever! Being with God is the best type of existence we can have! No other religion has quite that same view. These other beliefs agree that humans need to be connected to something higher than ourselves, whether that be to a god of some sort or to a transcendental existence, but none of them view the path to HOW we are connected to this higher being or higher form of existence in the same way Christians do.
The basic message of the Bible is that we humans have messed up badly in disobeying God (Romans 3:9), yet this same God whom we have offended ends up voluntarily saving us (Romans 3:22, 5:6-8, etc)! The God of the Bible is so infinitely perfect and so infinitely holy that even one act of disobedience earns our separation from him (Romans 6:23, Isaiah 59:2). In fact, we have messed up so badly that all of us are born into sin, something called original sin (there is debate over whether this means if we inherit only a sin nature or also guilt from the first sin committed by Adam, but I will not address that debate in this post). So what is unique to Christianity is that we need a positive afterlife primarily because we need to be connected to God and rescued from our own sinfulness. Being with God is the best place to be!
On the nature of this sin in us, the effect of it is utterly devastating. Other religions tend to diminish our inherent corruption (I’ll explain this in the next post). Cornelius Plantinga has a book that describes the nature of sin. As he puts it, “…sin is the longest-running human emergency”. In another part he writes,
“Annoyances, regrets, and miseries trouble us in all the old familiar ways. But none of these troubles matter as much as sin. The reason is that sin distorts our character, a central feature of our very humanity. Sin corrupts powerful human capacities – thoughts, emotion, speech and acts – so that they become centers of attack on others or of defection or neglect.”1
To add my own words, sin distorts and contaminates the core of who we are. Sin’s effects are so powerful that every part of us screams in opposition to God. We do not want to be told what to do or how to think. Consider Romans 8:5-8, which says that those who live in the flesh (i.e. those who do not have God in their lives) CANNOT submit to or please God. Consider also 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” In other words, no one understands God naturally, and therefore they do not come to him naturally. This message is not seen in other religions!
To continue on the unique nature of Christian salvation, God doesn’t leave us in our natural state! In his love for humanity, he sends Jesus who is God in the flesh to take our punishment and thereby satisfy God’s demand for justice (Romans 5:8, Hebrews 1:3, Romans 3:25-26)! Not only that, he continues to show his love in that he regenerates us (John 1:13, 3:5-8), makes us to be in right standing with him (Galatians 2:16), and will one day give us a glorified, resurrected body (1 Corinthians 15:42-49). All that he asks of us is to trust in HIS work, which involves turning away (repentance) from things that displease him. The result of this saving trust is evidenced by good deeds and things pleasing to God (James 2:14-18).
My point in all this is that our salvation is done by God from beginning to end! No one can brag about their innate abilities to somehow match God’s perfect standards for their life. To match God’s standards, we can ONLY rely on Jesus’ fulfillment of those standards!
All other religions more or less base their view of achieving a blissful afterlife on human works and achievements. Consider the following major religions:
A. Islam – Allah weighs one’s good and bad works. Those whose good works outweigh their bad works will go to paradise
B. Hinduism – One has to do good works in order to achieve a better, next life once one is reincarnated (comes back to life in a different form)
C. Orthodox Judaism – One has to obey God’s laws in the Old Testament
D. Buddhism – Similar to Hinduism
E. Sikhism – Upon death, one’s essence gets absorbed into the cosmos
F. Baha’i – One’s soul passes through the spirit world in an “eternal journey towards perfection”2
G. Typical American beliefs – Everyone who is “good” goes to heaven. Really “bad” people may go to a place of torment. One other thing I’ve typically heard besides the “good” person paradigm is that we might become a form of energy, and some others may believe in some form of reincarnation.
I could spend many pages describing and investigating each religion’s view of an afterlife (which I might do in the future?), but I believe I’ve summarized enough to get the point across that other religions don’t have a view of the need for and the path to salvation like that of Christianity. No other religion has a person take their place in punishment in order to have access to a place of paradise.
The description of how to be saved and the need for salvation in the Bible is truly matchless in light of other religions. I cannot save myself…only God can save me!
In the next post, we’ll look at point number two (see above), that no other religion has such a contrasting view between a god(s) and humans. I touched upon this in this post, but I tried to emphasize the bigger picture of salvation here.
Sources:
- Plantinga, Cornelius. 1995. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, Mich. Eerdsman Publishing Co.
- Life and Death. 2025. The Baha’i Faith. Baha’i International Community. 2025. https://www.bahai.org/beliefs/life-spirit/human-soul/life-death.
Thinking Theo 
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