Christian Religion versus Real Christianity

by

L.R. Barnard

It is instructive to observe that while the Bible speaks of the 
"Jews' religion" (Galatians 1:14,15), it does not speak of "the 
Christian religion," as we so often do. The faith and experience 
of a Christian require more vital terms to describe them. Therefore, 
we have in the New Testament such phrase as "in Christ", "life in 
Christ", "eternal life," and "life in the Spirit." The word
 "religion" is inadequate and inappropriate.

The "Christian religion" that expresses itself among us today
 is not the vital faith of the early Church.
It is a substitute for life in Christ-an alternative to divine 
reality. It is often highly organised form of worship. It possesses 
recognisable words, creeds, liturgies and customs, and it is 
held together by clergy, denominational officers, associations, 
projects and programmes. It is a form of community life- a powerful 
coordinating factor in social life. Psychologist acknowledge the 
importance of religion in holding society together.

Between Christian religion and "life in Christ," however, we 
must draw a clear distinction. It is said that Jesus founded 
the Christian religion, just as Buddha founded Buddhism. But 
the idea that Jesus founded Christianity is alien to God's 
Word. The Gospels do not urge organised religion. Jesus
came to give what men really need. He came to give life, and 
his Gospel offers a gift of that life. The Church is a body 
of new life, held together not by traditions, hierarchies 
or associations, but by abiding presence of the living Head 
in her midst.

Religion can never be more than a social power. The supreme 
value of Judaism has for centuries been its social purpose.  
It has provided the communal bond which has maintained the 
amazing racial integrity of the Jewish people throughout 
twenty-five centuries of dispersion. Thus we find ardent
religionists among the Jews who do not believe in a personal 
God. Modern Judaism is an exercise of the national soul and 
sentiment. It is purely religion, for it serves a human purpose.

A religion is a system of ideas about human nature and about 
the problem of an unknown and hidden God. In its most primitive 
forms, religion is man's attempts to harness and utilize the 
powers that lie beyond him. Even in civilised and cultured 
religions, the basic approach is the attempt to explain and 
exploit the gods. This is the most persistent factor.

A religious mind thinks of God as being useful for providing 
comfort and security. Going to church is the means of securing 
these blessings, and holding religious beliefs is insurance for 
an uncertain eternity. For the religious person, God is useful, 
not gracious and merciful. That is why some psychologists advise 
godless people to go to any church, with indifference to 
repentance and the truth it might have. Religion and psychiatry 
are wedded in that way; god provided medicine, not mercy.

Religion is what man devises when he loses the power of God 
within. When the Spirit leaves the organised church, it has 
to create a sensuous form of religion to compensate for the 
loss of its inner power. The form of Christianity is retained, 
but it has no content. To make religion important to
people with no spiritual instincts, the outward form of religion 
has been beautified with art and music and make apprehensible with 
many symbols. It makes the words and external artistic because 
there is nothing of worth or power inside. Much might, money and 
learning has gone to create and support this hollow thing we known
as Christian religion.

Therefore, in religion we may say prayers, but never pray. We 
may have strong and emphatic beliefs, but may not believe. We 
come to church, but do not belong to the Church. We speak of 
"Christian" principles and campaign for the fulfillment of the
Sermon on the Mount, but have not Christ. We can serve the church 
well, but never serve the Lord. We may have a good conscience 
and a fine spirit, but the bereft of the Holy Spirit. We may 
belong to a lively congregation which is quite dead to God.

Organised religion creates a holy atmosphere, but does not 
have the Holy presence. We practise the holiness of beauty, 
mistaking it for the beauty of holiness.  It is refined, 
polished, professional, cultured and learned social feeling, 
but it is the subtlest of all mistakings for faith.

In his Mars Hill sermon in Acts 17, Paul said that the men of 
Athens were superstitious because they had built an alter for 
an unknown God. He then told them about the God they worshipped 
in ignorance. Paul could see that the Greeks had a form of worship 
but they were "too superstitious."
The better translation of the word "superstitious" is "religious." 
The revised Standard Version of verse 22 is "I perceive you are 
very religious." But their religion had no power, no pardon, no
experience of the indwelling Spirit. Therefore, they could only 
acknowledge the right God in the wrong way. That is the New 
Testament definition of religion. In Athens, Paul's preaching 
brought few converts because religion and life in Christ are 
opposed to each other.

You enter religion when interested. You enter the new life in 
Christ by a personal encounter with Him. Your interest in religion
may be deep and sincere, but it remains superstition it has no 
personal experience of Christ. People may have the Christian 
religion but not have its Christ. He may be the symbol of the 
Christian religion, but He is not its life and Lord. Churches 
may think that God wants right beliefs instead of living faith in 
Christ. They can develop attractive programmes of Christian 
education and not convey Christ to the people. But those in 
God's true Church become new moral and spiritual creations- 
not in an organised church but in Christ. 

Our Lord said, "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, 
have we not prophesied in Thy name? And in Thy name cast out 
devils? And in Thy name done many wonderful work? And then
will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye 
that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:22-23 KJV). Will this be said 
to those who attach themselves to the Christian religion, who
became notable in it, upholders of it, but who can never be said 
to be "in Christ"? They have beliefs but no faith, morals but 
no pardon, membership in church, but no eternal life.

Christ imparts divine life that throbs through a pardoned and 
regenerated soul. A genuine experience of Him is personal and 
direct. God meets us on the personal level, never merely on the 
institutional level. Whatever is found in our churches outside 
the spiritual life and power that is represented in the New 
Testament is religion. Jesus did not come to found a religion. 
He came to win for us divine mercy through the cross, and that 
mercy lies at the centre of a Christian's being.

Not religion, then but life in Christ is what we need. Not 
religion, but life.

L.R. Barnard was born in Australia, was educated for the 
ministry at Spurgeon's College in England and is a graduate of 
the University of London. He served as an Officiating Chaplain
in the Royal Engineers Regiment at Chatham Barracks during the 
Second World War and was pastor of the Abbey Road Baptist Church, 
London, when this sermon was delivered in the 1960s. It has been 
edited and condensed from the version initially published in the
February 1963 edition of COMMAND.

Derrick Dean's site Excellent site with lots of links to subjects of science and religion.

Institute for Creation Research Article on Christianity and technological Advances