Christianity raises the bar even higher than other religions by insisting that in order to enter God’s kingdom we must be perfect. Not good, but perfect. Being good is not good enough. As no one is perfect, Christians have the saying that “the ground is level at the foot of the cross.” My brother may be a better man than I am, and you may be a better man than he is, but ultimately none of this matters because none of us will make it under our own steam. The only solution is for us to “die to ourselves” and become totally different people, morally pure in the eyes of God: “for unless the grain of wheat die to itself, it shall not produce fruit.” So Christianity agrees with Hinduism and Buddhism on the need to extinguish the old self. It disagrees by declaring in advance that this project is impossible.
So how can a salvation be reconciled with divine holiness and justice? This is posing the question in the right way. The Christian answer is that God decided to pay the price himself for human sin. Not just this sin or that sin but all sin. God did this by becoming man and dying on the cross. I want to reflect for a moment on God’s incredible sacrifice. I am not referring to Christ’s crucifixion. I am referring to God’s decision to become man. No other religion can even conceive this. The Greek and Roman gods of antiquity oftendisguised themselves as mortals, but they would not actually become mortal. Mexican author Carlos Fuentes writes that when the Christian missionaries first presented their doctrines to the Aztecs, the Aztecs were totally uncomprehending. Fuentes writes, “In a universe accustomed to seeing men sacrificed to the gods, nothing amazed the Indians more than the sight of a god who had sacrificed himself to men. Yet what other religions hold to be absurd and scandalous, Christianity holds to be true.
