Religion is generally defined as a system of beliefs, practices, and values centered around a divine being [or beings], and explaining the meaning of life. It often includes moral codes, rituals, sacred texts, and a community of followers who share similar spiritual ideals. Religions can involve organized institutions, places of worship, and specific traditions that shape the lives of their adherents. While the specifics vary widely around the world, even within broader definitions of faith, religions often address questions about existence, the afterlife, and the nature of good and evil.
Some people of faith in Messiah today like to say, “Relationship, NOT Religion.” Their assertion is that Yeshua did not come to establish a religion, but only relationships. This sounds good, especially for the person who has been put off with religion, for whatever reason. It sounds ‘pious’, and ‘right’, to some people. But, is it true?
Yeshua indeed did not come to establish any religion, because His Father, God, the Creator of the Universe, already had one!
Yeshua came to the Jewish people. They were chosen by God to bring the Gospel into the world. God chose Abraham, because Abraham believed and trusted in God, specifically יהוה , the God of creation, and was obedient to His moral and religious law.
Religion goes all the way back to the Creation, according to the Scriptures given to the world by the people of Abraham. In the very first chapter, God created the days of the week, and then He created the sun, the moon, and the stars, for tracking days, months, years, and ‘moadim’, or appointed times. The first ‘appointed time’ was Sabbath, the seventh day of creation, where God ‘ceased’ from all His work, setting the example of what humans are to do on that same day. In Leviticus 23, after God had given Israel His Torah and told them to build the Tabernacle as their place of worship, He gave them the specific “Moadim”, the appointed times for assembly.
So, according to the definition of religion, we have belief in the God of Abraham, the practice of keeping the Sabbath, a place of worship, and the times established for that worship, along with a brief explanation of the customs and rituals that go with them.
Yes, it is true that Yeshua came to the world in order to create a very, very personal relationship with people. But, His primary mission was to introduce the world to God His Father, and teach them HOW to relate to Him, as well as that they should.
People who say they do not have religion misunderstand the nature of religion. They have a ‘system’ of belief! They have customs! They have places of worship! They have specific traditions. They are just not those of the Bible! They are just not the ones that Yeshua practiced! Nor are they at the specific times that Yeshua met with the people of His community for worship. But, they have them all, just the same.
Most people who say they have relationship and not religion are those who are of some kind of protestant background. They worship at a very specific time: usually Sunday morning. That is a religious custom/practice. They also meet regularly on another day of the week, usually Wednesday. They observe Easter and Christmas, which are very, very rooted in ‘tradition’. The problem is, none of their ‘practices’ are found in the Bible. And, they are not things that Yeshua did, though they claim they are building a relationship with Him. It seems they forget the verse where Paul said, “Yeshua is the same, yesterday, today, and forever,” and “I am יהוה , I do not change”.
The very fact that they ‘believe’ in Yeshua and have some regular form of acknowledging that with other people is in and of itself the very definition of religion! It is thus hypocrisy and self-righteousness to claim that religion is itself sin, which many of them do!
Yeshua practiced religion, at the very start of His life, and died while practicing His religion!
He was circumcised on the eighth day of His life, according to the ‘custom’ of Abraham, who was told by God to circumcise every male child born into His household on the eighth day after his birth. At that time, Yeshua was given His assigned Name in Israel, “Yeshua”, on that very same day. This was not commanded by God, but it became the strong custom/tradition of Israel to wait until the eighth day of the baby boy’s life to assign his name. [Luke 2:21] We see the every same for John the Baptist, who was also a religious person born into a religious household. [Luke 1:59-64]
Next, Yeshua was in the Temple at Passover at the young age of 12 years old. [Luke 2:41-50] It was customary for Him and His family to be there. They met with the rest of Israel in the Temple; they had a Passover Seder, a rite/ritual that went all the way back to Moshe, to commemorate God delivering them from Egypt. They were in the Temple for the offering of the Passover Lamb for all of Israel. They sang the prayers that went with Passover, many of them written by King David. It was something He did every single year.
Yeshua was immersed [baptized]. Many people do not realize that immersion, called ‘tevilah’ in Hebrew, was a very, very regular part of Jewish life. John the “Baptist” [Immerser] did not invent the ritual. And yes, immersion/baptism is a religious ritual. Jewish people immerse for various reasons. They immersed every time they went into the Temple for Passover. So, Yeshua did it at least once a year. [Three times a year at the Temple, because He kept all the feasts]. He had John the Immerser to immerse Him, ‘to fulfill all ‘righteousness’. That phrase basically defines the ‘moral codes’ and the ‘religious practices’ of the definition of religion. One does not need to ‘fulfill righteousness’ if there is no need for religion.
Yeshua was also very faithful to keeping the Sabbath of God His Father. After His immersion, God’s Spirit drove Him into the wilderness, so that Yeshua could be tested. Then, He returned to His home town, Nazareth, to begin His ministry officially. He preached in a Synagogue. We are told that He went into the “Synagogue”, or the “House of Assembly”, which is the ‘place of worship’ for the religion of Israel, when they are not in Jerusalem and/or there is no Temple. Yeshua went in, and was handed the Isaiah scroll, because it was time to read from that portion. The religious tradition is that we read a portion out of the Torah, one from the Prophets, and for us who trust in Yeshua, one from the Apostles. But, in Yeshua’s day, and still, it is customary for a man to get up and read from the ‘Bimah’ from the scrolls; and those readings are on a schedule. The Isaiah scroll is very, very long, and Yeshua read from near the end, in Isaiah 61:1-2, so the scroll had already been rolled there because of previous readings, and it was time to read it. This is religion in practice! In fact, the gospels show Yeshua in a Synagogue or interacting with the Synagogue a total of 19 times. There are five times in both Matthew and in Mark, there are six times in Luke, and three times in John. For such a brief section of His life, that is a lot of references to the Sabbath!
Further, Yeshua kept all the various feasts, the “appointed times” of Israel that God His Father prescribed in Leviticus 23. There are seven feasts that God ordained for worship, other than the Sabbath. They are also Sabbaths. Yeshua is seen keeping them 12 times. Given that there are only two festal seasons per year, and the gospels only cover three and a half years of His life, 12 occurrences is significant. He keeps the Passover in four different references. There are three references to Matzot, which can also include Passover, since the two feasts overlap; Firstfruits is enumerated when referring to His resurrection [the day after the Sabbath of Passover week]; there are three references to Sukkot [what most call “Tabernacles”], and Yeshua would have been in the Temple for the two previous feasts to Sukkot, as they occur at the same time, and were considered one Pilgrim Feast, from Yom Teru’ah, to Yom Kippur, to Sukkot, with the “Eighth Festivity” of Sukkot very detailed in John 7-8.
What most people call “The Last Supper”, which is given in quite some detail in all four gospels, especially John’s, is a six-hour religious ritual and celebration. And it is during that religious rite that Yeshua gets most intimate with His Talmidim/Disciples. The last meal of Yeshua was, in fact, a Passover meal. We see Him keeping it in Matthew 26:17-19, Mark 14:12-14, Luke 22:7-8 and John chapter 13 through 17. Passover is a major religious festivity in Judaism. Yeshua said to His followers, the twelve, that He had greatly desired to eat ‘this’ Passover with them, as He sat at the table eating it with them. John wrote His gospel last, and was responding to the new idea that Yeshua did not rise again in a body of flesh, but was just a ‘ghost’, and that the body did not matter. John’s whole gospel refutes that ridiculous notion, and He emphasizes Yeshua’s humanity, and puts great emphasis on His body, his body of flesh and bone. And in doing so, he spends six chapters on one religious ceremony: Passover. He shows Yeshua disrobed and re-robed. He shows Him reclining very closely with John; he shows Him eating bread, and drinking wine; he shows him struggling with His impending death [where Luke reveals He sweat drops of blood in terror of it]. He shows Him praying. What most do not realize is that the Passover Seder did not end until Peter, James, and John fell asleep out on the Mount of Olives. They went through the valley singing the “Hallel”, seven Psalms of David. And in Judaism, it is customary that the Passover ends when the first man falls asleep. It was a ‘night of watching’, according to God; and that watching ended when they fell asleep. Yeshua was arrested that night, and executed at the same very time the Temple’s Passover Lamb was being offered. He died while keeping His religion in tact.
And, He rose from the dead. He told one of the women not to touch Him, because He had not as yet ascended. He must have ascended, because later that same evening, on the day of the First Omer of the Wave Offering of Firstfruits, He appeared to the twelve, during the seven day feast of Passover/Matzot, and told them to touch His flesh and bone body so they would believe He had risen from the dead. This was the culmination of His religion. The only two days not specifically referenced in the Gospel from the religion of God were Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur: they will be observed when He returns! Yeshua is going to fetch His Bride on a religious Holy Day. And, He is going to be the Judge of the Whole Earth on a religious Holy Day: Yom Kippur.
Yeshua’s religion is what enabled Him to create a relationship with us. It kept Him focused on His mission, which the plan was laid out before Him in His religion. Even while hanging on the tree, He prayed the prayers of David, written for worship in the Temple. It guided His childhood. It framed His whole life. And it communicated Him to us in very meaningful ways. Relationship without religion is impossible. Every ‘group’ of people who decide together how/whether they are going to worship God through Messiah Yeshua either adopts the religious context of the Bible, or they create their own new religion. Most of the time, it is the latter, and their new religion is only very, very loosely based on Biblical practice.
God created religion: Satan perverted it. The Bible preserves it. Everyone practices it, in some way: it is a ‘system of belief and practice.’ God knew that children need religion in order to learn moral behavior, so He gave us feasts. [Exodus 12:25-28, Deut 6:4-9, Proverbs 22:6]. He gave us rites that involve all the senses, to activate our intuitive learning, so that we better understand our purpose here. [Phil 4:6-7]; He gave us guideposts for our lives, anchors to which to cling , such that we can be assured of hope, and comforted when things become difficult. Religion, done right, as Yeshua did it, brings out the best in us. A world without religion would be utter chaos and evil. Period. That’s why James said, ‘For a pure and consecrated ministry before God the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.’ ~James 1:26