Rethinking a ‘Personal Relationship with Jesus’
Religion v. Relationship
In the broad evangelical space, it’s common to hear that Christianity is not a religion, but a personal relationship with God.
My mind immediately travels back to Jefferson Bethke’s spoken word from over a decade ago: Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus. His point is that religion is just following rules like a slave, but Jesus abolishes the kind of religion that doesn’t get to the core of our deepest problem. Lecrae says similar on Erase Me, the penultimate song of his latest album, Reconstruction with the lyrics: ‘Erase all of my religion’ and ‘I need a relationship, not a bunch of rules’.
I grew up thinking this way too. In my younger years, my friends would ask me why I was so “religious”, but I’d reject the question itself. I’m not religious at all, I have a relationship with God, I would say.
This instinct is well-meaning. There is a desire to distinguish between outdated, restrictive, superficial piety on one hand, and a living, authentic, personal faith of the heart, on the other.
But pitting religion and relationship against each other isn’t how the Christian faith is best understood or enjoyed. Rather, both relationship and religion are necessary to encapsulate what the sinner is seeking with God and how it’s found.
Here are four reflections.
(1) Saying that Christianity is “not a religion” is being artful with your words.
Let’s face it, a basic definition of “religion” describes what fundamental adherence to Christian faith just is. The Oxford dictionary defines religion as ‘the belief in and/or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.’ The Cambridge and Merriam-Webster run along the same lines.
(2) “Religion” is too narrowly and negatively understood in the modern mind.
A “personal relationship with God” distances itself from man-centred, hypocritical religiosity, like that of the Pharisees.
Jesus confronts their religion in Mark 7 where He says: You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!’ (Mark 7:8-9). The Pharisees presented themselves very religiously but were really whitewashed tombs: looking good on the outside and dead on the inside (Matt. 23:27-28). After all, God doesn’t look on the outward appearance but on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7).
But you could make the argument that the religion of the Pharisees is not religion in its truest sense but a distortion of it. Where the Pharisees neglected the weightier matters of the law such as mercy, justice and faithfulness, James 1:27 mentions what true religion is: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Those who prefer relationship over religion are not speaking of religion proper, but are using the term ‘religion; as a euphemism for works-earned salvation, religious hypocrisy and superficiality. Jesus says plenty about that.
But in Mark 7, Jesus doesn’t contrast the traditions of men with no tradition. He contrasts it with the commandment and word of God (Mark 7:8-9, 13). Which is part of the Old Testament religious system.
Interestingly enough, the Bible refers to religion by name, but in words, it does not ever call Christianity a “personal relationship with God”. This phrase shows up in the 19th Century and its use increases in the 20th, which makes it a very recent conception.
(3) Jesus was the most (perfect) religious person
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matt. 6:17-18).
This means that Jesus observed all necessary customs, partook in every seasonal festival, sat under authoritative teaching, obeyed every law, devoted Himself to pious prayer, memorised scripture, cared diligently for the sick, widowed and the poor. He kept every facet of Jewish religious life to perfection. He didn’t come to abolish it, he says.
I would take this a step further. Not only did Jesus completely fulfil OT religion, He created a new religion too.
This does not negate any relational understanding of how God deals with us. Yet, Jesus gives us a fundamentally religious framework by which we approach God (and each other) that does not necessarily carry the free-spirited and spontaneous air that 21st Century spirituality prescribes.
Jesus…
…instituted human leaders of the assembly (ekklesia)
Apostles, whose teachings we are devoted to (Acts 2:42-47)
Christ gifts officers in the church: Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, Evangelists (Eph. 4)
…instituted rites and observances…
Of initiation: Baptism
Of regular remembrance and His real presence: The Lord’s Supper
Churches are set up with pastors/elders/bishops in different localities and are accountable to their leaders.
Christians hold a particular book as the foundation of faith and practice
Does this mean that we don’t relate to God personally? Of course not. Yet, there is structure, institution, rituals, feasts, days of worship that require adherence. These are all very “religious” things that Jesus instituted.
(4) Relationship-only can miss God’s chosen means of grace
I’ve often heard people say, “Marriage is just a piece of paper.” On the surface, that can sound romantic — that love is too deep to be reduced to legal documents or formal ceremonies: “I love you, and I don’t need any paper to prove it.”
That sounds romantic, but it often comes with a hesitancy to commit — even to the side of love that doesn’t feel romantic, but is still true love: having a relationship ratified and recognised by something outside ourselves, like the law. For some, that can make the relationship feel too solemn or too serious. Perhaps that is exactly the point.
Modern evangelicals often reject tradition, liturgy, authoritative teaching, the church calendar, and a high view of the sacraments in place of more free-spirited expressions of Christianity. Again, I sympathise with this. But though those things may seem routine, unnecessary or archaic in the light of today’s expressive individualism and emotionalism, they are profoundly enriching to the Christian experience.
Having a personal relationship with Jesus in which we have true and living faith is something we need to have. We don’t want dead religiosity that doesn’t know God. But the risk is that it is easy for a personal relationship alone to become personalised. Both religion and relationship must go hand in hand.
There is no ceremony for becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, but there is one for marriage. This is why Jesus isn’t our boyfriend. He is the Bridegroom of the Church—His body, the historical Church itself.
True religion is more than just “a bunch of rules”. God provides means such as institutions, authorities, liturgies and traditions—outside of ourselves—to stop us turning in on ourselves to personalise our way into eternal life.
Despite the rampant expressive individualism of our day, we actually need the gospel to be placed before us routinely, religiously, and in ways that do not always suit or personal desires and emotions. This is because God’s promise to us is true and sure, going beyond our emotions.
Finding the basis for our relationship with God inside our feelings and inventions is the quickest way out of truth and into despair. The Bible never encourages us toward a “just me and Jesus” mentality that so many embrace. God gives us “religious” means by which He draws near to us, from outside ourselves.
We routinely go to a church building where we stand and sing, and sit with others to hear God’s word preached by a pastor to our weary hearts.
We ritually take of the bread and wine, by which God delivers His promise of the forgiveness of sins and we commune with our brothers and sisters on Earth and in Heaven.
When we come into Christ, we are ceremonially baptised into water, with God’s Triune name put upon us, and we are connected in Christ to believers on Earth and in Heaven.
We regularly and carefully read holy scriptures—written by the Prophets and Apostles, preserved over millennia—in personal devotion, but also in community, so that we aren’t looping ourselves into subjective interpretation. We cling to what is consistent with the truth of what Jesus intended and the cloud of witnesses who came before us and impart their wisdom.
True religion is a true relationship with God, and it’s something far beyond just personal, individual thing.