2003-10-14 - 11:44 p.m.

Religion: The Mystery of Iniquity

All things are lawful for me… I Cor 10:23

In this scripture we find a startling and radical declaration of Christian freedom by the apostle Paul. The question is: How did the Church evolve from this revelation of liberty in Christ to what we see in the Church today? What are the origins of the mind-numbing legalism and the bondage to man we see in many Christian denominations? The answer can be found, in part, in the Church’s transformation from a community of spirit-filled believers to a religious system based on morality, ethics and tradition. The message that Jesus preached and the revelation he embodied are radically anti-religious. However the spirit of anti-Christ, which gradually took over the early Church, distorted his message and perverted the revelation. This development was foreseen by the apostle Paul who cautioned the early Church to beware of the “Mystery of Iniquity”, was already at work (II Thes. 2:7).

Religion relies on a moral system that has its foundation in the knowledge of good and evil. This forbidden knowledge, which brought death into the creation, allows us to evaluate, judge and condemn the behavior of others as well as our own behavior. Whether it is based on the Old Testament Law or the writings of the New Testament, the ultimate purpose of religious morality remains the same: to keep the creation in the bondage of death and corruption through condemnation and guilt on the one hand and self-justification by works on the other. The moral system by which behavior can be judged enables religious leadership to exercise control over people’s lives in God’s name. In doing so, man usurps the authority of God. Let us examine this dynamic more closely.

Outer vs. Inner

Although God uses it as a mechanism of restraint for the unredeemed, morality is actually a product of the fall of Adam and has a life of its own quite apart from God. When the Church abandoned revelation-based faith in favor of a system of morality, this apostasy radically distorted our understanding of the nature of sin and the meaning of the atonement. What was lost was the revelation that believers who are truly born again are sons of God, born of His incorruptible seed and therefore, according to the apostle John, incapable of willfully sinning:

Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. I John 3:9

As revelation knowledge among believers declined and religion raised its ugly head, Christians saw themselves as essentially no different from fallen humanity. Distinctions between the saved and the unsaved were blurred which had the effect of nullifying the power of the atonement. False distinctions were created between the inner man and outward behavior and distinctions were fabricated between various types of outward behavior that were characterized as sinful (i.e. venal versus mortal sin). Religious superficiality focused on behavior as a measure of both sin and holiness, as the emphasis shifted from grace to works.

An example of this distortion is the Catholic teaching that homosexuality in itself is not sin but homosexual behavior is. This is in total contradiction to the teaching of Jesus who makes no distinction between lusting in the heart and outward behavior. In his teachings, Jesus instructs us that what the Father looks at is not behavior, which can be hypocritical or merely symptomatic, but rather at the “heart” or inner man, which the Spirit of God can only discern. The intention is not to deepen the condemnation but rather to expose the root of the problem to the healing and redemptive light of Christ.

Religion vs. Relationship

Reducing the Gospel to a system of religious morality raises a number of problems. God’s will, which must be viewed as the only absolute Good, cannot be the starting off point in any moral system because His will is individualized and is only conveyed in the intimacy of a personal relationship with God. He operates through a one-on-one relationship with each individual where compulsion is replaced by the liberation brought about by the Holy Spirit as we seek to please God and not man. The will of God cannot be generalized because we have then escaped the necessity of relationship. To turn the New Testament into a code of behavior is to transform the living Word into a dead document and to rob the Word of its power to quicken our mortal bodies. The very fact that Jesus, who was the personification of Good, was crucified by the most religious and morally scrupulous community of that day (and the fact that he needed to be crucified in order to fulfill God’s plan) speaks volumes about the true nature of religious morality. The crucifixion is the ultimate indictment of all systems of human morality.

As long as it does not interfere with God’s ultimate purpose for one’s life, God might allow a believer to do, that which is considered sinful by the religious system of man. An example is the devout Christian who finds himself going through a divorce. This divorce, considered a sin by some churches, might be God’s ordained will for the individual in order to deliver him from a self-righteous or judgmental spirit or to prepare him for an expanded ministry. In fact marriage, which is highly esteemed by religion, might be sin in God’s eyes if it interferes with His purpose for the individual’s life.

With God, a thing is not good or bad in itself but must be evaluated as a part of the overall tapestry that God is weaving in the life of that individual, the level of his or her calling and where that individual fits into the immeasurable scope of His plan for the creation. In achieving His purpose, God is not bound by the letter of the law nor by our carnal understanding of the Word. He is the Word and He is radically free to direct and mold his children in ways that may even contradict the written Word. Examples of this, drawn from the Old and New Testaments, are God’s command to King Saul that he slaughter every living creature in the enemy population and Jesus’ breaking of the Sabbath. What is required on the part of the believer is faith, obedience and total dedication to God’s purpose.

The Spirit of Religion

It will be argued by the defenders of religious order that the preaching of Christian liberty is an invitation to license within the body of Christ. The truth is that the legalism and moral emphasis of the religious order impose an outward “holiness” that hides an inner malaise. This results in the hypocrisy that Jesus exposed when he railed against the whited sepulchers that hide dead men’s bones. It also results in the process whereby the Christian has to periodically deal with symptoms of this malaise that rise to the surface such as fear, envy, pride and unbelief - which are all aspects of the spirit of religion - without ever getting to the root of the problem. What ails Christians is that they are held in bondage to the realm of human limitation and mortality by a religious order that, through subtle and overt means, seeks to rob believers of their birthright: the fullness of God in us.

The impulse to weigh social or moral consequences instead of simply being led by the Spirit, come what may, is typical of the religious mentality and is in sharp contrast to the examples of faith and obedience we see in the Word. Consider the response of the fishermen who dropped their nets without thinking of the consequences to themselves or their families when Jesus issued the call to follow him or the response of Abraham who placed Isaac on the altar of sacrifice in obedience to God.

Through a subtle process whereby carnality triumphs over spirituality, religion uses fear to drive a wedge between God and the believer: fear of being deceived when orthodoxy is challenged; fear of following the leading of the Spirit in the intimacy of one’s own individual relationship with God without looking right or left, whatever the consequences to oneself or to others; fear of standing alone without any outside support from friends, family or religious organizations; fear of withstanding the active opposition of friends, family or religious organizations. If we love the Truth above all things, we will embrace it no matter what the consequences. Fear, on the other hand, leads to a rejection of the narrow path in which one’s faith and love of God are severely tested. Those in the bondage of religious programming cannot pass this test because religion is rooted in the moral and social order of man whereas the kingdom of God is a radical rejection of that very order.

God's hatred of man's idolatrous attempts to be religious without entering into an intimate relationship with Him can be seen throughout scripture. The restrictions regarding menstruating women in the Mosaic law contain a spiritual revelation and reveal the heart of God, as does every jot and tittle. The menstruating women represent to Him the religious system that has failed to conceive sons of God out of fear of the “license” that may accompany the proclamation of the kingdom message. In fact, God in Isaiah 64:6 compares our own righteousness, which is what religious morality promotes, to filthy rags. This is a reference to stained menstrual rags. In the same vein, Michal, the wife of David and a type of churches that despise liberty in the Spirit, was stricken by God with a barren womb because she mocked David's ecstatic dancing before the Lord (II Sam. 6:20-23).

Until they heed the Word of the Lord to “Come out of her, O my people,” Christians will forever be on a religious treadmill making no real spiritual progress. Psychological and moral insights are confused with spirituality and the goal is to become merely a better human being. God wants to remove the limitations on our faith but religious doctrines handicap God's people with a theology of limitation: we are human, mortal, finite, and imperfect. It is taught that Christians are sinners subject to all that flesh is heir to including the wages of sin, which is death. The reality is that Jesus abolished death for believers, but the depth of this truth is neither taught nor understood.

Family Values

Instead of focusing on getting to really know Christ and the power of his resurrection, many in the Church today are caught up in a realm of superficiality. Political and cultural warfare and an emphasis on family values have taken the place of spiritual warfare and the winning of souls. The truth of the matter is that there is no scriptural justification for an obsession with family values. On the contrary, Jesus taught that his family is not Mary, Joseph and his siblings, but rather the hearers of his Word. Furthermore, for those who claim to be followers of Jesus, the kingdom of God comes before mother, father, and brother, sister and, yes, spouse. We must be willing to face the loss of everything and everybody for His sake. And that is not all. Jesus taught that your fiercest enemies would be those of your own household.

In the moralizing crusade of Christian fundamentalists, an underlying reality is lost. The world's social and moral problems are a reflection of the spiritual problems within the Church. This can be seen in the example, again, of homosexuality. In order for the Church to deliver homosexuals, it first has to address its own spiritual homosexuality and must recognize that the root of sexual perversion can be found, according to Paul, in the spiritual rebellion of the creation against God. The system of religion, a product of that rebellion, arose at the same time that homosexuality originated. In the book of Revelation, the city of Sodom is used by God to represent the religious system that crucified Jesus. This tells us that in the mind of God, the sexual perversion of homosexuality is a type of the spiritual perversion and rebellion embodied in the religious order of man.

The Cure: The Gold, The White Raiment, And The Eye Salve

The whole creation is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God. The Church, which should be about the Father’s business of bringing believers to the perfection of the stature of Christ, is instead too busy with its own political agenda and with evangelizing the world using fear of damnation as a motivating force. In chapter 23 of Matthew, Jesus comes against the same spirit of religion that we see today:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Matt 23:15

Unbelievers need to be saved by the preaching of the kingdom of God and once saved, they need to come to maturity by feasting on God’s hidden manna, the meat of the Word. Within the body of Christ, the preaching of the truth that makes us free is the necessary pre-condition for the deliverance of God's people from the spirit of religion so that the healing and cleansing process can truly take hold in His temple. Instead, the deep things of God are neither preached nor understood, spiritual ignorance is rampant, and there is no vision in the Church of what God’s purpose is for the creation.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see… Rev 3:17 & 18

Like the Church of Laodicia, the Church today is poor, blind and naked before God and, what is worse, complacent about its condition. The world is awry, true enough, but the fault lies within the Church and the problem must be first addressed there.

previous - next