Christianity is not a philosophy. It is not a series of pious rituals to be followed daily for inner peace. It is not an insurance policy just in case it turns out, worst luck, not to be true after all. It is not, surprisingly to many, a system for earning credits with God towards Heaven. Christianity is a rescue plan wholly devoted to the life and death and life again of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus himself defined Christianity in this way in the gospel of John: “this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” In other words, above all, Christianity is who you know before it becomes what you do.

Christianity says that knowing Jesus is the unique answer to the greatest danger which most human beings don’t even know that they face. All of us are at odds with the God of the Universe and the clear teaching of Jesus and the New Testament is that if we do not accept God’s offer of clemency through Jesus, His Son, there can be no rescue for us from the judgment that awaits us beyond this life. Indeed, the message of Christianity strikes many as offensive that it makes no difference how good or moral or religious we think we have been, or for that matter how bad or immoral or irreligious someone has been. Knowing Jesus means accepting the terms of the peace offer made to them: that they are morally and spiritually a beggar in need of His love and rescue, and that they are taking up their cross and following Jesus in the hope of that real life to come with God.