Religion is regarded by the great majority of adherents of the various churches in our midst as having relation to the life and mission of Jesus of Nazareth and is termed Christianity.
The New Testament is held to be the source of information in that connection and is viewed as altogether distinct from what is known as the Old Testament.
The word religion is coined from two Latin words and literally means to bind again. It is thereby inferred that there had been a weakness in the binding of the thing bound, and the value or effectiveness of the binding had been broken.
We find that religion is connected with God and our relationship to Him in a special manner. In other words, with the severance of the binding in this relationship, there had also come an estrangement between man and his Maker—God: hence the idea of religion: a binding again to restore the former relationship.
On examination it will be found that, while the fact of the broken binding is referred to in the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament, the record of the actual happening is revealed in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis, in the early life of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
We who have been illuminated by the word of Truth and are acquainted with the facts of the event realise that the test of obedience to which our first parents were subjected was a moral one. Its terms were simple and simply stated and well within the understanding of Adam and his wife. It was on the result of this test that man’s destiny was to be determined. Thus we are informed that death thereby came into the world, or in other words, became a physical law of all living things; in the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 5. 12, “As by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and death passed upon all men (mankind)”. The New Testament reveals that baptism into Christ by bodily immersion and obedience to His teaching is the only manner by which there can be a binding again and the establishment of pure religion in one’s mind.
Many aspects of morality are embodied in the Master’s teaching and much could be said on each aspect, but there is one part of His teaching which could be said to be the foundation principle of His message. It was revealed following a question put to Him by one of the scribes as recorded in Mark 12. 28-31 (read), where the word “love” is intended to convey a higher and wider conception than ordinarily understood by the use of this word, and if we follow the scriptural rule of comparing spiritual things with spiritual, as advised by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2. 13, we will perceive its application, “. . . which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual’s.
We can appreciate the importance of this teaching of our Lord when He said, “There is none other commandment greater than these, namely, To love the Lord God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself”. And what is meant by “loving” in this commandment? To revere, to have great regard for, to have an earnest desire to please, and to preserve that close relationship which had been established and which is man’s first duty.
In the 2nd Chapter of the Epistle of James, the Apostle writes at verse 8, If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scriptures, thou shalt love thy neightbour as thyself, ye do well”. Under the terms of this royal law man’s duty is threefold; he must exercise the same quality of loyal regard in respect of God and His Law and as he should show towards his fellow man, although that toward God should be of a more reverential character.
That truly religious manner of living, styled by the Apostle as pure religion, should be then preserved so that it will not be defiled or tainted by indulgence in the uncontrolled ways of life. We are enjoined to be in the world but not of it. Even as obedience to the Law of God given to our first parents was the basis upon which their judgment was founded and the sentence of death executed upon them for their sin, so the royal law to which we have referred is based upon a similar principle.
During His ministry, Jesus taught the people by word, by parable and by illustration. There is, however, only one illustration having reference to the judgment scene at the last day, or, as Paul more specifically puts it, “A judgment of the quick (living) and the dead at His appearing and Kingdom”.
The judgment is mentioned, of course, in many other places, but this judgment scene is depicted in Matthew 25. 31-46 which, if we read, may be more impressive to our minds. This same scene will not take place as detailed yet; it shows the basis of judgment as has been outlined previously.
You will note that the question of reward and punishment is based upon the principles enumerated in the royal law and is designed to demonstrate whether or not the professing follower of Christ had duly exhibited that love or compassionate regard towards his neighbour which that law commanded.
It was not a matter, you will note, of the amount of knowledge one had in connection with prophecy, or the hidden truths one possessed, nor was it the volume of speaking feats one performed, or even the time engaged in the proclamation of the Truth, or other attainments that counted for anything, but if one did not show the Love of God towards his Brethren and Sisters then he would be accounted as “sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal”.
If, on the other hand, one visited the widow and the fatherless, then indeed he or she would be manifesting a truly Christian character in the practising of true religion, the basis of which was involved in the greatest of all Divine Law.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay