Biblical Christianity is absolutely unique in the nature of its central personage and founder, Jesus Christ. There is none other like Him in all history or even in all literature.
Some writers, of course, presume to place Christ as merely one in a list of great religious leaders, but this is grotesque and absurd. He stands in contrast to all others, not in line with them, not even at the head of the line. His uniqueness is illustrated in the following partial list of attributes.
Anticipation of His Coming. His coming was prophesied in fine detail, as to lineage, birthplace, time, career, purpose, nature of death, resurrection, and many other things, hundreds of years prior to His actual appearance. Of no other religious leader — indeed, of no other man — in all history was such a thing true.
The Virgin Birth. Although tales of demi-gods, the progeny of unions between men and the gods (actually demons) are common in ancient mythology, the narrative of Christ’s virgin birth stands entirely alone; nothing like it was ever imagined elsewhere. God himself took up residence in embryonic human form in a virgin’s womb, thence to be born in fully natural human birth, with no actual genetic connection to human parents, even though legally the natural heir of a human father and embryologically the seed and fruit of a human mother. No other human birth was ever like this, in fact or fiction, yet it was uniquely and ideally appropriate and natural when God became man.
The Divine Human Nature. Though men have often thought of themselves as children of God, Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of God. Although there have been power-crazed dictators and fanatics who have claimed to be God, even these individuals recognized and acknowledged that their assumption of divinity was only relative — they hardly imagined that they had created the stars or even their own mothers! But Jesus Christ was God in the highest sense, the Creator of all things (Col. 1:16), and He claimed to be God on many occasions and in many ways. He was also man in the fullest sense, except that He had no sin. He was not half-man and half-God, but rather all man and all God, in a perfect and indissoluble union. No other man was ever thus — indeed, no other man ever claimed to be thus.
Sinless Life. Of no one else in history could the claim ever be made in seriousness that he lived a whole lifetime without one sin, in thought or word or deed. But this very thing was claimed by Jesus’ closest friends, by His worst enemies, by the greatest of the apostles, and by Jesus himself. Peter said, “[He] did no sin” (1 Pet. 2:22), and John said, “In him is no sin” (1 John 3:5). Judas said, “I have betrayed the innocent blood” (Matt. 27:4), and Pilate said, “I find in him no fault at all” (John 18:38). Paul said, “[He] knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21), and Jesus said concerning himself, “The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). Jesus Christ was the one man who never sinned; He was the unique, representative Son of Man, man as God intended man to be.
Unique Teachings. Many non-Christians have acknowledged Christ to be the greatest teacher of all time. The Sermon on the Mount is without parallel, and the beauty and power of the Upper Room discourse, the compelling majesty of the sermon on the Mount of Olives, the power of His parables, and all His other teachings are separated by a great gulf from even the finest teachings of other men. And yet His teachings continually include both the claim and the internal awareness that He was uniquely God’s Son, and that His teachings were absolutely true because of this. In no other religious writings does one find such a phenomenon as this.
His Unique Death. After a cruel mockery of a trial and a period of incomprehensible suffering in prison and on the cross, “He said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:30). Literally, He “dismissed His spirit.” No one else can die like this. It is evidently quite a difficult task even to commit suicide, but certainly no one can simply decide to die and then, by his mere volition, proceed to die. But Jesus did! He said, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down myself” (John 10:18).
The Resurrection of Christ. Not only did Christ die by His own power, but He rose again on the third day by His own power. “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 10:18). The overwhelming proof of the bodily resurrection of Christ will be discussed later [in this book], but here it is merely noted that this constitutes the final and greatest proof of His absolute uniqueness. All other religious founders and leaders are dead. In most cases, their tombs are known and venerated. But the tomb of Christ was occupied only three days and thereafter became empty forever. Other men have been temporalily restored to life after dying, but only Christ is “alive forevermore” (Rev. 1:18). Death is man’s last and greatest enemy (1 Cor. 15:26), which conquers all alike, no matter how brilliant or powerful. Christ alone conquered death, thereby demonstrating forever that He is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
The above taken from Many Infallible Proofs by Morris, Henry M., Master Books, Copyright © 1974, 1996, pp. 20-22, reproduced here by permission of the publisher.
