According to Don Stewart: “Throughout history, many religious leaders have come on the scene and attracted large followings–the Buddha, with his teachings on how to cope with life’s suffering, gained millions of adherents. Confucius, with his precepts on how members of society should get along with each other, likewise numbers his followers in the millions. The same can be said for Muhammad and the religion of Islam. Yet, Jesus has demonstrated that He is in a different class from these, as well as all the other founders of the major religions of the world.”1
Stewart goes on to list four ways in which Jesus is different from the founders of other religions. These four ways are:
- He made Himself the issue instead of His teachings. He claimed our eternal destiny depends upon how we view Him!
- He backed up His claims with observable miracles.
- He fulfilled Old Testament predictions made about His life and His ministry. These predictions were made hundreds of years before He was born.
- He conquered death to verify that He was the unique Son of God.2
I urge you to read Stewart’s entire article. It includes many Scripture verses to back up his four points.
In addition, Jesus was unique in that He was both fully human and fully God, lived His entire life without ever sinning, was born without an earthly father, whose teachings on ethics and right living are the purest ever taught by any individual who ever lived, and who literally influenced the world like no other person who ever lived – in a myriad of ways. And it is on this last point that Historian, Philip Schaff, summed it up best when he shared:
“This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science or learning, He has shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of schools, He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise, than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.”3
Jesus is so different, so unique, and so influential, that I believe no honest, thinking person should ever pass up the opportunity to investigate His claims; for our eternal destiny hangs in the balance, if Jesus is who the Bible claims He is.
Carnegie Simpson sums up the difference between Jesus and all other influential greats of the past as follows: “Instinctively we do not class Him with others. When one reads His name in a list beginning with Confucius and ending with Goethe we feel it is an offense less against orthodoxy than against decency. Jesus is not one of the group of the world’s great. Talk about Alexander the Great and Charles the Great and Napoleon the Great if you will…Jesus is apart. He is not the Great; He is the Only. He is simply Jesus…. He confounds our canons of human nature.”4
1 The Bible’s Main Character: Jesus Christ by Don Stewart (blueletterbible.org)
2 The Bible’s Main Character: Jesus Christ by Don Stewart (blueletterbible.org)
3 Quote by Philip Schaff: “Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conq…” (goodreads.com)
4 Charlie H. Campbell, Apologetics Quotes (Carlsbad, California: The Always Be Ready Apologetics Ministry, 2020), pp. 91-92.