As we begin today let’s remember what has happened in the book of Acts up to this point. In Acts 1:8 Jesus had declared to His apostles, “8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
The rest of the book of Acts walks us through how God carried out this mission through the first century church.
We read how the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and 3,000 people were saved on that first day. We then read how because of persecution the followers of Jesus fled to Judea and Samaria and continued preaching about Jesus as they went. We then see how the first Gentile, non-Jews, put their faith in Jesus.
Acts 11:19-21 told us how some followers of Jesus who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Antioch. These men from Cyprus and Cyrene, “began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.”
The grace of God was truly at work and Gentiles, non-Jews, were now following Jesus and sitting side by side with the Jews in the church in Antioch. Eventually this church in Antioch, led by the Holy Spirit, had sent Paul and Barnabas and others on mission to preach the gospel and start churches.
Acts 15:1-2 tells this account.
15 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them.
We must remember that everyone in this story considered themselves to be followers of Jesus. These false teachers were Jews, who in their mind were doing the right thing, and who had traveled to Antioch to correct what they saw as false teaching in the church. They had likely heard that Gentiles were now following Jesus and these Jews wanted to make sure that these Gentiles understood that to follow Jesus, to be saved, they first had to follow Jewish rules and traditions.
To us this sounds a little weird. Not many in our Christian culture today are talking like this. No one is really preaching that we need to follow all the Jewish rules and rituals to become Christians. Because of this some may say we can skip over this passage because it really does not apply to us. Let us resist this way of thinking. As we read in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
If all scripture is useful then how should we study scripture to get the most out of it? The first question we need to ask is, “What did it mean to the original hearers?” If we don’t ask this question, we will look at these verses from the perspective of our culture in 2024 and likely misinterpret what God is trying to show us.
With this in mind let’s take a moment to better understand what is being written here in Acts 15. The church in Antioch was made up of both Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles). Some Jews had traveled to Antioch to teach the non-Jews that to be saved you must first follow all the Jewish rules. For some today that may sound absurd, but for them in their day it was not so far-fetched. Let me explain.
The Jews had been God’s chosen people for over a millennium. God had needed a context in which to show Himself to the world, revealing His character, His power, His laws, His works, His ways, His prophecies and His plan. This was the purpose of the nation of Israel. Beginning with the call to Abraham and continuing throughout the Old Testament God worked in and through the Jews, telling the story of God as He related to Israel. It required that God have a chosen people so He could reveal Himself to the watching world. Israel had a special role to play.
For centuries God sent prophets and prophecies telling of the day of the Lord when the Messiah, the Christ, the Deliverer, would come and sit on the throne of David forever. Jesus, a Jew, was a descendant of David, born in the city of David, who fulfilled all of the prophecies that had been given to the Jews.
The Jews had the front row benefit of seeing the experiences of God, the provision of God, the protection of God. To everyone else it was secondhand information, but to the Jews, it was personal. It was theirs, and so from their perspective for a Gentile to truly enter into the firsthand experience with God they needed to become Jewish.
That was the perspective which these false teachers from Judea were trying to force upon this beautifully multi-ethnic church in Antioch, but it was not God’s perspective.
These false teachers did not blatantly deny Christ, but they demanded additional requirements to truly be a follower of Christ. Their false teachings included obeying the Jewish laws as prerequisites to salvation in Christ. It was the idea of “Christ . . .plus,” as if Christ’s death and resurrection were not enough to bring forgiveness and to make us holy. One of the Jewish laws that was being required was that of circumcision.
Circumcision was an outward sign that a person was set apart for God and different than others. That is who the Jews were to be. A holy, set apart people. And this was shown outwardly by circumcision, trusting that it reflected the condition of their hearts that were also “circumcised or set apart” for God.
Because of this, if a person had been physically circumcised but their heart was not set apart for God the physical circumcision was meaningless. On the other hand, if one’s heart was “circumcised” and set apart for God and he had not been physically circumcised he was still right with God. Ultimately, the focus was on the heart that was set apart for God not the physical circumcision.
In Christ the Gentile Christians in the Antioch church had been set apart, not by a human hand performing the physical act of circumcision, but by the spiritual act of God making them holy and forgiving their sin.
Holiness and right relation with God are not through the physical, religious ritual of circumcision. Salvation does not come through awards, religious rituals, good deeds, or any work of man. It comes through faith. That is why Paul and Barnabas felt the necessity to dispute and debate their teachings.
To make it even more complicated, the strict Jew would have no dealings with a Gentile. Not as a guest in his home or a client in business. So, even if Jews and Gentiles were sitting in the church together, how would they relate with each others outside of the church?
At this early stage of the first century church this was a foundational issue that had to be laid out not just for the church in Antioch but for all the churches.
Acts 15:2 then continues,
So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.
The following verses then tell how, “3 The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
Many were happy to hear how God was working amongst the Gentiles to bring them to salvation, but not everyone was happy. Acts 15: 5 tells that,
“5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
These Pharisees mentioned in this verse were Christ-professing Pharisees who were now part of the church in Jerusalem. The Pharisees were known for being very spiritual people who meticulously obeyed the religious laws.
They believed in God’s written law found in the Old Testament, but also gave the same authority to religious traditions that had been passed down through the centuries. This added more than 600 religious laws in addition to the laws that were found in scripture. Because of this the supposed holiness of a Pharisee’s life was many times based on strict rule keeping.
Although they were now following Christ they brought with them their religious perspectives from the past and their tendency toward legalism. This was the source of their demands of the Gentiles who wanted to follow Christ.
In some settings when someone speaks up with this much conviction and passion they get their way because either people want to avoid conflict or feel intimidated. It is encouraging to see that the early church in Jerusalem did not respond in this way. They did not bow to the Pharisees demands and they also did not get drawn into a fight. Instead, they sought the Lord looking for the Holy Spirit’s leading.
Acts 15: 6-11 describes their response.
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.
8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Peter reminded those present of what God had already done at the home of Cornelius. Back in Acts 10 Cornelius, a God-fearing, Roman centurion had received a vision from God to send for Peter. God then had given Peter a vision to go with Cornelius’ men when they arrived at his door and asked him to come with them. Peter and others had then traveled to the town where Cornelius lived and entered his home. It was unheard of for Jews to have dealings with Gentiles and yet there they were. Once there, Peter preached the gospel and the Holy Spirit fell on all the Gentiles who heard the word in Cornelius’ house. The movement of God was so evident that they were all baptized in the name of Jesus. This had happened without Cornelius or his companions being circumcised. Peter clearly stated that “God did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.” The Gentiles were saved by faith, not by keeping religious rules.
Peter then goes on to ask in Acts 15: 10,
“Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?”
It was a really good question. The yoke was the wooden apparatus that a farmer would set across the shoulders of an oxen to plow the fields and carry heavy burdens. In the Old Testament God had given the Jews the law, the religious rituals, the prophecies, and yet still they could not walk in obedience. The law served to show the Jews two things, the standard of holiness, and their inability to be holy in their own power. Peter was asking, “Why would you require the Gentile believers to carry an unbearable religious yoke that we Jews have never be able to carry?”
Peter then declared, that it is “by the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” The issue was not just how were the Gentiles saved. It was also how were the Jews saved. None of them would be saved by the keeping of religious rules because no one can perfectly do that and earn their salvation. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Salvation will never be earned. As Paul states in Ephesians 2:8-9,
“8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
In Acts 15:12, Barnabas and Paul then stood before the whole assembly and “told about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.”
After they had finished, James, the brother of Jesus, who by this time had become the leader of the church in Jerusalem, then stood and spoke of how the Old Testament prophecy (Amos 9:11-12) agreed with the testimony of Peter. The Lord would return to rebuild and restore so that, “the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name.”
James then declared the final decision that they “should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who were turning to God.” They would place no other requirements for salvation, only faith. They would only ask that those who became Christians would “abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”
To eat food that had been sacrificed to other gods would call into question one’s allegiance to Christ. To live in sexual immorality would be in blatant disobedience to God’s call to holiness. To eat the blood of strangled animals and from blood would drive an impassible divide between the Gentiles and Jews and would violate God’s teaching.
Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to send some of their own men to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They were sent to deliver the following letter:
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.
25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing.
28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
The men traveled to Antioch and shared the words from the Jerusalem church, and they were encouraged and strengthened.
Like Christ they had found that balance between grace and truth. This was such a beautiful characteristic of Christ. Though Christ never lowered His holy standard, still there was something that drew even the worst of sinners to Him. May we seek that same winsome balance of grace and truth. May we nurture a balance of grace and truth in our church where we are fervent students of God’s Word, while at the same time being dispensers of grace wherever we go.
These Christian Pharisees had become believers but still brought in with them the baggage of all the Jewish religious rules. Some of those had come from scripture, but many of them had just come from tradition. We can be like that at times as well. We elevate our preferences or traditions to the same status as scripture. We hold dearly to things that God does not hold dearly. Maybe a church dress code, or a leadership model, or a music style or a way of doing ministry, or a way of living that is more cultural than biblical. May we be careful and discerning so that we stand where scripture stands on issues in society and in the church. May we draw lines where scripture clearly draws lines and may we grant grace enough to allow people to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit where scripture does not draw clear lines.
If you died today and stood before God and He asked you, “Why should I let you into heaven?’ How would you answer that question? There may be different ways that you might answer that, but from today’s scripture we can see that salvation does not come from the good deeds we try to do or our religious rituals or how much money we give to the church or how many ministries we are involved in or if our good deeds outnumber our bad deeds or how we compare to other people who are supposedly worse than us. Our sin separates us from God and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The only way a sinful people can enter into the presence of a holy God is through Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the father except through Him. (John 14:6)
He alone is the Son of God who has taken on the form of a man, lived a perfect life, willing laid down His life on a Roman cross so that He could pay for our sin so that we could receive His righteousness. Why should God let us into His heaven? Because we have turned from our sin and put our faith in Jesus. Today, surrender your life to follow Jesus and put your faith in Him that you may be saved.
