Reflections on Jared C. Wilson’s Unparalleled
A God Who Comes Looking for Us
Why Christianity?
I’m not sure how many Christians could give a clear answer to that question. Churches sometimes try to answer it by explaining why God is greater than the gods of other religions. At other times, Christians speak proudly about how much gentler, more selfless, or even more blessed the Christian life is—“blessed” in the very worldly sense of doing well in life. Of course, God is all-knowing and all-powerful. And perhaps some Christians do live lives of remarkable integrity. But as someone who was once deeply antagonistic toward Christianity, those arguments only made me more resistant to it. I had seen plenty of intelligent, capable, admirable people who never went to church. I had also seen Christians behave in ways that were immoral, dishonest, and deeply disappointing.
One thing became clear to me: none of those things can be the foundation of Christian faith. And none of them can serve as proof of salvation. I do not believe in God because He is simply a more capable deity than the alternatives. Nor do I believe because Christianity guarantees me a life more virtuous or dignified than that of someone without faith. Christianity, to me, is not a religion that happens to be better than the others. It is incomparable because I believe it is true.
Grace That Cannot Be Earned
Every religion has its own version of good news. So why do Christians receive and trust the gospel Christianity proclaims? If you look for similarities between Christianity and other religions, you can find plenty. Some argue that biblical stories were borrowed from ancient myths. Others imitate the outward shape of biblical miracles and call themselves Christian. But there is a point they cannot imitate. That point is Jesus Christ—the love of the Creator revealed through the cross.
Wilson describes one of Christianity’s defining differences this way:
“In every other religion, human beings seek God first. In Christianity alone, God seeks human beings first.”
(Korean edition, p. 44)
Christian love and forgiveness begin, in a sense, passively. They are received before they are achieved. They cannot be earned through effort or moral performance. Christianity is not about reaching enlightenment or climbing to some higher spiritual rank. What God seeks from humanity is a relationship of love—a personal relationship in which we know Him and live in fellowship with Him.
Christianity places the emphasis not on the strength of human will, but on the will of God: His determination to save human beings whose own wills are weak, corrupt, and endlessly inclined toward sin.
Christianity is remarkably honest about human inability. That is not humiliation for humiliation’s sake. It is an appeal. It is an invitation to stop pretending we can save ourselves and simply receive the grace already being offered. Christian faith, then, is not the process of discovering God. It is the process of realizing that God has already found me. Wilson summarizes what happens when we begin to understand that love:
“You know down to your bones that you are deeply broken and, at the same time, deeply loved.”
(Korean edition, p. 120)
It reminds me of Paul’s confession in 2 Corinthians:
“For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Salvation Before Good Works
Nothing reveals this God who comes looking for us more clearly than Jesus Christ. That, to me, is the deepest distinction between Christianity and every other religion. And if I had to choose one word that best captures what Christ reveals, it would be grace. Wilson argues that grace runs through the whole of Scripture. Grace first tells us that we are people who need it. Then it tells us that what we need must come from outside ourselves—from God—and that it is given without our earning it. Wilson describes grace as:
“favor given to those who do not deserve it”
(Korean edition, p. 202)
and adds that:
“Grace depends on the giver, not on the one who receives it.”
(Korean edition, p. 202)
Within that grace, there is nothing left for the believer to accomplish in order to complete salvation. Salvation has already been accomplished. What other religion could imitate grace like this? Many religions emphasize discipline, good works, or spiritual training. They teach that human beings must reshape themselves through endurance, effort, or even forms of self-denial. Christianity says something radically different. As Wilson writes, “true transformation does not begin inside us, and salvation does not come through what we accomplish, but through what Christ has accomplished for us.” (Korean edition, p. 211)
Other religions may foreground the obedience of their followers. Christianity begins with the obedience of Christ. Because Christianity, as Wilson puts it, “is not ultimately about what we must do, but about what we must become.” (Korean edition, p. 163)
The gospel is not a checklist of good behavior. It is a declaration about Jesus Christ. Christianity is not simply a religion that teaches us how to become nicer people. It is the truth that teaches us how to become like Christ. We do not manufacture enough goodness to make ourselves worthy of faith. We walk by a faith already given to us, and through that faith, we are slowly made more like Him. And yet Christians—including myself—can easily fall back into a faith built around performance and law. Visible acts of devotion and obedience can give us a strange sense of security. We can begin to behave as though our service, sacrifice, or moral record somehow guarantees our salvation. Perhaps that happens when we place more weight on the living than on the faith in the phrase “life of faith.” But Christian living does not create Christian faith. Faith comes first, and life follows. Our actions, Wilson explains, are the inevitable response to grace. The Christian life is a joyful answer to what God has already done. It is not an attempt to climb our way toward salvation. That means the Christian understanding of salvation runs in the opposite direction from many religious systems.
We are not saved because we do good. We do good because we have already been saved. And this, I think, is where Christianity becomes something the world cannot imitate. How relieving it is that salvation does not finally depend on someone as fragile as me. That is precisely why the gospel is truly good news.
A Life Shaped by Christ
Why Christianity?
I can now answer the question I asked at the beginning. Because nowhere else do I find a God who comes looking for humanity first. Because Christians are not asked to save themselves through good works, but to live joyfully in response to a salvation already given by grace. And because all of this is possible only through the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Christianity is incomparable because, to me, it is not merely another religious system.
It is truth.
Wilson does not teach us how Christianity will make us successful. He does not offer a program for constructing a better life through spiritual discipline, self-improvement, or suffering. He keeps returning instead to the center of the gospel: Jesus Christ, and the grace God has given through Him. Toward the end of the book, Wilson describes three ways of living:
“the way of goodness, the way of evil, and the way of the gospel—law, license, and the Lord.”
(Korean edition, p. 261)
Other religions speak of good works. Our culture often tells us that we live only once, so we should simply live according to whatever seems right to us. Christianity points somewhere else. It points to a life shaped after Christ.
The Christ who came willingly to forgive human beings determined to sin.
The Christ who noticed the sick, the weak, and the grieving—the very people so easily overlooked by those preoccupied with religious respectability.
The Christ who knowingly walked toward death, the curse no human being had ever escaped.
The Christ who defeated that death and now promises eternal life in the light of resurrection.
This is the life Christians are called to move toward. Faith is not achievement. It is being overwhelmed by what has already been achieved. It is living captivated by the grace of a salvation already accomplished in Jesus Christ. Religion may kill others for the sake of its message.
Truth, Wilson writes, is willing to die for its message. (Korean edition, p. 236)
There have been many religious people willing to die for their gods. But the heart of Christianity is the claim that God was willing to die for humanity. Closing this book, I found myself grateful all over again that I am allowed to live by faith in this God. I really am someone made happy by grace.
A NOTE FROM THE SHELF
For readers who
Want to think more deeply about what makes the Christian gospel distinct.
What stayed with me
Grace begins not with our search for God, but with God’s search for us.
On My Shelf
KEEP — A book I’d return to.
Book referenced
Jared C. Wilson, Unparalleled: How Christianity’s Uniqueness Makes It Compelling. Baker Books, 2016.
Korean edition: 《세상이 흉내낼 수 없는 기독교》, translated by Jeon Byeong-cheol (전병철),*생명의말씀사, 2017. ISBN 9788904165964.
English renderings of quoted passages in this essay are translated from the Korean edition. Page numbers refer to the Korean edition.