BREAKING FROM THE SHACKLES OF RELIGION - 4

IGNORANCE HAS BEEN SPONSORING RELIGION

The Lord told Hosea, “My people are destroyed for LACK OF KNOWLEDGE”. Where there is a lack of knowledge, IGNORANCE thrives! Religion wouldn’t have prospered much if there was no ignorance concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Its reign would have been terminated thousands of years ago.

The truth is that when Jesus Christ came into this world, his aim was not to start another religion. His aim was to destroy the works of the existing religions and set people free from their bondage. However, certain people misunderstand his goal and created another religion out of his works.

Jesus told his disciples “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”.

It very clear throughout the word of God that he was THE TRUTH, this he confirms again in another verse in the same conversation, “if THE SON therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed”

What then is he referring to when he talks of freedom? And why does the freedom comes by KNOWING? And again; it is not just knowing anything, not science, not mathematics, not art but KNOWING THE TRUTH?

Jesus Christ in this passage refers to freedom from sin which religion have claimed to have been administering and that one can only get this freedom by KNOWING THE TRUTH.

The TRUTH is JESUS CHRIST!

And why is he the truth? And what else do we need to know that makes the KNOWING a freedom giver? He is the truth because he is did not come to start a religion as many have thought. Knowing this reality that his mission is not a religious one brings the first freedom. Remember that we said, ignorance has been sponsoring religion. Anyone who knows the deity of Jesus Christ and his mission on earth gets knowledge and is freed from religion and Ignorance. Jesus is the truth who came to abolish religion.

Okay, let’s run through the bible passage where the statement was made…

The gospel of John chapter 8…

In the beginning part of the passage, The Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to him. You remember the story? How he asked those without sin to first of all stone the woman of which everyone disappeared because none was without sin actually. This he did to demonstrate the end of the laws of Moses and the arrival of his Grace. And that everyone actually needs salvation from sin by this Grace.

So he asked the Pharisees to do away with their Judaism religion.

They said “Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?” Jesus rubbished their reference; he did this by plainly showing them that the laws of Moses cannot save anyone. They all left with disappointments from the eldest (the most religious ones) to the youngest.

Jesus then went further to proclaim in verse 12 “I am the light of the world”, this again gave birth to another dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees. This is the first place they missed it! Ignorance made them to believe that Jesus is just a prophet like other prophets and that he is not greater than Moses who gave them the law. So they told Jesus that there is no proof of what he is saying. They took his words for blasphemy.

Jesus then went on in verse 25 to tell them that they shall die in their sins if THEY BELIEVE NOT that he is HE!

You see now? The bone of contention here is that the Pharisees do not believe that Jesus is actually the Messiah who is supposed to fill up the ancient vacuum created, which religion have been struggling to fill! They did not believe that he is the light of the world! So Jesus told them that they would die in their sins. From the context, their sin here is UNBELIEF! They failed to believe in Jesus Christ, not in his death and resurrection now, since he had not yet died, but in WHOM HE IS!

That he is the son of God. That he came to redeem mankind back to God, and that he is greater than Moses, he is God in human form.

This discourse went on till verse 31, where he now faced those who believe his words about being the light of the world to continue following him, and that THEY SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH WILL MAKE THEM FREE….

You see that?

So he actually said those words to the Jews who believed on him not those who did not. This clearly tells us that the TRUTH they shall KNOW is a future thing. That he is actually not a man, but God.

Knowledge is progressive. Paul exclaimed one day and said “That I may know him!”

John said “He was in the world, and the world WAS MADE BY HIM, and the world KNEW HIM NOT” They took him for a mere prophet, a carpenter. They do not understand the mystery of God sealed from the foundations of the world. Paul said, if they had known they wouldn’t have crucified him. This is the truth that we all need to know right now. That Jesus is God. He is not a religious leader. He didn’t come to start Christianity; he brought unto us SALVATION and THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Many Christians are offended when we say that Jesus didn’t start Christianity. But it is actually the truth we need to embrace right now.

There was no name given to those who have received eternal life in the bible aside being simply called “a believer” or “a saint”. Throughout the epistles, you would never see a believer addressed as a Christian by another believer or by any of the apostles. Although mentioned once by Peter in his epistle, there he refers to the name as they are popularly called by people around them; he was not endorsing the name.

As you know, the word “Christian” was a name given to the early believers in Antioch by certain unbelievers. Unbelievers gave those people that name, they didn’t name themselves. Isn’t it unusual compared to other religions?

There is an assumption by theologians that those who gave them the name “Christians” saw the patterns of Jesus Christ in their worship, but can we then say that Jesus started a religion or that he asks his disciples to start one? No! That will be a costly assumption! The apostles would have mentioned its blueprints in their epistles.

This is why we say everyday that the Church is not a denomination, but a called out people redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You and I are the church. Christianity religion made denominations churches for themselves.

Christianity today is the number one religion in the world.

Christianity today is in fact not even what the unbelievers in the book of Antioch called it.

The ignorance of whom Jesus Christ is, has helped all religions to prosper, many religions are still looking out unto God to save them from their sins, sickness, poverty, problem, attacks and many other things caused as a result of the fall of the first man Adam, not KNOWING that everything has been solved in one person JESUS CHRIST, more than two thousand years ago.

WHEN YOU KNOW THIS TRUTH, you break free from the shackles of religion!