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Real Answers™
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Copyright: © 2010 Tom Flannery
640 words

HELLO DALAI, GOODBYE TRUTH

By: Tom Flannery

The Dalai Lama was in New York City last week, promoting belief in Buddhism — or whatever other religion happens to strike your fancy.

In an appearance at Radio City Music Hall, he explained:  “I never say Buddhism is best.  Buddhism has been best for me.  Each person is different.  I cannot say what is best for 100 people:  Their own religion is best for them.  It’s like medicine.  We cannot say pick one medicine, this is best for everybody.”

In other words, there is no such thing as absolute truth.  Everything is relative.  Whatever is right for you is right, and whatever is right for me is right as well, even if the two belief systems are not only different but absolutely contradictory.

This is the zeitgeist, the spirit of our age.  It is considered accepted wisdom by the world today.  Yet the Bible (a book of absolute truth) warns that “the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God” (I Cor. 3:19).

Indeed, Jesus shattered the myth of moral relativity altogether when He declared, unequivocally and unapologetically:  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Jesus didn’t just claim to tell the truth or lead others to it.  He identified himself as the very personification of truth.  And He alone offers a remedy to the scourge of sin which has plagued all mankind and separates us from God.  That remedy is His precious blood shed for us on the Cross, which is the only “medicine” (to use the Dalai Lama’s terminology) that there is or ever will be for man’s deepest need.

As Scripture assures all true believers, “you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers;  but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).  

The Dalai Lama, as is the case with some other religious leaders, is addressed by followers as “His Holiness,” but there’s nothing holy about him at all.  Or any other religious leader.  Or any other human being, for that matter.

Jesus alone, as God in human flesh, lived a perfectly holy life in thought, word and deed.  As for the rest of us, the Bible tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

We all “have sinned,” which speaks of the past.  Every one of us was born with a sin nature, and as such we have sinned from the time we were old enough to think and act for ourselves right up to the present time.

But we also “fall short of the glory of God,” which is the continual present tense.  This means that we continue to sin throughout our lives, in one way or another, to one degree or another.

The punishment for that sin, the Bible warns in Romans 6:23, is spiritual death — which the Bible defines as eternal separation from God in a place of torment and isolation.  But it goes on to say in that same verse that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Only in the Bible do we read that salvation is a free gift, apart from works, obtained exclusively through the One who paid for it with His substitutional sacrifice on the Cross (where He died in your place and in my place, to pay your sin debt and mine in full).

But to receive that gift, you must not only know that truth exists, but believe in the One who embodies truth and trust in Him alone for salvation.  Then, as we read in John’s gospel, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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