Christianity

In the Junior Series for this date we discussed the legitimacy of using the term fundamental in describing what is basic to the understanding of that we seek and learn.  Fundamental to water, as we experience it, is that two atoms of hydrogen (gas) are joined in some way to an atom of oxygen (gas) and we conclude with water (liquid).  That is basic (fundamental) to the compound.  But we can do many things with water after we gain that liquid in purity.  We can sweeten it, give aroma to it, boil it, freeze it even offer it in a different form and call it: heavy water.  (One of my college instructors, a Christian, was a part of the team working with heavy water during World War II, in the course of the development of the Atomic Bomb.)  Scripture addresses this understanding in James 1:27 – Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this . . . to keep himself unspotted from the world.  James is instructing his reader that whatever the religion is for a person, it must have this component in it as fundamental or it doesn’t qualify as an effective (pure) religion.  Religion, as a word, was well understood by the biblical authors, and they tended to avoid it so that their faith (religion) might be seen in its distinctive, not in its similarity with other religions.  The point is that our religion is not to be evaluated on the believer’s conduct but by its origin and effectiveness.

Once the basics are declared we move onward to form, in our own ways, the uses of a life menu.  We may believe and conduct ourselves according to the instructions, or we may distort the instructions so that the emerging religion is not verified in the terms of the original elements – that which is fundamental to the intended meaning.  In such an instance it may be a wishful human philosophy, even called a religion so as to differentiate it from humanistic philosophy, but truth is not in the distortion of that pure religion and undefiled.  Even persons identifying themselves as Christians, but not following through in the concepts and life of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus and others (John 3:16; 5:24); to the public (masses) in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7); and to the Apostles as noted both in the Gospels of the New Testament and in the teaching to the church in the remainder of the Testament may have something good – but they may miss (in their amendments) the experience of Jesus Christ as that experience was made primarily redemptive.  This point cannot be passed off as the opinion of narrowly focused individuals or groups of evangelicals, or fundamentalists, or whatever other term may be employed that shoves persons to margins and dismissals.

To hear Jesus say: Ye must be born again – the listener is called to a verdict.  To deny the statement is to deny Jesus and Christianity.  The advocate is not denied as first consideration, but Christ is denied as a truthful originator of the primary message.  To deny the statement is to say that Jesus is a liar, or that he is misguided in some way, perhaps out of his mind.  If not genuine and true, for whatever reason, then Christ is not to be followed.  Human advocates, never totally perfect models of the point of their advocacy, should not be identified as the point of the advocacy.  (Given the public’s insistence that the advocate should be a model of the point of advocacy, the matter is taken as important to the obligation to live out the Christian life – according to biblical examples and theory.)  To be identified as Christian finds its definition, not in the life of the advocate as primary understanding, but in the definition of Scripture, especially noted in the proclamations of the one whose name identifies the point.  Again, the substitute may be quite good for order, ethics, love, concern for others, even righteousness, but when these factors are used for selected options to the redemptive story they may become evil in masking away that which is fundamental to the meaning.  According to Scripture, good factors even when built on some other foundation can be lost for purpose.  That structure becomes wood, hay and stubble to perish, having had only a temporary fix.  The basic structure has lasting value as: For other foundation (supportive structure) can no man lay . . . . gold, silver and precious stones.  (1 Corinthians 3:11-12)  The foundation is in Christ, a fundamental of this faith, offered in love, not in negative attitudes but in faith certainty for the good, and for the life, of anyone who perceives the gift of God.  It is heroic..  We are called to take on the foundation as basic, and build, with God’s help, the superstructure of our lives borne on the sure promises of Scripture. (Colossians 1:27)