Mission articles
The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s treasury. John Owen says all the goodness, grace, life, light, power and mercy that God’s people need for life, salvation and sanctification are deposited in Christ. Christians sing, ‘In him there dwells a treasure all divine; And matchless grace has made that treasure mine.’ This Christmas as you rejoice in Jesus the Messiah, give thanks to God that because you have been delivered from the power of darkness and conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Colossians 1:13), God’s vast treasury of blessing is yours in Christ. But at the same time spare a thought for the millions who know nothing of this treasury, who have no idea that God has appointed a mediator and offers unsurpassable blessings in him. Remember in particular the over 700 million Hindus in the world, some of whom might be living in your own neighbourhood. Here is a mass of humanity totally blind and completely ignorant of the great blessings that Jesus the Messiah offers to all who come to him.
1. Hindus do not know that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Hindus think like the Syrians when they were defeated by Ahab: ‘Their gods are gods of the hills. Therefore they were stronger than we; but if we fight against them in the plain, surely we will be stronger than they’ (1 Kings 20:23). In their thinking, Hindus carve up the world by religion. Some lands are Christian, others are Muslim, others Hindu, and so on. This is how things have been arranged and how they will remain. As a boy growing up in Kenya I never dreamed that I would meet an Indian Christian, far less that I should become one myself. Christ was the God of the Africans and the Europeans, but he could never be the God of the Indians: we were under a different jurisdiction. As far as I was concerned I could not become a Christian even if I wanted to because I was an Indian and Christ was not the God of the Indians.
2. Hindus do not know that salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). They do not realise that he is the only Saviour of the world. To the Hindu there are many roads that lead to the top of the mountain. The Christians follow Christ, the Muslims follow their religion and the Hindus theirs. Occasionally their paths cross in the form of ‘inter-faith services’, and one day all will meet at the top. Hindus, therefore, have no problems acknowledging the deity of Christ: He is one of many millions of gods in this world. It is when we insist that there is only one God and Christ is the only way that they are alarmed.
3. Hindus do not know that grace… came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Hinduism teaches salvation by works only. The idea of grace is completely missing from its religious structures. Even when a Hindu asks his god for a favour he never assumes it will be given him freely. To him it is rather like buying on hire purchase: you pay for it over time. The son of a man I know well was born several weeks premature. He asked his god to spare his son’s life, promising in return to go to the temple each week and present an offering of food. Now, every week he carries out his promise, not out of gratitude for a favour freely granted, but out of fear that should he cease, his son, now in his twenties and with children of his own, will drop dead. And so to Hindus the idea that Christ should offer salvation freely to all who come to him is totally alien. In their thinking Christians are buying their salvation from Christ, just as they are from their gods. This, says the Hindu, is why missionaries build schools and hospitals in the third world and seek to do good. It is to please Christ and so earn his favour.
4. Hindus do not know that Christ is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). For the Hindu the thought of what happens after death is unbearable. His Hinduism tells him that his soul will be re-incarnated and in fact will live on earth in thousands of bodies over millions of years. This thought depresses Hindus beyond words. ‘Oh, to be released!’ is a cry frequently heard. Little do they realise that Christ by his resurrection has secured eternal salvation for all who believe in him: But now, Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). The idea that there is no re-incarnation of the soul but a general resurrection for all (John 5:29) is something they cannot grasp. The idea that for all believers life after death is a glorious prospect - for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9) - is even more beyond them.
5. Hindus do not know that Christ gives living water (John 4:10). They yearn to find satisfaction and fulfilment in this life, which is why so many give themselves wholeheartedly to running businesses and making money. Like the Samaritan woman they are convinced that the pleasures of this world will satisfy their thirst for fulfilment in life. They are ignorant of the fact that whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water Christ gives will never thirst (John 4:13-14). They are tragically oblivious of the fact that Christians enjoy a joyful, fulfilling personal relationship with God through Christ and that this gives them satisfaction.
Some words of application
1. Rejoice! Aren’t you glad that you are not in a religion of fear where you have to earn every favour from God? What a blessing it is to know that Christ is God’s great treasury and that his matchless grace makes those blessings ours.
2. Pray for Hindus. They are without Christ, having no hope, without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). If you have Hindus near you, speak to them of Christ and explain to them that Christmas is indeed the season of joy.