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.