I have been reading a lot lately about religion and the Gospel.
It seems to be a hot topic. In fact, I Googled "The Gospel and
religion" and this is what I found:
“The Gospel is freedom through reconciliation. Religion is
conformity to a set of rules and regulations.”
"Religion is about me. Relationship is about Jesus."
"Religion VS. The Gospel"
Simply put: Gospel=freedom, Religion=slavery, or in other terms:
Gospel=grace, Religion=legalism
In my entire search, I did not find one article that painted
religion in a good light or explained how religion and the Gospel coalesce.
“Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad
people.” What religion? In all the articles I looked at, not one used the
actual definition of religion. They used the stereotype of most religions as
being about laws and rules. I don't know about you, but that's not a part of my
religion.
But this is what our idea of religion has become. It is one of
those instances where we’ve allowed the world to shape our idea of something
without really looking at the actual meaning of it. We throw the word
“religion” around, attaching negative connotations to it, pitting it against
the Gospel, and growing in our disdain for the term and all we think it
encompasses.
Let’s look at an actual definition straight from the dictionary:
Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling
power, especially a personal God or gods.
• details of belief as taught or discussed
• a particular system of faith and worship.
• a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme
importance
Now, true, there are many religions out there. This is part of
the reason the word religion has gotten a bad connotation. Because the term
religion can be used to identify thousands of different belief systems, people
have come to believe that religion is bad. This is because we mix other
religions with the religion of Christianity. Yes, it is true that many other
religions, in fact almost all of them, have some sort of code or set of rules
to live by. We have taken this part of religion (indeed not our own, but
another’s) and ascribed it as the definition of religion. However,
though all systems of belief can be categorized under the word religion, all
religions cannot be condensed into one system of belief. It is therefore folly
to make religion the all-encompassing term of a set of rules and regulations.
That is not our religion.
Truly, it is a simple miscommunication and misrepresentation of
the word religion that gets all the flack. We don’t have to misconceive and
hate religion just because the majority of our world today attaches their own
meaning to it. People try to say Jesus was against religion, but that is not
the case. Jesus was against self-made religion, not religion itself.
“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world,
why, as if you were still alivein the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do
not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as
they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have
indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and
asceticism and severity tothe body, but they are of no value in stopping the
indulgence of the flesh.”
Colossians 2:23
We see that it is not religion as a whole that Jesus despises,
nor does He define it as man-made rules. It is another kind of the many religions out
there that He is speaking of—self-made religion. If we look at our details
of belief, we will see that Christian religion is the Gospel.
Religion is about Jesus. Our details of belief are wrapped up in and defined
through Christ. He is the founder and perfecter of our faith and He has been
from the beginning. He is the personal God that we believe in and
worship. It is through Him that we are saved, not by abiding by rules or
laws.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All
things were made through him, and without him was
not anything made that was made. In him was
life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).
One might say that there was at one time a set of rules and
regulations set forth in the Old Testament (the Pentateuch). This is true. The
ways the Lord revealed Himself and preserved His people looked different in the
Old Testament than in the New Testament. However, the Bible states that Christ
has been the sustainer of our life since the beginning of time, and therefore,
even when there were certain rules and regulations to live by, the only thing
that ever saved our Old Testament forefathers or us was
CHRIST. The Gospel of Christ is grace. We do not abide by His statutes and
laws to achieve salvation, we abide by them because we are saved.
Just because the law does not save us does not mean we do not abide by
it.
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so
that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live
in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were
therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his
death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For
we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of
sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to
sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we
died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know
that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no
longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once
for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way,
count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
Romans 6:1-11
We can not fulfill the law. But we are no longer under the law,
which brings death. We are under Christ. Religion is not the law. Religion is
what we believe. And we believe that we have been set free from sin and the
law. This does not mean we go on sinning or that we ignore the law now, this
means that we can follow Christ now because He has fulfilled
the law.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Matthew
5:17
Christ is the Gospel. The Gospel is our religion.
It is our confession of hope. And “let us hold fast the confession of our hope
without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23). Let us
pursue the Gospel to which we ascribe supreme importance, realizing it
is the system of faith and worship to which we hold fast, our religion.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God,
the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to
keep oneself unstained from the world.”
James 1:27
Sounds to me like that has Gospel written all over it. Loving
others out of the love we have been given through Christ and calling one another
to repentance and restoration.
Give me that old time religion, Lord, it's good
enough for me.
