THE END OF EDEN: THE BEGINNING OF ALL RELIGION. Josimar Salum

THE END OF EDEN: THE BEGNNING OF ALL RELIGION

Josimar Salum

 Man and woman lived in the garden in the most perfect expression of humanity, in complete freedom, in deep communion with God, without rituals, without prayers and without religious obligations of any kind.

 In the Garden of Eden God and man had relationship day and night.

 And, as they had full fellowship with the Creator, they never felt the need to do anything that would draw Him close to them.  God was present, close by, without hindering their freedom.  Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom.

 Although the Scriptures do not say it for certain Adam - man and woman did not pray.  They did not say prayers or pray, they just talked with God as naturally as they talked to each other.

 God was with them all day and not just in the evening.  Praying is not a spiritual activity, praying is talking to God.

 The Kingdom of God in Its Fullness was over the whole Earth and His Will was done in the Garden as it was done in Heaven.

 The man and the woman worked cultivating the garden;  all they did was worship.  Therefore, the end of Eden was the end of worship and the beginning of all religion.

 Jesus and the disciples were born and raised in a religious environment, also rich in traditions, stories and powerful experiences of God's action in the past.  However, neither Jesus nor, after they started following Jesus, neither the disciples followed a religion, that is, they were not part of any.

 Jesus did not practice Judaism.  It is also true that Jesus did not found Christianity.  He did not found any religion.

 The good news that Jesus preached produced the despair of the religious and the joy of the multitudes.  Good news was news of joy, celebration, good surprises all the time.

 Jesus proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom for all areas of existence.  Jesus was the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant, the Shekinah wandering among men.  God was not long over cherubim in the holy of holies of the temple of men.

 The Kingdom was the good news.  The Kingdom contrasted with their parents' religion which was only part of that existence.  

All the people lived under the tyranny of the Roman Empire which spread widespread oppression in addition to religious oppression.  The Kingdom was everything.

 Every religion is based entirely on the experience and record of other people's past.  To follow Jesus is to leave the religion of the ancestors to live with Him in the present.

 Following Jesus cannot be a religion because religion conditions the individual's lifestyle.  The lifestyle is set to suit religion.

 Following Jesus is the way of life itself.  It is the walk on the Path in the wilderness.  New thing.  New thing.  What is done here is done anywhere and the temple is just any place no more sacred than any room in our house.

 When Jesus was baptized by John, he resigned and broke away from the religion of His parents.

 When the disciples heard and responded to Jesus' “Come and follow Me”, they naturally left their religious life behind, and it could not be otherwise, to become only followers of Jesus.

 Jesus participated in all the religious festivals of the Jews, but he did not stick to what they represented or meant.  They were shadows of what was to come.  And Jesus was there, he had already come.  He was the final revelation of each of these shadows.

 The "Passover", and it should be the last, which he ate with the disciples before he died on the Cross, was not celebrated as a ritual or as a memorial of the liberation and departure of His people from Egypt simply, but there he inaugurated the New Covenant with His disciples.

 Passover was an Old Covenant festival;  every year Passover was celebrated and a lamb was killed to be eaten whole.  The Paschal Lamb was Jesus.  And He was there.

 The New Covenant has only one Lamb, killed once and forever, who is resurrected.  The Lamb is alive.

 This is so different from the Old Covenant, which required a dead lamb every year.  Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  It takes away the sin of the world because, having been killed, He now lives.

 #ASONE