The Apologetics Advertisement for Christianity
By Nathaniel Ashcroft
Can the True Religion be a Works-Based Religion?
I showed how God is required for the universal morality we observe in the world in my last section. It will not be defended again in this one.
Any religion that sets parameters to get into heaven (whatever reward that religion offers), like following a law or ritual of some kind, is immediately a religion I cannot follow.
Before I start, let’s define a few terms. By ‘heaven’ I literally mean heaven, but not every religion calls the afterlife ‘heaven’ or really offers a heaven of some kind, and that can get confusing, so keep the idea that ‘heaven’ represents the reward any religion offers. By ‘sin’ I mean going against the law God has laid down and going against His will. The Old Testament clearly shows how high God’s standards are, and the ones who are saved (Hebrews 11) are saved by faith in the coming Messiah. Acts 13 tells us,
“Through [Jesus] everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses” (NIV, Acts 13:39).
In Christianity, we have a law of works, but it does not save us in any way; it makes us conscious of our sin. We believe that Jesus, in perfect obedience to the law, lived, bled and died for our sin, and overcame death and sin on the third day, thereby allowing all those who believe in His gospel to have His righteousness given to them, making them perfect in the eyes of God (Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 1:18). We also believe that God did not give the law with the expectation that we would be able to be saved by it. Jesus was the plan the whole time. That makes perfect sense: God is perfect, I am not; God is just, I am condemned. If there is no payment for me to enter heaven, then instead I must try to enter based on the ‘good’ life I have lived. If that is true, there is no way I could ever be accepted through the gates of heaven.
In my experience, no one I have ever met on this earth has lived a life so good it deserved heaven. As a Christian, I profess Psalm 14:3,
“They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (ESV, Psalm 14:3).
Also, C.S. Lewis makes a great point in Mere Christianity by saying,
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good” (Lewis 142).
No one on this earth is a ‘good’ person, but it’s easy to think we are based on the comparison of our actions and character to those of other people. That’s when a person starts to think they may be a ‘good’ person because, compared to their peers, their decisions are more morally permissible. Of course, that cannot make us ‘good’ in any way, as those around us are not the measuring stick by which we can find ourselves factually good. Until we try very hard to actually live well, not just compared to others, but according to the divine standard of God through the moral compass given to us, we may fallaciously believe we are ‘good’ people. You do not need to read the Bible to understand basic morality, nor the origin of morality; we can observe these truths in our world.
Since we see the evidence of an imposed moral law in our lives, and we know only intelligences give standards, we can conclude that a supreme being has given us this law. The moral law we see testifies that the God who created cares about sin. Our consciousness would say that justice is good; and if God is not just, then He is not good. Any God who imposes a moral law onto His creation does so because it is good and true. Since the idea that justice is good comes from a supreme being, He must also be just. If He is not just, then He disagrees with Himself, therefore creating a contradiction within His character, rendering His likelihood of being the God who created our universe abysmal. If He does not hold us to the standard derived from His character then He is a weak god, a pushover not worth following. The true God cannot be this kind of pushover god, if He was, He would be imperfect. Therefore, the God who created our earth has to judge trespassers of His law. He cannot allow those who have gone against His law to enter His perfect presence or reward if they are sinful; God must be just. If that God loves us, then maybe He would come into His creation Himself and pay the penalty we deserve. Hint, hint.
So, after understanding that objective morality requires a higher power, we can start to learn a little bit about who this divine lawgiver is. Most world religions define God as being perfect in every way. The true religion must profess God to be perfect; otherwise, it disagrees with the empirical moral law in our universe. This law must be from an intelligence. This intelligence is God, and since this law is derived from God Himself, He is incapable of contradicting it. Again, if He does, He’s a hypocrite and we see a contradiction within His character. Any religion who claims their god/gods to be anything less than perfect is a false religion. What kind of ‘god’ trespasses under his own law? The true God therefore must be perfect. There can exist no higher authority than God that can accuse Him of imperfection; if there is then said ‘god’ is not God.
The requirement to be an objectively good person is perfection, as God is perfect and just, and so if any of us have ever done anything in our lives that was wrong in some way, we are not good, but deeply sinful. Since I am currently making an argument from the moral law given by God to find the true religion (grace to be justified or works to be justified), I am no longer providing evidence for an objective moral law, that evidence was provided in the previous section. If your objections to this argument include that you do not believe in an objective moral standard, you are missing the point of my writing.
It doesn’t make sense that I can, in any way, be good enough to make it into heaven with a perfect God. It doesn’t make sense that I can work my way into heaven. What kind of perfect God would allow that? I observe humanity to be deeply, deeply troubled and wayward. I am one of those humans. I cannot give anything to God. Everything I have, this all-powerful God has given to me. What could I give to Him? Moreover, what could I possibly give to Him to merit heaven or an eternal reward of any kind? Absolutely nothing.
This perfect, just God must punish wrongdoing. If He doesn’t, He’s no longer good, and He’s no longer just, and therefore not God. Think of Him like a parent. If your parents don’t discipline bad behavior, that bad behavior will continue. They would not be good parents to allow wrongdoing to go unpunished. Wrongdoing is something that should not be; lying, cheating, murdering, etc. So why would a perfect, just God, allow someone who has committed sin into His perfect Heaven? If my sin is still charged to my account, and no one has paid the penalty for it, where does it go? It doesn’t just leave because I gave a little more than I stole or told the truth a little more than I lied! Would God be just if He let me, with my sin and good deeds all together, into heaven, where the requirement to enter is perfection? If the requirement to enter is not perfection, god is not just and therefore not God. Such a god is not God enough to be worth following. Would any judge be just in letting a killer go free? Would any judge be just in letting a killer not just go free, but free into a perfect place full of blessings? Do the good deeds a killer does in their life cancel out their murder? Do they make it any less horrible? Of course not.
If no one has taken my wrongdoing and paid the penalty, then it’s still with me in heaven, and God would be unjust and imperfect to allow me in. That’s why I would honestly just give up if I was judged by my life choices. There’s just no way I could ever live well enough to enter that perfect place. No work can ever merit salvation. If a religion professes that work can merit some sort of heaven (good afterlife) or reward, it cannot be the true religion. It cannot be the true revelation given to man by God because it claims a false statement to be true, that good works can make a person right before God. Never have I heard a belief I thought to be farther from the truth than this.
Even one singular sin leaves a person unfit and hopeless to receive any reward or good afterlife offered by God, which is an impossibly high standard. One sin makes a person imperfect. Remember: there is a difference between comparing people to people, and comparing people to God. One sin is more than enough to merit death. Anyone who does not believe that one sin is enough to separate us from God must understand that the separation between God and man is unexplainably and incomprehensibly wide. One sin renders our relation to God like that of a muddy, polluted pond to a cool, clear mountain lake. God is maximally great. If God is not maximally great, He is not God. God is holy, holy, holy. Sometimes we humanize God, try to grab Him and bring Him down to our level, take His character and make it more like us; we try to make God completely understandable to our finite minds. God’s character and holiness could not be higher and farther out of our reach. Let the reader understand: this is not a separation of physical distance; this is a moral and existential separation.
That’s why Jesus is the cornerstone of Christianity, He is the number one essential.
“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (NIV, 1 Corinthians 15:17).
For a religion to be the true revelation given to us by God, it must include some sort of administration of grace or payment for its followers to be counted worthy of heaven or whatever afterlife that religion professes. Otherwise, no one will enter that afterlife. If that payment is not present, the only way for anyone to enter would be in the instance that God is not just. The true God must be just. The only way a just God can allow me into heaven is by mercy and grace; the only way a sinner can receive mercy instead of justice is if someone or something else takes the penalty due. Again, God is perfectly just, someone must pay for violations of the moral law. The true religion must be centered around grace; if not, no one will be saved. Christianity is the only grace-based religion I have ever heard of. Christianity is the only religion that provides a valid path to salvation when taking into account the moral law instituted upon humanity. If there is no Christ, there is no salvation.
This is also why repentance is important. Repent and believe the gospel! God wanted a relationship with you so badly, He stepped down from His glorious throne to become nothing, so that He could redeem His elect and allow them into communion with Him. Christ is truly Lord, and truly does He love us! This idea that we can be good enough to meet the requirement of Heaven (which Christianity professes is perfection) goes against what God’s character must be. If we say He is just and perfect, then He can’t let anyone into heaven without atonement (I know I’ve said this sort of sentence many, many times in this section. Hopefully you remember it!).
A works religion must profess that good deeds and bad deeds are equal and opposite in some way. If they do not, in what way are we purified? In what way can our good deeds merit heaven? The only way good deeds could purify humanity for heaven is if they were more numerous than a person’s bad deeds, and if they canceled out said bad deeds.
Good deeds and bad deeds are not equal and opposite, in that, if I lie to my mom, and then tell the truth later, my bad behavior is not justified nor eradicated. If I murder someone, then save someone’s life, is my killing canceled out? I don’t think so. Remember: would a judge be just in letting a murderer go free under the premise that said murderer also committed a number of good deeds? What if the only sinful thing this murderer had even done was murder? Would they still deserve punishment? Of course they would. Because good deeds do not cancel out sin.
Under the world view that good deeds cancel out bad deeds, why would I preach to anyone who has lived most of their life not following what my religion says that person should do? They simply don’t have the time left alive to even out the divine scales of good and evil. How can they make up for all the bad they have done? Of course, they can’t. If there is no grace, there is no hope. It is impossible that any good work could have the ability to absolve a person of sin. Any works-based religion must therefore follow a god who lies, or they must follow a god who is not in existence in reality.
Jesus paying the penalty for our sin leaves us completely and utterly cleansed, so cleansed that our bodies are pure enough to be temples for the Holy Spirit, and to accept that, we must have a relationship with Him, and truly follow Christ, as stated in Matthew 10 and James 2,
“Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (NIV, Matthew 10:38).
“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (ESV, James 2:26).
If my sin was still on me in heaven, then all the adverse effects it has would be. Then heaven isn’t perfect, and I am still subject to the human condition. I wouldn’t be totally free. I would be dead in my sin.
“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (NIV, Romans 6:2).
I still wouldn’t have been cleansed. I would still have the burden of sin, and God would be unjust to look over it. So, simply put, if any works religion is right, I don’t think I can make it to heaven anyway. Good thing He loved us so much He sent His Son. Christianity is unique in that it teaches we are saved by grace, not by what our feeble hands can do. It preaches a relationship with God, a very personal, loving one. Not a ritualistic work/tradition to make oneself worthy of heaven. This uniqueness of mercy means Christianity is the only religion worth following. The gospel itself has a very high rate of bringing people into the fold of Christianity. Far more people believe because of the gospel than from apologetics or anything else, and I think this is because all of humanity knows that they are so fallen and sinful that the only possible way they could ever receive blessing from heaven is through mercy and grace. We understand, somewhere deep down, we need Jesus to complete us (The Holy Spirit is He who softens the heart and brings people to God, of course, not human effort).
Timothy Keller States in Making Sense of God,
“Consider, then, what the Christian Gospel has to offer. For the moment, let’s leave Jesus or Christianity out of the picture. What if you tried to just believe in God in general? What if you just tried to live a good life and pray to [H]im? How would you get into a relationship with a God like that? Wouldn’t that be exploitation? God wouldn’t change– you would have to do all the submitting, all the repenting, make all the sacrifices.
But Christianity is different. Jesus Christ lost [H]is glory and became mortal and died for us. In Jesus God says, ‘I will adjust to you. I will sacrifice for you. First I will give up my glory and immortality in becoming human in the Incarnation. Then I will give up all light and joy and my very life in the Atonement.’ He was nailed fast to the cross so [H]e could not move. How is that for giving up your freedom” (Keller 116-117)?
Have you heard the gospel? If not, click here.
I will be taking a break in posting across the holidays, so no post next week.
Works Cited
NIV Quest Study Bible. Zondervan, 2011.
ESV Bible, The Premium Gift Edition. Crossway, 2016.
Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. 1st ed., HarperOne, 2001.
Keller, Timothy. Making Sense of God. Penguin Books, 2018.