I have long said Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. I don't recall reading it or hearing it from someone else before I came to that conviction, but I know I'm not the first to say it, much less the only one.
Maybe I got it from a previous word study in 2 Peter 1:5-7, or some other occasion when I looked up the word "godliness" in a Greek lexicon. Wherever, or whenever, I originally realized it, I found the following this morning as I was reading this passage and looking up the character qualities Peter listed in these verses.
According to Bullinger's Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament:
"eusebeia, godliness. [The opposite of threskeia, religion. Eusebeia relates to real, true, vital, and spiritual relationship with God: while threskeia relates to the outward acts of religious observances or ceremonies, which can be performed by the flesh. Our English word 'religion' was never used in the sense of true godliness. It always meant the outward forms of worship.]" (bold emphasis mine)
While there are various acts and observances that a part of Christianity, particularly when we gather to worship, to varying degrees with the varying denominations, etc. True godliness, and true Christianity, is independent of these acts and observances, rites and rituals. It can exist without them.
And godliness isn't about what we do, but about what He has done.
1 Peter 1:3-4 "...His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by His own glory and excellence, for by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust."
And, in 1 Timothy 3:15-16. How are we to behave? What is the basis for the outward expression of our faith? Our own attempts at religious acts, actions, rules, observances, etc? Nope. Jesus. Just Jesus. It really is all about Him - knowing Him, being in relationship with Him:
"...I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Beheld by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory."
(Oh, and that isn't referring to the church building. The New Testament church was never a building. It is the people of God, the followers of Christ. We are His house. See Hebrews 3:6, 1 Corinthians 3:16, and compare Acts 2:1-3 with 2 Chr. 7:1-3. And for more on godliness and the difference between true Christianity and religion, see my earlier blogs: http://heisarewarder.blogspot.com/2011/03/sabbath-rest-pt3.html and http://heisarewarder.blogspot.com/2011/07/sabbath-day-lords-day-or-sabbath-rest.html.)
