Jesus Christ Among Other Gods (1993)

Message from Urbana 93
by Ravi Zacharias

"Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace: The person of Jesus Christ. I present him as the way, the truth, and the life."

May I take a couple of moments to issue some preliminary comments for you, so that you will understand, first of all, how this relates to the broader theme. Because if you think for a moment of the statement, "God so loves the world", the immediate idea that emerges from that statement is an invitation, an outstretched set of arms, reaching out to the world, inviting them by having paid the ultimate price in God sending his own son.

The concept of love gives us the idea of beneficence, of charity, of openness, of welcoming. But as soon as you make the statement, "Jesus said 'I am the truth; no man comes unto the father, except through me,'" all of a sudden there is a fence being drawn up. You no longer have the image of arms outstretched and benevolence, but you have the idea of a circumscription, of a restriction, of exclusivity - that anyone who brings a thought contrary to the claim of Christ, is by virtue of that contrariness false.

Is it possible then, to present a message so exclusive, in a wantonly pluralistic society, where tolerance is the buzzword? Is it possible to make a reasonable case for someone so exclusive as the person of Christ? That is the task I have on hand tonight.

The thing that concerns me about it is that is not possible, even in a prolonged period of time, to make a very persuasive case. But we are restricted to the time we have here tonight, to touch upon only the most salient points.

I think of the time I was filling out my doctrinal questionnaire for the denomination to which I belong. The first question said this: "God is perfect. Explain." Thankfully, there was only a short space given, in which to do the explaining. I turned to my wife and said, "the only more difficult question I can think of, is 'define God, and give two examples.'" Thankfully the space was very little, because the longer the answer, the greater the possibility of heresy.

But there is a second concern, and a very serious one: although based in the United States and making my home in Atlanta, I travel through most of the globe. A couple of months ago I happened to be in Bahrain, in Jordan and in Egypt. I mention this because this is something very important to my ministry: I minister in Islamic countries many, many times. They have been very gracious to me in allowing me to be there. As far as I know I have been the only Western-based evangelist to have held two evangelistic campaigns in Syria. So I want to be careful, that in what I say, if I am right in saying it, I am also considerate of the feelings of those who may disagree with me.

Having said that, let me make this undergirding statement:

When you look at the early church, and you read the life, the death, the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, at the moment when Jesus ascended into heaven, the Bible tells us there were 120 followers who professed the name of Christ as their Lord and Savior. At the time, there were about 4 million people in Palestine, which means they were outnumbered one to thirty thousand.

This at a time where there was an equally prevalent pluralism as there is in our time. How is is possible that outnumbered one to 30,000, a handful of men and women were not only able to change their society, but today as I stand before you, more people bend their knees to the name of Christ, than to any other name in history - how did that come about?

There are many reasons, but one of the principle reasons is this: whatever they held as a conviction, they held onto very deeply. And their primary conviction was this: That they saw the finger of God in all of history, and Christ as its central figure. It wasn't merely an opinion; it was a conviction. Let me differentiate. An opinion is something you possess in a continuum of options, which is merely a preference. It is something you like. It may be a certain color. It may be a type of food. It may be the style of a home.

A conviction is different to an opinion, because that is rooted in your conscience, and you cannot change a conviction without altering that which is essentially you. So while you may hold onto an opinion, a conviction is that which holds onto you.

If a conviction is that which is deeply engraved in your conscience, it is indispensable that it be undergirded with love. If it is not, it makes the possessor of that conviction obnoxious, and the dogma he or she possesses becomes repulsive.

That is the key to understanding this exclusive claim. It must, at all times, be undergirded by love. When the early church saw the finger of God in all history, and Christ as its central figure, it was a conviction in their consciences, yet they were known in their time as "Behold, how they love one another."

So while the broader theme is one of love, and the narrower theme is one of truth, they are not mutually exclusive. They coalesce well, and I we can see that demonstrated tonight.

[prayer]

I remember, growing up as a teenager in the capital city of New Delhi in India, struggling to find meaning in life. It ultimately took me to a hospital bed of suicide, and it was in that hospital room, that the scriptures were given to me. And I found the redeeming experience and the knowledge and conviction of Christ as my Lord and savior.

But I remember what took me through that journey. It all began one night as I was sitting alone in my living room, listening to the words of a song narrated by an American singer by the name of Ed Ames.

The reason it perked up my attention was the style of the music was that of an eastern chant; but more than that, the questions that proliferated, resonated within my own heart. Let me share with you some of those words - coming from an American singer, through the voice of Radio Ceylon, as it was called at that time, into the living room of a teenager in India:

From the canyons of the Mind
We wander on and stumble blind
Wade through the often tangled maze
Of starless nights and sunless days
Hoping for some kind of clue
A road to lead us to the truth

But who will answer?

Side by side two people stand
Together vowing hand in hand
That love's embedded in their hearts
But soon an empty feeling starts
To overwhelm their hollow lives
And if they ask the 'hows' and 'whys'

Who will answer?

'Neath the spreading mushroom tree
The world revolves with apathy
While overhead a row of specks
Roars on drowned out by disperfects
And if the secret button's pressed
Because one man's been outguessed

Who will answer?

Is our hope in walnut shells
Worn 'round the neck with temple bells
Or deep within some cloistered walls
Where hooded figures pray in shawls
Or high upon some dusty shelves
Or in the stars or in ourselves

Who will answer?

And the chorus went,

If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name
If the mind is baffled when the rules don't fit the game
Who will answer?
Who will answer?
Who will answer?

Taking the breadth of a broken home, all the way to the threat of a nuclear holocaust, right down to the hallowed halls of hooded figures, or up to some bookshelves, where some books lie unstudied and unopened, I thought it was a perceptive song, raising the question: not what is the answer, but who will answer? Who has the right to give us the answer that is true?

And ladies and gentlemen, throughout history, particularly over the last two thousand years, we have seen the figure of Jesus stand tall. And when he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes unto the father except through me," what he was presenting was that he was the embodiment of the answer that God wanted to give to us.

What then are the questions? The questions are varied. It may be a broken life; it may be a decimated world; it may be the confusion of world religions. But you take all these questions, and they ultimately get reduced to four:

• A question about my origin;
• a question about how I am to find meaning;
• a question about what brings me morality or salvation;
• and what is my ultimate destiny.

And when Jesus stands and says, "I am the way, the truth and the life," he is presenting himself as the answer to these four fundamental questions of heart and mind.

And many have responded, both friend and foe, to the person of Christ in history. I think of the words of James Stewart, the great preacher and theologian from Scotland:

When I think of Jesus, I think of the mystery of divine personality; the startling coalescence of contrarieties that I see in him.

Listen to how he words it:

He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men. Yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable, that the children loved to play with him and the little ones nestled in his arms. His presence at the innocent gaiety of a village wedding, was like the presence of sunshine. No one was half so kind or compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red-hot scorching words about sin.

A bruised reed he would not break. His whole life was love. Yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees, how they were expected to escape the damnation of hell.

He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism, he has all of us self-styled realists soundly beaten. He was the servant of all, washing the disciples' feet, yet masterfully he strode into the temple, and the hucksters and moneychangers fell over one another to get away in their mad rush from the fire they saw blazing in his eyes. He saved others, yet at the last, he himself did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confronts us in the gospels; the mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.

You say, "but Ravi, that's a prejudiced view, isn't it? It comes from a theologian. It comes from a preacher." Well, let me read for you the words of a man who was not a Christian - a well-known historian by the name of W.E.H. Lecky. Listen to what he says in his book, the History of European morals:

The character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive in its practice, and has exerted so deep an influence that it my be truly said, that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than the dispositions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.

So it's not just Stewart; it's not just Lecky. But after all, Jesus himself claimed to be unique, didn't he? He said to Thomas, "I am the way, the truth and the life," and interestingly enough, Thomas is the one who went to India, where the pantheon of Hinduism boasted of 330 million deities. Thomas went there to tell them that Jesus claimed to be the only way to God. Thomas paid with his very life.

Jesus said it in front of the Sanhedrin, when they asked him, are you indeed the Messiah? He said I am. Not only did he claim his truthfulness, and his life to be the truth in John 14, and also in Mark 14, as he stood before the Sanhedrin, but he made that enormous statement, that the truth was not only contained within himself in totality, but that the truthfulness of every human being had a litmus test to it. That litmus test was how they responded to his claim, because he said to Pilate, they that are on the side of truth listen to me.

So not only did he affirm himself as being the truth, he pointed out that the heart of man demonstrated its truthfulness or falsity, on the way in which it responded to him. You and I are keenly aware that he claimed it, he authenticated it, as the apostle Paul said, [he demonstrated himself] to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.

Six hundred years later, Jesus and the world of Christendom were going to face their greatest challenge. I don't have time to go into the details of all the fallacies and flaws within Islam. I have to deal with it superficially, but I hope importantly. There are three fundamental flaws in the Islamic religion in its starting point.

But first, we make a mistake when we compare Jesus to Muhammed. They do not want that comparison. If you are to make a legitimate comparison, you are to make it between Jesus and the Qu'ran. They consider the Qu'ran to be the inerrant, ultimate expression of Allah himself, not Muhammed. They are very quick to recognize some of Muhammed's own shortcomings. It is the Qu'ran that has to be compared to the person of Christ - which poses an immediate difficulty, when you are comparing a personage to something that is merely in print.

Let me give you three flaws in Islam's starting point, [which will] culminate in a very important philosophical argument, at the end of which I give you the reasons for why I think Christ himself was unique and exclusive in history.

1. They claim that that Jesus was a prophet in provincial terms, but Muhammed was the prophet to the whole world. The authentication of Muhammed's status is not found in any miracle whatsoever apart from the inscription of the Qu'ran. The Qu'ran is the sole-sufficient, consummate authentication of who Muhammed was as a prophet to the whole world. Let me ask you this: is it reasonable to posit somebody as a prophet to the whole world, when the recognizability of that prophetic status is restricted by definition, to those who understand a particular language, and at that have to be extremely competent in it?

When you point out any flaw in the Qu'ran, the Muslim will immediately say to you: "Wait a minute, you're narrating it from the English, or another translation. You do not understand the Arabic, so you cannot even recognize the miracle."

A brilliant journalist by the name of Ali Dashti from Iran, has written a book called "Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad." He has already shown some of the serious flaws in it, but I only present the idea to you: If he is a prophet to the whole world, how am I, by virtue of the absence of a language, and the ability in that language, even going to be able to comprehend the miracle?

It is a fallacious starting point to posit somebody as a prophet to the world, but recognize even the miracle in theory only to those with a high competence in a certain language.

2. Secondly, they challenge the New Testament, and tell us that we have is a corrupt version, not the original version, the Injeel. The gospels are seriously flawed, [they say,] but they never present to you that original, uncorrupted version. How can anyone talk about something as being false, unless you also have the unit, by which to establish what is true?

And the normal procedure of documentary investigation they ignore, which ultimately jeopardizes their own authority. That is the second point, and the third is this:

3. While positing Jesus as absolute in his time, they come up with Muhammed as greater, and the ultimate absolute, overruling him. As a philosopher, I only say this: if at any given moment in history, "A" claims to be an absolute, and "B" comes around and overrules "A", what is to keep it from happening again, where "C" may come and overrule "B"? Which is precisely what happened in Mormonism. When Joseph Smith came on the scene, he overruled every other so-called prophet before him, and said he had the ultimate explanation and the way to God.

Islam committed that philosophical blunder of overruling an affirmed absolute, [and] supplanting it with something they said was a greater absolute. If "B" overrules "A", why can't "C" come along and overrule "B" also?

I have debated these issues with Islamic scholars. We don't even get into the issue of Muhammed's quality of life, and his multiple marriages, and all the other things he was involved in, because that is not where it's at. When you start off with the restrictive use of a miracle, when you end up condemning a certain book without positing what the authentic book was, and when you show how B can overrule A, and not allow C to overrule B, it is a prejudicial, false starting point.

With those contradictions, I take you to the leading point in which we make a discussion: Islam and the Muslims understand best what the exclusive nature of truth is all about. Let me give you an illustration. If you comprehend this, you will see how important it needs to be, and from here on in, it is smooth sailing.

I was speaking in Santa Barbara, California once, and the professor of Eastern religions, who was an American gentleman, came to argue with me. He asked me if I would speak the next night on why I am not a Hindu. I declined, saying if you throw mud at others, not only do your hands get dirty, but you also lose a lot of ground.

But he said, "I dare you to do it, and I'll bring my whole class in philosophy at the end of your talk, to tear you to shreds." I said, "that's not a very welcoming thought. But let me do this: I will speak on why I am a Christian, and implicit in that is why I am not a Hindu. And you can bring your philosophy class to talk to me." Which he did.

I proposed the fact that Hinduism is loaded with contradictions. I won't go into those details. But at the end of which, he came up to the front and just about wanted to hit me. He said, "Mr. Zacharias, the reason you portrayed Hinduism the way you did, is because you don't understand the Eastern mind."

I couldn't believe it, but I decided to be nice. I said, "Look sir, there's no point in us getting into a verbal slugfest here, but let me suggest something to you. Why don't you and I have lunch together tomorrow and we'll discuss it? You pay, and I'll pray, and we'll talk about it."

So he brought the professor of psychology along with him. He said, "Ravi, there are two kinds of logic," (actually, he's wrong: there are more.) "One is the either/or logic. If you make a statement that is true, the opposite of it is false. It is called the Law of Non-Contradiction. The same question at the same time, meaning the same thing, cannot elicit two opposite answers. If you ask my wife, 'are you expecting a child?' and at the same time if she says yes, and I say no, what will you say?

"You'll probably say, that's the wrong question, they have a weird sense of humor, she's not his wife, or she hasn't talked to him. You wouldn't walk away saying 'thank you'." Why not? Because the same question at the same time, meaning the same thing, cannot elicit two opposite answers. That's the either/or logic - the Law of Non-Contradiction - you cannot contradict yourself."

He said, "Ravi, that is Western."

I said, "Scratch out that line."

He said, "No, I won't."

I said, "You're going to have to; you may as well scratch it out now."

He said, "No, I won't."

I said, "Keep going."

He said, "The other kind of logic is Both/And. Not either this OR that: both this AND that. If you ask one Hindu if God is personal, and he says 'yes', and you ask another Hindu if God is personal, and he says 'no', you ask a third Hindu which of these is right, and he says 'both of them', he is very much in keeping with his way of looking at 'Both/And'. Both personal AND non-personal - that is the Eastern way of thinking."

I said, "Scratch out that line."

He said, "No, I won't."

I said, "You're going to have to."

He said, "No, I won't."

I said, "Keep going."

So finally he established: Either/Or Logic, the Law of Non-Contradiction, is Western. Both/And logic, the Law of Dialectic, is Eastern. Karl Marx used it: take the employer and the employee, put them together, you get the classless society. Nobody ever shows you one, but at in theory they talk about it. So there it is: Either/Or logic is Western, and Both/And logic is Eastern.

I said, "Sir, have you finished?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "What you are telling me is this: when I am studying Hinduism, I either use the Both/And system, or nothing else. Is that right?"

Do you know what he said? He put his knife and fork down and he said, "The Either/Or does seem to emerge, doesn't it?"

You see, he was using Either/Or logic to prove the Both/And logic. And the more he tried to clobber the Law of Non-Contradiction, the more it clobbered him. The psychologist said, "I think, John, this discussion is over; let's go back."

So what I say to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, is this: Jesus' claim was reasonable. The question is, was he right?

Jesus' claim was reasonable. All religions are exclusive. I looked at that professor and said, "Sir, I've got some shocking news for you: Even in India, you look before crossing the street. It is either the bus, or you, not both of you." It has nothing to do with Eastern and Western; it's what best reflects reality.

Let me summarize my argument:

I believe Jesus was not only reasonable but right, because he described my condition for me most correctly. The world has tried to understand human nature, and doesn't know how to deal with it. I recall a few years ago, when I was speaking in Poland. I went to Auschwitz, and saw 14,000 pounds of women's hair behind glass. The murderers in the concentration camps would take the women into gas ovens, and after suffocating them to death, would scalp them, take their hair, weave it into gunnysacks, and sell it in the marketplace. I could not believe, as I saw tens of thousands of pairs of children's shoes; tens of thousands of suitcases. They were obliterating them at Auschwitz at the rate twelve thousand every day. Let me tell you something: this came about from the minds, and hands of men and women, who at that point in history, represented one of the most educated people of their time. They were also aesthetes. The same men who spawned the concentration camps were also the men who sat enthralled before the strains of Wagner.

How are we going to understand the human heart if education does not do, and if prosperity does not do? You and I live now in North America, and today's newspapers are describing us as the most murderous nation on the face of the earth, where there is an undeclared war. We are snuffing them out in the streets, and we have come to believe that we will change if we have a better educational system, or if we solve the problem of poverty. Both of those are needed and are good, but it doesn't change the heart of man.

Listen to Hobart Mowrer, psychologist from Harvard and Yale, and once upon a time president of the American Psychological Association, who ended up committing suicide himself, said:

For several decades, we psychologists looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus, and acclaimed our liberation from it as epoch-making. But at length we have discovered that to be free from sin is also to have the excuse of being sick, rather than being sinful. [We are in] danger of becoming lost. This danger is, I believe, betokened by the widespread interest in existentialism, which we are presently witnessing. In becoming amoral, ethically neutral, and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with neurotics themselves find ourselves asking, "Who am I? What is my deepest destiny?"

Malcolm Muggeridge went for a swim one morning in India, thinking he was going to cross the line of immorality, and he swam hard toward this Indian woman, who was shocked to see him coming. As he came closer and closer, ready for the moment of proposition to this Indian woman, Malcolm Muggeridge - a married man - suddenly realized, as he came close and lifted his eyes out of the water, he was looking into the eyes of a leper. He said, "I suddenly recognized not how lecherous she was, but how leprous I was in my heart."

Just as Jacob confessed to God his name, and God told him, "You have well spoken," because the first time he had denied his own identity, Jesus' description of my condition, his provision for my malady, his explanation of reality, his transcendence over history, his equipment in suffering, his triumph over death, and his embodiment of the ideal - [all these speak meaning into a meaningless world].

What do I mean by his explanation of reality? We all search for unity in diversity. The very word university means "looking for unity in diversity." The American coins say E Pluribus Unum. We are looking for unity in diversity. I suggest that there is only one explanation for unity in diversity, and that is in the doctrine of the trinity, where right from the beginning, there was unity, diversity, community in the trinity, and that's the principle you and I need to adhere to.

Think of the meaning it brings in gender relationships. Think of the meaning it brings in racial relationships. Think of the meaning it brings within our own heart as we find alienation. But I look at the struggles of the human heart and the human situation. I think of the great tennis player Arthur Ashe. He said, "As painful as AIDS was to me, nothing was as painful as the discrimination I had to live through all my life."

Think of the polarization between men and women. Think of the polarization between the races. How wonderful to know that in our diversity there is equality of essence, and that Christ alone provides that!

Let me conclude with the last point, Jesus' embodiment of universal ideals.

The apostle Paul was born a Hebrew, raised as a Roman citizen in a Greek city. The Romans gave to us our legal ideals. The Greeks gave to us our philosophical ideals. The Hebrews gave to us our moral ideals.

• The Hebrew's pursuit was symbolized by light. "This is the light that lighteth every man that comes into the world." "The people that sat in the darkness have seen a great light." "The LORD is my light and my salvation."
• The pursuit of the Greeks was knowledge. "These things are written that we might know that we have eternal life." The Academy was a Greek invention.
• The pursuit of the Romans was glory - the glory of Rome, the glory of the Caesars, the glory of the eternal city, that wasn't built in a day.

Paul, who was born a Hebrew, a citizen of Rome, in a Greek city, says this in Second Corinthians 4:6: "God, who caused the light to shine out of darkness, has caused his light to shine in our hearts, to give to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let me conclude. Malcolm Muggeridge said it well. Listen carefully - these are delicious words:

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling. Revolutions and Counterrevolutions. Wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back upon my own fellow countrymen, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.

I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin, acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America, wealthier and in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind. England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running our of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate. All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace: The person of Jesus Christ. I present him as the way, the truth, and the life.

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