True Religion
by Stephen Bastin
Call
me a dinosaur, but I believe that there are beliefs that are right and there are
beliefs that are wrong. And I
believe that it is possible for a person of reasonable intelligence to make the
correct distinction.
True
religion is based on principles supported by evidence.
Religion is true because it has come from God.
Religion is false when it comes from some other source (men being the
only one that I can think of that is reasonable).
Religion is true because it correctly understands the message from God.
Religion is false when it distorts the message from God.
Most
religions make no serious attempt to trace the origin of their beliefs back to
God. Most religious beliefs in our
world today are simply ideas, principles and rules advocated by some man or by
some group of men. There is no
absolute standard to which everything must be subjected.
Most people reject the idea that there can even be absolutes.
Therefore, for these people, nothing is absolutely true and nothing is
absolutely false. Everything is
relative.
I
have read the Book of Mormon, the Qu'ran (Koran), the Divine Principle (Bible
of the Unification Church) and some of the Bhagavad-Gita as well as reading the
Bible many times in many different translations.
That does not make me an expert on any of those documents.
But it does leave me with an opinion.
There
is no comparison between all those other books and the Bible for several
reasons. First of all, none of them,
except the Book of Mormon, covers hundreds of years of history.
The Book of Mormon fails on that count because there is no archaeological
evidence to substantiate anything in the history of the Book of Mormon, plus the
Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible and, in the older editions, claimed to be
superior to the Bible.
History
is important because it shows the hand of God in the affairs of men over a long
period of time. There is also a
consistency and unity of purpose that is displayed throughout that history.
There are hints of the coming of Jesus as early as Genesis, chapter 3.
Other prophecies, written by different people over a period of hundreds
of years tell of his birth, his birthplace, his manner of life, his work, his
death, his resurrection, his ascension and his role as a king.
No other religious leader can claim such a long line of prophecies
leading to his coming.
There
are attempts in the Divine Principle to enlist the Bible on the side of Moon as
the second coming of Jesus. I say
attempts, because the scriptures used are distorted, twisted and otherwise
mutilated to make it appear that the second coming would be as a Korean.
Neither
Buddha, Joseph Smith nor Mohammed was the subject of prophecies made hundreds of
years before their birth. Nor did
any of them rise from the dead to verify their authority as a religious teacher.
The Jewish religion was established by God at Mt. Sinai
when God spoke through Moses. The
Jewish religion as revealed in the Old Testament bears little resemblance to the
Jewish religion practiced in today’s world.
When I asked a Jewish college professor of comparative religions about
those differences, she said,
Yet
when one comes to the so called “Christian” religions, matters are not much
different. Most denominations
(including Catholic and Orthodox) operate on the same basis as the Jewish
and Islamic religions. Some man or
group of men decide what the beliefs
of others will be. All who disagree
are considered heretics and excluded. This
is why there are so many different “Christian” sects.
After
a long period of preparation, God sent His Son into the world.
The Old Testament provides the background and the basis for what Jesus
did. Jesus chose twelve apostles to
be his official representatives. He
gave them the Spirit so that they could remember what he had taught and so that
the remainder of divine truth might be revealed to them.
Through the apostles whom Jesus chose, the New Testament was written.
After Paul, Jesus chose no more apostles.
He did not give any instructions for men to appoint apostles.
There are no Christ appointed successors to those who Christ chose in the
first century.
In
the New Testament, the disciples of Jesus were called Christians (Acts 11:26)
They were first of all disciples of Jesus.
To be a disciple means to be a student.
They were students of Jesus. It
was said of the first disciples that they “devoted themselves to the
apostles’ doctrine. (Acts 2:42)
Today
people call themselves Christians while devoted to the doctrines of church
councils, synods, presbyteries, conferences, watchtower societies, creeds
written by men, ad nauseam.
Consider
the matter of baptism, for example. One
church gives people a choice, sprinkling, pouring or immersion.
Mark, chapter one, gives an account of the baptism of Jesus.
Imagine Jesus coming to John the Baptist to be baptized.
John: “Shall I sprinkle or
pour water on you or shall we go in the river and get all wet?”
Jesus: “Well, it doesn’t
really matter to me, so let’s just get it over with as quickly as possible.”
You will not find any such dialog in the Bible.
John
baptized Jesus in the Jordan (that is a river).
He did not baptize Jesus with water from
the Jordan. He did not
baptize Jesus beside the Jordan. He
baptized him IN the Jordan. After
his baptism Jesus “came up out of the water.”
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.
A
church council in the 16th century decided that sprinkling and pouring were as
good as immersion. You can choose to
follow Jesus or you can choose to follow the decrees of councils.
You cannot do both.
All
sorts of matters have been decided by those who came long after the apostles.
None of those decisions are binding on Christians who follow Jesus.
Opinions are fine as long as they do not contradict divine authority and
as long as they are not bound on other Christians.
The
opinions of men lead to divisions. True
religion is not found in the opinions of men.
Rightly understanding the word of God, found in the Bible, leads to
unity. It is possible to understand
the Bible and be saved.