Paul made it clear to the Galatians that there should be no more religion, no more law, no more regulations, no more traditions, and no more ordinances. They have not been baptized into religion, but into Christ (Gal. 3:27). And as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. It is all a matter of Christ. It is not a matter of keeping the days, months, seasons, and years. That is religion, that is not Christ.
Where are we today? Are we in the realm of religion, or are we in Christ? I have to tell you the truth that very few Christians know the difference between religion and Christ. In a sense, all parents like their children to be religious. They neglect to see their children care for Christ. They would rather see them so formal, regulated, fundamental, and scriptural. If this is the case, then the book of Galatians was written for them. Christ gave Himself for our sins in order to deliver us from religion. This is the message of this book.
We all must be delivered from being religious. Suppose we come to the meeting so quietly and piously, yet the Christ within wants to shout, “Hallelujah!” Would we shout with Him? We like to be so quiet, but the indwelling Christ wants to be released. Otherwise, we simply become a cage to Him.
The problem is that we are a religious person, but the indwelling Christ wants to be another person in us. For Christ to be our life, we must learn to take Him as our person. To do this we must learn to forget about everything. We have to forget about being religious and good. God had no intention to give us a religion. God’s intention was to use the law as a child conductor to bring us to Christ. “Wherefore the law was our child conductor [Greek] to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24). In ancient times among the Jews, the parents sent their children to the teachers with a servant as a conductor. Paul used this as an illustration to show us that God used the law as a child conductor to bring us to Christ. But the problem is that the Jewish people would not care for Christ. They stayed with the conductor.
Today, the principle is the same. So many so-called Christians don’t care for Christ. They care for many religious traditions and ordinances. Now the Lord in His recovery is bringing us back to the beginning. That is, He is bringing us back to Himself as the pure Christ.
Christ firstly is revealed into us, and then He begins to live in us. Thirdly He must be formed in us. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). A mother’s pregnancy is a good illustration of this. At the start of a pregnancy, what is within the mother has no form. But after nine months, the pregnancy is fully formed into a human image. Christ is in us; we are all so clear about this. But the problem is that He has not been formed in us. To have Christ formed in us, we must take Him as our person. Then He will saturate every part of our being with Himself. This means that we must stop our thinking, our choosing, our loving, and our likes and dislikes. But we do not stop just to stop. We stop in order to turn to the indwelling Christ that He may be all of these things within us. If we will do this, gradually, bit by bit, the indwelling Christ will saturate our being in a fine way. Eventually, He will take over our whole being. This means that He will be formed in us.
By the time that Paul gets to chapter five, he tells us that if we are still religious, Christ will profit us nothing. “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing” (Gal. 5:2). And not only that, but if we continue to be religious, we are severed, cut off from Christ. “Ye are severed [Greek] from Christ, whosoever of you are justified by the law” (Gal. 5:4).
What does it mean to be severed from Christ? We may use today’s electrical terms as an illustration. To be severed means to be insulated. Electricity may be installed in a building, but if we don’t apply the switch, we are insulated and cut off from the flow of electricity. Christ is installed within us, but we must go to the switch. We must turn to our spirit to switch Him on. As long as we stay in our mind, we are insulated from Christ. Christ is within us, but He does not profit us because we are insulated from Him. Darby’s translation says, “Ye are deprived of all profit from the Christ.” What deprives us from the profit of Christ? It is simply religion.
Regardless of whether we have Christ within us, if we still live by our wisdom, our thinking, our emotion, this means that the religious snare has deprived us of all the benefits of the indwelling Christ. This is why Paul calls religion the present evil age. It is evil because it keeps me away from Christ. God has chosen me and called me to be baptized into Christ. God has attached me to the Anointed One. But the subtle, religious snare has deprived me of all the benefits of the indwelling Christ. This is really the evil age, the age that keeps people away from the real enjoyment of the indwelling Christ. But, praise the Lord, Christ gave Himself in order to deliver us from religion! Now He is bringing us back to Himself and is delivering us from this present evil age.