THE POWER OF RELIGION

Holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. - 2 Tim. 3:5

The apostle is describing difficult times that were to come, or perilous times or times of stress. One ancient writer uses the same Greek word to describe an ugly wound, and it is found in Mt. 8:28 in describing the demoniacs that Jesus met among the tombs: “so fierce that no one could pass that way.” So in 2 Tim. 3 Paul is speaking of fierce times that were to come upon God’s people, and as we look at the description we can suppose that he has well nigh described every generation since his time.

If we chose one word to summarize what the apostle is speaking of, it would be secularism. This is the worldly spirit that assumes man has no need of God, with all its attending evils. The secular man draws his strength and sufficiency from himself and from society, and if religion has any place at all it would be in form only. A secular age moves on as it will, as if there were no God at all. Secularism itself becomes a religion when men are led to believe that their problems can all be solved through science, industry and technology. Anything supernatural is rejected on the grounds that it is “contrary to reason.”

Paul points to the subtler form of secularism in referring to folk who hold on to “the form of religion,” which they might well do with adamant loyalty. They continue to profess religion, exercising its forms, rituals and ordinances. This is the real peril to which he refers, that the church itself would become godless in spite of its profession. That the world will have the worldly spirit is to be expected, but fierce times are indeed upon us when those who profess godliness cannot be distinguished from the world in either their values or their manner of life.

Thomas Campbell showed keen insight into the nature of the church, not only when he insisted that it is “essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one,” but also in observing that the church is made up of those who believe in Jesus and who obey him in all things according to the scriptures, and that “manifest the same by their tempers and conduct, and of none else; as none else can be truly and properly called Christians.”

Campbell is saying that the true Church of Christ upon earth is not only a people who profess godliness but who are really spiritual. And if they are not godly in their tempers and conduct they are not the Church of Christ!

The apostle himself gets close to this view when, after describing the spiritual depression, he urges the believers to avoid such people. He seems to write them off as being of any value whatever to the Cause, and he indicates that fellowship is not possible when people deny the very power that lends meaning to religion.

This will really change our thinking about the church if we accept the promise that Christ-likeness is its essence. And yet it is here that religion has its power. “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13) is a value that can be held only by one in whom Jesus really lives. To those Philippians the apostle could write: “that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (1:10-11).

If this is the real nature of the church, as Campbell insisted, then the pattern of Jesus must be emphasized more, with less stress placed upon forms and doctrines. Forms and doctrines may well be commands of God and are of course important, but as commands of God their intention is to serve as means to an end and not to the end itself, for the end must always be Christ-likeness. The important thing about the Lord’s Supper, for instance, is not so much whether it is served, or the when and the where, but whether it is truly a fellowship in the Spirit between believers who are conformed to the image of Jesus. Sound Bible teaching is of little real value if it is not intended to edify the church and to make people more like Jesus. Study for its own sake is likely to produce self-righteous snobs.

The mission of the Spirit to the church is to make it more and more like Jesus. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

Here is the power of religion. A life changed by Jesus, and that changed life becoming more and more like him, and this by the power of the indwelling Spirit. We have a similar thought in Eph. 1:18-19: “Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”

The vast resources of power that are in Jesus can be manifest in us who believe! The church must come to see that this is what makes it the Body of Christ, and that regardless of its pretense in terms of numbers, budgets and real estate such profession is meaningless if the power of godliness is not evident. This is really the power of changed lives. Jesus makes a difference, and he must make a difference in the lives of those who profess to be his followers.

This is all the more evident from the negative side of the picture: in that catalogue of godlessness that Paul gives as the very antithesis of what religion should mean to mankind. Here, for instance, are those artificial resources of power that a secular world looks to for its strength. The catalogue begins with selfishness. “Understand this,” he says to Timothy, “that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self.” This is probably under the guise of religion, and it refers to that attitude that makes self the central and leading object of living. And what poverty this is! Men full of self obviously cannot be filled with Jesus. And they miss the whole point of religion as expressed by our Lord: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). How vain it is for man to look to his own resources for strength, and to direct even that paltry power only to his own concerns!

Then there is money. Men will be lovers of money. Here lies the peril of secularism, where a man’s worth is measured mostly by his possessions. Even prosperity is seen in terms of material wealth. Wisdom, goodness, justice are values that hardly rank at all, unless they can be measured in some monetary way. Shakespeare’s “He who steals my purse steals trash” is empty idealism in such an age as ours, for one’s purse is everything, the good name that the poet wanted to exalt notwithstanding. Paul is referring to covetousness, not to a moderate desire for funds to live a decent life. And covetousness he sees to be idolatry (Col. 3:5). Nothing will so deaden religion than for people to be allured by the power of money, a power that is grossly uncertain and temporary.

Next comes those sins that suggest a haughty and brutal use of power, which of course are destructive of the power of religion. Men will be proud, arrogant and abusive. Such people are really weaklings who in their desperation for a place to stand will browbeat others. They assume a superiority that they realize they do not have. People who try to boast and bluster their way into power and eminence are to be pitied, and they are about as far from the spiritual resources of strength that are in Christ as people can get. Unfortunately the proud and the arrogant are to be found in the church as much as in the world.

The list goes on almost interminably, spelling out those sins that make us most unlike Jesus and rendering our religion powerless. Disobedience to parents and disrespect for all that is holy are included, and these are despicable because they are centered in self-will. So with ingratitude, that blind sin that supposes no indebtedness to either God or man. “Without natural affection” points to man’s capacity to become inhuman in his dealings with others, while “implacable” refers to a harshness and hardness of mind that knows no mercy and that is bent upon embittering all relationships. For “slanderers” Paul uses the word diabolos, which is the word for devil, and surely we are more like Satan than we are like Jesus when we indulge in the assassination of one’s character.

The “profligates” are those who have no strength against the sins of the flesh, incontinent as some versions render it. The “fierce” are those who have lost the last touch of gentleness and kindness and have become harsh and severe. Jesus makes one tender and loving, and it is the absence of his Spirit that makes one rough, brutal and cruel. “Haters of good” describes that morbid state in which a man has no desire to associate with those who are decent. He has lost all taste for the true, the good, the noble. In the cheap life he has chosen he has even come to hate all that is good. The “traitors” are those who would not only betray friendship for personal gain, but would even collaborate with the enemy in turning fellow disciples into the hands of those who would persecute them.

The awful catalogue of godlessness wearies us, perhaps because we can see flickers of ourselves therein. But we need to study such sins, the awful sins that separate us from God and that render religion powerless. He goes on, for instance, to refer to those who are “reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Here is proud power running amok. Swept on by impulse and passion, man recklessly pursues his selfish goals as if he had no destiny but a few fleeting years in this world. He is so ‘swollen with conceit that his only perspective is his own importance. In pursuing carnal pleasures he is but making his own wishes and desires the point of living. It is intended that man come to know God and enjoy him forever. There are those pleasures that embellish the mind, strengthen the body, and thrill the spirit. It is a tragedy that man is bent upon following those pleasures that stifle soul growth.

Now we have the context in which the apostle alludes to that power in religion that is for us all. After this frightening list of sins, which gets too close for comfort for us, he goes on to say that such ones “retain a form of religion but deny its power.” Looking back over the list one is amazed that such people are religious, that indeed they hold on rather vigorously to a profession of godliness with all its forms.

This is to say that they are loyal to the orthodox creeds, whether written or understood, and they go through the correct rituals and conform to the proper doctrines. They carry out the right movements, whether going to church or reading the prayer book, and they support the institutions and agencies. They hold to all the forms of religion, and even use the dignity and reputation of religion as a way of satisfying their swollen egos. After all, the religious context is excellent for the arrogant use of power, for proud and abusive treatment of others, and for the fierce, reckless, and implacable attitudes toward change.

Such ones know nothing of the dynamic of love in religion. They do not know how to appreciate the power of a life changed by Jesus. They do not realize the difference that Jesus can make. They are void of the Spirit, wholly unaware of the power of a Spirit-filled life. Seeking refuge in an unimpeachable orthodoxy, they are offended by the notion that a man’s life can be so changed by Jesus that it affects every waking hour and gives him such a view toward people and things as to revolutionize his entire value structure. Orthodoxy insists that religion is not to be taken so seriously, certainly not to the point that it invades every facet of one’s public and private life.

But this is the power of re1igion that we must recover in our time —the dynamic power of the changed life. Religion has left most of our people unchanged. Jesus has made no real difference. Such is bad religion —or it is but the form of religion. And those who get caught up in the form will often reach the place where they do not merely neglect but even deny the power of religion. That is Paul’s description in 2 Tim. 3:5. Such ones were not merely neglecting the real dynamic of religion, but denying such power. This they must do. so long as they choose pride, arrogance and self-satisfaction. The power of religion is far those with empty hearts that can be filled with Jesus. We all know how easy it is to have a head full of scripture and a heart empty of the Spirit. The dynamic of religion is for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

The forms of religion never really convert anybody. We might convert a man to the right church, or to baptism, or to a set of doctrines, or to our party. But there is no way to discount the power of the changed life. This is the gospel demonstrated, and the Bible assures us that this is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Orthodoxy can be dead and stifling, leaving thinking people to suppose that religion might be all right for kids and nice old ladies. Ah, but the old proud, sinful life that is touched by Jesus and renovated by his Spirit! There is all the difference in the world. When despair turns to hope. When boredom turns to joy, When coldness turns to. love. When law turns to grace. When insecurity turns to peace. When the form of religion reaches out and touches reality. When Jesus becomes real. Ah, what a difference!

The power of religion is, of course, many things. It is coming to know God through His revealed Word. It is feasting upon the scriptures, as a hungry man feeds upon bread. It is the fellowship of the saints, where the resources of power are a matter of mutual sharing. It is drinking of the Spirit, whereby one is filled with such fruit as love, joy and peace. It is praise and prayer and meditation, for here one draws near to the very font of all power. It is service to others. It is in suffering and weakness, for here God’s power is often manifest.

But the crux of it all is Christ-likeness. The power of God is what men saw in Jesus. It was his Person that changed lives. It was his Being that accounts for the church. It was the presence of the Son of ,God that led the self-sufficient Peter to exclaim, “I am a sinful man!” and that caused that sick woman to resolve that she would find wholeness if she could but touch the hem of his garment.

His power will be manifest in our lives to the degree that we open our hearts and allow him to dwell within. His Spirit dwells within, filling us with the fruits of righteousness and making us more like Jesus. And this is what it is all about. True, our Lord has given us forms, and these are to be prized, but they are always to be kept as means of glorifying Christ in our lives and never as ends in themselves.

To be like him, that is the power of religion. When men see Jesus in us they will be exposed to. the same dynamic that shook the Roman world to its foundation. Pilate was disturbed enough in the presence of Jesus, but Nero was hopelessly confused to find thousands in his empire that bore the likeness of Jesus, people who, could not be robbed of their joy even in the presence of death in the Colosseum.

“For me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), this is the secret of the power in Paul’s life. He could even say: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

And that power he would wish for each of us: “My little children, with whom 1 am again in travail until Christ be formed in you!” (Gal. 4:19). —the Editor