Although many Christians know that Christ died for our sins to deliver us from God’s condemnation and the lake of fire, few realize that Christ gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us from the religious world. This is a crucial matter because Christ gave Himself for our sins to rescue us out of the religious world, not according to His choice but according to the will of God. It was not because Christ was rejected by the Jews that He hated Judaism and went to the cross in order to rescue His disciples out of Judaism. Rather, it was according to God’s will, that is, His plan, His economy, that Christ gave Himself for our sins to deliver us out of the Jewish religion. In His economy God planned that Christ would rescue His chosen people out of Judaism, the law, traditions, and rituals.
The book of Ephesians reveals that the will of God is to have the church as a living Body for Christ (1:22-23; 3:10-11); it is not to have an organization but an organism. The will of God is not to have the Jewish religion or the religion of Christianity. Rather, it is to have the organic Body of Christ. The will of God is not to have circumcision or uncircumcision. Rather, it is to have a new creation (Gal. 6:15), which is the church as the new man (Col. 3:10).
Furthermore, Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.” According to the context of this chapter, the will of God is the Body life (vv. 4-5). We need to enter into the Body life. As long as we are outside the Body life, we are outside God’s will.
In contrast to the will of God, which is to have the Body of Christ, Satan’s aim is to systematize people into his world and keep them away from God’s will. In Paul’s day Satan used Judaism to systematize all Pharisees, scribes, priests, and elders among the Jewish people. Today Satan uses the religion of Christianity to systematize many of the Lord’s people away from God’s will, the organic Body of Christ. Just as Paul was delivered out of the age of Judaism, today genuine believers and seekers must be delivered out of the religious system of Christianity to accomplish God’s will to have the organic Body of Christ.
After mentioning that Christ died on the cross to deliver us from Jewish religion according to the will of God, Paul declares, “To whom be the glory forever and ever” (Gal. 1:5).
In verse 6 Paul tells us that God has called us in the grace of Christ. The grace of Christ is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—processed to become our enjoyment. This grace is versus the law of Moses. John 1:17 says, “The law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” In John 1:16 we are told that “of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” To receive grace upon grace is to continually receive of the processed Triune God for our enjoyment.
On the one hand, Christ gave Himself for our sins on the cross that He might rescue us out of the Jewish religion. On the other hand, God has called us in the grace of Christ for the purpose of bringing us out of the Jewish religion and into Christ as the green pasture for our enjoyment of Him. Christ is the living and rich pasture as the feeding place for the sheep. As believers in Christ, we should enjoy Him as our pasture for us to feed on and receive nourishment for growth.
The Lord Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly” (John 10:10b). This means that because He is their pasture, Christ came to impart Himself as life to His sheep. As long as the sheep stay in the pasture, they will have the abundant supply of life. By feeding on the pasture, the sheep will enjoy the abundant life supply, for the Lord Jesus is their abundant life. They will enjoy Him and experience Him as their life.
The pasture is a place of tender grass, a place full of the supply of life. When sheep are in the pasture, they do not lack food. Today our pasture is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit. In our daily Christian life we should have the definite realization that we are in the pasture enjoying Christ as the rich supply of life.
According to John 10 Christ came as the good Shepherd to enter into the fold, which signifies the Jewish religion with the law. God used the Jewish religion as a fold to protect His chosen people, just as a shepherd uses a fold to protect his sheep during the night, a storm, or winter weather. The Jewish religion, as a fold, was sed as a shelter to keep God’s people in the custody of the law for Christ. But when Christ came as the true Shepherd, He entered into the fold and led His believers out of the fold, the Jewish religion, into Himself as the green pasture to feed them as His flock.
The apostle Paul was charged by the Lord to lead God’s people out of the fold of religion into Christ as the living pasture. Although Paul was sent to preach the gospel in the Gentile lands, when he visited Gentile cities, he often went to the synagogues. He went to the synagogues not to participate in the Jewish religion but to preach the word of God’s gospel (Acts 13:14-15; 17:1-2; 19:8), just as the Lord Jesus did in His ministry (Matt. 4:23; Luke 4:16). In the synagogues Paul spoke the word of God so that God’s chosen people might hear the Lord’s voice and follow Him as their Shepherd to go out of the fold of the Jewish religion and to enter into Christ as the pasture to feed on Him.