ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
we're all Bob
RELIGION: An indication of the Absence of Faith
- Thread starter Robert Pate
- Start date
we're all Bob
PureX
Well-known member
It's weird. In a way Robert has a point. Religion is for those who are lacking in faith. Yet who doesn't lack in faith to some degree? But then all Robert offers as an alternative to our lack of faith is more religion. So really all he's disparaging, apparently, is our lack of faith in HIS PARTICULAR religiousity. Which seems rather myopic and self-centered, to me.
He's right, but then he's immediately wrong, again. Thread after thread. It's like some sort of electrical short-circuit.
All that apply to me.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
He has a persistent presupposition that the idea of "religion" is necessarily perjorative. He can't bring himself to use it in a positive (or even neutral) way. So all these threads about "religion" aren't really about religion after all - but about his take on what's wrong with established Christian thought. He just gives it the label and assumes it to be negative...
Nope! I am a sinner saved by grace. How about you?
You are the worst kind of a sinner. A religious one, which makes you a hypocrite.
If I could just figure out what you are talking about.
Religion is man's preoccupation with his own spirituality, which is himself.
The whole law applies to you. The Jews came up with the Torah, which included over 600 laws. They didn't know it but they had just scratched the surface of God's Holy Law.
The law demands perfection. Jesus said, "Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect".
Anything less than perfection is sin.
The apostle John said, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" 1 John 1:8.
No, but John just wants you to know that as long as you are here on this earth in your Adamic body you will sin. I am sure that you are saved, you just don't understand that you are a saved sinner.
A saved sinner? There is no such thing.
In Romans 8:10 Paul said, "And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness."
How can a lifeless body sin?
You sin every day. When you stop sinning God will take you to heaven.
It was all about him, very religious.
You don't know what sin is the context of the NT.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
That's what I mean....scripture uses the term as well, but you have (and not just you - I've heard it used negatively by others before) made it into an entirely negative thing. But when someone brought up the way it is used by James (for example), you will change the term. Religion is a very good scriptural word that has gotten a bad rap. It simply means to reverence a higher being in a positive way - without reference to who that being is. James speaks about pure and undefiled religion before God the Father. Later in that same chapter (James 1:26) James goes on to say that anyone who doesn't bridle his tongue has a vain (empty) religion. Even Paul's word to the Athenians at the Areopagus in which he called them "too superstitious" (Acts 17:22) is a light compliment - commending them at least on their recognition of God (even if blindly).
My concern is twofold - theological and linguistic. Theologically, to denigrate the word religion is to put down the role of works in the life of the believer. It is often the case that those who (like you) make it to be a bad word end up promoting a kind of antinomianism - making works themselves almost a necessary evil. Yet here is James commending pure religion as being works. So in looking down on works, it seems to me that the eventual effect is to have a sort of justification with no (or minimal) sanctification. Faith without works. Yet that is precisely the thing James is trying to counter in his letter. He is not against Paul, but is essentially providing commentary on at least 2 of 3 elements from Ephesians 2:8-10 (saved BY grace, THROUGH faith and UNTO good works). Works as a means to salvation is never under consideration here. And that is what is understood by your use of the term "religion" (though it looks like it may carry some more baggage as well...).
Which leads me to the lingustic concern. When a word is used so that it is understood to be applied only in a specific context (in this case, works as a means to salvation) to the exclusion of ALL other contexts, it impedes the ability to communicate properly and distorts the ultimate message. To make it clearer, if we were to redefine what the term "justification" means (just the definition - not all the theological implications that go with it), we would be distorting the biblical message. So the way a term is used is very important - not just an academic matter. It's very important that words be used faithfully or the best one can hope for is poor communication - and usually worse...like having one's tradition be one's interpreter...
EDIT : Religion is the practical part of faith. If one gets religion as the critical part of one's salvation then one has a problem. Religion as a means to salvation is unscriptural. Religion as the outflow of salvation is very scriptural.
Last edited:
It is the Holy Spirit working in ones life that will produce good works, not religion.
"For we are HIS workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before has ordained that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:10.
It is all of God. In religion it is all of man.
Spiritually, we are perfect and complete "In Christ" Colossians 2:10.
Physically, we are still here on the earth in our fallen Adamic bodies that are prone to sin.
God gives us the Holy Spirit as a keeper, but we will still sin. The law is spiritual. Thoughts of lust, envy, anger, etc. are not of God.
Is God's law for us today codified?