We know with certainty that up to Acts 21:20, or some twenty-seven years after Pentecost, the many myriads (or ten-thousands) who believed were all zealous for the law. Among these James, who was a pillar at Jerusalem (along with Peter and John – Gal 2:9—NC), and even Paul too who “had come with offerings and alms to his nation” (Acts 24:17—NC), who were not behind in deference to the Mosaic routine.
It was at James’ instigation that Paul agreed to prove his subjection to Moses, and that he had not, as had been calumniously reported, persuaded the Jews who dwelt among the Gentiles to forsake Moses and the customs, and the circumcision of their children. Hence Paul went, with the others who had a vow, into the temple, and had he not been hindered (Act 21:33), would have offered the offering which was ordained for the Nazarite. Clearly he had not learned the truths he was taught some years later after his arrest and first imprisonment (Act 21:17—26).
But can it be that these many thousands of believing Jews who were zealous for the law were guilty, when offering a lamb, of the terrible crime equivalent to “cutting off a dog’s neck”? Or would any one of them in offering an oblation be as if he offered swine’s blood (Isa 66:3)? No. This solely refers to the future day when the man of sin, Antichrist, sits there, and the temple is the scene of apostasy and defiance of Jehovah, and the sacrifices utterly abominable in His eyes. What has all this to do with the temple, where after Pentecost Peter and John use to go up stately for prayer (Act 3:1)? Is it possible for God to permit of such adhesion if the old ritual was so evil in the Jewish saints, without raising a voice against continuance in it for so many years?
So far from it indeed, that long after His devoted servant Paul was in prison for what many call building again the things he had “destroyed” (Gal 2:18), the Lord comes to him to comfort him without uttering one word of rebuke for what the advice of James brought upon him. “Be of good cheer, Paul,” says He, “for as thou has testified of Me at Jerusalem, so must thou at Rome.” Peter had earlier a vision to direct him to go outside the Jewish fold and learn that “what God had cleansed” was not common nor unclean (Act 10:15; 11:9). His preaching in Acts 3 does not rise above the earth: blessings for Israel if they would repent, “when times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord.” Peter clearly had much to learn (realize that a great deal of the New Testament had yet to be written by Paul, so they lacked much of what God’s will and desires were at that time—NC).
Had the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews been given to the Jewish disciples in the early days of Christianity, they could not have continued on the old lines without being guilty of despising God’s Word and offending Him (by continuing in the Law—NC). How far it was agreeable to Him or accepted, we cannot say; but if itself is utterly offensive, it is unlike God to allow all the saints, apostles, prophets, etc., to continue sinning without remonstrance (complaint or reproof—NC). We see what the consequence must have been if, after abandoning the “shadows” for the “substance” (Col 2:17; Heb 10:34), in coming to the Savior, if they fell away from Him and went back to the shadows. It would be “crucifying for themselves the Son of God and putting Him to an open shame” (Heb 6:6).
Up to this time, the saints had evidently followed Moses, and, although believing in the Messiah, had failed to apprehend the results of His death, resurrection and ascension. They had not profited by the Jewish elements as read in the heavenly light. The time had now arrived when they must “leave the word of the beginning of Christ, and go on to what belongs to full growth.” (Heb 6:1). Theirs was now a heavenly calling. Jerusalem was not the place of worshiping the Father, revealed by the Son (Jhn 4:21, 23).
It was now their privilege to enter in spirit into the Holiest where Christ had control, as their great High Priest; into no figures of the true but heaven itself, the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. Thenceforth all the Jewish saints, like all believers, are invited to approach within the rent vail, having boldness to enter. Such a condition the blood of Jewish sacrifices never did nor could procure (Heb 10:11).
Blessed this was for those now by faith familiar with the old sacrifices, etc., to know them more than being fulfilled in Christ. But one must perceive what of divinely given courage it required, added to faith, in order to turn away from that which was dearer than life (the Law—NC) to a godly Jew; established as it had been by Jehovah’s judicial authority under which every transgression received a righteous retribution (punishment). No Gentile believer this day in leaving any of the sects or human organizations, which never were of God but of man’s device, can be compared with a Jew giving up what till then had God’s sanction and command in all its details. It is plain that the believing Jews added Christianity to their Judaism (Judeo-Christian, a term not accepted by the Jews but wrongfully accepted by Gentiles—NC), and most patiently did God deal with them (“winked at” or temporarily forgave without punishment—NC).
But it is no less plain with what warmth Paul writes to the Gentile Galatians who were adding the law to Christianity. How severe are his words! “O senseless Galatians, who bewitched you?” etc. (3:1). They were also observing Jewish festival “days and months and times and years” (still obeying the law, Gal 4:10—NC). To the Gentiles they were “beggarly elements” (4:9), a return in principle to idolatry from which they had been delivered.
But Christendom, not satisfied with Jewish festivals, had added to its calendar many pagan festivals with Christian names and so-called saints-day, some of them reprobate in character. Can we close our eyes to the manifest increase of ritualism everywhere? “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” as Paul told the Judaizing Galatians (5:2). We may and must be accused by the old serpent; but we ought not to be deceived, as the whole world will be.
–John Stephen Frecker Cox (1826-1907)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for October 24
“I proclaim not myself, but Christ Jesus as Lord and Master, and myself your bondsman for the sake of Jesus“ (2 Cor. 4:5).
All Christians are fit for heaven, but all too few are fit for earth. One of the true tests of one’s spiritual growth is in one’s influence: affecting others that they not only begin the Christian life but “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
“We may be separated and yet not Christ-like; we may be orthodox and yet not spiritual; we may be ‘dead unto sin’ and yet not ‘alive unto God.’ We may have cut ourselves loose from every form of worldliness but in so doing we have become critical and self-righteous. We may be loyal defenders of the faith, yea, ready even to lay down our lives for it and in so doing become bitter and unloving.”
“We may often have a measure of the power of the Spirit, but if there is not a large measure of the Spirit as the Spirit of grace and love, the defect will be manifest in our work. We may be made the means of conversion, but we will never help people on to a higher standard of spiritual life, and when we pass away a great deal of our work will pass away too.”
“One may have a great zeal in God’s service, and may be used to influence many for good, and yet, when weighed in the balance of love, be found sadly wanting. In the heat of controversy or under unjust criticism, haste of temper, slowness to forgive and forget, quick words and sharp judgments, often reveal an easily wounded sensitiveness, which proves how little the Spirit of the Lord Jesus has full possession or real mastery of the life.”—Andrew Murray (May 9, 1828-1917)
It was at James’ instigation that Paul agreed to prove his subjection to Moses, and that he had not, as had been calumniously reported, persuaded the Jews who dwelt among the Gentiles to forsake Moses and the customs, and the circumcision of their children. Hence Paul went, with the others who had a vow, into the temple, and had he not been hindered (Act 21:33), would have offered the offering which was ordained for the Nazarite. Clearly he had not learned the truths he was taught some years later after his arrest and first imprisonment (Act 21:17—26).
But can it be that these many thousands of believing Jews who were zealous for the law were guilty, when offering a lamb, of the terrible crime equivalent to “cutting off a dog’s neck”? Or would any one of them in offering an oblation be as if he offered swine’s blood (Isa 66:3)? No. This solely refers to the future day when the man of sin, Antichrist, sits there, and the temple is the scene of apostasy and defiance of Jehovah, and the sacrifices utterly abominable in His eyes. What has all this to do with the temple, where after Pentecost Peter and John use to go up stately for prayer (Act 3:1)? Is it possible for God to permit of such adhesion if the old ritual was so evil in the Jewish saints, without raising a voice against continuance in it for so many years?
So far from it indeed, that long after His devoted servant Paul was in prison for what many call building again the things he had “destroyed” (Gal 2:18), the Lord comes to him to comfort him without uttering one word of rebuke for what the advice of James brought upon him. “Be of good cheer, Paul,” says He, “for as thou has testified of Me at Jerusalem, so must thou at Rome.” Peter had earlier a vision to direct him to go outside the Jewish fold and learn that “what God had cleansed” was not common nor unclean (Act 10:15; 11:9). His preaching in Acts 3 does not rise above the earth: blessings for Israel if they would repent, “when times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord.” Peter clearly had much to learn (realize that a great deal of the New Testament had yet to be written by Paul, so they lacked much of what God’s will and desires were at that time—NC).
Had the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews been given to the Jewish disciples in the early days of Christianity, they could not have continued on the old lines without being guilty of despising God’s Word and offending Him (by continuing in the Law—NC). How far it was agreeable to Him or accepted, we cannot say; but if itself is utterly offensive, it is unlike God to allow all the saints, apostles, prophets, etc., to continue sinning without remonstrance (complaint or reproof—NC). We see what the consequence must have been if, after abandoning the “shadows” for the “substance” (Col 2:17; Heb 10:34), in coming to the Savior, if they fell away from Him and went back to the shadows. It would be “crucifying for themselves the Son of God and putting Him to an open shame” (Heb 6:6).
Up to this time, the saints had evidently followed Moses, and, although believing in the Messiah, had failed to apprehend the results of His death, resurrection and ascension. They had not profited by the Jewish elements as read in the heavenly light. The time had now arrived when they must “leave the word of the beginning of Christ, and go on to what belongs to full growth.” (Heb 6:1). Theirs was now a heavenly calling. Jerusalem was not the place of worshiping the Father, revealed by the Son (Jhn 4:21, 23).
It was now their privilege to enter in spirit into the Holiest where Christ had control, as their great High Priest; into no figures of the true but heaven itself, the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. Thenceforth all the Jewish saints, like all believers, are invited to approach within the rent vail, having boldness to enter. Such a condition the blood of Jewish sacrifices never did nor could procure (Heb 10:11).
Blessed this was for those now by faith familiar with the old sacrifices, etc., to know them more than being fulfilled in Christ. But one must perceive what of divinely given courage it required, added to faith, in order to turn away from that which was dearer than life (the Law—NC) to a godly Jew; established as it had been by Jehovah’s judicial authority under which every transgression received a righteous retribution (punishment). No Gentile believer this day in leaving any of the sects or human organizations, which never were of God but of man’s device, can be compared with a Jew giving up what till then had God’s sanction and command in all its details. It is plain that the believing Jews added Christianity to their Judaism (Judeo-Christian, a term not accepted by the Jews but wrongfully accepted by Gentiles—NC), and most patiently did God deal with them (“winked at” or temporarily forgave without punishment—NC).
But it is no less plain with what warmth Paul writes to the Gentile Galatians who were adding the law to Christianity. How severe are his words! “O senseless Galatians, who bewitched you?” etc. (3:1). They were also observing Jewish festival “days and months and times and years” (still obeying the law, Gal 4:10—NC). To the Gentiles they were “beggarly elements” (4:9), a return in principle to idolatry from which they had been delivered.
But Christendom, not satisfied with Jewish festivals, had added to its calendar many pagan festivals with Christian names and so-called saints-day, some of them reprobate in character. Can we close our eyes to the manifest increase of ritualism everywhere? “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” as Paul told the Judaizing Galatians (5:2). We may and must be accused by the old serpent; but we ought not to be deceived, as the whole world will be.
–John Stephen Frecker Cox (1826-1907)
MJS daily devotional excerpt for October 24
“I proclaim not myself, but Christ Jesus as Lord and Master, and myself your bondsman for the sake of Jesus“ (2 Cor. 4:5).
All Christians are fit for heaven, but all too few are fit for earth. One of the true tests of one’s spiritual growth is in one’s influence: affecting others that they not only begin the Christian life but “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
“We may be separated and yet not Christ-like; we may be orthodox and yet not spiritual; we may be ‘dead unto sin’ and yet not ‘alive unto God.’ We may have cut ourselves loose from every form of worldliness but in so doing we have become critical and self-righteous. We may be loyal defenders of the faith, yea, ready even to lay down our lives for it and in so doing become bitter and unloving.”
“We may often have a measure of the power of the Spirit, but if there is not a large measure of the Spirit as the Spirit of grace and love, the defect will be manifest in our work. We may be made the means of conversion, but we will never help people on to a higher standard of spiritual life, and when we pass away a great deal of our work will pass away too.”
“One may have a great zeal in God’s service, and may be used to influence many for good, and yet, when weighed in the balance of love, be found sadly wanting. In the heat of controversy or under unjust criticism, haste of temper, slowness to forgive and forget, quick words and sharp judgments, often reveal an easily wounded sensitiveness, which proves how little the Spirit of the Lord Jesus has full possession or real mastery of the life.”—Andrew Murray (May 9, 1828-1917)
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