We have all seen the advertisements for the latest drug promising to revive your sex life, shrink your prostate, cure your depression, settle your child down, clear up your skin, help you lose weight, get a good night's sleep and so on. The list is endless. All of them play into the human need for acceptance and the desire to feel good about ourselves. And all of these products play on our fear that if we don't use them we will forfeit our chance at that acceptance and happiness. So, we fork out our hard earned money at the chance that we can find the miracle cure for what we believe ails us the most. And in every case, it doesn't change our lives. And even if it did, there is always something else that needs fixing in our lives and we repeat the cycle. I have a friend that was chastisting an acquaintance of ours for her constant need to try the latest "breakthrough" products by saying, "She turns on the television to see what she isn't doing!" That is pretty harsh, but nonetheless insightful. I am sure she is not alone. With the overload of advertising and a culture geared towards this sort of thing, even I am not immune to the influence created by it. The anxiety and fear created by the feeling that you have to keep up can be overwhelming and, definitely, serves as a motivating factor. Does this sound familiar to anybody?
"Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!" 2 Corinthians 3: 5-9
Nearly every Christian will agree that we are not under the law. Yet, in practice they will submit themselves to the rules, regulations and tenants of religion that are thinly veiled substitutes for the law. Religion has its own lists of do's and don'ts along with its own set of penalties for failure to live up to those directives. With all the various religions that fall under the blanket of Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, you have your choice of what "list" you want to subject yourself to. These lists seemingly never have an end and all of them seem to get increasingly difficult as time goes on. As those who try to live their lives by these standards begin to realize the futility of obeying all of them, all of the time, frustration sets in. And at the root of frustration is fear. And that fear comes from the condemnation they believe they will face from their fellow brethren and, ultimately, from God. The religions are actually proving the words of Paul to be true. And the truth is that the law, even the law that comes from manmade religion, is a "ministry that condemns men." The law is supposed to be something that is fading away in our lives as we learn to be dependent on the indwelling Holy Spirit. The law leads us to Christ, it doesn't teach us how to live as Christians. The law condemns us by stripping us of our sinful pride in hopes that it will make us turn to Christ. It tells us we can't live the Christian life.
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" Romans 5: 8-10
The moment we accepted Christ as our savior we were saved from God's wrath! Therefore, it doesn't make sense that we are then doomed to live a life in fear of His wrath based on our performance. So whose wrath is it that we are made to fear? It is the wrath of those we have subjected ourselves to by submitting to their religious law. We can't be controlled by the indwelling Holy Spirit if we let fellow believers control us through the fear of being condemned by our disobedience to their rules. Scripture says we are justified. Religion says justification is earned through obedience. Scripture says we have been reconciled to God. Religions says that we must continue to keep ourselves in right standing with God through obedience. This is why you have such false teachings as progressive sanctification or keeping short accounts. By calling sanctification progressive it allows for the insertion of religious dogma designed to keep you under control for the rest of your life. Similar to that is the keeping of short accounts which has you focused on your sins the rest of your life. Again, a control mechanism designed to keep you coming back to the institution for more rules to live by. You end up spending your entire life in fear of men, and God, believing that living the Christian life and getting into Heaven is up to you.
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel... We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." Colossians 1: 21-23, 28-29
The Christian life, our entire salvation, is not dependent on our ability to live it by the laws of man. It is totally dependent on Christ's ability to live it in and through us based on His finished work on the cross for us and His resurrected life in us. Our behavior, the inability to live the Christian life, alienates us from God in our minds. We are still His children and still have the promises He has given to us, but we don't have faith in them. As part of our inheritance in Christ we have been made holy in the sight of God and free from the blemish caused by sin and the accusations made by Satan. Therefore, we should not let any man or manmade institution steal the joy that comes from this truth by putting ourselves under the burden that comes from living a life under law. A Christian lives by faith. And it is not an expression of faith to try and obtain or maintain what you have been given by God through obedience to religious law. As Paul states, he labored in the energy of the Lord which worked in him. We are no different than Paul. Christ lived through Paul and He desires to do the same through us. Our duty is to let Him do it. We are not to live from law to law and rule to rule in fear and submission to the next list of things to do in order to please God and man. All those advertisements, geared towards selling us on the next miracle product, contain disclaimers outlining all the problems that can come from using them. It is not any different with religion. It promises us eternal glory, but the byproduct is condemnation and fear that we won't live up to the impossible requirements imposed on us. We have already been presented perfect in Christ because of our faith in Him. Any attempt otherwise is motivated by the fear that we must perfect ourselves.
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