“Requite injury with kindness. Keep behind, and you shall be put in front. He who is great makes humility his base. To know, but to be as one not knowing, is the height of wisdom. To the good I would be good; to the evil I would also be good, in order to make them good.” Sound familiar? If we were asked to identify the writer most of us would say Jesus. However, they are just a few of the sayings of Lao-Tse, a Chinese philosopher who lived 600 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This is just one small sample of the vast treasure of wisdom literature written prior to Jesus.
Jesus’ moral teachings and life lessons were not new. What was new about Jesus was something far more significant than the Sermon on the Mount and other such passages. Along with His great wisdom Jesus revealed His divine identity to us by saying such things, “I and the Father are One.” “Before Abraham was I am.” And Thursday evening before the cross He said, “I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
He is totally unique and He left us with some very specific promises regarding our eternal futures. Via Paul, Jesus left us with the understanding that our righteousness is the fruit of our relationship with God and grows out of our gratitude for His lifting from us the burden of the Law. Christianity is unique because it is the only religion ever that has God pursuing us for the sole purpose of giving us salvation. Every other requires works.
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 25, 2013
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org