SALVATION IS NOT BY RELIGIOUS RITUAL OR RELIGIOUS HERITAGE – PHIL 3: 5
Here are some implications arising from Phil 3: 5….
Paul’s says I was, “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.”
Salvation is not by ritual. Paul says the first thing that was profit to me and I came to count as loss was that I was circumcised the eighth day. In Genesis 17:12, Genesis 21:4, Leviticus 12:31, God institutes circumcision, that physical operation as a sign of His people. And He said it is to be done on the eighth day after a male child is born.
That was a strict Jewish rite. And what is Paul saying? He’s saying I started with the most essential rite and sacrament which they felt was absolutely necessary for salvation. So he said I look at that circumcision that you see as so vital to salvation, and I’m telling you it’s rubbish.
Because salvation is not by ritual, it is not by rite, it is not by ceremony, it is not by symbol, it is not by sacraments, it is not by masses, it is not by routines and rituals and washings and baptisms. Regardless whether you’re talking about Jewish symbols and Jewish sacraments and Jewish ordinances and rituals and ceremonies.
Or whether you’re talking about Roman Catholic ones, Roman Catholic rites and rituals, or whether you’re talking about Protestant baptism or Protestant sacraments or the Lord’s table or some other ritual.
Or whether you’re talking about lighting candles or praying through beads or praying certain formula prayers, or holding Keller multi colored prayer ropes; ceremonies, rites and rituals don’t bring salvation. That’s what he’s saying. As far as salvation is concerned Paul considered rituals to be useless dung, and and totally worthless. σκύβαλα (skubala)
There are some today who want to affirm household salvation as a replacement for circumcision. They twist the Philippian jailer’s story that he was saved and his whole household and they assumed that when parents are saved that the children born of those parents are in covenant relationship to God. And that’s why they engage in infant baptism which is a form of covenant identity.
They say Infant baptism is how you identify a child as having been born into covenant identity, household salvation by virtue of parents. Not so! Your religious family grants you no standing with God. The fact that you were born into a Christian nation grants you no standing with God. The fact that you were born into a Christian family grants you no standing with God, no salvation, it’s useless, it’s garbage, it’s rubbish.
No noble religious heritage can make you right with God. You can even be a priest, you can even be a religious person, you can be a religious leader, you can be a teacher in a religion, you can be in a religious family, you can be a PK or an MK, that’s a preacher’s kid or a missionary’s kid, you can be born into a religious family, a ministry family, God is not impressed. Religious heritage has nothing to do with salvation. And where you are in the social strata of religiosity is immaterial to God.
If you look around the world and see people like this? Very religious…up to their ears in religion. I’ve seen them all over the world, wearing robes and doing all of their religious activities, many of them functioning as priests, sacrificing, taking on themselves unbearable burdens, living in poverty and loneliness.
Many of them in pain and deprivation, functioning to fulfill a religious pattern that they believe will please God. The bottom line, He’s not impressed. He’s not impressed with any of it…whether it’s Judaistic religion, whether it’s Buddhistic religion, whether it’s Islam, whether it’s Roman Catholicism, whether it’s Protestantism, the religious form does not impress God. And religious devotion can’t save you.
As far as salvation is concerned Paul considered Religious Heritage to be useless dung, and and totally worthless. σκύβαλα (skubala)
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