What separates Christianity from major world religions?
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Faith Fitness
Bro. Sam Kaufman
The answer is that it involves a man who defeated death. Jesus Christ is alive. He rose from the dead!
Jesus is the one and only mediator between men and God. Nobody else can impart spiritual life. No one else can make us right for Heaven.
Just as He rose from the dead, Jesus imparts life when we repent and accept Him by faith. He gives us right standing with a holy God through forgiveness of sin. We become born again – new life – of the Spirit.
I Peter 1:3-4 states, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4. To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you…”
Jesus journeyed from Heaven to Earth so that those who receive and follow Him can go from Earth to Heaven.
If we remain faithful, we have an inheritance reserved in heaven! That’s the hope of eternity with God from the One who laid down His life for His friends. He had the authority to lay down His life and the authority to take it up again.
He was delivered (to death) for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.
How could He do that? He was the Word made flesh. He was fully God and fully man. Therefore, He could offer a holy sacrifice for our sins, but the grave couldn’t hold Him.
Romans 1:3-4 puts it this way: “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
John the Revelator wrote this as Jesus spoke in Revelation 1:18, “I am he that liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and death.”
The resurrection of Jesus required His holiness because the wages of sin is death. But Jesus lived in the flesh without sin, according to scripture.
That fact is evident in Hebrews 7:25-26, which states, “Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. 26. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”
Also, Hebrews 4:15 states, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.”
He was sinless and defeated death, hell and the grave for mankind.
To understand this man’s holiness better requires a glimpse into His conception. Jesus didn’t receive the sin nature passed down from Adam’s bloodline. So, on Easter we look back at Christmas-time verses.
This is what the angel said unto Mary in Luke 1:34-35, “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
He truly has begotten the Christian unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jesus, Himself, said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
I say this: “You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart.”
Sam Kaufman pastors The Church of God at 405 13th Ave. N in Alexander City. Contact him at 432-266-0154.