Author	: Bill Kochman
Publish	: Jan. 13, 2026
Update	: Jan. 13, 2026
Parts	: 03

Synopsis:



Continuing our discussion from part one, so death entered the world through the sin of Adam and Eve, and it has been passed on to all people who have ever lived since that time many millennia ago, because we have all sinned in one form or another, even if we are not willing to honestly admit it to ourselves. We are simply born with an inherited sinful nature, as we learned with the verses I shared with you in part one. Exactly what is meant by sin? As the Apostle John plainly informs us in his first Epistle, sin is the action of breaking, transgressing or violating God's holy Laws.

Exactly how do we know what God's Laws are? Well, they are defined for us in the Laws of Moses, and also by what Jesus taught His followers in the New Testament. If you honestly believe that you have never sinned, then clearly, my friend, you deceive yourself. Furthermore, you are also calling God a liar. Consider the following two Bible verses:

"‭‭Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.‭"


"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."


Furthermore, the Bible plainly teaches us that the wages of sin -- or we could say what we are owed -- is death. We each have a death sentence hanging over us due to our own sinful nature. Consider the following group of Bible verses which likewise confirm this very important point:

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."


"The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law."


"Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."


On a side note, the reason why the Apostle Paul writes that "the strength of sin is the law", is because the Mosaic Law clearly informs us of exactly what sin is. As I mentioned a moment ago, the Laws of Moses enumerate the various kinds of sins which exist, and they are indeed many. As Paul likewise wrote "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Furthermore, it is because of the Law -- meaning the Mosaic Law -- that we all stand guilty before God. Why is this? Because none of us is capable of keeping all of God's Laws. Consider the following group of Bible verses which explain these points:

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I HAD NOT KNOWN SIN, BUT BY THE LAW: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet."


"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and ALL THE WORLD MAY BECOME GUILTY BEFORE GOD. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: FOR BY THE LAW IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN."


"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, HE IS GUILTY OF ALL."


This is a very deep, complex subject in itself which I will not be delving into in this particular series, because I am trying to keep this message as simple as possible, and I want to concentrate on Salvation basics for any Buddhist or other person who may possibly read this series. You will find the subject more deeply explored in other Bill's Bible Basics articles and series.

While the wages of sin is death, as Romans 6:23 above also informs us, not all hope is lost, because "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Thankfully, God provided us with a solution to this dilemma when He sent His Son to die for our sins. The Apostle Paul in fact refers to Jesus as the "last Adam", because through His sinless life and loving Sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus closed the breach which had been opened through Adam and Eve's rebellion, and He made it possible for us to be reconciled with the Father. As I mentioned earlier, Adam and Eve's relationship with God was broken when they rebelled. However, Jesus Christ made it possible for our relationship to be restored, as it had been in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. Consider this set of Bible verses:

"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."


"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS, CHRIST DIED FOR US. Romans 5:6-8, KJV
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST HIS SON CLEANSETH US FROM ALL SIN."


"And HE [JESUS] IS THE PROPITIATION [APPEASEMENT] FOR OUR SINS: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."


"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and SENT HIS SON TO BE THE PROPITIATION [APPEASEMENT] FOR OUR SINS."


"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, AND WASHED US FROM OUR SINS IN HIS OWN BLOOD,"


"And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, AND MADE THEM WHITE IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB."


"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."


You see, through His Sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus appeased God's wrath towards humanity. That is in fact what the word "propitiation" means. As I explained earlier, Jesus made it possible for our relationship with the Father to be restored. We can be reconciled with the Father by placing our faith in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Bible makes it very plain that Jesus in fact paid the ransom price for our freedom from death. He paid what was owed for our forgiveness, redemption and salvation. He took our punishment for us when He died on the Cross. Jesus did what we could not do for ourselves. He suffered what we each deserve. He took our place, because the wages of sin is death, and Jesus took it for us. This eternal truth is revealed in the following set of verses:

"Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, AND TO GIVE HIS LIFE A RANSOM FOR MANY."


"For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, AND TO GIVE HIS LIFE A RANSOM FOR MANY."


"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, WHICH HE HATH PURCHASED WITH HIS OWN BLOOD."


"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? FOR YE ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."


"YE ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE; be not ye the servants of men."


"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; WHO GAVE HIMSELF A RANSOM FOR ALL, to be testified in due time."


I began this series by explaining how this Buddhist wanted to compare Buddhist love with so-called Christian hate. Well, you want to talk about love? Okay, what I just described to you via the previous group of verses is true, genuine love. In other words, giving your life for others so that they may live, which is EXACTLY what Jesus did. As Jesus said on one occasion to His Apostles:

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."


The Apostle John also wrote the following Bible verses which condense the primary message of the entire Bible so that it can be easily understood by everyone, no matter their age:

"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he [meaning Jesus] laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."


"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."


Why did Jesus have to do this? Why did He have to take our place on that Cross? Why did He have to suffer ridicule and mockery, persecution, agonizing torture, and finally a very painful death on the Cross? I have already told you rather plainly: Because we CANNOT possibly save ourselves. None of us are capable of keeping all of God's Laws, despite what we may try to deceive ourselves into believing. We will fall short every single time. As the Apostle James wrote, if we break even one of God's Laws, we are guilty of breaking all of them.

Furthermore, as we saw earlier, in Romans 5:6 the Apostle Paul wrote "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." What does Paul mean by "when we were yet without strength"? Personally, I believe that Paul is saying that we simply do NOT have it in us to keep all of God's Laws, exactly as I just told you. God's Laws are simply too heavy for us to bear alone. They are a tremendous burden to us. They are a yoke of bondage which keep us fully trapped in the snare of death because we just cannot keep them all. They point the finger at us and say "Guilty, guilty, guilty!". However, God already knows this, and while He was on Earth, Jesus knew it as well. That is precisely why He came to offer us relief, and chose to take our place on that Cross, as we see by the following group of Bible verses:

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."


So as you can see, it just keeps coming right back to Jesus. In short, my friends, I don't care what anyone else says, or thinks or teaches, no matter their religion or lack thereof. According to the Scriptures, none of us are capable of being good enough, moral enough or righteousness enough to merit God's mercy, grace, forgiveness and salvation. Now, if it were truly possible for us to merit such things on our own, then as the Apostle Paul wrote, Jesus Christ died in vain. He wasted His life all for nothing. I don't believe that for one minute. Do you?

As we learned in part one of this series, while some people believe to the contrary, we simply have no righteousness of our own. None of stand justified before God based on our own human merits. If God should mark the iniquities in your life, you would NOT be able to stand justified before Him. Even if you were to try to keep every single law that is mentioned in the Bible, you are doomed to failure. You just cannot do it. God knows this. That is why He sent Jesus to die for us. The impossibility of our situation without Christ is plainly revealed in the following additional Bible verses:

"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"


"‭‭For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed ‭the righteousness‭ of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.‭"


"But that NO MAN IS JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW IN THE SIGHT OF GOD, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith."


"Knowing that A MAN IS NOT JUSTIFIED BY THE WORKS OF THE LAW, BUT BY THE FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: FOR BY THE WORKS OF THE LAW SHALL NO FLESH BE JUSTIFIED . . . I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, THEN CHRIST IS DEAD IN VAIN."


"And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:‭ Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.‭ The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men ‭are‭, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.‭ I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.‭ And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as ‭his‭ eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.‭ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified ‭rather‭ than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.‭"


Regarding that last group of verses which are found in the Gospel of Luke, do you fully understand what is going on there? For those of you who may not, let me explain it to you more clearly. As we can easily see, the proud Pharisee beat his own chest and self-righteously bragged about all of the good things he had done. He reminds me of the rich young man who likewise bragged to Jesus regarding how he had kept all of the Laws of Moses. In fact, his question to Jesus was this: "Good Master, what‭ good thing‭ shall I do‭‭, that‭ I may have‭‭ eternal‭ life‭?‭". You see that? The man wanted to know what GOOD THINGS he could do on his OWN in order to merit eternal life. It was about trying to earn Heaven on his OWN merit by doing GOOD THINGS, and living a MORAL LIFE. Following is the full story:

"And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions."


I am sure many of you will see the common thread between the proud Pharisee in the Gospel of Luke, and the young rich man in the Gospel of Matthew. Both of them were quite obviously depending on their own righteousness, goodness and personal moral code. They thought that such righteous behavior surely earned them a secured place in Heaven. However, they were both dead wrong, weren't they? In contrast, the publican was so convicted by his own sins that he would not even raise up his eyes. Instead, he said "God be merciful to me a sinner." So why was the publican justified? Because unlike the proud Pharisee, the man was NOT trusting in himself, or his own goodness. He was trusting in the mercy and righteousness of God. He realized that based on his own merits, he was just a complete lost cause, as in this verse which I shared with you a moment ago:

"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"


So again, what we see is that the ONLY way for any of us to stand justified before God, is by placing our faith in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is by accepting His Sacrifice as full atonement, and as the only valid payment for all of our sins, and by being symbolically washed in His precious blood, that we can truly stand and be justified before our Heavenly Father. Through this act of faith, we are in fact imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who is the righteousness of God. This is in fact precisely what the Apostle Paul states in his Epistles. He writes that he has no righteousness of his own, and that righteousness comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. Our salvation is NOT a result of our own good works, or our own perceived sense of righteousness. Please consider this group of Bible verses:

"But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; EVEN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD WHICH IS BY FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST unto all and upon all them that believe . . ."


"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that NOT OF YOURSELVES: it is the gift of God: NOT OF WORKS, lest any man should boast."


"NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH WE HAVE DONE, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;"


"And be found in him, NOT HAVING MINE OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS, which is of the law, but THAT WHICH IS THROUGH THE FAITH OF CHRIST, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS OF GOD BY FAITH:"


"But for us also, to whom it [righteousness] shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again FOR OUR JUSTIFICATION."


My friends, that is the gist of it. We simply CANNOT ever save ourselves by our own merit, goodness or righteousness. Now we approach the most important part of this series where I will join all of these various points together, tie up the loose ends, and reveal why I am convinced that the thinking of the aforementioned Buddhist is really off the mark, and so misguided. If you are a Buddhist, or someone who belongs to any other false religion, I urge you to please pay very close attention to the remainder of this series. To refresh your memory, let me first share his question with you again. He wrote as follows:

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"I propose that a Buddhist with love in their heart is closer to Christ than a Christian with hate in their heart. I'm curious if you agree?"

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As I mentioned in part one, I found the very nature of this person's question to be rather strange, because he seems to starts off by embracing the false assumption that the heart of Christians is filled with hate. I honestly have no idea where he even acquired such a belief, but it is obviously not true in the least. While he does not say it directly, this individual seems to want to compare Christianity with Buddhism, and perhaps try to prove that a Buddhist can be better -- or maybe even IS better -- than a Christian. To add even more to the strange nature of his question, this person suggests that a Buddhist can be "closer to Christ than a Christian".

Being as he doesn't really clarify what he means by "closer to Christ", I can only guess. Does he mean closer to Jesus in a spiritual sense? Does he mean that a Buddhist can more closely emulate Jesus' character than a Christian by acting in a patient, merciful, kind and loving manner? In either case, if that is what this person is implying, he is still totally missing the point of what our Christian faith is all about, which I have already fully explained to you in the first two parts of this series.

But perhaps the biggest reason why I find this individual's question quite odd is simply because similar to other false religions such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc., Buddhists do NOT even believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. In fact, to add insult to injury, they do not even believe in a single, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal Supreme Being who created the entire Universe. While Buddhists do believe in certain divine beings who they refer to as "devas", such beings are not eternal in nature. Neither are they able to create anything like our Christian God.

In fact, while these so-called "devas" supposedly live a long time, nevertheless, very similar to humans -- at least according to Buddhist beliefs -- they still remain trapped in a constant cycle of birth, death, rebirth and suffering, the latter of which is referred to as "Dukkha". In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, this quite repetitive, lengthy cycle is known as "Samsara". According to this misguided Buddhist belief system, an individual's status in each new life cycle -- Buddhists can return as a human or even as an animal -- is determined by their actions -- or "karma" -- and desires in their previous lives. In other words, if I understand it correctly, their actions have an accumulative effect, and the goal of each life is to become even further enlightened -- by following the teachings, or "Dharma", of the Buddha -- until one is able to ultimately escape or be liberated from the endless loop of Samsara.

In Buddhism, this final transcendent state is referred to as Nirvana or Moksha. This supposed Buddhist state of awakening or enlightenment is marked by an absence of personal desires and ignorance. There is no longer any suffering or life and death cycles, and one loses his sense of self. It is a state of lasting peace and ultimate reality. Please note that while I am sharing this information with you, I do NOT believe in any of it, and I will fully explain why I don't believe in it in just a moment, in case you haven't already figured it out for yourself. I think that the serious flaws in Buddhism will already be rather obvious to many of my Bible-knowledgeable readers.

Concerning Jesus Christ, of course, because Buddhists do not even believe that He is the true Son of God, neither do they believe that He died for the sins of the world. To be clear, Buddhists do believe that Jesus Christ was a real person who performed miracles. Many Buddhists also accept that Jesus was crucified. However, they do NOT believe that He died in order to atone for the sins of the world. This rejection of what we Christians view as the central, foundational truth of our own faith, in fact places Buddhists in the very same category as the followers of Judaism and Islam -- and many other false religions -- who also adamantly reject Jesus' atonement for our sins.

Furthermore, Buddhists don't even believe that such a cruel, horrible death was necessary. As I point out in a few other BBB articles, sadly, the followers of that blasphemous tome known as the Urantia Book likewise believe in the very same thing, and view Jesus' death on the Cross as being barbaric and totally unnecessary. In short, my friends, similar to a number of other false religions which now plague our world, the very farthest that Buddhists are willing to go is to recognize Jesus as a great moral and spiritual teacher, a wise guide, and an enlightened being who attained very high spiritual realization. In Buddhism, such a person is called a "Bodhisattva". So while they do respect Jesus' teachings regarding compassion, love, and selflessness, and even His suffering as a powerful example of self-sacrifice, or what they view as detachment, that is as far as they are willing to take it. Period.

Please go to part three for the conclusion of this series.

⇒ Go To The Next Part . . .

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