Sermons
RESISTING THE EVER-PRESENT LURE OF MAN-MADE RELIGION
Colossians 2:8-15 / Colossians 2:16-23
March 7, 2010
I am always finding books that I “have to read” (and then not finding the time to read them once I buy them). One of these is a book written by Roger Olson, a theology professor at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary. It goes by the provocative title Questions to All Your Answers.
The thesis of the book is that many Christians have concocted a Christianized folk religion out of popular culture and biblical half-truths that get twisted together into bumper sticker maxims. You know these sayings quite well. They run the gamut from “God helps those who help themselves” to “Relax, God is control” to “no sin is worse than any other.” Olson lists ten such sayings in his book and examines them in the light of biblical teaching and Christian theology, showing how they do not measure up to the historic expression of the Christian religion. The purpose of this exercise, he explains, is to call believers away from their man-made religions to the true faith of the church.
Though it is very much a modern book, Olson’s call is a really ancient call. For, the apostle Paul was sounding the very same call in this letter to the Colossians.
We have been working our way through this letter the past several Sundays. And we have been anticipating this day and a discussion of the heretical teaching that was being promoted in the church. The main reason for Paul’s writing this letter is to warn the Colossians not to fall under the spell of this man-made religion.
Now, I have included in your bulletin insert a description of this heresy. I will not repeat that here in detail. I will jump to the general conclusion from it made by the likes of the imminent scholar F.F. Bruce. He sees the religious system described in Colossians 2 as some form of an ancient Jewish mystical tradition called merkabah. The goal of this system was for the practitioner to have mystical, visionary experiences of God in his heavenly throne room. (Its inspiration is the call vision of Ezekiel found in the first chapter of the biblical book that goes by his name.) This goal was achieved through a rigid adherence to the Law of Moses, a strict regime of self-denial (a form of asceticism), and deferential interaction of one sort or another with intermediary angelic powers and beings.
The system was problematic for Paul for several reasons. First, it amounted to a curtailment of Christian liberty. It was, in effect, calling believers to place themselves under the law of Moses again. This was the very law Christ had liberated them from through his death and resurrection! Second, it had believers submitting fearfully to angelic powers and beings as if they were on level with Almighty God. Third, and most importantly, it denigrated the work of Christ on the cross. It said in no uncertain terms that the salvation won by Christ through the cross was not enough. It insisted that something more than this was needed to attain to the fullness of belief in God. Paul fought bad theology with good theology as he called the Colossians to avoid this false teaching completely.
As to the call to come again under the law of Moses, Paul urged the believers in Colossae not to let anyone make them “captive” to things that are “only a shadow of what is to come” (vv. 8, 17). As to the call to submit to the elemental spirits of the world, Paul reminded the Colossians that Christ was over the elemental spirits of the world – that he had created them and that he ruled over them still (1:16). Further, he reminded them that Christ had liberated them from their captivity to such spirits (2:17, 20). As to the denigration of the work of Christ on the cross, Paul reiterated the power and magnificence of their salvation. “And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside nailing it to the cross” (2:13-14).
In all these ways, Paul makes a powerful plea for the Colossian believers to reject the man-made religion that is being dangled before their eyes by some in and around the church.
Now, I came to our passage just a few minutes ago saying it was an example of how this problem of falling to man-made religion is an ancient one. I could have gone farther back than this letter of Paul’s. First, I could have gone to other of Paul’s letters, earlier letters. Paul was always dealing with this problem in his churches. He was always calling believers away from man-made religions. But I could have gone back farther than these letters. I could have picked up Israel’s story at virtually any point along its way and pointed to an episode where Israel had constructed and given itself to a man-made religion. The point here is that this affinity for man-made religion is a perpetual problem. It is both ancient and modern. It is always with us.
We ought to take this problem more seriously than we do. I have come to speak on the subject this morning in the hopes that we will take it more seriously than we do. Let me invite you to take a few moments to consider why this problem is so troubling for us. Let me invite you to consider the question, “Why are we prone to fall to man-made religion?” Let me make a couple of points now in answering the question.
We are prone to fall to man-made religion, first of all, because man-made religion always consists of some combination of truly legitimate doctrine with doctrine that is off, many times, by just a hair this or that much. Consider the heresy in Colossae again. It was grounded in the Jewish tradition. It had as its goal the closest communion with God possible. It proceeded along a call to the most rigorous devotion to the laws of God and to the most severe denial of the self. None of those things is bad. All of those things are laudable. And had it not been for the new thing God had done in Christ, all of those things would have been just fine to take up. But because of the new thing God had done in Christ, those things amounted to a step back in the ways of faith. They amounted, actually, to a repudiation of the faith of Jesus Christ.
We are always susceptible to falling to man-made religion because man-made religion is so attractive. It has much to commend it as it often includes true doctrine and doctrine that is off only by the slightest of margins. It is, thus, deceptively appealing and difficult to detect.
We are always on the verge of falling to man-made religion for a second reason: because we are in our makeup as human beings predisposed to falling to it. We are naturally predisposed in this direction as fallen human beings. We have a sweet tooth for the new and novel. We love to innovate and create, and are possessed of a curious streak that likes to explore and discover new options. Along similar lines, we are more feeling-oriented than thought-oriented. That is to say, we would rather experience something than reflect on ideas and concepts about it. Thus, we are prone to give precedence to “what feels right” over what some doctrine that tells us is right.
Let me add a note here about life in America and how it makes this natural predisposition more of a liability. Our American culture capitalizes on these forces and pushes us continuously in this direction of constructing and submitting to man-made religion. Consider. Ours is a culture that exalts the individual over the group; that prizes personal freedom over collective well-being; that champions pragmatism over theoretical considerations; and, that values the future over the past. Among the many things such forces produce in us, they produce an entrepreneurial spirit on the spiritual front that encourages us to construct or embrace religious systems that are customer-pleasing and results-oriented.
I came across an interesting side note on a website I visit frequently that corroborates all I have been saying here about the American influence. The item was posted by a Georgetown University professor named Patrick Deneen. Commenting on how so many students today speak of themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” Deneen recalled an observation made in the early years of our country’s existence by Alexis de Tocqueville.
Tocqueville, as many of you know, was a Frenchman who traveled in America in the early days of our existence observing the habits and listening to the conversations of many Americans. His massive two-volume commentary on these travels, known as Democracy in America, is a standard reference work for those in the field of political theory. In his reflections, Tocqueville predicted that the American emphasis on equality would prompt Americans, over the course of their history, to reject forms, institutions and traditional systems of thought and action. It would, he said, because these forms and traditions would be seen as intolerable hindrances on personal freedom and autonomy. Among the things he expected as a result of this conflict was that formal religion would decline in favor of personal spirituality. To put it in our terms this morning, what he saw clearly upon drinking in the American spirit, even in those early days of our nation’s existence, was the susceptibility of Americans to fall to the lure of man-made religion.
Let us sum up all we have said here. We are considering why it is that we are prone to fall to man-made religions. We have named a couple of reasons. First, we fall to man-made religions because it is usually made up of much true doctrine and some doctrine that is only slightly off. In other words, we fall to it so readily because man-made religion looks so much like the real thing. Second, we are likely to fall to man-made religion because we are naturally predisposed to fall to it. We have a lust for new and exciting things in religion, for things that will give us spiritual highs. To make matters worse for us American Christians, our cultural deposit stokes these natural predispositions and increases the allure of man-made religions for us.
Well, what is the answer to the problem? How do we resist the lure of man-made religion? The answer is a simple one really. We stick close to the orthodox tradition of the church. Paul fought bad theology with good theology. He reiterated the truths of the faith in the face of false teaching. It’s not pretty or exciting or new, I know; but getting back to basic theological concepts is absolutely necessary here. We keep ourselves from falling to man-made religion by embracing again and again the true doctrines of the faith.
The onus is with the ministerial staff to see to it that this is carried out. I will continue to try to do my part on this front. But your part is equally important. You need to see the need for this type of ministry. You need to develop the patience for this type of ministry. You need to encourage the ministerial staff in this type of ministry. Most importantly, you need to be open to this type of ministry. All of us need to realize our propensity for falling to man-made religion. All of us need to recognize our weakness on this issue. We need to wonder if we haven’t already fallen to man-made religions in some way or other. So, we need to be willing to be corrected if we have fallen in this direction. Much more, we need to develop a desire for the truth of God to search and convict and change us where we have fallen in this direction.
Well, let me suggest an area where we may have fallen in this direction already. In concluding this sermon and making a demonstrative point, let me speak to an area of church life today where I believe man-made religion has come to dominate our thinking. It has to do with the subject of salvation.
We are now back to our text from Colossians, and to an earlier point I made. I talked earlier about how the heresy present in Colossae denigrated the cross and the purpose of our salvation. I talked about how the appeal to exotic mystical experiences said in no uncertain terms that the salvation won by Christ through the cross was not enough. I talked about how this heresy said that something more than this was needed to be fulfilled in the faith. This same phenomenon has been repeated in our day.
To be quite frank about it, the forgiveness of sins is just not that exciting to people today. It’s not enough for many today. A lot of people today, both inside and outside the church, want the gospel to be about more than the forgiveness of sins. And so we have complied in the church, we ministers of the gospel. We have made the gospel about so many other things than the forgiveness of sins. We’ve made it about success in life, and financial and bodily well-being, and having purpose in life, and having happy homes and healthy relationships, and trouble-free living. Those are the goods being trumpeted by preachers today. Those are the things they are dangling before the eyes of the unbelieving world. And those are the things that are drawing the masses to church today.
But this is not what the gospels themselves tell us salvation is about. Remember what they say. Remember what they tell us is the one and only good of salvation: the forgiveness of sins and peace with God.
Yes indeed, the gospels in our Bibles are concerned with one thing and one thing only. They are concerned with our standing before a holy God. They are concerned with the fact that the God who made us holds us accountable for living the life of righteousness. They are concerned with the fact that this God will destroy all who are not righteous and holy. They are concerned with telling us in no uncertain terms that we are enemies of God as we stand in our sinfulness before him awaiting the final judgment, and that we have no hope in the world save one: Jesus Christ. They are concerned with telling us that we must submit to God through Christ in faith in order to be saved from the wrath to come.
Our salvation is about this one thing – the forgiveness of our sin. That’s what the gospels tell us. They do not tell us that if we believe we will not get sick, that if we believe we will not lose our jobs, that if we believe we will not be poor, that if we believe we will not have children go astray, and that if we believe we will not die in this life. They do not tell us that bad people won’t do bad things to us. (In fact, they tell us they will!) They tell us only that we have the peace with God necessary to be saved from his judgment of sinners.
Now, how is it that we have come to substitute so many other goods for the one biblical good promised us? I’ve already alluded to the answer. The chief reason for the great substitution is that we want salvation to be about more than the forgiveness of sins. That subject just isn’t all that exciting to most people today. It has to do with the future, with the coming judgment. We’re glad for it, to be sure (those of us who believe in such things as heaven and hell and judgment). But it doesn’t have any “relevance” for the here and now. It doesn’t solve my everyday problems of balancing the checkbook and getting my kids to do what they’re supposed to do and putting up with a tyrant of a boss at work.
A gospel that promises only the forgiveness of sins doesn’t do it for us. We want a gospel that will solve our problems and make our lives good. And so we maneuver our way, in very crafty and subtle fashion, using many biblical passages and ideas, to reconfigure the gospel so that it will promise the goods we want and prize. Yes, we go to great lengths to produce a gospel that matters to people today! But it is not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is so easy to fall to this gospel. For it’s a very subtle manipulation of the gospel of our Lord. It doesn’t deny the gift of the forgiveness of sins. It glories in it. It just adds a whole list of other goods to sweeten the pot. It’s a very seductive gospel. I daresay that many of us reside under this understanding of the gospel to some extent or other.
Now, some may say, “what’s the harm here of not getting it perfectly right?” The harm is that to build one’s faith on such a faulty foundation will leave that one susceptible to falling away from the faith. For when disease comes, or hardship, or failure, we will wonder why God hasn’t done as God was supposed to do. We will hold God accountable for things he never said he would do. We will turn away from a God “who has failed us.”
Shortly before I left my former church, I visited with a woman whose husband was sick. He had cancer, and the prognosis was not good. His doctors didn’t expect him to make it. Te woman and I visited that day while her husband was gone for a treatment. Over the course of the conversation, she told me that she knew he was going to get better – that she knew he wouldn’t die. She didn’t have any doubt about it. She quoted one of the famous TV ministers of our day who had preached about standing on the promises of God and receiving your miracle of healing. She quoted a scripture verse that said something about getting what you want if you believe, and then she declared that she was expecting God’s miraculous intervention here. She pounded the table in making her point, so convinced was she that her husband could not die – that God would not break his promise to her and let it happen.
A few months after that conversation I was here with you all beginning my ministry. Several months later, her husband died. I don’t know how she responded to his death. I don’t know if it broke her faith. I don’t know if it drove her from church. I was worried that it might – that it would. I don’t know how she made sense of all this. I just know she was set up for a mighty fall.
It makes all the difference in the world that we get it right about salvation, and about every aspect of the faith. It makes all the difference in the world that we know what the gospel is about – what it promises. And what it doesn’t promise.
Let us mark what we have said this morning. We are all prone to fall to man-made religion. And we are always being tempted to fall to it. So, we must take the matter with utmost seriousness. We must wage war against man-made religion. We must renew ourselves in the truths of the gospel, and hold fast to the faith that has been delivered unto us.