THE NEW COVENANT ALTERNATIVE TO RELIGION
When it comes to religion, there are only two choices. Either you have a religion created by men and affirmed by traditions, or you have the New Covenant. Your religion may be formal and codified (i.e. written down as a kind of law) as it exists in denominations and movements (e.g. social, psychological, artistic, economic, etc.) of all kinds, or it may be just a philosophy or lifestyle that exists in your head. Whether it is codified or not, if it controls your thinking and your behavior, it is essentially a religion or a collection of religions that you use to give meaning, direction and order to your life.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: This concept of religion obviously goes beyond the conventional idea of a set of beliefs that relates people to a spiritual being (i.e. god) of some kind. It fits better with the expanded view of religion found in this Wikipedia link.

For the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all religions are the same. It does not matter what its rules and regulations are, it does not matter if it is codified or not. It is all the same to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is all religion that operates in the flesh and it is all contrary to worship in spirit and truth (i.e. the heart).

What God wants for people is that they live in freedom from any and all kinds of religious legalism. What he wants is that all people should be fully submitted to him and not to any philosophy or patterns (i.e. religious laws and doctrines) designed by and administered by people. In God’s view, any such philosophy constitutes another god that is in competition with God for control of people’s hearts and minds. These philosophies can be real or imagined, but they are all gods if they have influence over people. In God’s view, anyone who follows one or more of these other gods is an idolater.

For the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, there is only one alternative for people who practice any kind of religion and the worship of false gods: They must be New Covenant disciples. New Covenant disciples are people who have been delivered from worship of their idols. In short,  they have been delivered from religion. Or, in Bible language, they have been delivered from Old/First Covenant religion.

Looking back at the creation story, we see that the New Covenant, is the renewal of the covenant relationship that existed before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (i.e. Defiled Religion). The New, or more accurately “renewed” covenant was necessary because Adam and Eve, who had the perfect relationship with God, chose to practice religion. It looked good to them so they tried it. But they did it at the cost of their perfect relationship with God (i.e. they died a spiritual death). The New Covenant, therefore, is the spiritual healing that results when man’s relationship to God is restored as prophesied by Isaiah. Here is a rough outline of what happened:

AUTHORS’ NOTE: We are tempted to want to apologize for this very brief overview of the process by which people transition from false, Old Covenant religion to true, New Covenant religion where the law is written on the hearts of people. In our desire to communicate in terms people might be able to understand, we have summarized in eight steps what God used the entire Bible to say. In our defense, however, we felt we needed to lay it out in this abbreviated form to get readers’ attention and forecast the context for the rest of this web site.

What we are trying to say is that religion of any kind is sin. This includes Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The fact that a religion quotes the Bible, or uses God’s name or Jesus’ name does not guarantee righteousness. In both the Old Testament and New Testament, the standard for righteousness is hitting the mark of perfection which is represented in Jesus who is characterized as New Covenant fulfillment of the Spirit of the law.

Religion is sin because sin is defined as missing the mark where the mark is God’s law as it is written on the hearts of New Covenant disciples. Defiled Religion misses the mark because it always codifies religious laws (i.e. traditions, doctrines, practices) in writing. These religious laws have the weight of law because religious people follow them religiously and evangelize other non-religious people to follow them also.

In Biblical terms, codified law is called the letter of the law because it is based on the written letter of the Law of Moses. With this understanding of the mark and codified laws, we can see clearly that rigid, religious adherence to the literal letter of the law equates with sin. Yes God did give us the letter of the law, but he never wanted anyone, even Moses and Israel to obey the letter of the law. Rather he wanted them to obey the spirit of the law which can only be obeyed when it is written on the hearts and minds of New Covenant disciples. Anything else is religion  We are told clearly in the Bible that adherence to the written letter of the law yields death (not physical death but spiritual death), and that the Spirit of the Law yields spiritual life.

The religious practices of Judaism are based on the Law of Moses and various interpretations of the Law of Moses by Jewish Rabbis going back to the Babylonian exile. Although there is disagreement among Jews about these writings, they constitute the letter of the laws that govern Judaism. Christians, claim to take their spiritual direction from the Bible, but, like the Jews, they too have their favorite Bible theologians (e.g. Rabbis) who have shaped the form of Christianity going back to the second century. These writings, along with select, literal, Biblical interpretations by contemporary religious leaders (e.g. pastors, theologians, teachers, apostles, prophets, seminaries, etc.) govern beliefs and practices in Christianity. All of these religious ideas are codified within religious institutions at the denominational and local church level and effectively dictate and control what does and does not constitute the letter of the law for Christians.

The significance of this review is to make clear that both Judaism and Christianity are governed by laws written by men. This is how it has been since Adam and Eve. At various times since, people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, David and many others understood the difference between Defiled Religion and Pure Religion. Even though they all had moments of backsliding into Defiled Religion, they were New Covenant believers in whom the law was written on their hearts. That means they did not practice Old/First Covenant religion based on the written letter of the law. Rather, their spiritual eyes were opened to understanding the spiritual intent of the written law and they followed the Spirit of God living within them — not the written Law of Moses or any other living persons. They understood what God meant in Jeremiah 31:31-34:

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

These heroes of the faith did  not submit to any form of religion because they knew in their hearts that to do so would be idolatry in which they would put the teaching of men before God. Plus, they knew that following the letter of the law would mean spiritual death for them. And over all that, they trusted that  the Spirit of God was alive and at work in them on a moment by moment basis leading them to do God’s will.

Indeed there are many other kinds of sins to worry about, but, it is the sin of Defiled Religion that creates the spiritual context for all sin to occur. It is only by transitioning from Defiled Religion to Pure Religion that the spiritual ability to overcome any sin exists. The expression of that predisposition takes on a variety of forms in a world of many religions. Those religions may look different in terms of their doctrines, rituals and clothing, but they are all the same in the sense that they are based on religious works designed, refined and supervised by religious leaders over time. In other words, it is the nature of religion to change in both form and content. While the basic doctrines of each religion may not change much, the form (i.e. the public display) does change as leaders with varying skills, visions and influence come and go.The public form of religion also tends to change along with the social environment in which it operates.

Here are a few examples of evolutionary changes that occur in most religions — including Judaism, Christianity and Islam:

This is not the case for Pure Religion. The Pure Religion designed and managed by God does not change with respect to time, social context or leadership. This is to be expected since Pure Religion is nothing more or less than God’s children reflecting his name (i.e. his character) to the world. And since God does not change, the people who represent him should not, change either.

God manages Pure Religion is by writing his laws on the hearts of New Covenant disciples. He knows that religious laws will change and evolve along with the form and content when men manage it. That is why he gave clear warnings about following other gods. Such warnings were necessary because people will want to shape religion and manage it so it suits their needs.

There is something about the nature of man that makes him want to control his environment — including religion. The way we see it, this is the result of the curse that God put on the land after Adam and Eve sinned.

STUDY TIP: See Religion is a Curse.

Being very subject to worldly influences, people will borrow religious symbols, behaviors and doctrines employed by other religions as they work to put their personal stamp on God’s image. Some of the more creative religious leaders will even invent their own hybridized religion by mixing useful parts of other religions to satisfy followers who have a need for a religion that is new, different, contemporary, attractive and inclusive. And voila! A new denomination or ministry is born. It is the story of the Golden Calf all over again.

COMMENTARY ON THE GOLDEN CALF INCIDENT: If we believe that all scripture is useful for training in righteousness, we must understand the spiritual meaning of this story. To understand it, we must put it in its proper context which is that Israel had escaped from Egypt. Moses was nearing the end of forty days on the mountain of God where God spoke his laws (i.e. commandments) to Moses who is a type of messiah because he could hear God’s spoken voice.

In Moses’ absence, the people got restless because they didn’t have anyone to report what God said to them. So, lacking leadership, what they did was create a new god (i.e. religion) out of the golden objects that they collected before they left Egypt. These golden objects symbolically represent all of the artifacts (e.g. buildings, altars, clothing, rituals, etc) that make religion look attractive. They are first represented in the story imagery of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which seemed good for food to Eve because it appealed to her natural senses (i.e. eyes, ears, touch, smell, intellect), and appeared to offer wisdom. ***

Unlike the Golden Calf which, according to the story, appears to be  created in an instant, new and revised religions emerge slowly and almost imperceptibly, but they do show up often in the religious landscape. Anyone who doubts this phenomenon only needs to look at the many faces of Christianity and Judaism to see the result of man’s influence on religion. Each creation is a bit different from all the others, but they are all the same in one respect: They are religions that men and women have created with their own imagination and power.

When people create these new, better, up-to-date and attractive religions, they add to or subtract from God’s original instructions in some little or big way. Those who influence the changes and those who yield to the changes violate the First Commandment. While their vision and ministry may appear godly to their naive and ignorant followers, they have in fact created idols and abominations according to God’s perspective. These religious leaders have satisfied their personal needs for personal power and glory by shaping and/or creating the way religion looks and works. They are religious entrepreneurs in the great universe of Commercial Religion.

Men and women have been taking control of religion since the beginning of time.  Adam and then Eve, the first spiritual people, were rescued out of darkness and deposited in the Garden of Eden where they walked with God. For a time they ate only from the Tree of Life, and life was good. But then came the temptation to sample an alternative form of religion that was symbolically represented by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which was always there but which they had obediently avoided.

Having chosen to eat from that forbidden tree, Adam’s sin relegated all humanity to condemnation that is the result of the curse God place on him and Eve. This curse has confused and obscured the distinction between Pure Religion and Defiled Religion ever since.  It first shows up in the Bible when Cain brought his sacrifice to God. On the surface it would appear that both sacrifices (i.e. Cain’s false religion and Abel’s true religion) should have been acceptable. Obviously God saw a difference and he rejected Cain’s religious offering.

Even though Abel’s offering was acceptable to God, Cain was jealous of the fact that God accepted Abel’s sacrifice (i.e. his worship) but did not accept Cain’s sacrifice. And that is pretty much the way the world has functioned ever since. The ones who get it right by practicing Pure Religion are persecuted by those who practice Defiled Religion. That was true in the case of the many prophets who were persecuted by Israel’s religious leaders and was true in the case of Jesus who was also killed by the religious leaders of his day. We see continuation of persecution of the righteous by the unrighteous in Saul who later became the Apostle Paul. Saul was super religious pharisee who persecuted people who followed Jesus until he saw the light (i.e. truth).

There is an implicit or stated covenant among adherents of all religions that certain things are done and certain things are not done in order to be a member in good standing of that religion. Those who conform to these standards are accepted, and those who reject the standards are rejected, ostracized, or perhaps even killed.

In God’s view, there are two kinds of religion. There is the kind that God requires and there is the kind that people have invented. People who are religious like to think that the religion they practice is what God requires, and to a limited extent their religious practices are superficially based on the Bible. But, the fact is that the religion they practice is based on traditions established by men. Indeed such religion does involve activities that are performed ritualistically according to the letter of The Law (i.e. Old/First Covenant), but ritual is not what God wants.

In God’s view, ritualistic traditions that religious people practice emerge from the flesh. God calls that Defiled Religion. God contrasts this with Pure Religion which includes hidden attitudes and behaviors that emerge from the Law being written on the hearts of New Covenant disciples.

To create the proper context for understanding Defiled Religion and Pure Religion, consider the following scripture:

1-Corinthians 7:17-24 Only, let every one lead the life which the Lord has assigned to him, and in which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. 18 Was any one at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was any one at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. 19 For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. 20 Every one should remain in the state in which he was called. 21 Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. 22 For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 So, brethren, in whatever state each was called, there let him remain with God.

COMMENTARY: This scripture uses the examples of circumcision and slavery to make the broader point that it is not necessary for New Covenant disciples to change themselves physically in order to have the law written on their hearts.

Because God looks at the heart of a man, not on the outward appearance, it is not necessary for New Covenant disciples to try to change anything about themselves in order to be acceptable to God. This includes their physical body, their social status, and everything else in between. All that matters to God is the heart, which no man can see.