Some time later, when Paul went to Jerusalem, he came to James and the elders there (Acts 21:18-19). All these ones worked together to convince Paul, saying, “You observe, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed; and all are zealous for the law. And they have been informed concerning you that you are teaching all the Jews throughout the nations apostasy from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, nor to walk according to the customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Therefore do this that we tell you: We have four men who have a vow on themselves; take these and be purified with them, and pay their expenses that they may shave their heads. And all will know that there is nothing to the things that they have been informed of concerning you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the law” (vv. 20-24). It is difficult to believe that Paul would do this only a few years after he wrote Galatians, but he did. He brought the four men, who no doubt were believers, to the temple and the priest, paid their fee, and waited for the completion of the vow. Again this shows that it is not easy to be rescued from religion.
When Paul was surrounded by James and the others, perhaps including Peter and John, it was difficult not to be convinced. Still, no one can subdue the Lord. The Lord has His economy, and even though Paul tolerated the influence of religion, the Lord would not allow him to continue. Before the seven days were completed, the Lord came in and disrupted the entire situation. It was through this that Paul was arrested (vv. 26-33). The Lord seemed to be saying, “Do you think that you can be purified in the temple? Religion cannot purify you. Rather, I will allow you to go to prison, which will be a real purification to you.” Paul was purified not in the temple but in prison, and it was there that he wrote his deepest Epistles. God was sovereign and did not allow Paul to become involved in the old religion that he had thoroughly condemned in Galatians.
According to history, it was only a few years later, in A.D. 70, that the Lord sent the Roman army under Titus to destroy Jerusalem and the temple, leaving not one stone upon another (Matt. 24:1-2). Josephus, the Jewish historian, wrote about the slaughter under Titus. Although Jerusalem had been destroyed before, no other destruction was as thorough as this one. Titus slaughtered anyone who was in Jerusalem, including Jews and Jewish Christians. In this way the Lord used “one stone to kill two birds.” Not only was Judaism destroyed at that time, but Christianity in Jerusalem also was destroyed. Without that destruction, Christianity would have taken Jerusalem as its center, and the church would have fallen into another religion. Because the Lord was offended with the situation there, He not only disrupted the purification in the temple that Paul had begun, but He also eventually sent the Roman army to destroy the whole of Jerusalem. Because there was a thorough destruction of Jerusalem, it is difficult to trace the history of the apostles after that time. The Lord did not spare the church in Jerusalem. He destroyed the temple, the city, and even the church there, because the church was falling back into Judaism.
It was not a small thing for James and the elders to try to convince Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, to neglect Christ and the church and return to the temple, the Old Testament, and the old religion. Because the Lord could not tolerate that, He disrupted the situation, caused Paul to be arrested and put into prison, and destroyed Jerusalem with both the temple and the church. He did all this so that there would be no way for His church to return to Judaism. Therefore, we should not think that as long as a group of people has the Bible, serves God, and tries to be scriptural, they are right. This is altogether a religious concept. We are not merely for these things; we are for Christ and the church apart from all religion. We need to clearly see what religion is and what Christ and the church are.
The church is an organism, the Body of Christ. It is one with Christ in life and in spirit. In the early days of the church the disciples were filled with Christ and clothed with Christ. They had no regulations, rituals, doctrinal teachings, or forms. They had only Christ within and without. In the first few chapters of Acts, for example, Peter did not care for religion, politics, knowledge, or skills. Instead, he was frank, simple, pure, and fully saturated with Christ. Gradually, however, the church tended to fall back into the “dungeon” of Judaism. As we have seen, because the Lord would not tolerate that, He allowed the whole of Jerusalem to be destroyed to leave no way for the church there to become a snare.
After a short time, however, the church became degraded again, mainly in three ways. At the beginning of the second century Ignatius was a faithful and notable teacher who was martyred for the Lord in Rome, but he was also used by Satan to teach that an overseer, a bishop, is higher than an elder. In the New Testament elder and overseer are synonymous terms denoting the same person. Elder denotes the person, and overseer denotes the function (Acts 20:17, 28; Phil. 1:1). From the erroneous teaching of Ignatius the hierarchy in Christianity was built up. Archbishops and cardinals were produced from among the bishops, and the chief of these became the pope. The hierarchy of pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and elders constitutes a change in the nature of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is an organism, not an organization, and elders are the only office in the church for the purpose of oversight. About five hundred years after the teachings of Ignatius came forth, the papal system was established, and the position of the pope began to be officially recognized. Eventually, the hierarchical system was adopted by the Protestant churches. The Church of England and the Methodist Church, for example, have bishops and archbishops. The hierarchy is a matter of religion and has killed the function of the Body of Christ. In Christ and with Christ there is no organization or hierarchy.
Many pastors and ministers today justify the hierarchical system by saying, “Because every trade today must be specialized, we cannot expect everyone to be a pastor or a preacher. Only someone trained to be an expert can do this. A person needs to study in seminary to learn how to pastor a church and give a sermon. Otherwise, he will be backward and not up to date.” Someone who does not have light from the Lord can be convinced and cheated by this kind of reasoning. Some dear ones who have come to our meetings enjoy the life here, but they are frightened by the need to function. Some say, “Since my profession occupies me the whole week, I simply want to relax on Sundays. The best place to relax is in a church with a good pastor who can pray for me and give a good sermon and with a good choir to sing for me. I do not want to come to a church in which I need to function.” This example helps us to further see what religion is and what Christ is. Christ is living and functioning. Christ with the church is an organism, not an organization. In contrast, Christianity is merely a religion, and the hierarchy in it kills the functions of the Body of Christ.