The Lord brought in a great change from the Old Testament economy to the New Testament economy. In this change He forsook the temple, the priests, the scribes, and the elders. Not even Nicodemus was among the one hundred twenty. Nicodemus was an old man and no doubt held many old opinions. Unlike Nicodemus, Peter was a blank slate, a simple fisherman. Therefore, the Lord was able to use Peter to have a new start. The Lord turned from the old generation and began something new—the church.
The Lord is sovereign. Among those in Jerusalem, there were a number of young people. One of them was Saul of Tarsus; he was a leader of the young religionists. He took the lead to oppose Christ and to persecute the church. He made the decision one day to wipe out all the Christians in Damascus. While he was on the way from Jerusalem, the Lord appeared to him and said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul was knocked down, he had a turn, and he was converted. Thus, this young religious leader was caught and eventually became the apostle Paul. Only the Lord could do this, gaining a young one for His new move. When I was young, I thought that it would have been better for the Lord to convert Gamaliel, the great rabbi who had taught Saul, but the Lord chose young Saul.
Paul was bold to drop everything of Judaism. Judaism was built upon three pillars: circumcision, the Sabbath, and dietary regulations. Paul wrote in Galatians 6:15, “Neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation is what matters.” In Romans 14:5 he said, “One judges one day above another; another judges every day alike. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind.” He also wrote, “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself” (v. 14). How bold he was! According to Galatians 2, Peter and Barnabas continually ate with the Gentile believers, which was contrary to Jewish customary practice. However, when certain Jewish believers came, Peter withdrew from eating with the Gentiles, and Barnabas followed (vv. 12-13). When Paul saw this, he opposed Peter to his face (v. 11).
Although the Lord had a new start with the young Galilean fishermen and Saul of Tarsus, even these ones eventually became mixed with religion. The last time Paul was in Jerusalem, he went to James and told the elders what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry (Acts 21:18-19). The elders glorified God for this, but then they told Paul that thousands of Jews in Jerusalem had believed in the Lord and were still zealous for the law (v. 20). The elders convinced Paul that to avoid trouble with these Judaistic believers, he should take a vow of the purification at the temple with four others and pay the fee for them (vv. 23-24). This was pitiful. Even Peter and John may have been at James’s home when this occurred. These ones whom the Lord had gained from Galilee had become people of Jerusalem; they were mixed with religion.
The Lord had called a group of young Galilean fishermen to be His disciples. Later, He made them apostles and appointed them as elders. Eventually, however, after they had been in Jerusalem for a period of time, perhaps ten or twenty years, they became people of Jerusalem, religious people under the influence of the old religion. They even convinced Paul to compromise with religion. It is difficult to comprehend how Paul could accept their word after having written the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians. Perhaps because Paul had a good heart and did not want to make trouble, he agreed with the elders and paid the purification fee for himself and four others at the temple. Because the Lord would not tolerate this mixture, in His sovereignty He allowed Paul to be arrested and imprisoned (vv. 33-34). People tend to compromise and bring in mixture, but the Lord would never allow this.
The Lord gave up the old religion, Judaism. He forsook Jerusalem and went to Galilee, where He trained a group of young people to be the leaders of His new move with the church. However, these ones eventually compromised with religion. When a person first enters a room filled with garlic, he will be shocked by the odor, but anyone who remains for some time in such a room will eventually be “drugged” by the odor and lose the ability to smell the garlic. After the apostles and elders who had been trained by the Lord remained in Jerusalem for a certain period of time, they were affected by the heavy atmosphere of religion and lost their ability to sense it. As a young believer, I could not understand how Paul, who had written strongly against Judaistic mixture in Romans and Galatians and had rebuked Peter for compromising with the Judaizers, could be convinced by the elders in Jerusalem to do the same. They tolerated and even compromised with the Judaistic influence to try to keep the situation calm.