6 Reasons Christianity Really IS a Relationship, Not a Religion (5 of 6)
You’ve likely encountered the expression: “Christianity is a relationship not a religion”. Perhaps you’ve also heard opinions to the contrary. It’s an important distinction. The two ideas are not the same. While the modern concept of religion may be convenient for professors and expedient for politicians and journalists, it actually distorts the Gospel. Members of Christ’s body should ask a pointed question: how did the biblical writers conceptualize their faith and practice? This is part five of a 6-article-series written to give you bible-informed confidence in a “relationship-focused” life in Christ.
The Biblical cadence is interpersonal relationship. All the language presumes it and this is nowhere made more clear than in Jesus’s own words.
#5 The two greatest commands in scripture are relationship-centered, not ritualistic, ceremonial, or cultic.
In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus affirmed Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 as the two great commands, to “aw-Hawb”( וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔) both Yahweh and neighbor , “agape” (Ἀγαπήσεις) in the New Testament’s Greek. On these two, he said, hang all else. True worship is based on relational love since God is love (1 John 4:8). This is true to such a degree that in loving our neighbor, we fulfill the law (Romans 13:10).
All this is in keeping with the pattern in the Old Testament; Yahweh rejects acts of empty worship, favoring right relationship which more accurately reflects His character (Isaiah 1:10-17, Micah 6:7-8, Psalm 51:16-17, 1 Samuel 15:22-23).
When the time comes for Jesus to complete his earthly mission and return to his divine throne, he doesn’t list a series of religious duties. Instead, he gives a new command:
“ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””
In obeying this command, we his followers, remember his deep love for us, we identify ourselves to outsiders as belonging to the loving Servant-King, and we bind ourselves together in relational unity.
Years later, Peter, Paul and others wrote about the key to the life of faith. It wasn’t a mantra or a ritual, it was a person who had loved them well: “ let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”, “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself”, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is”. And, as John would write, the whole point of sharing his story was so that more people could receive life and enter into fellowship with God. Love is the command. Relationship with God and man is the prize.