By David Ryser
If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit to decrees, such as, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!" (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using)--in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (Saul of Tarsus, Colossians 2:20-23, NASB)
As I sit down to compose this little article, it is the beginning of the Lenten season. Normally I would neither know, nor would I particularly care, about this; but I’ve been spending time with some great guys who attend a church which operates according to the liturgical calendar. And during Lent, people who attend churches where this sort of liturgy is an essential part of the worship attempt to live…for 40 days…the repentant, sacrificial, humble, and moderate lives we all would be well-advised to live year-round. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, so many of the people at the restaurant where I dined last evening had smudges on their foreheads and ordered meatless salads.
I ordered a meat lovers pizza. It was delicious.
And this incident started me thinking about the subject of religious rules, regulations, and rituals. The Church to which I'm referring has a plethora of all these and is often lampooned by other religious groups as a result. The irony is that all church groups have rules, regulations, and rituals...even those which claim to have none...they simply differ from group to group.
And these rules, regulations, and rituals are routinely used to judge the genuineness of the faith of the adherents/congregants.
Dr. Tim Stafford coined the term Double Validation Heresy to describe this situation. In short, the double validation heresy states that a person must be validated twice in order to be considered a good Christian...or to be considered a Christian at all. Not only must we be validated by God on the basis of coming to a saving faith in Jesus, but we must also be validated by a religious/church group by submitting to their particular rules, regulations, and rituals. Calling this heresy unbiblical is like calling Mount Everest a big rock...it's not just unbiblical, it's anti-biblical.
To sort out this mess, and hopefully arrive to a resolution to this conundrum, we need to return to the first century AD.
Shortly after Jesus' resurrection, His followers received the Holy Spirit and became what we would call born-again believers (John 20:19-23). Shortly thereafter, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 persons assembled in a room. They preached the gospel to a multitude of people that day, and many came to a saving faith in Jesus (Acts 2:1-41).
They were all Jewish. Every one of them. The preachers and the hearers.
I mention the Jewishness of these believers in Jesus because although the disciples of Jesus were commissioned to preach the gospel to all the world, they did not yet understand He was including non-Jewish people. Jewish people were scattered throughout the whole of the known world. And Jesus was the Messiah. Their Messiah.
If Jesus is not the Jewish people's Messiah, then whose Messiah is He?
But then, God threw a wrench into the apostles' understanding of the faith community. In Acts, chapter 10, we read of how the gospel was first preached to Gentiles by Peter with the result that they also came to a saving faith in Jesus. Peter caught some grief over this, and he defended his actions to the group of believers in Jerusalem with the result that they accepted what had occurred as a genuine act of God (Acts 11:1-18).
But this was only the beginning.
Believers who had fled Jerusalem because of persecution began to preach the gospel in Gentile territory with the result that eventually their preaching was accepted by non-Jewish people (Acts 11:19-26). And like a snowball rolling downhill, this move of God among the Gentiles grew exponentially and with irresistible momentum. Acts, chapters 13 and 14, chronicles a missionary trip taken by Barnabas and Saul/Paul which resulted in many Gentiles coming to a saving faith in Jesus, and primarily Gentile fellowships were established.
And for some, this was a problem (Acts 15:1-2).
You see, when the fellowship of believers was comprised only of Jewish people, these believers continued to practice the rules, regulations, and rituals of the Jewish faith which defined them both religiously and culturally. The earliest expression of the Christian faith, therefore, was Jewish. Now that Gentiles were coming to faith in Jesus, the question arose as to whether these Gentiles were required to become Jewish and to observe all of the rules, regulations, and rituals of the Jewish religion in order to be considered genuine believers.
Would these early Jewish believers and their leaders succumb to the double validation heresy? Or would they accept God's validation as sufficient?
A council of the leaders in Jerusalem was convened to consider this question. After much debate, it was decided to require nothing more of the Gentile believers than that they abstain from certain practices that were particularly offensive to their Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ (Acts 15:3-35) so both groups of people could worship and fellowship together...a major stretch of existing social norms even at that.
So what we have now is Christianity without rules, regulations, and rituals.
The earliest Gentile believers had an experience with Jesus and very little, if anything, else. They had no Bible. And even if they had parts of the Old Testament available, they likely couldn't read them because the vast majority of these believers were the most common of people and were likely illiterate (1Cor 1:26-28). They were experiencing and worshiping a living God and operating in a faith that had no rules. To say they had questions about how to live their lives without religious rules and regulations would be an understatement. A good portion of Paul's letters to the Christian fellowships in various locations is devoted to answering their questions and the giving of instructions concerning living a life that honors God and manifests the life of Jesus which had been planted in them...without succumbing to the pitfall of religion.
Even so, the temptation to turn a vibrant and intimate relationship with God into a religion existed even in these earliest fellowships. Paul tells the Colossian believers in no uncertain terms that religious rules and regulations are not only unnecessary, but they are worthless for living the Christian life. So we can safely dispense with observing religious rules and regulations as a way to honor God and to be accepted by Him.
But what about rituals?
I suppose rituals can be somewhat helpful so long as the person observing the ritual remembers that it merely serves as a means of connecting with the One to whom the ritual is pointing. Too frequently, however, the ritual itself has become the thing worshiped and often is performed in a perfunctory manner with bored/unengaged celebrants and congregants. Worse, it can become a requirement, the neglect of which is a serious sin and casts into doubt the spiritual standing of the offender.
The only thing even approximating ritual among the early Christians was the observance of the Lord's Supper during their fellowship meal when they would gather to fellowship and worship. Bread and wine were served with the meal, and the redemptive work of Jesus was remembered and celebrated. But even this ritual became common/stale in at least one instance, and Paul addressed and corrected the situation (1Cor 11:17-33).
Religious rules, regulations, and rituals? I neither need, nor do I want, them. All I need and want is Jesus.
Responses to this article are welcomed. You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com
