The Supremacy of Christ and Aren't All Religions the Same?

Tim Keller, in his fantastic book The Reason for God, shares:

"I was once invited to be the Christian representative in a panel discussion at a local college along with a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam. The panelists were asked to discuss the differences among religions. The conversation was courteous, intelligent, and respectful in tone. Each speaker affirmed that there were significant irreconcilable differences between the major faiths.

A case in point was the person of Jesus. We all agreed on the statements: 'If Christians are right about Jesus being God, then Muslims and Jews fail in a serious way to to love God as God really is, but if Muslims and Jews are right that Jesus is not God but rather a teacher or prophet, then Christians fail in a serious way to love God as God really is.'

The bottom line was - we couldn't all be equally right about the nature of God."

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. -Colossians 1:15-20

Snippets of Veritas: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

A comparative study of the historical manuscript evidence for the New Testament with other writings from or about Caesar, Plato, Aristotle, etc.

JULIUS CAESAR
LIVED: 100-44 BC
EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT: 900AD
GAP OF TIME: 1,000 years
NO of COPIES: 10

PLATO
LIVED: 427-347 BC
EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT: 900AD
GAP OF TIME: 1,200 years
NO of COPIES: 7

ARISTOTLE
LIVED: 384-322 BC
EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT: 1,100AD
GAP OF TIME: 1,400 years
NO. of COPIES: 5 of any one work

JESUS CHRIST
LIVED: 3 BC to 30 AD (estimate)
EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT: The earliest manuscript of the New Testament was discovered about 50 years ago. P52 is a small papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John (18:31-33 on the front; 18:37-38 on the back), and it has been dated to about 125 AD.
GAP OF TIME: 30-40 years
NO. of COPIES: 5000 individual Greek manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament. 8000 Latin manuscripts from early fifth century.

Snippets of Veritas: Extra-biblical Evidence about Jesus

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
-Josephus in Testimonium Flavianum (63-64 AD)

At this time there was a wise man named Jesus. His conduct was good and [he] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who became his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders. -Josephus in Antiquities (93-94 AD)


Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures of a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus (Latin for Christ), from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate. -Tacitus (First Century Roman Historian)

They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which was their custom to separate, and then re-assemble to partake of food - but food of an ordinary and innocent kind. -Pliny the Younger, in a letter to Emperor Trajan, 112 AD

Snippets of Veritas: Jesus is Truth

I am the way and the truth and the life. –Jesus recorded in John 14:6

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
-John 1:1-5

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. -Hebrews 1:1-3

C.S. Lewis and "Trilemma":
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse…
You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Rick Warren:
As a young man I studied all the major religions of the world. One thing I discovered was that all the major religions point to truth. The Hindu Scriptures, The Vedas, teaches that truth is evasive and hard to find. At the end of his life Buddha confessed, “I am still seeking the truth.” Muhammad said, “I point to the truth.” Compare all of these philosophies with Jesus who said, “I AM the truth.”