How God Exposes Other Religions

Rabi Moshe Ben-Chaim & Howard Salamon

I am the first, and I am the last and there is no god but Me.

And who is like Me?! Let him call out and tell, and set forth before Me. From Creation, let him tell us miracles and future events [he performed]. (Isaiah 44:6,7)

God being “first” rejects all claims of the existence of any other god. First means God created everything, including other gods, according to their faulty reasoning. But it is still a valid rejection, as God means to say that an alien god is exposed through its need for the real God create it, as it came after God. Being first exposes all false gods as dependent beings. And a true God is not dependent.  

But other religions may yet say, “God will not endure, and my god will surpass God” and also, “You cannot prove God will be last, as the end has not arrived yet.”  To this God responds, “I am the last.” God rejects the theory of His expiration, as He is not subject to deterioration, which is a physical property, inapplicable to Him. And the destruction of Egypt’s and other gods invalidates their statuses as gods, as God imposed their expiration. What type of God dies or is destroyed? Thus, God being first and last rejects all other gods and religions as lies.

God says that He alone possesses ultimate power and ultimate knowledge, which are the two primary praises we offer God on the High Holidays: He alone is the king (creator) and He alone is all-knowing, Malchiyos and Zichronos. Here too Isaiah refers to these incomparable greatnesses: “Let him tell us miracles and future events [he performed].” And since no other God can make such a claim, he is exposed as a liar. 

The first rejection of false gods is their inability to manipulate natural law, such as God displayed with all His miracles. Never has there been any control of nature—miracles—demonstrated by any being except the Jewish God. And the claims we hear from Christianity about Jesus’ miracles have no witnesses and therefore they are merely claims. But Judaism has over two million people who witnessed Revelation at Mount Sinai. 

God is above time, so the future is inapplicable to Him. Therefore, He knows our future, while imagined gods or those claiming divine inspiration, cannot tell the future. This is because all earthly knowledge is “knowledge of the observer.” And without an event having transpired, one cannot know what will be. God's second rejection of false gods is that never has anyone forecasted the future with any accuracy. God created time, so He is not limited by time to know the earth’s future. He created everything, and has full knowledge of all. For this reason the true prophets who rise after Moses must be validated by forecasts with 100% accuracy. Only then is the prophet validated as having contact with God (Deut. 18:22).