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Scripture Reading: John 15:19; Acts 2:40; Gal. 1:4; 6:13-15; Phil. 2:12-16
According to the revelation of the Gospels, the Lord Jesus was born not into a Gentile world but into a religious world. His mother Mary was in the Jewish religion, He was raised near the center of that religion, and when He came out to minister, almost everyone He met was a member of that religion. Because of this, while the Lord Jesus was on this earth, He had two categories of disciples. One was those who were in the Jewish religion but followed Him out of the fold, the “camp” (John 10:1; Heb. 13:13), such as Peter, John, James, and many other young ones. The other category was those who believed in Him but remained in that religion, such as Nicodemus, an honest, faithful disciple of Jesus who did not follow Him out of the camp (John 3:1; 7:50-52). The old prophetess Anna was also for the Lord Jesus, but she probably did not follow the Lord to leave the temple (Luke 2:36-37).
Most of those who followed the Lord were young ones. Moreover, the elders in the first local church on the earth, the church in Jerusalem, were all young people. When the Lord Jesus first came out to minister, He was only thirty years old. Although Peter may have been the oldest of the first disciples, he still may have been a few years younger than the Lord. In this case, he would have been in his late twenties. For this reason, we are glad to see many young ones in the local churches. It is easy for young people to believe in the Lord Jesus and follow Him out of the old fold, the old “camp,” but it may be more difficult for the older generation to follow Him out.
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, two older disciples, took care of the Lord’s body and buried Him in a new tomb (John 19:38-41). However, despite what they did for the Lord, they did not openly display their belief in the Lord and were probably not among the one hundred twenty in Acts 1. They were honest believers of the Lord, but they were not in the church in Jerusalem in practicality. Some may argue, “Were they not members of Christ?” Yes, Nicodemus and Joseph may have been members of Christ, but we must not consider the church in a merely doctrinal way. We need to deal with the actual situation. Whether or not they were members of the Body in reality, they were not in the church in practicality. Rather, they were still in the old fold, which was not only forsaken by the Lord but also condemned by Him.
In one sense Peter was clear about the old Jewish religion, because he faithfully followed the Lord Jesus and was the leading apostle and elder to set up the first local church in Jerusalem. However, even he was not as crystal clear as Paul was concerning the Jewish religion. Even after the day of Pentecost, at the time of Acts 10, Peter was still holding on to the old concepts of Judaism, which forced the Lord to repeat His vision to him three times (vv. 9-16). Peter said, “By no means, Lord,” but the Lord was patient with him until he finally saw the vision concerning Cornelius’s household. Later on, Peter was still weak. What is recorded in Galatians 2:11-14 transpired after Acts 10. In Acts 10 he saw a clear vision from heaven that God was through with Judaism, but he was still able to act as he did in Galatians 2, appearing to keep the ordinances of Judaism. Because the apostle Paul could not bear this, he rebuked Peter to his face. However, when Paul went to Jerusalem for the last time in Acts 21, even he was defeated by the influence of Judaism. It is difficult to believe that an apostle like Paul, who condemned Judaism to the uttermost in his Epistles, went into the temple and paid the expenses for four men to keep the Jewish rituals (vv. 23-26). He was convinced and subdued by the Jewish religion. The Lord could not go along with this, so after Paul paid the expenses for their vows, the Lord stirred up the situation with the people, and it was through this that Paul was put into prison. Not long after this, in A.D. 70, the Lord sent the Roman army under Titus to destroy the holy city and the holy temple, leaving no stone upon another (Matt. 24:1-2). The Lord could not tolerate to see His believers still for the things of Judaism, which had been condemned. This demonstrates that religion is a great, subtle entanglement that has been planted deeply into all of us. The element of Christianity has gotten into our blood, and it is difficult to get rid of it.
The Lord Jesus used the word world a number of times in the Gospels. Many Christians hold the understanding that this refers only to the secular world. In fact, world many times refers to the religious world, that of Judaism. The Lord said, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). The Lord chose His disciples out of Judaism, the Jewish religion. When the Lord said that the world hated the disciples and that they were not of the world, this did not mean that the disciples were not of the Gentile world. Rather, it meant that they were not of the Jewish religious world. In Acts 2:40 Peter said, “Be saved from this crooked generation.” That generation was of the Jewish religion. The Jewish religion was the crooked generation from which those Jews needed to be saved on the day of Pentecost. In Galatians 1:4 Paul says that the Lord Jesus Christ “gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us out of the present evil age,” which is the religious world. In 6:13-15 Paul speaks of the world being crucified to him, and he to the world. Many Christians misapply these verses, supposing that world refers to the secular world. According to the context, though, world is a matter of circumcision, which is a religious ritual. The proper meaning of these verses is that on the cross the Jewish religion was crucified to Paul, and Paul was crucified to it. It is so good that today also many are being saved from the religious world, the present evil generation.
God has a purpose, but Satan is subtle, creeping in to utilize and usurp what God has done. God chose two peoples, Israel and the church. God used the Old Testament for the fulfillment of His purpose, but Satan subtly utilized it to form Judaism in order to hold back Israel from God’s purpose. Then in the New Testament time, God used the church to fulfill His purpose, but the subtle one crept in again to utilize and usurp the New Testament, forming a Christian religion to hold back Christians from fulfilling God’s purpose. Now Israel is held back by the Jewish religion, and Christians are held back by the Christian religion. Eventually, no one is left to fulfill God’s purpose.
Much of what is being ministered in Christianity today may be considered either as a drug or as candy. According to a proper diet, neither drugs nor sweets are good. Sweets damage the appetite. A proper wife will care for her husband by restricting his eating of desserts. The husband may not be happy with this, but he should realize that this is good for his health. Eating desserts without proper food damages the appetite and creates bad behavior. The more sweets a child eats, the worse his temper is. Children acquire bad behavior from eating too much candy, but when their mothers stop feeding them candy, the children become well-behaved again. In addition to bad temper, high blood pressure and heart problems are also made worse by eating too many sweets. A country that is too rich in desserts will have a high rate of heart attacks and blood problems. This is an illustration of the situation in Christianity today. Even the fundamental churches minister too many “sweets” to people. They have changed the appetites of the believers until even the real believers care to eat only “candy” and have no appetite for solid food. Anyone who comes to minister solid food offends them, because they have no capacity to digest and assimilate it. They know how to drink only sweet, soothing milk. In our early days we very much appreciated a devotional book entitled Streams in the Desert, which is a compilation of quotations from Charles Spurgeon and others for the purpose of comforting the reader. However, this book may be considered as a “dish of candies,” one for each day of the year. We eventually realized that the sweet and soothing nature of this book damages the appetite, causing the reader to care only for hearing comforting words and not to know how to receive unveiling words.
We may illustrate the shortage related to this kind of book in the following way. A Christian husband and wife with different natural dispositions may discover that they are not very suitable for each other, but because they are Christians, they cannot divorce; instead, they will both suffer. If they read a devotional book, however, they will be comforted. The husband may read a portion that says that although his wife is not submissive, she is still good for him; his situation will be a help to him and will accomplish something for him. Apparently, this is a good word to comfort the husband. However, such a word will also strengthen his disposition. It will not expose his natural makeup or unveil his natural disposition. Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis, however, was a writer of another category. She taught that God’s intention is not merely to give comfort to people but to put them on the cross. However, if the husband in our illustration were to hear these words, he would not be able to receive them, because his appetite has been fully accustomed to hearing only sweet, comforting, soothing words as “candy” to be eaten day by day, year after year. Who can fulfill God’s purpose today? Many of the messages in Christianity contain either the drugs of heresy or sweet candy.
The Lord now needs some to rise up to speak unveiling words. This is what the Lord Jesus spoke. He was born into the Jewish religion, but when He came out to minister, He offended many people. He did not drug anyone nor did He sweeten them. Rather, He came to people with God’s purpose, telling them not only of God’s salvation but also of God’s way to fulfill His purpose. This offended all the Pharisees. Eventually, the ones who persecuted Him were not the Gentiles but the Jewish religionists. The persecutors of Jesus were pious religionists, who sentenced Him to death according to their religious law. Therefore, the world that hated the Lord Jesus was not the Gentile world, the secular world, but the Jewish, religious world. It was the same with the apostles. It was the high priest of the Jewish religion and those with him who put Peter into prison (Acts 5:17-18), and it was the religious Jews scattered in the Gentile world who persecuted Paul. Wherever Paul went to preach, the Judaizers followed him to stir up opposition (13:44-45; 17:5). The principle today is the same. As I have been in this line of ministry for over forty years, I have not been persecuted mainly by unbelievers. Almost all my persecutors from the first day up until today have been Christians. Likewise, the persecution against the local churches in the United States does not have its source in the Gentile world. In every locality the persecution comes from the source of Christianity.
This shows that not only is it impossible to fulfill God’s eternal purpose in religion, but religion is the top frustration to God’s purpose, whether it is the Jewish religion or Christianity. Religion may help people a little, but this religious help always turns into a frustration. Religion is a system that teaches people to worship God and behave in a good way in order to please God, apart from Christ. While teaching people to worship God and to behave in order to please God, religion keeps people away from the real experience of Christ. God’s intention is to work Christ into all of us so that we may be the partners of Christ to fulfill God’s eternal purpose. Only those who partake of Christ can be His partners, His companions, to fulfill God’s eternal purpose (Heb. 1:9; 3:14). However, Satan is subtle, using the typical, scriptural religion to keep people away from experiencing Christ. This is why the Lord Jesus tells us in Revelation 2 and 3 that we do not need the teachings, doctrines, regulations, rituals, and rites of degraded religion. We need only to taste, eat, partake of, and enjoy the Lord Jesus as the tree of life and the hidden manna (2:7, 17). To eat is to take something outside of us into our being. Day by day we need to take the Lord Jesus into our being. The significance of the Lord’s table is that in our remembrance of the Lord we declare that we live and have our daily life by eating and drinking Jesus, who is our life and life supply. Day by day we live by Him, so on the first day of the week we come together to testify to the whole universe that eating and drinking Jesus is our way of living.
First we must come out of religion, and then we must get religion out of us. We need to jump out of the snare of every religion: the Jewish religion, the Catholic religion, and the Protestant religion. Then we must expel all the religious elements out of us. To some degree, we all hold on to some religious element. If a brother comes out of the Jewish religion, the element of the Jewish religion may remain unconsciously, subconsciously, and deeply within him. This will cause trouble for his fellowship in the Body. Likewise, some dear brothers who have come from certain Christian backgrounds still retain that element within them. This also bothers them and frustrates the proper fellowship. Someone may love the Lord and come out of religion to be a good brother in the church life, but a certain amount of the religious element may still be planted deeply into his organic tissues. In such a case, the religious element will always rise up at a certain point. No doubt, we have come out of religion, but has the religious element been radically, fully, and thoroughly eradicated from our being? If it has, then we will never be troubled in our fellowship in the Body.
We must learn not to hold on to anything religious. We must drop every bit of religion and enjoy Christ. In all things we need to enjoy Him and eat Him as our food. He said, “I am the bread of life,” and “he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (John 6:35, 57). Every day we need to eat Him as the bread of life, the tree of life, and the hidden manna. This should not be a mere doctrine to us; it must be practical. We need to forget about the teaching of Balaam, the teaching of Jezebel (Rev. 2:14, 20), idol worship, and all the worthless things of religion and eat the tree of life, eat the hidden manna, and even feast with the Lord Jesus day by day (vv. 7, 17; 3:20). This will help us to build up our salvation. Philippians 2:12 says, “Work out your own salvation.” This is not the salvation that saves us from eternal perdition. It is the salvation that saves us from the crooked and perverted generation. We need to work out this salvation.
We need not be bothered by this word, because verse 13 tells us that God is now operating in us both the willing within and the working without for His good pleasure. Because God’s operation motivates us within, we simply cooperate with Him to work out the salvation that saves us from the present generation. To have the proper church life is not only to stand on the ground of oneness but also to build the ark, like Noah’s family did, to save ourselves from the present evil generation and bring us into a new age. We need this kind of salvation, one built not by God directly but by our daily cooperation with His inward operation. This is the revelation of God today.
We should not argue and say, “Can I not stay in the Catholic Church? Are not the Presbyterian and Baptist Churches also the church?” These are not proper questions. The proper consideration is what the Lord’s way is to fulfill His purpose, terminate the present age, and usher in His kingdom. We have offended certain ones by saying that there is no possibility for the Lord to build His church in the Catholic Church, the denominations, the free groups, and the charismatic movement. However, we have no intention either to offend anyone or to please anyone. Our intention is only to please God. We need to tell people the truth. The revelation from God today is that we all need to work out the salvation that will save us from the crooked generation, terminate today’s age, and bring in the kingdom age so that God’s eternal purpose will be fulfilled. This is not a matter of our welfare—our peace, joy, or going to heaven. It is altogether a matter of satisfying God by fulfilling His eternal purpose. Dear ones, this is the age for us to walk with God (Gen. 5:22; 6:9). By walking with God, we build the ark that will save us and others to fulfill God’s purpose by terminating the old age and ushering in the new age. This is God’s revelation today, which we need to see. For this purpose, we do not need rituals or regulations. What we need every day is the Lord Jesus as our food, the tree of life, and the heavenly manna to sustain us, support us, encourage us, and strengthen us so that we can take this higher way. Day by day we must walk on this way for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
