Why Jesus Hates Religion
By Hugh Macauley
It’s a statement that may appear slightly confusing, even contradictory: “Jesus hates religion even more than you do”. This is what Christians are proclaiming and I had to find out exactly what this meant.
You may have noticed the people wearing blue hoodies around uni with this slogan emblazoned across the front. The following verse is also printed on them: “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teaching are but rules taught by men.” They are the words of Jesus, but he is in fact quoting Isaiah. To understand what Jesus means in this statement I think it is important to look at the bible in its bigger context.
Isaiah was a prophet − a guy who was chosen by God to speak for God to God’s people, the Jews. Isaiah lived around 700 years before Jesus and declared that God was angry with His people because they were not showing undivided affection and love for God. But it was crazy that they weren’t doing this! God was the one who had made them! God was the one who had protected them from the massive militaristic empires of the day! God had shown nothing but continued mercy towards them, even though they had done nothing but be disobedient! They were worshiping other gods and had turned away from the one true God.
Why then did Jesus care about what this guy had to say 700 years earlier? Because nothing had changed! Why do we care today? Because nothing has changed!
You may say any one of these things: ‘All religions are the same’ or ‘I don’t worship other gods; I’m a Catholic/Anglican/other religious denomination’ or ‘I don’t know that this is true’ or ‘there may be other truths out there’. Or perhaps, worse, you don’t want to worry about it now.
Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you! Suffering the anger of an all powerful God is the worst thing that can happen to you. But why would this happen?
In Romans 3:23 it says, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. This means that you and I have turned from God, the God who made us. We all have done things that we know we shouldn’t have. So what is the consequence of this turning away from God? Well, God says in Romans 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death”. This is not just the physical death that my Grandmother went through and that you and I will go through. It is the eternal separation from God through whom all good things come. It is judgment!
This still doesn’t tell us why Jesus cared. The reason why he cared was because in the beginning, at creation, God said that one day he would deal with this problem of sin. Jesus was and is the answer to this problem.
Don’t tune out now. If you are not a Christian this is something to deal with NOW. If you are a Christian, we cannot stray from Jesus and the simple message and exchange it for thinking that with maturity we have other theological challenges. It is always about Jesus!
The reason why Jesus hated religion was because religion is trying to do it on your own, trying to please God when we can’t. But we don’t have to do it on our own! Jesus took the wages of our sins and he took them to the cross where he faced death, and overcame sin and its penalty by rising to new life. Jesus took the punishment we deserve!
The reason why Jesus hates religion even more than you do is this: it is wrong to not acknowledge Jesus as our God and ruler of our lives because He is our God. If we believe with our hearts what Jesus did, if we confess we are truly sorry, if we ask Jesus to take us back and we seek to live his way by letting him rule over our lives – then he will be gracious and forgive us!
Hugh Macauley is an Arts student who loves to kill germs in his war for cleanliness. He would love to chat to you about life, God or anything else that takes your fancy.
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