Religion vs. The Gospel

The great reformer Martin Luther rightly said: “As humans, we are prone to pursue a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first is religion or spirituality and the second is the gospel.” The two are contradictory to each other in every way. 

Here’s the problem with religion, it can put you in bondage just as much as being in jail or addicted to some chemical that takes you out of your life as you know it. Because of this problem (not to mention, the religious gospel is a false gospel), we need to extensively unpack what the Gospel is and isn’t. I am going to give a series of sayings that explains what religion says vs. what the Gospel says followed by Scripture references and some explanation. Here we go:

1) Religion says that if I obey God He will love me. The gospel says that it is because God has loved me through Jesus that I can obey.

Galatians 2:16: ¹⁶ yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 

1 John 4:16: So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love...

Notice how he puts the two words together: We know and believe (trust) the love of God. To know the love God has for you is to trust it. For John it is unthinkable that a person could know the love of God and not trust the love of God. Not to trust it must mean that you don't think it is really love. All John can say to someone who will not entrust himself to omnipotent love is: You don't know it. You can't know it or you would trust it. (story of a son obey his father while not knowing there is a snake behind him about to bite him)

1 John 5:3: This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. If we know and believe the love that God has for us, his commandments will not be burdensome. They will be like a map that leads us safely through an unknown jungle to the beach where God waits with his 60 foot yacht to take us on an eternal cruise of the islands. How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

2) Religion says that I am good by continuing in my good works and therefore God I am closer to God. The gospel says I am more sinful, evil and wicked than I ever dared believed, but if I trust in Jesus, I am more valued, accepted and loved than I ever dared hoped, both at the same time because God judges me based on Jesus’ righteousness, not my own.

Hebrews 2:8b;11a: Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him....11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.

3) Religion says unless I have something to bring to the table, I can’t get in. The Gospel says that those who think they are good, are out, and those who know they aren’t, are in. The gospel says that the way up is down. The way to real power is to give up power and serve others. The way to become rich (not in the worldly sense) is to become poor. The way to be great is to be the slave of all!

Matthew 21:31: “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.

Mark 2:17: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Mark 8:35: ³⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Mark 9:35b: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

Mark 10: 43-45: But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

4) The goal of religion is to get from God such things as health, wealth, insight, power, and control, thus creating a self-centered belief system. The goal of the gospel is not the gifts God gives, but rather God as the ultimate gift given to us by grace, producing a God-centered belief system (true joy and happiness).

Our natural tendency is to serve God and do good things so that we will get the pay off. This is what the prosperity Gospel preaches. Love God and give your money to Him and He will make you rich. Or your wife won’t have miscarriages, or He will give you all that you want in this life, etc... This is crap!

We often search for joy, fulfillment, happiness and peace by gaining more of what we think we need. And when it doesn’t work, we try to get even more and we wonder why we are miserable. When we live this way, then we have created a system of belief in which we feel that God owes us...But the Gospel tells us that Christ is it! Only Jesus and Him resurrected!

1 Corinthians 2:1-4: And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (or provisions of this world) but in the power of God (God as the ultimate gift).

Romans 1:16: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation...

5) Religion is about what I have to do. The gospel is about what I get to do. Because Jesus Christ lived the life I couldn’t live and died the death I couldn’t die, as a substitute in my place, so that God can receive me not for my record and for my sake, but for Jesus’ record and for Jesus’ sake; because of this, I do good because my heart is melted in gratitude of what Christ has done for me.

The Gospel affects the heart? Jonathan Edwards: The Nature of True Virtue

Common Virtue: We are honest out of fear or pride. We do good: we help at the food bank because we will feel better for doing it...or we do something good because we will get in trouble if we don’t do it. (We all inherently have common virtue. If we didn’t have this, this would be a terrifying world to live in.) The same is true with lies. Fear and pride.

This makes you more self-centered. You are nurturing your self-centeredness. It’s what you can get out of something or how your good works will benefit you. This is all driven by fear and pride. (This doesn’t do anything to root out the fundamental cause of evil in the heart...which is radical self centeredness of the human heart...the need to be loved, the need to have power, to need to be significant, the need to be worshipped...)

True Virtue: We are honest out of a changed heart that only seeks to please God, not man or ourselves. True virtue takes place when we are strongly attracted to the beauty of God. If you understand the Gospel, it destroys pride and fear. What Jesus does for me is radically transforms the pride that gets all that I can (even righteously) and takes away my fear because of what God has done for me. I am now honest for God’s sake, not for my sake, etc...

Religion only lives up to doing good out or fear or pride. A lot of people come to church for their sake, not for God’s sake. That’s common virtue, not true virtue.

“To glorify something or someone is to praise, enjoy, and delight in them. When something is useful you are attracted to it for what it can bring you or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of sacrificing their interests to make yourself happy, you sacrifice your interests to make them happy. Why? Your ultimate joy is to see them in joy.” (Tim Keller, The Reason For God, 214)

Psalm 63:1-3: 1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. 3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

6) Religion leads to an uncertainty about my standing before God because I never know if I have done enough to please Him. The gospel leads me to a certainty about my standing before God because of the finished work of Jesus on my behalf on the cross.

Romans 8:14-17: ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 

John 6:37-40: ³⁷ All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰ For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

7) Religion ends in either pride (because I think I am better than other people) or despair (because I continually fall short of God’s commands). The gospel ends in humility and confident joy because of the power of Jesus at work for me, in me, through me, and sometimes in spite of me.

Relativistic/Permissive Person - They follow their heart, not the rules or god. If they believe in God, they believe if you follow your heart, you will find God. They  Feel they deserve only good from god. 

The permissive person says: “This is a great arrangement. God enjoys forgiving sin and I enjoy committing it.” / They don’t repent because they don’t see the need to. (They are usually the “free-spirted” & “open-minded” ones they oppose the “judgmental”, the “bigoted”, and “narrow minded fools”)

Moralistic/Legalist Person - They find God by obeying His law. God owes them because they have obeyed all the rules. They better perform or God is going to get em’.

The moralistic person says: “I know I’m in God’s will because I’m miserable and have no joy in this world.” / They repent out of fear and/or pride. (They are the “moral” ones, “good people” we call them. They are repulsed by the “immoral”, “bad people”, “sinners”) 

Both grids divide the world in 2 groups. One we despise, one we favor. We find our identity in one of these, and then we oppress the other, the not you! 

But the Gospel:

Humbles us by telling us we’re so bad, Jesus had to die for us and at the same time it

gives us boldness by telling us we’re so valuable that Jesus was glad to die for us.

8) Religious people go to worship God in particular buildings with particular external idols. Gospel people worship God with their whole lives, at any place, with no particular external idols, because their bodies are the temple of the Lord Jesus.

John 4:21-24: “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

CLOSING: The Gospel not only saves you once from the wrath of God, but it daily saves you from your flesh and sanctifies you. If the gospel was just a means for you to be saved and now you gotta do the rest, then you are living your life to a different gospel than the one that I read here in Scriptures. Repent today for your self-righteousness and turn to Jesus. Then repent daily for your sin and trust Christ alone for your sanctification. Repentance shows maturity and understanding of the gospel, thus it produces joy. Be joyful in the Gospel today as you live a life of confession, repentance and freedom to be who you were created to be in Christ Jesus.

Why Church Membership? (adapted from a Desiring God article)

Why be a church member? Why not just be able to go and participate?                 

What I mean by "member" is somebody who, whether by a signature or a word of commitment or promise, says, "I'm committed to a people, a people who hear the word of God preached, a people who perform the ordinances that Jesus gave to his church (baptism and the Lord's Supper), and a people who commit to the 'one another' commandments (love one another, exhort one another, admonish one another, hold one another accountable)." 

These commitments are what membership is. And I think something is wrong if you resist putting your name on the line for that.

If you want to say, "OK, I believe the New Testament says, 'Be a part of a community, give yourself to ministering there and receiving ministry there, and advancing the cause of the gospel there, and upholding the name of Jesus there, and doing mission there,' and I'm a part of that," then to resist putting your name on the line for that is probably not a biblical conviction. It's probably an American, independent, give-me-elbow-room, don't-get-in-my-face-too-often conviction, which I don't think is biblical.

The reason for even using the word "member" is because of 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, Ephesians 4,  , where Paul uses the word "member" in a body analogy. So the body analogy has one global meaning, and it has one local meaning. There's global membership in the body universal (Eph. 1), and there's local membership in the body where I'm a finger or an eye or an ear or a foot (1 Cor. 12). And everybody is a member.

So the word "member" in 1 Corinthians 12 means you're part of a local organism, and the finger belongs, the leg belongs, the eye belongs, the toe belongs...sometimes :-)... Every part of the body should care about what happens to the eye, etc... And it should function in a way that has some organic coherence; the body works together and is committed to the same mission & labors over it in the ways that each member is gifted.

It's very hard to do what the Bible calls a church to do unless it knows who are the members and who aren't. Who are the people that want to be treated as members here? Who want to obey Scriptures and build one another up for the advancement of God’s kingdom and for His glory?

A very simple example of this is the biblical concept of church discipline. In 1 Corinthians 5, for example, Paul says that the man who is sleeping with his mother-in-law (or stepmother) should be put out of the church because he is so proud and arrogant about his sin, and unrepentant and resistant to any kind of exhortation. 

But how can you put him out if there are no members? He could just say, "I just go here! They can't put me out of anything. I'm not in anything!"

And I think a lot of people don't want to be “in” anything because they don't even like the idea of being able to be put out of something or think it’s mean or judgmental to put someone out like that. 

We all want to lock up those who are breaking laws on the earth, but when we break God’s laws in the church, we get relaxed and mad at people holding other people accountable, but in all actuality, church discipline done right is LOVE!

So for all those reasons, even though there's no sentence in the Bible that says, "There is such a thing as church membership, and thou shalt be a church member," I think it's implied in the nature of the church and of Christian discipleship that everybody should, by a covenant commitment of some kind, put their name on the line saying, "I'm here. While I'm in this place, and until God leads me otherwise, these are my people and I'm committed here in the same way I’d encourage a couple to get married before they started living together.”