Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

text of another that was encompassed about by evildoers as our savior was which we just read prophetically in Psalm 22. So we read in the text today from Acts the 21st chapter beginning at verse 17.

Acts 21 beginning at verse 17. Please stand for the reading of God’s word here and believe.

And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James and all the elders were present.

And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. When they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believed, and they are all zealous of the law. And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews, which are among the Gentiles, to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.

What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together, for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee. We have four men which have a vow on them. Them take and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads, that all may know that these things whereof they are informed concerning thee are nothing, but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.

As touching the Gentiles, which believed, we have written, and concluded that they observe no such things, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication. Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself with them, entered into the temple to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.

And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people and the law and this place. And further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.” For they had seen him before with him in the city, Trophimus, an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.

And all the city was moved and the people ran together and they took Paul and drew him out of the temple and forth with the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you, Lord God, that they are a light unto our paths. We thank you for this particular text. And as we take it from your hands, we do so gratefully and thankfully and help us, Lord God to understand it, to analyze it, to think it through, and to at the end of all of this glorify you for the truths contained herein, and reform our lives, and then to have a message as well to take back to the nations. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

It is incredibly dim to many that Paul goes into the temple. Paul participates in purification rites in the temple. Paul pays for the offerings, animal sacrifices of these four men who had a Nazerite vow upon them. The Nazerite vow required the sacrifices of a number of different kinds of animals. And Paul goes into the temple and participates in the sacrificial system paying for these men at least this much. We know for sure and I’ll speculate a little bit on an even further thing.

He pays for these offerings, these animal sacrifices of these men. What was Paul thinking? Why would he have done this? What possible reason could we see?

Now, we know he’s in a jam. The text tells us that the elders when he gets to Jerusalem tell him there have been rumors about you amongst the Jews and amongst the Christian Jews who are zealous for the law. Thousands. The Greek term is tens of thousands of people have believed in Jerusalem and they’re all zealous for the law. And they’ve heard rumors and you know the word actually is stronger than rumors. There are organized reports sent out across multiple nations about this guy Paul and that he was telling the Jews who believed that they shouldn’t circumcise their kids. And he was telling the Jews that believed not to walk according to the statutes and the customs of the law and of the people.

The term used is that there was an organized attempt to smear Paul’s character.

So Paul’s in a jam by the time he gets to Jerusalem. Fair enough. The difficulties are real. But what was Paul thinking to bring him to the place where he would enter into the temple and participate in the offering of animal sacrifices and rites of purification? This is the same charge against Paul by the way that was the charge against Stephen who was killed in Jerusalem and who Paul himself had participated in holding the cloaks for those who stoned Stephen.

Same charge. Retribution justice I suppose is one thing that Paul was thinking about. Maybe he’s thinking too as this riot proceeds about Ephesus. It’s remarkable if you wanted we won’t spend the time but to look at the parallels between the riot that ensues at Jerusalem and the riot that ensued at Ephesus. The scriptures want us to see that Jerusalem has become Ephesus in effect. It’s Egypt again. Jerusalem has turned for the most part against God and his word and against the Savior.

But this riot happens because Paul takes the advice of some men and goes into the temple and begins to participate in animal sacrifices. What was he thinking?

This will be the end of Paul’s ministry at liberty. This very incident is the end of Paul’s ministry at liberty. And from now on, he will minister only in bonds. He will go through now imprisonment for the rest of the record of the book of Acts. And his ministry will be confined for the rest of the book of Acts to bonds and imprisonment.

Was he being judged by God? If he was, we better analyze what Paul was thinking about here so that we can avoid it. But you know, I don’t think he was being judged by God. And I think that what Paul was thinking was not unbiblical compromise, was not pulling back from the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one sacrifice that all the other sacrifices pointed to. I think Paul was justified in doing what he did.

And let’s think through now what it was that Paul was thinking.

First, I think Paul was thinking as he went to that temple to participate by paying at least and perhaps more than that in animal sacrifices after the final sacrifice had been given the Lord Jesus Christ, which all the animal sacrifices pointed forward to. I think one thing Paul was thinking about was God’s officers in his church. God’s officers, not men’s officers. God’s officers. The elders that Paul greets and greet him.

In the opening verses here in Acts 21:17 and following, these are God’s officers of the church. And if we’re going to condemn Paul for doing what he did, then we’re going to have to condemn the entire group of officers of the church at Jerusalem. Because what he did was to follow their instructions to take their advice to see marching orders come through God’s legitimate structure in the institutional church.

It is James, I believe, the elder, not the Apostle James, who is still alive. One apostle has been killed, the other is still alive, but I believe this is an elder. I believe that when we read of the transition from Peter to James, back when Peter leaves the book of Acts, about a third of the way into the book that we have a definite transition there that God wants us to see from the apostles to the elders.

And I won’t belabor the point. I have go back to that tape if you’d like to listen to it. But this James and the elders that Paul speaks with, I believe James is the head of the elders, so to speak, the bishop, one, you know, the one who is seen as kind of speaking for the group as he did at the Jerusalem Council. And if we’re going to condemn Paul, we got to condemn the officers of Christ’s Church because that’s who these men were.

They weren’t there of their own accord. They were there selected by God and installed by God through the secondary mechanism of the institutional church. These men greeted Paul fondly. These men not only were institutional officers in Christ’s church and so Paul should listen to them, they demonstrate, and Luke wants us to understand this, they demonstrate to us that these are good, honorable men because they don’t believe the rumors about Paul.

These rumors were organized, strident, published, indications give us that they’re actually that well-developed. And these men at the church here, they don’t look sideways at Paul as he comes into town. You know, that happens. I’ve been through in the last dozen years some controversies. And I can tell you that when controversies strike the character of men are tested and when rumors start flying people start changing and a lot of people start looking at you sideways.

Well, these guys don’t do that. Paul comes in and they greet him with open arms. The text tells us essentially the brethren received us gladly. They’re not being reticent in their acceptance of Paul. Then Paul gives them account of what God had wrought among the Gentiles. Verse 19 by his ministry. See Paul gives God the glory. And then the elders respond in kind. The appropriate response to the news of God’s work amongst the Gentiles through the secondary means of Paul’s ministry is they glorified the Lord.

They praise God. And the text indicates they went on and on glorifying the Lord. And finally, after a while, they stopped. And then they tell him, now here’s the deal. We got a lot of guys who are become Christians and they’re all zealous for the law. These men indicated that they had great Christian character because they didn’t believe the rumors about Paul. They weren’t reticent about receiving Paul. They didn’t look at him sideways. They received him gladly and they glorified God for the work that had been accomplished through the secondary means the Apostle Paul.

It is we could spend a whole sermon on just this point as an example of these men to us when controversy hits the church and controversy will. If you’ve got a church without controversy for more than a few years and certainly for multiple numbers of years they’re probably I don’t know. I think you’d really want to examine what they’re doing in terms of the preaching of the gospel because the gospel brings contention. The good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, his ascension, is a problem to people. It’s a problem to every one of us. It convicts us all of our sin as we continue to mature and grow an understanding of God’s word.

Well, in any event, these men in the midst of controversy, not only were they God’s ordained officers in the church, but they demonstrated in the recorded text here that they were good elders. They didn’t look sideways at the Apostle Paul, one of their co-workers, so to speak, when all this happens. And we can look at this as an example to us of our what our proper response should be one to the other.

Calvin writing on this said that Luke recites this therefore that he may set forth the equity of the brethren, the justice, the goodness of them, who did not credit rumors and false reports, though many envious and wicked men did daily one after another endeavor to bring Paul into contempt. Yet because James and his fellows in office were well persuaded of his uprightness, they were not then deterred or estranged from him. And this tells us that we should also not be hasty to believe false reports or reports at all that bring disparagement to those with whom we know are ministering in the Lord.

And this is an example that Calvin talks about. Satan knows as Calvin writes that nothing is more fit to lay waste the kingdom of Christ than discord and disagreement among the faithful. So he ceaseth not to spread abroad false speeches. Therefore, as Calvin says, we must shut our ears against false reports that we may believe nothing concerning the faithful ministers of the word, but that which we know to be true.

And so Paul was thinking number one, as he goes into that temple to participate in the sacrificial system, he’s thinking of the officers of Christ’s church, their goodness and their position.

Secondly, Paul is thinking of the love that hopes all things. Are these elders giving this advice be not because they’re afraid of people, but because they have a pastoral concern for the tens of thousands Jews who had converted to Christianity who are zealous for the law. You know, the elders don’t say, “These guys are all messed up because they’re zealous for the law.” They want Paul to go out of his way to prove that he also is zealous for the law.

They direct him not to give instruction about why the law is a bad thing. They direct him to give an example, direct counsel, whatever you want to call it, to give an example of his own zealousness for the law that we might prove, they say that these charges aren’t true. You see, Paul wasn’t estranged from the law. He wasn’t in revolt against God’s law. And what he was doing as he went into the temple was he was attempting to love the church at Jerusalem, to go out of his way to go the second mile to go beyond what was required of him to demonstrate his concern and compassion for them and not be a stumbling block to him.

And again here this is an example to us. Paul had 1 Corinthians 13 love that he later wrote about or actually wrote about earlier than this actually. He had 1 Corinthians 13 love. Love in action. Love in doing things. Love in believing all things about the brethren that there are brethren. They’re not just Judaizers. Judaizers aren’t mentioned in this text really. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things.

And Paul is hoping that he can by example help these Christian brethren in the church at Jerusalem. Love doesn’t think of its own. Doesn’t consider its own. And so even though he knew that the trip to Jerusalem and the activities he would now engage in may well result in what actually happened, his imprisonment in near death, this is the closest to death he gets. They start beating on him after this incident and are going to beat him to death. That is the plan. And until the Roman soldiers step in. Paul doesn’t think of his own self. He’s thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s thinking of the church, Christ’s body, and he’s thinking about how he can through his actions minister to the body of Christ going the second step for them.

It was a hard situation. There’s no doubt about that. We see by this and what happens and the concern that drives Paul to actually participate in this as Calvin said, “It appears how preposterous the cruelty or credulity rather of men is in receiving false reports and how fast a false opinion once rashly received thus sticks.” And we know where we speak on that accord as well in this church. The rumors fly and rumors stick. And Paul’s in the context of that. But he tries to help people that have heard those rumors by going out of his way with 1 Corinthians 13 love.

Again, Paul or again Calvin here, he says his courtesy doth rather deserve great praise. This is Paul. And that he doth not only gently, excuse me, gently abuse himself for the unskillful people’s sake, but does also obey their foolishness who did unworthily and against reason suspect him. Okay? In other words, the church at Jerusalem is suspecting Paul these problems. They shouldn’t. They should not hear false reports, but they have. And he doesn’t then just say, “Well, to heck with them.” He goes out of his way to love those who are actually tripping and stumbling over the false rumors that are spreading around about him.

So Paul’s a demonstration to us of love.

Now you know the question of whether or not it works is a secondary question. Does it actually work? Well, I would submit that it did work. It’s not the Christian brothers who are zealous for the law who grab a hold of Paul and try to kill him. It’s Jews from Asia. Jews from Asia, not Christian Jews, Jews from Asia, probably Ephesus, you know, where they weren’t successful in stopping him there. So, we have no reason to believe this didn’t work. But, you know, a lot of times it won’t work.

And I just want to read you several commentaries, several quotes here from Matthew Henry’s commentary about dealing with problems in the context of disputes and stuff even within the church. And these are really nice little tidbits. And you know, I’ll try to go over them quickly, but I do want to read them now. And he’s speaking now. These quotes were all really about not the members of the church who heard the reports. These are really about the Jews and some people see Paul also trying to reach them. I don’t think Paul’s love was so much let’s see how do I want to say this.

The particular object of Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13 love here is not the Jews from Asia who will end up trying to kill him. His particular concern is the body of Christ. He’s loving the body of Christ. It’s the Jewish Christians who were zealous for the law who had heard rumors from these bad guys. Those are the particular object of Paul’s love. God’s love. While there’s a sense in which God loves the entire world, there’s a most appointed sense of God’s love is for his people, for the body of Christ, those who are covenantally in the Lord Jesus Christ and elect in him.

But in any event, Matthew Henry also considers if this works in reference to the Jews as well to help witness the gospel of Christ to the Jews who were there who had not yet been converted.

Matthew Henry says this, the temple which they themselves presented such a mighty zeal for, yet did they themselves thus pollute. Thus is the church polluted by none more than by popish persecutors under the color of the church’s name and interest. Well, that’s a very interesting comment, one to well mark in our lives. The persecutors of Paul said he was harming the temple. They did it in the name of the temple, in the name of the institutional church, and they dragged him out of the temple. And the one who supposedly has no regard for the laws and custom to the temple and he’s in there participating in these sacrifices and they drag him out of the temple and so it is and Matthew Henry wrote that with the Catholic Church that persecuted the Reformers and for ages for centuries that persecution in the name of the church really defiles the very church which supposedly they want to protect and so we shouldn’t be surprised we see the same thing in our day and age.

Another thing Matthew Henry points out about those who persecute the church, they are fittest to be employed against Christ and Christianity that are governed least by reason and most by passion. These Jews are not the ones who persecute Paul and try to kill him. They’re not intellectually based. They’re passion-based. They hate him. They’re emotion-based. They’re controlled by their emotions. Plain obvious statement, but one that needs to be made over and over again in the context of the church in America.

In 1995, there’s a great movement going on, holy laughter throughout charismatic churches and spilling over other churches. And they want what they want really the attempt is to get rid of your intellect and to be ruled by passions. And I’m telling you that there is tremendous potential in the holy laughter movement for persecution against the true body of Christ because emotions and passions take control.

And horrific things have been said about other churches by people involved in the holy laughter movement, the slain in the spirit movement. Churches like ours references for instance to churches like ours or other churches that don’t participate in this as demon-possessed churches as churches that are dead and that have lemon juice baptisms that make you sour and make you not laugh. Well, I could go on, but the point is that when you get rid of your intellect and start moving on the sense of passion or emotion, you’re in deep water.

God doesn’t want us to throw away our minds. Our minds are given to us by him. He wants us to reform them by thinking Christ’s thoughts after him. But he doesn’t want us to get rid of them. And so here we have an example of men who get rid of their minds and thus persecute the church.

He also says that what is wanting in right is made up in noise. And if people don’t have good arguments against somebody else, the way they can get people stirred up is to just yell a lot. Help us out here. You know, this guy’s fighting the true church of God here. Help, men of Israel. He’s fighting the true church. And so persecution comes.

Matthew Henry says that it is in vain to think of pleasing men that would be pleased with nothing else but the rooting out of Christianity. Integrity and uprightness will be more likely to preserve us than sneaking compliances. Now, you I don’t in terms of his application of this text, I don’t may not agree with him, but the point he’s making is a good one.

If we’ve got people who are absolutely opposed to the cause of Christ, then what they need to hear is a clear message of what the scriptures say, uprightness and forthrightness, boldness and courage about the gospel of Christ, not accommodations to their sin. If you got people seeking to wipe out the ministry of a local church, you don’t want to compromise with such people. You want to tell them the truth about what you believe. It does no good to compromise with them. It does no good to extend 1 Corinthians 13 love to people that are in violent opposition to the cause of Christ. Forthrightness and the preaching of the gospel is what they need to hear.

Matthew Henry says that those commonly seem most jealous for the church’s name that belong to it in name only. Now I’ll say that again. Those commonly seem most jealous for the church’s name that belong to it in name only. See they use the church’s name here. These Jews do it. They belong to it really in name only. They don’t really belong to it.

Then finally one last comment. It is common for malicious people to improve that against those that are wise and good with which they thought to have obliged them and ingratiated themselves with them. Paul thought to recommend himself to their good opinion by going into the temple and then they take an occasion to accuse him. If he had kept further off them, he had not been so maligned by them. This is the genius of ill nature.

Then he quotes from Psalm 109:4, “For my love, they are my adversaries.”

And what he’s saying is that wicked men use the very things you try to do to help them. They’ll use 1 Corinthians 13 love as a tool to attack you. And for my love then they become my adversaries. You know the extension of love and grace means that you have something to extend and people don’t like that people who are opposed to your work and so it is with these Jews they didn’t like what Paul was doing so Paul’s motivated by 1 Corinthians 13 love he’s motivated for the church at Jerusalem to try to do whatever he can for them now it doesn’t work out and I want to read several quotes here now by John Calvin in terms of how this works out.

It is certain that these men were enemies of the name of Christ and of Christianity. So that whilst Paul is bent to pacify the faithful, he incurs the wrath of the enemy. So he’s working really on the sake for the sake of the church. But by so doing that, he also then incurs the wrath of the enemies of the church, the Jews from Asia.

But this place teaches that we must not take it impatiently if at any time or hope be frustrated and our councils which we have taken with the right and holy affection fall not out well that our actions may have a happy end. We must attempt nothing but with a good conscience and according to the spirit of God. But and if things come not to pass as we would even have them, let that inward feeling uphold us that we know that God alloweth or approves our desire, though it be laid open to the reproaches and mocks of men.

Neither let it respect us of our gentleness or repent us of our gentleness, if at any time the wicked reward us otherwise than we deserve.

In other words, what he’s saying is the truth is that people are going to disrespect your goodness. But that’s not a cause to, you know, think that you somehow did something wrong.

Another great sin of the American church, the American population is pragmatism. So we look at an account like Paul here, he’s doing this thing which we don’t quite understand. And then we see the end of it is that he gets imprisoned. So it must have been a bad thing because it didn’t turn out good. See, pragmatism. The end didn’t turn out good and therefore the whole thing must have been not a very good idea. And Calvin says, and we need to hear today that pragmatism doesn’t guide our lives. Guided our lives is the word of God in 1 Corinthians 13, for instance, and the application of the situation that Paul was in the context of.

Even if people kick you, you’re still supposed to be nice to them. And in so doing, you heap coals of fire on their head. But the point is, you’re supposed to continue that gentleness, that attempt to minister grace through your actions in spite of the malevolent response of those around you. We’re not pragmatists. And so, if we read this account of Paul and the sacrifices, we cannot judge his actions by the fact that he became imprisoned any more than we can judge the actions of the Lord Jesus Christ by the fact that he was crucified.

See, and I made this point several times. You should have it deeply ingrained by now that what’s going on here is that Paul is walking in the footsteps of the master to his own particular passion which we see him involved with.

Now, finally, Calvin says we must make that let’s see for in the corruption of nature for nature’s forwardness is joined with foolishness that those will readily of their own accord make case to maintain an evil cause who can hardly be moved with many exhortations to do well. This is a hard case that the whole world should be armed against us at a sudden though the persuasion of a few. So he’s saying what happens is that you got a few bad apples and as a result a whole group of people are moved against Paul all of Israel all of Jerusalem so to speak apart from the Christians come out and try to attack Paul. And he says this is a hard thing. The fact that a few detractors can cause many people to come against a particular person or a particular ministry.

But Calvin is a good Calvinist. Of course, he believes in the sovereignty of God. So he goes on to say, “But seeing it pleaseth the Lord, it should be so, let every one of us prepare himself by this, and such like examples to suffer all manner of assaults, and to bear and abide all wrongs.”

So these are hard things that we see happening here. But Calvin says, “Be of good cheer. God is in control.” And the end of the matter is better than the beginning of the matter.

So Paul was thinking about the officers. He was thinking about the institutional church. And the third thing I think Paul was thinking of was the temple itself.

And here of course is where we really get down to a discussion of what he’s actually doing.

Verse 26 tells us that he went in and he purified himself with them. He enters into the temple with these four men. And as I said, the Nazerite vow. The Nazerite vow rather that these men were under required purification by washing on the third and seventh day. It also required a number of animal sacrifices which were costly. And what they actually the thing we’re discussing here that Paul actually does is he pays at least in partial or maybe all for what has to be accomplished in terms of the offering of these sacrifices.

They were costly sacrifices at the conclusion of a Nazerite vow. And so these men and remember one of the reasons why Paul is in Jerusalem is he’s bringing money back to the Jerusalem church, right? Because they’re poor, there great deal of poverty there. And so these men don’t have really enough money to complete their Nazerite vow. And so Paul’s money is used. And so Paul pays for the offerings of these four men.

Now he goes in there to the temple then and confers with the priests to figure out the timing of the offerings, purchase the offerings, etc. And he does all these things in the context of the temple. And what Paul is thinking about clearly, one of the things think about is this whole system.

Paul enters into the temple to help with the offering of sacrifices by these men. And that’s kind of what concerns us, isn’t it? So, I think it’s important for us to realize a few things about what’s going on here.

First of all, there’s no indication that it is sin to continue to use the temple system. There’s simply no indication of that in the scriptures up to this point in time. Indeed Paul later in Acts 24:17 tells Felix that he had actually come to Jerusalem among other things to make offerings and he uses the technical term there for offerings in the context of the temple. Paul does these kind of things. The disciples have been doing this kind of thing. The temple is not a place that they seek to avoid.

Indeed we can recite a number of instances in which they specifically participated in honoring the temple and Jerusalem. For instance, the disciples returned to the temple after the ascension of our savior in Luke 24:53. Later on, the congregation assembled there. Acts 2:46 and Acts 5:12, the congregation of Christ assembled at the temple. It was there that the apostles preached in Acts 5:25.

Peter and John did not avoid but seemed to keep the hours of prayer and sacrifice. They made it possible for a paralytic to enter the temple by first healing him. Remember Acts 3, we talk about the restoration of all things. You got the paralytic guy who cannot walk into the temple to worship God. And they heal him so that he may go into that very temple and worship God. So they had no objection to going into the temple and worshiping God.

Indeed, Paul himself, remember, he circumcised Timothy. That was a religious rite that he participated in them. He called let’s see, he called the temple the temple of God in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 just as the Savior had spoken of it as the holy place in the house of the father.

Time and again we read that Paul went up to Jerusalem. Acts 18, Acts 20 and Acts 21 here. And indeed if you ever thinking caps on about this Nazerite vow thing, he participated in a Nazerite vow at the end of the second missionary journey. Remember we talked about that back in Acts 18:18. He himself subjected himself to the vow. The Nazerite.

So, if you’re going to get down on Paul for this incident, you got to get down on him for a whole bunch of other instances as well. And the scriptures clearly would not provide that as justified on our part.

Paul is thinking of the temple. The temple stands the temple and everything in it pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so now he participates in the rites of the temple thinking back on the final sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ some 20 or 30 years before. See, he does these things. Now looking back on those things now in speaking of this then that there is legitimate use of temple ritual and sacrifice after the savior has come as the completion of all those things.

First of all I make that assertion and I think the scriptures these verses and a lot of others plainly make that case as well. And what we’re saying by that of course is that we don’t want to think that Paul is somehow doing all this stuff to merit salvation. Remember when he circumcised Timothy, the whole point was he’ll do it, but only if the Jerusalem Council and the Judaizers recognize that this is not required for salvation.

So he’s not doing this thing as a way of meriting righteousness. But he is doing it as part of his religious devotion and obligation to God.

Now the temple, it’s very important we understand something here. The temple is not always going to stand in AD 70. It will be destroyed by God. But God by that time will have given Jerusalem, the Jews, and all men 40 years to repent of their sin, of the crucifixion of Christ. 40 years prior to the destruction of the temple in AD 70, Jesus is crucified on the cross and is resurrected.

And you remember what happens in the temple? That big veil over the Holy of Holies is rent in two. It’s split in two and certainly one of the things that tells us is we have access now into the presence of God. That access did not does not wait till AD 70. The access of the rending of the veil in the temple is clearly indicated and God wants us to think of the access we have through the final work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So the temple worship has changed because the veil was torn in two as an indication that things are now completely different. But the temple worship has not been ended by God. And God apparently does not require his church during that 40-year span to turn away from the temple and the obligations of it.

Indeed, as we said, Paul, these four Nazerite men, the scriptures make clear that they were members of the church in Jerusalem. We have four men, the elders said, in other words, in our church who are doing this right now. They had a lot of guys doing it, and they weren’t in sin for them. That was the normal process in the context of the Jerusalem church, those Jews who had come to Christ for salvation to continue temple worship at least in some ways. That’s what the text says. We may not like that, but that’s what the text says.

And the reason for that is that the temple, the final removal of it, and the statement that God no longer wants these things done is not to be made by the institutional church. It is to be made by God himself in AD 70 when he takes the temple out. Then he removes it, destroys it, has it sacked, burned, been brought down to the ground. God will get rid of temple worship in his good time. And his good time involves a 40-year span in his great longsuffering and forbearance toward men in the context of temple worship to get them to continue to meditate upon the temple and its relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So the rending of the curtain in the temple is a sign of what will culminate in AD 70. But until that point in time, the church is free to and particularly the Jewish members who have converted, they are free to engage in temple worship and meditate in the context of those animal sacrifices back on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it’s interesting that the Jerusalem church that James here says, you know, now we know that the Gentiles who have come to the Lord, we’re not telling them they got to do this stuff. He cites the Jerusalem Council decision here. And you remember why those four prohibitions? Leviticus, they’re right from the book of Leviticus, chapter 17 and 18. Leviticus first lays out the priestly nature of the Old Testament system which will culminate in Christ, the day of atonement. And then it lays out these four specific regulations and those are the only four regulations in the book of Leviticus that are specifically applied to the Gentiles in the context of the land of Israel during the Old Testament.

And those things are reinstated, reinforced rather to the gentile converts to Christianity. They’re talking about the law is what I’m saying here. Now, they’re quoting from provisions in the law, even as it relates to Gentiles. But the Gentiles never did have to do this stuff. They only had to do these four prohibitions which the Jerusalem Council indicated.

So, it is. So, the temple worship continues whether we like it or not. That’s what God clearly says.

Why don’t we like it? I’ll tell you why you don’t like it. At least I’ll tell you a couple of reasons why you don’t like it. There was a man there was a school of thought of a fellow named Tübingen. I think that’s the fellow who started the school of thought. But any event in the 1800s there was this idea that began to be floated kind of like this rumor about Paul that there were really two churches in the book of Acts and in the epistles. You had the church of Peter and those guys were all messed up relative to law and then you had the church of Paul and they were all messed up because they were too much in grace and that the end result of that was the church of John which is the perfect synthesis of these two thesis and antithesis.

You see the revolutionary Marxist thought applied here is what happened in the school of Tübingen to the church of Jesus Christ and so for the last 150 years a lot of people have been influenced with this idea that Peter was kind of hung up on the law and Paul is hung up on grace and John kind of brings it all together in love but there’s simply not a biblical formulation.

And the biblical formulation is that the Petrine and Pauline phases are a progression of maturation of the gospel of Christ. There’s no antithesis between law and grace. And yet we’ve been fed that as a church for 150 years and people believe it now. And so they see Paul doing this law stuff and it really becomes very confusing. He must have compromised himself. No, the text doesn’t say that.

The second reason why it’s a trouble to us is that we buy into the evolutionary mindset. Well, okay, the progression in Acts then from Peter to Paul must be kind of evolutionary, getting better all the time. And so we evolve away from law into a higher mode of thinking where we kind of walk in the spirit and grace and we don’t do the law anymore. We don’t want to do the law anymore because we’re kind of evolved past that.

Well, that also is not true. Marxism and evolution are both doctrines of demons. They’re wrong. They’re not to be applied to the church of Jesus Christ. And the text tells us, the whole New Testament tells us that these guys had no trouble walking into the temple of God and making animal sacrifices prior to the temple being destroyed in AD 70. That’s just the way it is.

And I think Paul was meditating upon the temple as he went through these particular provisions of the Nazerite vow.

Paul was also, I think, thinking of holy war. That’s the fourth thing I’ve got here.

I believe that it is likely that when they tell Paul to go with these four men who have an obvious Nazerite vow, everybody agrees with all the commentators do. These are Nazerite vows they’ve taken that when Paul is told to go with them and pay for them that he himself was under a Nazerite vow. We know that at least in the second missionary journey he had taken a Nazerite vow and had to get back to Jerusalem to burn his hair on the altar. He had to do that. And here we have the end of the third missionary journey and Paul is told to go along with these guys and go through the purification.

Now commentators say, “Well, purification even the Gentiles need to be cleansed. He had to accompany these Nazarites. So that was why he got purified.” They don’t know why he’s getting purified exactly. I believe he’s going through the same purification as these men because he was also a Nazerite.

It’s interesting that in a historical church history writing from the generation immediately following this generation. James is referred to as a Nazerite himself as well. Nazerites were not an uncommon thing. And it’s not odd for Paul to have taken upon himself a Nazerite vow. I don’t know it for sure, but it seems news here that Paul had taken upon himself a Nazerite vow for the third missionary journey just as he had for the second and who knows maybe the first I don’t know but what we do know is that whether he was doing it or whether it was just the four guys he was involved with doing it that as he goes to the temple meditating upon the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has accomplished he’s got to be thinking about holy war.

Why do I know that? Because that’s what the Nazerite vow was primarily concerned with. The provision for the Nazerite vow is in Numbers chapter 6. Don’t look it up now. You can look it up later if you want. The first 20 or so verses in Numbers chapter 6.

Numbers chapter 1 begins the numbering of the people. Why? What’s the specific purpose for the numbering of the people in Numbers 1? And what is the book of Numbers all about? You know, well, you look in those first few verses, it’ll tell you they were numbered that they might constitute the army of God. Males 20 years old and up. Specifically, the text says they were to number the people relative to warfare. They were getting ready to go take the land. To perform holy war in the land of Canaan.

In the context of that, the Nazerite vow is given in Numbers 6. And at the end of the Nazerite vow section, we have a section of Numbers that we all know real well because we recite it nearly every Lord’s day. That’s the benediction. And you remember I’ve told you several times. I hope you remember it real well by now. That benediction that’s placed upon the congregation in Numbers 6 and in many Christian churches since then is an empowerment to conduct holy war.

The troops are numbered. The census is taken of the army of God in Numbers chapter 1 and following. Provision is made for what happens in holy war culminating in the Nazerite vow and then the benediction of God upon the people that they can go forth with power into Canaan and wipe out all the heathen. That’s what the Nazerite vow is associated with.

Remember we talked about this several months back. Deborah, the song of Deborah, the literal translation, hairs hung loose in Israel talking about the warfare against Sisera and his bad dudes. Hairs hung loose. Why? Because the men had grown their hair long to conduct holy war for God. Now, it wasn’t the only thing the Nazerite vow is about. He could do other things as well. But the premier example of the Nazerite vow is given in the context of holy war.

And why would Paul be thinking about holy war as he goes in there completing his Nazerite vow and with the animal sacrifices and all that stuff going on? Because that’s what he’d been doing. That’s what he’d been doing three different journeys now. He was conducting holy war against the heathen. And God will conduct holy war against Jerusalem in AD 70, 40 years after they fail to come to 40 years worth of unrepentance over the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the holy war that we all if you’re getting that blessing at the end of the service from Numbers chapter 6, it’s so that you might go out as the army of God conquering, okay? Being more than conquerors in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you’re not going to go out there with your weapons, even if you’ve got them on you today. That’s not the ideal you go forth from this place.

What weapon do we use? We use the word of God, the sharp two-edged sword. And with that weapon, Revelation chapter 19 and 20, we go out conquering, preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord comes to us today and he goes out with us into this culture when we preach the gospel. And Paul had utilized that sword doing holy war for the Lord Jesus Christ, completing the mission of the Nazerite as he went forth conquering and to conquer.

And him taking this Nazerite vow or simply accompanying the men who had taken the Nazerite vow is a great picture for us of what missionary attempts are all about. In the New Testament, we’re engaged in going forth not just into Canaan, but into the whole world, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, discipling men and nations, conducting holy war and bringing men to the foot of the cross or declaring God’s judgments upon them and then leaving him God to providentially work with people in terms of the culmination of judgment upon individual men who reject the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul was thinking about the temple. He was thinking about holy war and he was thinking about the law of God.

Very important here. He knew the law. He understood the law. He applied the law in the Nazerite vow. He had to. He didn’t go in there just led by the spirit apart from the specific instructions of the word of God. He gives us a model for ourselves. We’re to know the law of God. We’re not to keep the law of God as a means of attaining righteousness with him and well-being with him. But the law of God is the standard. It is the light to our feet as we go forward and conduct our lives in the context of the world.

And so the law, the written instructions of God, are quite important to us.

Remember I said before these this new movement this holy laughter thing they want to get rid of the intellect and just be led by the spirit so to speak apart from your mind. Well there are lots of people who say that the mind should not be involved. You don’t want to do anything. You don’t want to read the law of God or understand what it says because that’s not what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to be led by the spirit somehow.

But the word of God says clearly the spirit takes the law the specific commandments of God’s law and writes them upon our hearts. If we say the written commandments of God’s law are not to be understood today, then what do we say about this church that we’ve just read about? What do we say about these elders and about Paul who wrote to the Gentiles those four specific instructions from the law?

Well, we say they’re all messed up. I mean, we could go over and over many texts. The point is that…