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Scripture Reading: Gal. 1:4, 13-16a; 2:3, 19-20; 3:1-3, 5, 14, 27; 4:6, 19, 29; 5:3-6, 16, 25; 6:1, 8, 13-15, 18
In the book of Galatians there are several crucial phrases. The first is in 1:4, which says, “Who gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us out of the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father.” The apostle Paul uses two modifiers, present and evil, for the word age. According to the traditional religious concept, Christ gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us out of hell and bring us into heaven. However, the actual issue of Christ giving Himself for our sins is not merely to deliver us out of hell and bring us into heaven but to deliver us from this present evil age. We may suppose that the word age in the Bible refers to the secular age, or world. However, in the New Testament there are two kinds of ages: the secular age and the religious age. The book of Galatians deals not with the secular age but with the religious age.
God created the heavens, the earth, and man for the fulfillment of His purpose, and He ordained many things for man’s existence, such as food, protection, and a place to live. However, when Satan came in to cause man to fall, he corrupted all the things created by God for man’s existence, and he formed the world to ensnare man and distract man from God’s eternal purpose (Gen. 4:16-24). This is the secular world that we see before us today, in which people are ensnared by the things in the world and kept away from God’s purpose. After the fall God came in to bring man back to Himself. To this end, God gave man the Scriptures to tell man how to come to Him, how to be one with Him, and how to take Him as his life and living so that man may fulfill God’s purpose. However, after man was brought back to God through the holy writings, Satan came in again to cause man to use his fallen mentality to form different kinds of religions based on these writings. In this way the second kind of world — the religious world — came into existence.
Satan’s goal is to keep man away from the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose. Originally, it was the first kind of world, the secular world, that kept man away from God’s purpose, but after God brought man back to Himself, Satan formed the second kind of world, the religious world, to once again keep man away from God. It may seem that the secular world keeps man away from God and that the religious world helps man to come back to Him. In actuality, however, both aspects of the world, the secular and the religious, keep man away from God. The age mentioned in Galatians refers not to the ordinary, secular world but to the particular, religious world. When we speak about the secular world, many people understand what we mean, but when we speak about the religious world, people may question our meaning. They may say, “Do you mean that religion is a world? Religion helps people to worship God, please God, and serve God. How can such a thing be a world?” The book of Galatians, however, reveals that religion is indeed a world. In particular, the term the present evil age in Galatians 1:4 refers to the present evil age of religion.
Galatians 6:14 says, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” The world in this verse is not mainly the secular world but the religious world. This is proved by the following verse. Verse 15 begins with the word for, indicating that what follows is an explanation of what has just been mentioned. Paul said that the world had been crucified to him, “for neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision.” By this we can see that the world mentioned in verse 14 refers mainly to the religious world. To be sure, a world consisting of circumcision is not the world of restaurants and theaters. Circumcision is in the religious world, a realm of religious regulations and rituals.
There is a difference between an age and the world. The world is the entire satanic system, but an age is only one section of the world (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 2:2). The world is composed of many ages. Paul spoke of the evil age of the first century. If he were living today, he would speak of the evil age of the present century. Paul was in his present age, and we are now in our present age. The present evil age in Paul’s time included Judaism, the religion of the Jews, with its circumcision and the law. This was the prevailing religion of that time, a religion that charged and compelled people both to be circumcised and to keep the law continually for their whole life.
The longer that human history has continued, the more religions it has brought forth. At Paul’s time there was only one main religion, Judaism. In the past nineteen centuries, however, many more religions have been formed. Besides Judaism there is Christianity, including Catholicism, and there is Islam. Moreover, even within today’s Christianity there are many religions, such as those centered around baptism by immersion, the observance of the seventh day, speaking in tongues, and other matters. There are formal religions, fundamental religions, Pentecostal religions, and charismatic religions. All these were formed to one degree or another based on the same Bible. Even the counterfeit religion of Islam was adapted from parts of the Bible. Thus, all the main religions on earth today are related to the Bible. God gave us the Bible, but the enemy of God utilized man’s mentality to form many religions based on the Bible. Apparently, all these religions teach people to worship God, please God, serve God, and do many things for God, but in actuality they keep people away from the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Therefore, all religions have become evil in the eyes of God. This is the reason that Paul speaks of the present evil age of religion.
The first chapter of Galatians mentions the age, and the last chapter speaks of the world. As we have seen, the age is simply a part of the world. Between these two chapters of Galatians there are several other crucial terms. In 1:13 and 14 Paul speaks of Judaism, that is, the Jewish religion, and also of traditions. In these two verses he says, “You have heard of my manner of life formerly in Judaism, that I persecuted the church of God excessively and ravaged it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my race, being more abundantly a zealot for the traditions of my fathers.” Today we still have religion and traditions. Recently, a number of brothers visited Rome, the center of Catholicism; Geneva, a strong center of Protestantism; Greece, the center of Greek Orthodoxy; and Israel, the center of Judaism. After visiting all these religious centers, we were impressed with the religion, tradition, superstition, and falsehood that we saw there. We saw no light, truth, or life in those places. In Rome, for example, in the Basilica of Saint Peter the foot of the statue of Peter has been eroded because it has been kissed by people for centuries. This is the result of a great superstition. According to tradition, the tomb of Peter lies beneath the Basilica. There are also tombs of a number of popes, before which people come to kneel and pray. In one room there is a large painting of the Trinity, depicting the Father as an old man with a beard, the Son as a young man standing by Him, and the Spirit as a dove overhead. In between the Father and the Son stands Mary, who is called “the mother of God.” According to this tradition, it seems that there are no longer three in the Trinity but four, since Mary is worshipped along with the Father and the Son.
After visiting these major centers of the various religions, we received the deep impression that the world today is fully, thoroughly, and heavily covered with the darkness of religion. The darkness of religion overshadows the entire earth. People have been drugged with religion and are fully under its influence. Therefore, the Lord has no way to fulfill His eternal purpose in religion, including Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Most people have no sense of how dark and evil religion is. If a room is filled with the odor of garlic for a long time, everyone in the room will lose his consciousness of the odor, but if someone comes into the room from the fresh air, he will not be able to tolerate it. When we were in Rome and the other centers of religion, we could not tolerate the things there. We had the deep sensation that the atmosphere in some of these places was full of demons, and we could not remain there for very long. Today some of the denominations, the “daughters” of the great harlot (Rev. 17:5), are making advances to come together with Roman Catholicism in an ecumenical movement, and Catholicism is making certain concessions in order to receive the denominations. The Catholic Church has received even the charismatic movement and infiltrated it with the worship of Mary and the mass. This is an example of the situation in religion today.
When we were in Rome, we sat very close to the pope and listened to him speak. Apparently, he gave a very spiritual message. He told the audience that although our languages are different, we are all one in the Spirit and are members of the mystical Body of Christ. He also said that we must have a personal connection with Christ as the resurrected One and must care for the new man in our daily walk. When I was in the denominations and even under the Brethren teachers, I never heard a message using such proper spiritual terms as these. Nevertheless, while the pope was giving such a spiritual message, he was surrounded by many idols, including images of serpents, and he sat under a great canopy made of bronze taken from the Roman Pantheon. His spiritual message amidst all those things related to idol worship was truly three measures of meal in which much leaven was hidden (Matt. 13:33). Only because we had been rescued from such a situation were we able to appreciate the spiritual terms that were spoken.
Judaism has also turned many things into traditions and superstitions. The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is a part of the wall belonging to the original structure of the temple that remained after the destruction of Jerusalem. Because of this, the Jews now consider it to be a sacred site, and they come there to pray, weep, and even to kiss the wall. This also is a superstitious practice. Wherever we went, we found superstitions and traditions like these. Over a cathedral in Corinth we observed a sign listing all the bishops of the church in Corinth in an unbroken succession, beginning from Paul, continuing through Apollos, and concluding with the present day. This too is a mere tradition. In the United States also we can see religion, tradition, and superstition. Many people in the Roman Catholic Church pray before the images of the “saints” so that the sufferings of their loved ones in purgatory may be reduced. This is a great superstition. The celebration of Christmas and Easter also belongs to religion, tradition, superstition, and falsehood. At the time of Paul there was mainly one religion, but in our time there are many religions. If the time of Paul was an evil age, how much more evil is ours!
Between his mentioning of the present evil age (Gal. 1:4) and the world (6:14) Paul speaks of the Jewish religion and tradition (1:13-14). He also speaks about circumcision and the law (2:3; 3:10-13; 5:3-6; 6:13). To the Jews, circumcision and law are both good terms. The Jews were required to be circumcised and to always keep the law. However, these were components of the present evil age at the time of Paul. Circumcision and the law were evil because these two religious items kept people away from Christ and the Spirit. God’s eternal purpose can be fulfilled only in Christ and through the Spirit. Therefore, in Galatians besides the line of religion, including Judaism, tradition, circumcision, the law, and the world, there is also the line of Christ and the Spirit (3:1-3, 14; 4:19). This shows that anything related to worshipping, pleasing, or serving God apart from Christ and the Spirit is religion, which is evil in the eyes of God. Paul was in the Jewish religion, he advanced in it beyond many of his contemporaries, and he was abundantly zealous for the traditions of his fathers. However, it pleased God one day to reveal His Son, Christ, in him (1:15-16a). This is not a matter of being religious or of keeping the traditions; it is a matter of Christ in us. In 2:19-20 Paul says, “I through law have died to law that I might live to God. I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”
If we still try to keep the law, we will be kept from Christ and will go back into religion. Although almost no one would consider that to keep the law is evil in the eyes of God, Paul was bold to say that in his experience it was evil, because keeping the law separates people from Christ (5:1-4). We should not try any longer to keep the law. What God wants today is simply that we would live by Christ. We need Christ to be not only our Redeemer but also our life and our person. He must live in us, and we must live by Him. Moreover, Christ must be formed in us (4:19), and we must put Him on by being baptized into Him (3:27). Christ is not only our life; He is also our covering and the realm, the sphere, in which we live and walk. This also is altogether not a matter of religion. It is a matter of Christ being everything to us. He is our Redeemer, life, person, clothing, realm, and atmosphere. We live by Him, we live in Him, and we walk in Him. He is everything to us.
Paul also tells us that the Spirit is the reality of Christ in our experience (vv. 1-3, 13-14). We have received the Spirit, God bountifully supplies to us the Spirit, and God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts (v. 5; 4:6). Since we have the Spirit, we must walk by the Spirit, live by the Spirit, sow unto the Spirit, and reap eternal life of the Spirit (5:16, 25; 6:8). We need to do everything in the Spirit, who is Christ experienced by us. In order to experience Christ, who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), we need to exercise our spirit. Galatians 6:1 says, “Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some offense, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness,” and the final verse of Galatians says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit” (v. 18). We need to exercise our spirit to touch Christ and experience Him as grace in our spirit. This is God’s economy, which is versus religion. At Paul’s time there was mainly one religion, but today there are many religions that teach people to worship God, to serve God, and to try to please God apart from the experience of the living Christ. If the age at Paul’s time was evil, the age today is much more evil. If Paul unveiled to the saints that they should not be under the influence of that religious age, how much more do we need to be delivered from the influence of religion in our own age.
As we observed the things in the religious centers that we visited, we were deeply impressed with the traditional, superstitious, false, and dirty things that we saw. The Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem near Jerusalem, but He was raised in Galilee, where He continued to live. Even when He came into His ministry, He did not stay in Jerusalem for long; He went there mainly for the annual feasts. We do not find in the Gospels that He chose to stay in Jerusalem even for one night. The last time the Lord went to Jerusalem for six days, He stayed in Bethany, going into Jerusalem only during the day (Matt. 21:1, 10-11, 17). Most of His life and work were in Galilee, and all the disciples whom He called, except for Judas, were from Galilee, not from Judea (cf. 10:4). When the Lord ascended, the angels called the disciples “men of Galilee,” and on the day of Pentecost the people said, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” (Acts 1:11; 2:7). When I was young, I was taught that the Lord Jesus was raised in Nazareth and lived in Galilee simply in order to suffer and be despised. When we were in Israel, however, we realized that the Lord needed to be in Galilee because the atmosphere in Jerusalem was too religious. The Lord could not do much there.
The Lord Jesus came not to the secular world but to the religious world, but He did not care for that religion, the holy city, the holy temple, or the worship in the temple. Rather, He began something new. There were certain spiritual persons in Jerusalem, such as Simeon, Anna, and Nicodemus (Luke 2:25, 36; John 3:1), but the Lord purposely did not go there to call His disciples, because that region had been altogether spoiled by religion (cf. 2:23-24). The situation there was incurable, hopeless, and helpless. Instead, the Lord Jesus gave up that region and went to Galilee of the Gentiles, where there was little influence of religion. There He called young Galilean fishermen, such as Peter and John. He did this in order to have a new beginning for God’s New Testament economy. God’s New Testament economy could not be carried out by the people in Jerusalem, who had been fully drugged by religion.
If we read the New Testament carefully, we can see that the twelve apostles were young people. When James and John were called, for example, they were working with their father, indicating that they were not very old, perhaps in their younger twenties (Matt. 4:21-22). Three and a half years later, when they were the elders of the first church, the church in Jerusalem, they were probably only in their late twenties. There was a change at that time that caused the older ones, the priests and scribes, to be out of date, because their religion could not fulfill God’s purpose. Those who were drugged with religion became useless for the Lord’s purpose, and because of this the Lord left them behind and went to a new region to call young fishermen and have a new beginning. One day the Lord brought these disciples far away from the holy city and the holy temple to Caesarea Philippi in the northern part of the Holy Land, close to the border. It was there in the clear atmosphere that He gave them the vision of Christ and the church (16:13-18), and it was there on Mount Hermon that He was transfigured (17:1-2).
The religious age today is no better than the age at the Lord’s time. If the religion at His time was hopeless, religion today is even more hopeless, and the Lord cannot have His way in it. Therefore, the Lord desires a new beginning in “Galilee.” Today’s Galilee is the United States, and the “Sea of Galilee” is the college campuses. Today the Lord is traveling around the “Sea of Galilee” to call young “Galilean fishermen.” After the Lord called the young disciples in Galilee, He trained them there. He did not carry out much training in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus with certain kinds of arguments (John 3:1, 4), and when the Lord healed the impotent man in Jerusalem, this stirred up an evil debate (5:1-10, 16). Later the Lord also forgave the sinful woman and cured the blind man in Jerusalem (8:10-11; 9:1, 6-7). However, most of the training that the Lord exercised over the disciples was carried out in Galilee. Then after three and a half years of training, the Lord told the disciples to remain in Jerusalem and wait there (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). They were trained in Galilee but sent to Jerusalem. Today the Lord is coming to visit many campuses around the “Sea of Galilee” to call many “fishermen” to follow Him and be trained by Him. Then after a certain amount of time, He will send them to Europe and to Israel. In this way the Lord will gain both “Galilee” and “Jerusalem,” that is, the United States, Europe, and Israel. However, for this purpose we must be young; we must not grow old. If we become old, we are finished with the Lord’s move.
We need to bring these matters to the Lord and ask Him to show us the real situation today. This is truly an evil age, and we must all be delivered from it. The religious world is crucified to us, and we are crucified to the world. Now we are the young Galilean followers of Jesus, who are under His training in order to bring His testimony to “Jerusalem,” that is, to Europe and to Israel.
