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Why Religion Will Never Save Man (Part 1)
Religion has been around for thousands of years. Fundamentally it is the attempt of man to reconcile with and be accepted by God. Even though God subjected man to a religion (The Law of Moses) He never intended it to be the means of reconciliation. Old Testament scriptures relate the failure of that God given religion to establish an enduring and lasting relationship with the Lord. God gave a set of commandments to a people He chose knowing that it would never make them right with Himself. When the time came for Moses to die the Lord spoke to him and said, “You are about to die and join your ancestors. After you are gone, these people will begin to worship foreign gods, the gods of the land where they are going. They will abandon me and break my covenant that I have made with them. Then my anger will blaze forth against them. I will abandon them, hiding my face from them, and they will be devoured. Terrible trouble will come down on them, and on that day they will say, ‘These disasters have come down on us because God is no longer among us!’ At that time I will hide my face from them on account of all the evil they commit by worshiping other gods.” (Deuteronomy 31:15-18)
Moses concurrence with that assessment was evident when he spoke to the nation of Israel shortly thereafter. “Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God. There it will remain as a witness against you. For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die! Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials, so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to testify against them. For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall on you because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord and arouse his anger by what your hands have made.” Not a great going away speech. Notice that Moses declared the Law of God was a witness against the people of Israel. The Law of God is against sinful man and not for him because it can only accuse man. This is what Jesus told the Pharisees who were trusting in the Law, “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.” (John 5:45) If a God given religion could never reconcile a God chosen people to the Lord then why would anyone today believe that all the man generated religions, with various beliefs and practices, are simply diverse but legitimate paths of reconciliation with God? Not even a religion with so-called Christian morals and laws will reconcile any man to God. Why is this so?
The laws of any religion, in whatever form it takes, may embrace or even insist upon a set of ethics and morals that seem righteous yet will never be able to impart eternal life to man. Relevance of the Old Testament Law, known as the Law of Moses, has been much deliberated and debated. Some believe that the moral laws, within the Law of Moses, continue in effect during these New Testament times. Others believe the entirety of the Law of Moses, inclusive of the moral and ceremonial laws, has been done away with since the death and resurrection of Christ. There is never a lack of scripture proofs given to support either position. What is troubling is that the arguments never seem to address why the Old Covenant laws are either necessary or unnecessary for the Biblical New Covenant age and its God indwelt believer.
In Exodus 20 the Lord gave to Moses 10 commandments both verbally and in writing on two tablets of stone by the finger of God. These were the first 10 of over 600 commandments to be eventually given. Any commandment of God is important but these 10 seem to be of the greatest significance. They alone were kept inside of the Ark of the Covenant under the mercy seat. It was there the presence of the Lord dwelt, a presence that was with man but not in man. A quick summary of the 10 commandments are as follows:
You shall have no other gods but me.
You shall not make unto you any graven image.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. (How is that done?) In it you shall not do any work.
Honor your mother and father.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness.
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
What jumps out at me is how unconstructive these commandments are. Nine of the 10 are stated in the negative. In other words, they are against something. These are kept by restraint, which is, refusing to do something evil (negative) rather than by doing something good (positive). The fifth commandment was stated in the positive and accomplished by doing something good, honoring parents. But it could have easily been stated in the negative as it was a few passages later, “Anyone who dishonors father or mother must be put to death.” (Exodus 21:17) Seems evident this one positive command out of 10 was purposely done by the Lord.
The fifth commandment, stated in the positive, was the only commandment with a promise, “that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God gives you.” This promise was limited to the transient life of physical man. It ended upon the bodily death of a son or daughter who had honored their parents. The other nine have no promise associated with them. Those nine negative commandments were only about identifying and restraining sin, attempting to contain or limit its spread and consequences. There was nothing in those negative commandments that inspired any hope or trust in God.
An elemental yet crucial truth to understand is that not sinning (not doing something evil, a negative) will never cause God’s life to be created in the spirit of a man. This can be demonstrated and understood by what took place in the Garden of Eden. There are two fundamental aspects that are the essential features of the life of God. One is the quality of God’s life. That is the innate disposition of God that determines His character and thus behavior. This would include His holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, mercy, loving-kindness, and so on. God created Adam and Eve by breathing life into them. It was the quality of His life that was imparted to them. They both possessed God’s holiness and righteousness within as well as His other qualities of character. They were one spirit (joined) with God, completely God conscious in their souls, and manifesting the fruit of God’s life (character) through the words and deeds of their bodies. So conscious of God were Adam and Eve that the light of God dwelling within enveloped their physical bodies, similar to the transfiguration of Christ (Matthew 17), to the extent they never noticed they were naked. (Genesis 2:25) However, they did not possess the other fundamental aspect of God’s life, longevity.
God is eternal. He, who is the creator of time, is not subject to time. He has no beginning or end: “Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed and given birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” (Psalms 90:2) John wrote of the Lord God in Revelations 1:8, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,’ says the Lord God. ‘I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.’” But when God imparted His life to Adam and Eve He withheld its longevity. However, He made it available to them through the Tree of Life. We know this to be true because Adam and Eve died. Had they possessed the longevity of God’s life (the eternal aspect of it) they could not have died anymore than God could die.
The Garden of Eden was a place of testing for Adam and Eve. Would they be totally dependent upon God and live? Or would they become independent from God, that is, self-dependent, and die? (See article by this writer, “What the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was Really About’) There were four intrinsic actions that Adam and Eve could engage in during their habitation and testing in the Garden of Eden. These four all revolved around the consumption of fruit. Two of the four were first, not eating any fruit and second, eating fruit from any of the trees other than the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. These two were neutral actions in that they had no effect as relating to eternal life or immediate death. These two actions by Adam and Eve would only maintain their status quo, possessing the quality of God’s life but not its longevity.
The two other intrinsic actions would have resulted in a critical transformation of Adam and Eve. One was positive and the other negative. A positive result would have occurred if they had eaten from the Tree of Life. By that action they would have partaken of the longevity of God’s life and entered into an eternal habitation with God never to die and be separated from Him. But we know from the account in Genesis they chose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The result was a catastrophic negative. Their spirits died immediately and were separated from God forfeiting the quality of God’s life (His character) they had possessed. Their souls ceased to be God conscious and became self-conscious (narcissistic). They began aging indicating that death (corruption and mortality) had entered into their physical bodies which would eventually die (dust to dust).
God had given Adam and Eve one commandment, constituting a law they were to abide under in the Garden of Eden. That one commandment was negative in that it required restraint on their part, the not doing of something. In regard to the Tree of Life God gave no commandment demanding Adam and Eve to eat from it. Instead God freely provided that tree to be partaken of whenever they desired to do so. Under law God demands a non-action or action to be obeyed. Under grace God provides a free gift to be thankfully received but under no coercion to do so. Think about this!! Adam and Eve, ignoring the Tree of Life, could have focused on that one negative law every day. They could have recited that law over and over faithfully refusing to eat the forbidden fruit. But that would only have caused them to keep their status quo and avoid sin and death. No matter how long they could have staunchly denied themselves by obeying that one commandment they would have still lacked one thing needful for eternity. (Luke18:18-30) That one thing was partaking of the Tree of Life and, thereby, entering into eternal life.
Now consider this. What would have happened if Adam and Eve had turned away from the forbidden fruit and set their hearts on the Tree of Life? Their focus on the one law given by the Lord would have ceased. Instead they would have intently looked upon, desired and freely partaken of the fruit of the Tree of Life. And in partaking of eternal life, by eating from the Tree of Life, they would have consequentially fulfilled the one law given them yet without being focused on it. Eternal life does not come when we give our attention to the law and obedience to it. It comes when we give our full attention (complete focus) to Christ, our Tree of Life. Then, out of man shall flow God’s life, a life that is full of grace and truth, which inevitably fulfills the righteousness of the law without being focused on it. This is why Jesus said He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17) He was totally focused on the life of His Heavenly Father and the Kingdom of Heaven dwelling within. Jesus lived out of that life instead of attempting to keep all the commandments and laws of Moses. In fact He broke some of the Mosaic laws when He ministered mercy and healing to the lost sheep of Israel.
But Scripture tells us Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptation to be like God, independent and answering to no one but self. They disregarded the one commandment God had given them and ate of the forbidden fruit. In so doing they died in spirit, soul and body. They failed the test God had given to them. In part two the consequences of their choice and resulting death released upon mankind will be considered.
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