Too Much Religion?

 

      It seems odd to have to say so, but too much religion is bad thing. 

We can’t get too much of God, can’t get too much faith and obedience, can’t get too much love and worship. But religion—the well-intentioned efforts we make to “get it all together” for God—can very well get in the way of what God is doing for us. The main and central action is everywhere and, always what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Jesus is the revelation of that action. Our main and central task is to live in responsive obedience to God’s action revealed in Jesus.’ Our part in the action is the act of faith.

 

      More often than not, we become impatiently self-important along the way and decide to improve matters with our two cents worth. We add on, we supplement, we embellish. Instead of improving on the purity and simplicity of Jesus, we dilute the purity, and clutter the sim­plicity. We become fussily, or anxiously, reli­gious. We get in the way.

 

      That’s when it’s time, to read and pray our way through the letter to the Hebrews again, written for “too religious” Christians, for “Jesus-and” Christians. In this letter, (the writer warns against) Jesus-and-angels, or Jesus-and-Moses, or Jesus-and-priesthood. In our time, it is more likely to be Jesus-and-politics, or Jesus-and-education, or even Jesus-and-Buddha. This letter deletes the hyphens, the add­-ons. The focus becomes clear and sharp again: God’s action in Jesus. And we are free once more for the act of faith, the one human action in which we don’t get in the way but on the Way.

                                                                                      E. H. Peterson

 

William Barclay ~ On Hebrews

 

“The basic idea of this letter is that Jesus Christ alone brings to men the full revelation of God and that He alone enables them to enter into His very Presence.

 

…The writer…uses two great pictures to describe Jesus.  He says He was the apaugusma of God’s glory.  This can mean one of two things in Greek.  It can mean effulgence - the light that shines forth, or it can mean reflection - the light which is reflected.  Here is probably means effulgence.  Jesus is the shining of God’s glory among men.

  

   He says He was the character of God’s every essence, which in Greek means two things, first, a seal, and second, the impression that the seal leaves on the wax.  The impression has the exact form of the seal…meaning Jesus was the exact image of God.  “He is the exact likeness of the invisible God” (Williams Trans. Colossians 1:15).