We’ve all heard the expression, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, and it’s usually used to warn against giving or taking too much power over others. It’s a political truth. Yet this phrase says just as much about the nature of man as it does about the nature of power. For instance, it reveals that man is imminently corruptible – a truth the Bible teaches clearly throughout each book – meaning it is a religious truth as well. Man is a political creature who uses religion in a vain attempt to keep from corruption. Politics, however, isn’t evil and religion isn’t holy.

That means our whole paradigm of living is wrong.

Before the fall of man, before the corruption of a third of heaven, there was politics. Elohim ruled supreme in a way that only an incorruptible being could, justly and mercifully. How is it that so many of the angels saw God’s character as weakness and as presenting an opportunity? Politics. Even under perfect authority some seem to think they could do better, or perhaps they simply want the power for themselves. One doesn’t have to have power for it to corrupt, the desire for power can be just as corrosive.

What little we know about the fall of man is frustrating. Man was created with an inclination toward righteousness, and yet he was either conned by the serpent or corrupted by its offer, either way the ones who had been given authority to rule over the earth and all the creatures on it (inadvertently or purposefully) joined the rebellion. Humanity appeared lost. Yet even in the days after, while we read of the growth of humanity across the planet learning to make music and instruments and sculpture and metal-working there is little mention of religion, only politics.

It isn’t until after the death of the first family that we see mankind recognizing evil for what it is. Some embraced it (like Lamech who prided himself on being a serial killer in Genesis 4.23) and some tried to invent ways to make themselves better by worshipping anything other than the one in who’s image they had been created. Demon worship was common, idols of wood and stone and metal were forged in the image of the fallen as representatives of whatever the person wanted to be true, which was usually something along the lines of what was first offered to Adam and Eve – to be like God.

The Bible itself has little good to say about religion.

If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile. Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Worship, on the other hand, is threaded throughout Scripture and is distinct from religion. A relationship with God is not dependent upon ritual, oaths, incantations or special prayers or services. Relationship is dependent upon trust, love and forgiveness. When we stop thinking of God as the object of religion and as a person who values relationship as much (okay, more than) we do, the way in which we see the world and live our lives shifts. The closer we grow toward God in relationship, the more we long for the kind of political leadership he provided in the beginning, and the more we desire his rule. It is this frame of mind that penned the words:

The commands to fear the Lord are right and endure forever. The judgments given by the Lord are trustworthy and absolutely just. They are of greater value than gold, than even a great amount of pure gold; they bring greater delight than honey, than even the sweetest honey from a honeycomb.