Only Christianity Has a Christ by Jennie Cunningham Beardsley

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 3, 1928

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 55, No. 14.

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Christianity alone can satisfy the heart longings of the multitudes of earth.

Only Christianity Has a Christ

By Jennie Cunningham Beardsley

The question of the comparative values of the great religions of the world considered.

JENNIE CUNNINGHAM BEARDSLEY

“Thou hast made us for Thyself and restless is our heart until it finds its rest in Thee.”—Augustine.

DEEP in every human heart God has planted the lure of Himself. Man was created a spiritual being, and the longing for that nameless something outside of and beyond one’s self is as natural to a man as is a song to a bird. To sage or savage, refined or base, primitive or modern, whatever race or color, the urge is the same. There is not a tribe or a race of people but worships, in one way or another, a superior being before whom they feel their helplessness and whose favor they court. From earliest times this has been true.

The history of primitive man is a history of his religion. The history of every people has been colored and determined by their attitude toward religion. Religion is the strongest passion of the human heart; it is stronger than love, for the best loved is sacrificed to it; it is stronger than the fear of physical pain, for men suffer for it; it is stronger than the love of life, for men die for it. Men give their lives to its promulgation, and sacrifice health, wealth, and the comforts and pleasures of life to acquaint others with their tenets of faith. For by devious ways have men followed the lure of the unseen, hoping to attain peace and rest of soul.

Take five of the great, outstanding religions in the world to-day, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. Is one better than another, or does it matter? Each of these great religions has been adopted by the people of certain countries, and the civilization of a country is a measure of the possibilities of its religion for the betterment of the social and economic living conditions of the people. Europe and America are adherents of the Christian religion. Is this religion superior to all others?

This can be answered only by investigating the fruit that each one bears.

All these religions except Mohammedanism are older than Christianity. If Christianity has nothing better for men, let the old suffice. All these great religions have some things in common. If Christianity is superior, what makes it so? Each religion at its beginning had a leader who seemed to stand out above his fellows; each had a system of morality; each leader gathered disciples about himself for personal instruction that they might perpetuate his teachings. What has one of these religions done for its people more than another?

In the lands where the “isms” hold sway, poverty, ignorance, and vice prevail; social and economic conditions have remained the same for centuries; the condition of women and little children is little better than that of beasts of burden; there are no hospitals, schools, or churches; no doctors, teachers, or philanthropists; the aged and infirm are hurried out of the world; in superstition and dread and without hope the people go down to their graves.

In Christian lands how different! A church stands on the hill and a schoolhouse in the valley. Hospitals and institutions for the unfortunate abound. Modern conveniences and scientific inventions have left little to be desired for material advantage. By every test Christianity has proved itself vastly superior to every other religion. The teaching of Christ about God, sin, redemption, holiness, and love has impressed, inspired, and influenced human life as nothing else has done or can do.

WHERE THE SUPERIORITY?

The superiority of Christianity lies in the superiority of its Author. Confucius laid claim to no higher character than that of a sage, drawing from no other fountain than human wisdom. Buddha was a moral reformer and true philanthropist, the propounder of humane and ethical precepts; yet it can not be shown that he renovated India society or radically changed for the better the character of India. Neither of these men claimed divinity or even divine inspiration for themselves. Mohammed made no higher claim than divine inspiration.

The claims of Jesus to divinity within Himself transcends all other claims. He claimed to be God manifest in the flesh. His doctrine is Himself; “Christianity is Christ. He is its essence and its substance, its foundation and its superstructure, its source and its stream, its root and its flower. He is its ‘alpha and omega,’ its beginning and its ending.” In this distinction is Christianity’s separation from other religions most emphatic and pronounced. They all in common have sacred houses, inspired books, sacerdotal orders, ceremonial observances, and solemn worships, and to some extent, the same fundamental teachings; but only Christianity is merged in its Author, and is the shadow of His presence and the aureole of His glory.” He Himself is the totality, the wholeness, the entirety, of the church which He established.

This idea is continually prominent in both His own and the apostles’ teaching. He assumed to stand as the only means of access to the Father. The kingdom He founded was His kingdom; the church established was His church; the disciples were His disciples. They were made clean through His word; they were to pray in His name, rejoice in His joy and He Himself promised to answer their petitions and to be with them always “even to the end of the world.” He makes Himself the central point of every announcement. ‘It is I,’ is the great text of all His teaching.

The teaching of each of these other religions has been a code of morals; a religion of good works; a plan of betterment which the world has tried for four thousand years and failed. “Do and your soul shall live” has been their text; but such salvation was powerless to work a reformation. No man could do. Christianity says, “It is done.” “Be of good cheer,” says Christ; “I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. “Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21. “Who saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal.” 2 Timothy 1:9. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:24.

Is it possible for us to realize fully the issue here brought before us? Here is a young man scarcely thirty-three years old, emerged from obscurity only for the brief space of three and a half years, living during those years under the scorn of the world which grew steadily in intensity and hatred, and at the end, dying the death of the worst of malefactors upon the cross of shame. But death did not hold Him; and from that empty tomb came the germs of a worldwide community determined to carry to all the world the message of that cross and the resurrection, and of the power of the crucified and risen Lord to save men from sin. And so great was their passion, and so true their purpose, that well within twenty-five years they could say that the gospel had been carried to all the world.

So rapidly did Christianity spread that Satan feared for the success of his kingdom, and began an attempt by fire and sword to exterminate it. No other religion ever suffered such relentless opposition, but the more the Christians were persecuted the more numerous they became.

Failing thus to overcome their zeal, Satan began to make Christianity popular, and men everywhere scrambled to get into the church. Popularity did what chains and fagot could not do; doctrine was destroyed and the invisible Christ was superseded by the visible theocracy implicated and involved in political embarrassments and in the assumption of temporal power.

However, some remained true, but they were hunted like beasts of prey as they fled to the mountains and hid themselves in the caverns of the rocks. But they left torches of light behind them, which finally burst into the glory of the Reformation. Men threw off the shackles of medievalism and began to think for themselves. Knowledge increased. Men fought for liberty of conscience and for freedom of speech. Justification by faith was Luther’s new theology. Again Satan was defeated, and from the ashes of a defeated and apostate church grew up Christianity as it was known in later times.

Never again, it seemed, could Satan so completely triumph over Christ; but six thousand years of experience with men in sin has made him a wise and cunning foe. The church had survived every onslaught. A new plan must be tried. If the church could be persuaded to look to some other source for its power than that of Christ, it might yet be overcome.

SATAN’S PLAN NOW

The Bible began to be discredited. Our children are taught that the story of creation and of the Flood are myths; that the Christ life is but an ideal. The end of the world and the literal coming of Christ are treated as a huge joke. Satan would persuade men to look to and to trust in their own wisdom; to dispense with Christ even though they retain His name. A modern theology would have us believe that it is quite possible to be Christians and to have a code of morality sufficient for salvation without Christology or a belief in the historicity of Christ,—that man needs no savior outside of himself. They put God and the supernatural entirely out of their reckoning. Their condition is described thus: “Knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, . . . for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” Romans

1:21-25, A. R. V. No wonder that Christ, reading the future, could say, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.

Eighteen hundred years have passed, and the faith of Christ is still a power in the world. In spite of Christianity’s collision with the elements of the world,—political power, national temperament, antecedent tradition, philosophical antagonism, moral and physical limitations of whatever kind,—it is steadily marching on to victory. We need not expect the world to be reconciled to Christ. “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God.” Romans 8:7. But in the deep recesses of the individual personality the Holy Spirit works His blessed and marvelous way, transforming character, uplifting ideals, inspiring hopes, and gathering out a people for His name.

The most marvelous and astounding thing in nineteen centuries of history is the power of Christ’s life over men. The terrible deluge of sin in which the world is at present floundering is not the result of any lack of power in Christianity to save men from sin. Christianity is just as potent today as it was two thousand years ago, but men have rejected Christ, who is the only source of salvation from sin. Like the Jews of old they declare, “We will not have this Man to reign over us.” But as long as Christ lives, Christianity will retain its old-time power, for Christianity is Christ and “Christ [is] the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:24.

Christianity has demonstrated to all the world its superiority to all other religions, and soon, very soon it will triumph gloriously. “For yet a very little while, He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.” Hebrews 10:37. “What do ye devise against Jehovah? He will make a full end; affliction shall not rise up the second time.” Nahum 1:9.

Christianity may seem to wane; Satan may seem to triumph, but Jehovah has His thousands that have not bowed the knee to Baal. There is now going forth the last message of mercy to a world lost in sin. The controversy is soon to be ended. Here and there the angels are searching out the honest in heart, who, Jesus says, shall walk with Him in white; for they are worthy. “Wherefore also He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him.” Hebrews 7:25. “Come; for all things are now ready.” “Now is the day of salvation.” Mercy lingers. Make haste. “Escape for thy life.” “And the angel that I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth . . . sware . . . that there shall be delay no longer.” Revelation 10:5, 6. “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to render to each man according as his work is.” Revelation 22:12.