Paul the Apostle on Religion and Jesus

You used to be dead to God due to your non-religious lifestyle and because you didn’t belong to the right church.  Jesus made you alive, putting you in His resurrection, forgiven us of all our religious inadequacies.  Religion has a list of our inadequacies before God, and they said that we owed God because of these inadequacies and they fought against us due to them.  But Jesus took that list and nailed it to the cross to show that it was their list that was inadequate.  Jesus’ death ridicules the religious authorities and laws and policies and his resurrection shows them all to be a mockery.

So don’t let anyone judge you by their standards: by the church you go to, the holidays you celebrate, the day you worship God, what you eat or drink—all of those things are insubstantial compared to the Reality of the King.   Don’t let anyone convince you that you are spiritually inadequate because you haven’t had the “right” spiritual experience, or  you haven’t sat under the “right” teacher, the importance of which they inflate in their own human mind.  Instead, cling to the true Lord, the Head which supplies and provides all the other parts of the body,  which grows by God’s power.  If you have died in Christ, don’t submit to any other spiritual “law”, which are of the world, as if you were still living apart from God.   The religious laws of “do not drink” “stay away from the opposite sex” “don’t partake in pleasure” “don’t eat this kind of food” are all rules that show their inadequacy as we use them.  Don’t live according to these human commandments.  Yes, they seem wise and powerful, but they are religious inventions for the sake of self-abasement and harsh treatment of our bodies, but they have no real value fighting real sin.

So if you have been resurrected in Jesus, seek true heavenly authority, in our King, seated at the right hand of God.  Focus on Jesus, not on earthly authorities. 

A paraphrase of Colossians 2:13-3:1