Title: Which do you have? Christ or religion?
483 years ago an event took place in Europe that would forever change the face of the Christian church. This event began when a German monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg and as a result of that action the Reformation was born. Now Luther’s 95 theses were in reality nothing more than 95 grievances that he had with the Catholic Church. You see Luther had become troubled by what he saw as the lack of scriptural support for such things as the selling of indulgences. And for those of you who may not know what an indulgence was, it was in its most basic form nothing more than a piece of paper guaranteeing that the possessor of it would have the forgiveness of all sins for a certain period of time, and all for a certain amount of money. And it was things like this that caused Luther to take a stand for what was right because he knew from reading the Scripture that paying for pardon was contrary to the message of the Gospel, a Gospel which said that God freely gives salvation to all who ask.
Well it wasn’t long after Luther posted his 95 theses that other reformers such as John Calvin came on the scene. Now both of these men were Catholic priests who had one desire, and only one desire, and it was not to create a following after themselves, to create their own churches, or to further fracture the unity of the Church. Instead they wanted to reform the Church that they were already a part of. Unfortunately, for all Christians that never happened. But two things did come from the activities of these two men. And the first thing was very positive because through the Reformation the gospel of Jesus Christ was once again preached in all of its purity and men could once again see that salvation was from beginning to end the act of a gracious God who freely gives to sinful men. But the second result wasn’t quite so positive because Luther and Calvin had different opinions on how certain things should be done. And as a result of these differences the Church became completely and totally divided. And these differences caused men and women who professed faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to look upon others who made the same profession, but who did not belong to their group, with suspicion, as though they were followers of the Devil himself.
And because of this suspicion and the division that resulted from it, one Christian went to war against another Christian and between the years 1562 and 1648 tens of thousands were slaughtered – all in the name of Christ. Since those early Reformation days Christians have become much more tolerant of one another and yet what does the world see in this toleration? They see a Church where the spirit of purity has waned and the spirit of division has increased. And they see a Church that has become so splintered that there are now hundreds if not thousands of Christian sects that have very little interaction with one another. But the seeds of division that the modern Church experiences today were not sown when God used Luther or Calvin to begin a much-needed reformation of the Christian Church. No, those seeds were sown much earlier. For you see, long before there was a Martin Luther or a John Calvin there were Apollos, Peter, and Paul. And though these men were not reformers they were nevertheless powerful men of God who had inadvertently, through no fault of their own, developed a following after themselves. And it was in these followers that we first see the seeds of sectarianism that would plague the Church throughout much of her history here on the earth. Now unlike many of the religious people of today the apostle Paul was not happy with his fan club, and do you know why? Because he knew it was divisive and he knew that unnecessary division is always counter-productive to the work of the Gospel. Now I would like to take a moment to emphasize that word unnecessary, because when heresy threatens the Gospel division may very well become necessary. But perhaps some of you are confused and not quite sure what is meant by heresy. Well, as defined by the Bible heresy is basically a teaching that denies the person and work of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. And with that definition in mind was the division in the Church at Corinth necessary? Apparently not because Paul addressed it head-on when he said in 1 Cor. 1:10-17:
“Now I plead with you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Peter, or I am of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides them, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.”
As we read this passage of Scripture it’s possible to get the impression that the Corinthian church was unfruitful and non-productive when it came to the things of God. And yet according to Paul’s opening remarks found in the first few verses of chapter one (1) the Corinthians were a church that had been wonderfully blessed by the grace of God. Not only did they excel in the knowledge of the revelation of Jesus Christ but they excelled in every spiritual gift as well. And even though the Corinthians had many problems they were not considered as non-believers or second-rate Christians by Paul because Paul calls them his brothers in at least two places of our text.
But even though he calls them his brothers, like a brother who will not stand idly by and watch while someone dear to him gets too close to the fire, Paul shows them a problem that they have that is so severe that it threatens to undermine the Church itself. Now we know that a building such as the one we are meeting in tonight cannot be undermined unless the foundation is first destroyed. Remove the foundation or so weaken it so that it cannot support the weight of the building and the building will collapse. Metaphorically speaking the Church is such a building, a spiritual building, and the foundation of this building is Jesus Christ. And as unfortunate as it was the foundation of this building was coming under attack at Corinth and the attack was being made by the Corinthians themselves. Now Paul, after being made aware of the situation by a dear Christian who could not stand to see the Lord relegated to a secondary position of importance realized that many in the church at Corinth had rallied around men instead of around Christ. And so Paul draws their attention to this problem when he says:
“Now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ.”
But what do you suppose could possibly have happened that would cause Christians who excelled in spiritual knowledge and every spiritual gift to put men in the position that Christ alone should have held? Once again Paul puts his finger on the problem when he says in verse 17 that “wisdom of words” makes the cross of Christ of no effect. In other words the wisdom of men’s words were being allowed to cancel out the Gospel of Christ. And as a result the Corinthians were pouring their energy into theological speculations and not into the Gospel. But what did they gain from these words of wisdom? Well according to the Scripture they gained nothing but division and strife. But the fighting wasn’t over what Paul considered to be heresy because the word he used for divisions was sxismata, a word that refers to differences of opinion. And as a result of these differences of opinion quarreling broke out that was destroying the Church’s effectiveness as ministers of the Gospel by pitting brother against brother. And while all of this was going on what do you suppose the world saw? They saw men who were called Christians avoiding other men who were called Christians and over what - nothing more than a difference of opinion. And what were those differences of opinion all about? Who knows? Perhaps it was over foods that had been sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8:4-13), or maybe it was over divorce because in 1 Cor. 7:12 Paul gives his opinion regarding certain aspects of divorce when he says:
“But to the rest I, not the Lord say: if any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her.” Notice that Paul says this is his opinion – not the Lord’s command. But it’s possible that those who said: “I am of Paul,” were taking this opinion of his, or others like it, and giving it the force and authority of Scripture and judging others according to it. But you know it really doesn’t matter what these differences of opinion were all about because whatever they were they were causing nothing but strife and division among the people of God.
And so instead of witnessing the love among brothers that Jesus said (John 13:35) would characterize those who followed Him the people of Corinth were treated to the strife that was beginning to define the Corinthian church. And it was all over words. Words of opinion that were based on the eloquence of Apollos, the person of Peter, or the knowledge of Paul. And though none of these opinions could be considered as untrue or wrong there were individuals within the Church who had decided that their favorite speaker spoke truer words than any of the others. And as a result they took great pride in their teacher’s superiority over any other teacher. And because pride had blinded their eyes they were ignorant of the fact that when pride enters the human heart through the front door it always pushes the love of God out the back door. Now if you remember nothing else from this sermon remember this. Love and human pride can never peacefully coexist in a child of God because one will always drive out the other, and it will always be that way. Now Paul understood this and knew that unless something was done quickly the church at Corinth would cease to exist as a body of believers, and why? Because the Creator of the Church had said that “apart from Me you can do nothing” and the believers at Corinth were beginning to move away from the Lord.
And so Paul pleads with them to put away these opinions that were pulling them away from Christ, the things that were feeding human pride and starving the love of God. But notice in verse 10 that Paul doesn’t reason with the Corinthians by his own authority but he says: “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ….” Notice that he speaks to the Corinthians by the name of Jesus. Now the word that has been translated by is the Greek word dia and it also means through. And so Paul was pleading with those in the church at Corinth by and through the name of Jesus, meaning that as a servant of the Lord he was resting on the Lord’s authority in the matter. You see, the situation was so serious that Paul felt compelled to speak on the Lord’s behalf and with the Lord’s authority. And if you think it’s odd that Paul would speak through the name of Christ to anyone consider this. At the company where I work it is not unusual for a manager to send a memo to someone else by going through the director of the department. And so such a memo might say, From: John Smith, Manager, To: Jim Jones, Supervisor, Through: Mark Smith, Director.
Now the manager writes the memo but he uses the director’s name, with the director’s approval. And the reason he does this is because the director’s name carries more weight than his own does. Now a memo like the one I’ve just described is not very common but is reserved only for special occasions. And everybody knows that if they ever receive a memo like this they had better sit up and take notice because it contains something of special importance. And that’s exactly what Paul wanted. He wanted the Corinthians to sit up and take notice. He wanted their eyes to be opened to see just how destructive these divisions and quarrels actually were. And in order to do that he felt it was necessary to invoke the name and the authority of the Lord. Now since these divisions were centered around mere human personalities, with himself being one of them, Paul spoke to those who had lifted him up as the champion of their group and said: “were you baptized in the name of Paul? Was Paul crucified for you?” And the implied answer was “of course not!” He then goes on to say: “Is Christ divided?” In other words does Christ save some and Paul save some? Again the implied answer is “of course not!” Well then Paul says to the Corinthians, if I was not crucified for you and if you were not baptized into my name, why are you rallying around me as though I were anything other than a fellow servant of the Lord? I imagine that when Paul’s letter was read to the church at Corinth the silence was deafening. But I want you to notice something else about Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. If Paul had wanted to firmly cement the loyalty of those who were following him to himself all he had to do was attack whatever Apollos or Peter had said. But he didn’t do that because he wasn’t interested in having the Corinthians fix their eyes on him. Instead he was more interested in restoring their allegiance to Jesus Christ.
You see their loyalty was not supposed to be directed to Paul, or Peter, or Apollos, it was to be given to the Lord alone. And why, because it was the Lord who loved the Church so much that He gave His life to save her, not Peter, not Paul, and not Apollos. And these Christians at Corinth were blindly allowing personal preferences and opinions to destroy the Church for which Jesus had died. But thankfully Paul was a faithful servant of the Lord and he worked to keep the Corinthians faithful also. And apparently his efforts paid off because history shows that the church at Corinth was alive and well long after Paul had left this world for the City that is made without human hands. So as you can see the seeds of division were sown in the Church long before the time of the Reformation. But today those seeds have been sown once again. And the modern Church, like the church at Corinth and the church of the Reformation, is splintered and weakened by divisions.
And what are these schisms over? Are they over heresy? Sometimes. And when the issue is heresy, where someone is actually denying the person and work of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit then division becomes necessary because once the Church presents the Gospel it is the Church’s duty to defend the Gospel (Jude 3). But this is the exception not the rule. Normally the strife that is found in many of our churches today is really over nothing more than personal opinion - just like the church at Corinth. And a good example of how opinion can become so important to us can be found in Matt. 28:19. This is the “great commission” passage. And in this verse of Scripture Jesus commands that His followers make disciples of all nations. And as they do that they are also instructed to baptize those new believers into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And this is where one problem begins. For you see the word used for baptize in this passage is the word baptizontes, and while there are many churches that claim that this word refers to immersion there are many others who claim that it refers to sprinkling. But the truth of the matter is that the word can refer to either immersion or sprinkling. Now if you look up Matt. 28:19 you’ll notice that it is quite clear on the act of baptism and so we know that we must to be baptized. But at the same time it is not entirely clear on the mode of baptism and therefore the believer is free to decide for himself whether he is immersed or sprinkled. He is not free to decide whether or not he is baptized, but he is free to decide how he is to be baptized.
Unfortunately many churches insist that one or the other is the only “correct” form of baptism and they will have nothing to do with those who believe otherwise. And it doesn’t matter to them if the other person or the other church teaches the Gospel and believes in salvation by and through Jesus Christ alone because personal preferences and personal opinions are allowed to take the preeminence. And a recent example of opinion being allowed to take the preeminence over the Gospel can be seen in a discussion I had not more than a few weeks ago with a friend of mine who is a pastor for a conservative mainline church. In that conversation he told me a story of how a “self-proclaimed” pastor had asked him if he and his congregation could rent my friend’s church for worship services. Without even considering the request my friend turned him down cold and do you know why, because he wasn’t a member of my friend’s denomination. He wasn’t turned down because he didn’t trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world. He was turned down because he didn’t have the right label around his neck, meaning that my friend was afraid that he didn’t hold to the right opinions.
And this sort of thing shamefully happens all of the time. Instead of judging a man’s faith based upon his relationship to the Lord too many times we judge him based upon his relationship to Luther, Calvin, Knox, the Pope, or Wesley. Or we may even judge him based upon the food he eats, the jewelry he wears, the music he listens to, or even the day he worships. And all of these things that I just mentioned to you are based upon opinion not the love of or the commandments of God. And so even though we may not kill each other as the Christians of the Reformation period did, what do you think the world sees? Do you think they see the love of God operating in us? How can they if we have allowed the love of opinion to make the cross of Christ of no effect? And when a church does trade the Gospel of Christ for the opinion of men they cease to be a church of God and they become nothing more than a religious institution. And religious institutions don’t preach the Gospel of Christ - they preach the opinions of men.
My dear brothers and sisters the Bible tells us that the end of all things is quickly approaching. We are told that the darkness of this sinful world is almost past and that the bright day of Christ’s return is fast approaching. Do you believe that? If you do then you also believe that tonight could well be the night that Jesus Christ returns to claim His bride the Church. But even if He doesn’t return for all of us He may very well return for you. And if He calls your name tonight will you stand before Him ashamed because you allowed your own quaint opinions to take the place that should have been reserved for the Gospel alone? Will He praise you as a preacher of righteousness or will He condemn you as a teacher of religion? God grant that all of us may stand before Him clothed in the radiant splendor of the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ - and not the rags of religion.
