How is Jesus different from other religious leaders?

Now I look around at other of the world's great teachers. I find great names, Confucius, Zoroaster, Mahomed, Krishna, Buddha, Gautama. I find in their teaching beautiful words. But you will not find in all their teaching anything like the teaching of Jesus Christ. Suppose I take the testimony of a man well-known, Professor Max Muller, who did so much to make English people acquainted with the literature of the East. Well, what does he say? Why he says, no one in his senses would dream of comparing the Bible with the Sacred books of the East, they have a jewel here or there, but the Bible is all jewels throughout. Now I see these teachers, and I enquire as to their lives. Some lived good lives, and some horrible lives, but I do not find anyone, whose life was like that of the Lord Jesus Christ as I desire to follow Him.

The devil’s aim is to wipe out the distinction that marks Christ off from every other man. He is very subtle. He wants to put Christ in the same class with Buddha and Mahomet and Confucius. He wants you to believe that He is a teacher amongst teachers. He will admit, perhaps, that He is the chief teacher; but, as has been truly said, the Lord Jesus Christ will not take the first place. He will take ALL the place, or none at all, and the Lord Jesus Christ stands absolutely by Himself in this as in many other respects. He was born of a virgin.

"I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and every other religion the distance of infinity.

Christianity then is a religion of facts, having a Divine Person, yet man, for their centre. Merely human religions give us theories, speculations, philosophies; sometimes ingenious, sometimes foolish, always vain and unsatisfactory. They can give nothing else; though they can darken wisdom by a bewildering maze of words. They may couple with the system its founder, or promoter; such serve only as distinguishing labels, so to speak, and affect in no degree the value of the religion or philosophy in question. But in Christianity how different! How impossible to separate Jesus from the truth that He proclaimed Himself to be. Hence when Paul preached Jesus and the resurrection, he preached the central truth of the Bible, and the seal God had put on it.

1893 378 It was well pointed out in a recent number of this periodical (in a fragment bearing honoured initials) that "Christianity is a religion of persons and facts." This can be asserted of no other religious system. These may indeed be linked with the name, or give particulars of the history, of some celebrated individual, be it Confucius, Mahomet, or Gautama Buddha. But it is evident that the name is a mere label to differentiate them from other systems; they would be just as true, or rather as false (I speak of them as systems, and not of any fragments of morality contained in them), if some other name were appended to them, whether mythical as in the case of Buddha, historical as in that of Confucius or of Mahomet. In short, they are a tissue of theories with a residuum of sound moral precepts perhaps, though these, at all events in the Koran, notoriously stolen from the Bible. Here then is the high vantage-ground of Holy Scripture, that it presents realities and not surmises. For it is logical to meet facts with facts, as it is altogether Godlike to meet dismal facts such as sin and sorrow, pain and death, with divine facts, even redemption through a divine Person become Man. I contend therefore that on the comparatively low ground of mere reasonableness Christianity can show gain de cause over merely human systems. For how fatuous to essay to remedy facts by mere theories! It may be urged indeed that philosophy is content to explain them, or at least to make the attempt.

Satan is very busy in India as elsewhere. He is doing His best to get it believed that all religions are practically one and the same, as long as their followers are sincere seekers after God. We are assured that sincere seekers after God will find Him, but it can only be through Christ. He is the Way. There are not several ways—the Hindu way, the Sikh way, the Mohammedan way, the Buddhist way, the Christian way—there is only ONE way. Christ says, “I am THE Way” there is no other.

Along with their rejection of God as sovereign creator of the world, Hindus also part company with Christianity on the critical issue of Jesus Christ as God's incarnate Son. Hindu worshipers of Vishnu, for example, believe that God has become incarnate many times in the past." The Bible teaches that God became incarnate only once in human history (see John 1: 14). Jesus came not to teach humanity various "ways" to salvation, but to be "the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6) and "to take away the sins of many" (Heb. 9:28).

The Lord Jesus is none other than the Son of God, not only as a man, but also from eternity. He, and He alone, was able to reveal the Father’s heart. He was the object of the Father's love, even before the universe was created (John 17:24). We see Him as a glorified man, but He is none other than the Son of God, the "only begotten of the Father”, the absolutely unique One (John 1:14).

The Lord Jesus alone is unique and incomparable. Through his humanity and his atoning death on the cross of Calvary He has not only brought an enormous fullness of blessing but also He has made known the invisible God. This was only possible because He is the only-begotten Son and because He is in the bosom of the Father. This He has ever been and will He ever be. He is in timeless fellowship with His Father. As such He could manifest and reveal God. Now we know who God is. To Him be everlasting glory.

The disciples viewed His glory, when in His company on earth; and John writes, “We contemplated His glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a Father.” It was said of Isaac to Abraham, “Thy son, thine only one, Isaac, whom thou lovest.” He had other sons, but Isaac was His only one in an unique sense. The Son with the Father is without compeer; yet His glory was seen to be, not like a mighty Samson or a warrior-king David, but like an only son with a father! This is the One who makes known the Father’s Name, and we are divinely instructed to “hear Him!” Who else could manifest and make known what He is, save the Son of the Father’s love? It is said, “No one has seen God at any time, the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” He could make Him known perfectly and only He; for none other had “seen the Father, except He who is of God, He has seen the Father”; and He said, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” The Invisible was visible in His Son. Jesus manifested Him, but none other could.