The Kinds of Religion
Text: James 1:19-27
Series: Restoration Sermons
Date:
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Expository
Learning Objectives
By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:
- Define "religion" from its Latin derivation and explain why no religion existed in the garden of Eden.
- Explain why the Jew's religion is now void — what ended it and what its positive function was while it lasted.
- Define vain religion from James 1:26 and Matt. 15:7-9 and identify its two sources.
- Define pure religion from James 1:27 and explain its positive-and-negative structure using at least two Scripture pairs.
- Explain the difference between being "religious" and being a Christian, as drawn in this sermon.
Thesis
James 1:27 gives the only definition of religion that God accepts: "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." Between this and the religion that God accepts are two failed alternatives — the religion of the Jews, which was valid in its time and is now void, and vain religion, which God has never accepted. The hearer must know which kind they have.
Burden
Benjamin Kidd observed: "A visitor from another world would find this word frequently used but not understood." The burden is exactly this: to examine the word carefully enough that the hearer can distinguish between three things that all travel under the same name but are fundamentally different in standing before God.
Introduction
"But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves" (James 1:22). The letter of James is the New Testament's most practical epistle — it does not traffic in theological abstractions; it presses toward action. The word "religion" (thrēskeia) appears in this letter twice: once to describe empty religion (James 1:26) and once to describe pure religion (James 1:27). The gap between the two is the gap between the religion God has never accepted and the only religion he does.
The word is common and poorly understood. Lyman Abbott said: "Religion is life." Herbert Spencer said: "It is belief in the unknowable." Robespierre: "It is the worship of humanity." Tom Paine: "Religion is doing good." None of these definitions, however well-intentioned, is the biblical one. The word must be examined carefully before it can be used accurately.
What is "religion"? The Latin derivation: re — again, a second time; ligo — to bind back. Religion is the re-binding of what was severed. There was no religion in the garden of Eden before the fall, because there was no severance — man and God walked together in unbroken fellowship. Religion presupposes the break that it exists to address. Any system of faith and worship is a system of re-binding — the question is whether the system actually binds, and whether it binds to the right thing.
I. What Is Religion?
Before examining the three kinds, the word must be located in the Bible.
Not found in the Old Testament. The idea is present throughout — Israel's entire covenant life is the practice of religion in the sense of ordered faith and worship — but the specific word is absent. The concept precedes the term.
The adjective form "religious" appears twice in the New Testament (Acts 17:22; James 1:26). At Athens, Paul describes the Athenians as "very religious" (deisidaimonesterous) — religious in the sense of fearful of the divine, observant of ritual, attentive to worship. The observation is not a compliment; it is the opening move of a correction. In James 1:26, the person who considers themselves "religious" but does not bridle their tongue has deceived their own heart, and their "religion" is worthless.
The noun form (thrēskeia) appears six times. The distribution is significant: it appears in the context of wrong religion (Colossians 2:18), of Jewish practice (Acts 26:5), and of pure practice (James 1:27). The word is neutral; the content is everything.
Difference between being "religious" and being a "Christian." The Athenians were religious; Paul was a Christian. The difference is not in the degree of devotion but in the object, the means, and the authority. A person can be deeply, sincerely, even self-sacrificially religious and still not be a Christian — because they are practicing the wrong religion, or a vain religion, or a system that has been rendered void.
People do not "get" religion. Religion is not a possession acquired or a feeling received. It is a system of faith and practice that is either the right one or not. The language of "getting religion" — common in American revivalism — reduces religion to an emotional event rather than an ordered response to God's revealed will.
II. The Bible Use of the Word
The six New Testament appearances establish the field: religion can describe Jewish practice, self-deceived practice, speculative asceticism, or pure practice. The word carries no inherent commendation. The religion that matters is the one that meets God's definition in James 1:27.
III. The Three Kinds of Religion
1. The Jew's Religion
The religion of the Jews was not false — it was valid, God-ordained, and effective for its purpose as long as it operated.
Festus, a Roman, calls it "their own religion" (Acts 25:19) — a foreign observer's description. Paul called it "our religion" (Acts 26:5) — the insider's description. And again he calls it "the Jews' religion" (Gal. 1:13, 14) — his former practice, described in retrospect.
God blessed the worshippers of this religion as long as they were faithful to the law of Moses. The covenant at Sinai was real; the worship it prescribed was accepted; the blessings it promised were given. The Jews' religion was not a mistake — it was the divinely authorized system for a specific people in a specific period of redemptive history.
But Christ took the law out of the way (Col. 2:14): "having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." The Jews' religion is now out of date — void. Not false in retrospect; not to be despised; but no longer operative. The person who practices it today is practicing a system that God has superseded.
2. Vain Religion (James 1:26-27)
God has never accepted this kind. The word "vain" (mataios) means empty, fruitless, without result — the religion that goes through the forms but produces nothing that God accepts.
"A vain worship comes from a vain religion." The connection is direct: the outward form of worship reflects the inward character of the religious system. The person whose religion is vain does not simply offer imperfect worship — they offer worship that, by its nature, cannot be received.
What is "vain worship"? Jesus defines it from Isaiah: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" (Matt. 15:7-9). Two sources of vain worship: (a) any worship in which the heart is not in it — the externals present, the heart absent; and (b) all the doctrines and precepts of men — worship that is organized around human innovation rather than divine authority.
The person who worships without heart has offered the form and withheld the substance. The person who worships according to human tradition has offered something God did not ask for, which is the same as offering nothing he asked for. Both are vain.
3. Religion That Is Pure (James 1:27)
"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world" (James 1:27).
This is synonymous with Christianity. The definition James gives is not a complete theology of salvation — it is the practical expression of the religion that is pure: doing good (positive) and remaining holy (negative).
Its two elements — positive and negative — run throughout the Scripture's description of the religious life:
Isaiah 1:16-17 — "Cease to do evil" (negative); "learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow" (positive). Amos 5:14 — "Seek good and not evil, that you may live."
Romans 12:19-20 — positive: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him"; negative: "Never take your own revenge."
Colossians 3:9-10 — negative: "Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self"; positive: "put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him."
Matthew 16:24 — negative: "deny himself"; positive: "take up his cross and follow Me."
The consistent structure — something to leave behind, something to take up — is the shape of pure religion. It is not merely the avoidance of evil; it is the active pursuit of good. It is not merely the pursuit of good; it is the ongoing discipline of keeping oneself unstained by the world.
Application
The three categories are mutually exclusive. The hearer either practices pure religion — Christianity, the faith of the New Testament, lived out in active service to the vulnerable and personal holiness — or they practice one of the failed alternatives.
The Jews' religion was valid once; it is void now. The person who practices it today (or who practices a hybrid of Jewish covenant categories and New Testament categories) is practicing something that God has ended.
Vain religion is the most common failure, because it looks like religion. It has the forms — the attendance, the language, the doctrines that come from human tradition — but it lacks the heart and the authority. The person inside vain religion often does not know they are there, because vain religion is self-confirming.
Pure religion is identifiable: it produces action (visiting orphans and widows) and it produces holiness (kept unstained by the world). These are not spectacular achievements — they are the ordinary evidence that the religion is real.
Conclusion
"Let us be doers and not hearers only." James's conclusion in verse 22 is where the sermon ends as well. The examination of the three kinds of religion ends at the same place James ends: in doing. Pure religion is not distinguished from vain religion primarily by what it believes but by what it does. The hearer who has understood the distinction has begun the examination that the letter of James requires.
Invitation
"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8). The re-binding that the word "religion" describes is available: the God who was separated from man by sin has opened the way through Christ. The way in is through the new birth — believing, repenting, confessing, being baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38) — entering the only religion that God, looking at it, calls "pure and undefiled."
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Religion | thrēskeia | The outward practice of religious observance — rituals, worship, acts of piety. | Used twice in James 1: once for empty religion (v. 26) and once for pure religion (v. 27). | The word emphasizes the external form of religion. James uses it deliberately to say that even the external form, when it has the right content, can be called "pure and undefiled." The word is neutral; the content is everything. | James 1:26-27; Acts 26:5 |
| Vain | mataios | Empty, fruitless, without result. | Used in James 1:26 for the religion of the person who does not bridle their tongue. | The same word appears in I Cor. 15:17 ("your faith is worthless") and I Pet. 1:18 ("futile way of life"). The religion is vain not because it tries and fails but because it has chosen the wrong content and therefore produces nothing God accepts. | James 1:26; I Cor. 15:17; I Pet. 1:18 |
| Pure and undefiled | katharos kai amiantos | Clean and unstained — katharos indicates freedom from contamination; amiantos indicates contamination has not been applied. | Used in James 1:27 to describe the only religion God accepts. | The pairing is emphatic: clean from the inside and unstained from the outside. Together they describe a religion that is neither inwardly corrupted nor outwardly stained. This is the standard against which every religious practice must be measured. | James 1:27 |
| Unstained | aspilon | Without spot. | Used in James 1:27 for keeping oneself unstained by the world — one of the two defining elements of pure religion. | The same word appears in I Pet. 1:19 for Christ as "a lamb unblemished and spotless." The standard applied to the worshipper is the same standard applied to the sacrificial animal. Holiness is not an addition to pure religion — it is one of its two constitutive elements. | James 1:27; I Pet. 1:19 |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| "Pure and undefiled religion" — definition | Text | James 1:27 |
| "Very religious" — religion without Christianity | I | Acts 17:22 |
| "Religious" with unbridled tongue — vain | I | James 1:26 |
| "The Jews' religion" — Paul's former life | III.1c | Gal. 1:13-14 |
| Christ canceled the law — Jews' religion made void | III.1e | Col. 2:14 |
| "In vain do they worship Me" — vain religion defined | III.2c | Matt. 15:7-9 |
| "Cease to do evil; learn to do good" — positive/negative | III.3c | Isa. 1:16-17 |
| "Put off old self; put on new self" — positive/negative | III.3e | Col. 3:9-10 |
| "Deny self; follow Me" — positive/negative | III.3f | Matt. 16:24 |
| Baptism for remission — entry into pure religion | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
---
Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 135. Primary text: James 1:19-27 (stated by Boles). OCR corrections: "Layman Abbott" → "Lyman Abbott"; "Gal. 13, 14" → "Gal. 1:13, 14"; "lll." → "III." Doctrinal audit: the Jews' religion affirmed as divinely valid in its era and voided by Col. 2:14 — no supersessionism that impugns the original covenant; vain religion defined by both conditions (heartless worship and human doctrine) from Matt. 15:7-9; pure religion developed as the positive-and-negative structure that runs throughout the NT; the distinction between "religious" and "Christian" drawn without condemning sincerity — the failure is in the content, not the devotion; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
