It is commonly said, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” But this makes about as much sense as meat, salsa, some cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce wrapped in a tortilla declaring, “I’m Mexican cuisine, not a burrito.” To be a human is to be spiritual, for we are made by the God who is a spirit (Jn. 4:24). To be spiritual is inescapable, but so is being religious. You are spiritual because God has endowed each human with an eternal soul; but God has also given you a body, and with these bodies our spiritual actions are able to be made manifest externally, which is what we call religion. So, it really is impossible to set spirituality and religion against each other as if they were antonyms; anymore than it is possible to set literacy against books, appetite against food, or musical talent against music.
The contrast is in the adjectives. Someone who is dead spiritually will also produce a dead religion. But those who are alive spiritually, will have a living religion. The Bible teaches that because of Adam’s sin, the human race is spiritually dead. This spiritual death shows up in our external actions, and we end up with religion that is dead. A dead religion gladly puts others on the altar, sacrificing others to the gods, in order to obtain prosperity and blessing for one’s self. We see that clearly in the ancient religions where it became common to offer up other humans as a sacrifice to petition the gods for the blessings of fertile crops, abundant rain, conquest over enemies, and so on.
In the Nicene Creed we are given a succinct summary of what the scriptures teach us about the Holy Spirit:
We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son;
who with the Father and the Son
together is worshiped and glorified.
Here we are taught that the Spirit of God is the Lord and the Giver of life. The Spirit is not a some impersonal life force. Rather, because He is Lord, He is also personal. This means that not only is the life which He gives is true gift, it also means that the life He gives us is bounded, governed, and ordered. We often speak of some egregious violation of a sport as not being in line with the spirit of the game. I recall once going to a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons which was performed by an electric violinist; many of the other instrumentalists bore pained expressions as they endured what I presume they felt was a violation of the spirit of Vivaldi’s music. But both these examples presume that the rules of the sport or the notes on the staff are not a hindrance to the spirit, but rather the principle means whereby that spirit is felt, enjoyed, and made manifest.
The Spirit being Lord, then, informs us that the life which God gives is to be a spiritual life placed within the confines which He decrees. That life, which the Spirit is Lord and Giver of, is intended to lead you to worship. Worship of the Spirit together with the Father and the Son. Your life, each life, is intended to bring glory to the triune God. When you place your faith in the God of the Bible, believing in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, it is the Spirit which gives you that spiritual life. And we are told that that spiritual life brings about the fruit of true religion, and the Apostle James describes that religion as being demonstrated in compassionate care of the orphan and widow. In the ancient world, to be an orphan or widow often meant that you were subject to all sorts of perverse abuse, mistreatment, and injustice. Your pleas went unheard. Your freedom was taken away. You were a mere commodity for the lust and greed of the more powerful.
Therefore, those who have determined to reject the Christian faith, have set themselves on a pathway of death. It is no wonder that in rejecting the Spirit as the master and giver of life, our culture has embraced a religion that runs on murder. America’s rejection of the well-ordered truths of Christianity over the last century has coincided with the widespread acceptance of the abortion of the unborn. In 2008, 5% of Americans agreed with the statement that ‘Abortion should be available to a woman any time she wants one during her entire pregnancy’. Now, that same sentiment is agreed to by 1 out of 3 Americans. This statistic shows that America really is a valley of dry bones. We are dead spiritually. But if the Spirit of God blows then we shall come to life. We shall choose life. We shall cherish life. For the Spirit of God is the Lord and Giver of Life, and as such we are to worship the triune God alone. This is living spirituality that springs forth into living religion.
Thus, the exhortation is this: turn from your dead works of lust, greed, pride, vanity, and selfishness. Your sin, at its heart, is the sacrifice of others to the idol of your own ego. This is why our nation can so flippantly butcher children in the womb, because we insist that nothing must stand in the way of global devotion and praise of our own egos. Our spirit is dead, and thus our religion is one that must lay others, particularly the unborn, upon the altar. But if you turn from your sin, you find in Christ complete forgiveness, and by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life, you are able to imitate Christ by laying down your life for others. Being made alive spiritually, leads to a living religion that is selfless, sacrificial, because its life is found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.
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