24We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29You 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.
30The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers. 33After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. 35But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord. (Acts 15:1-35)
First let me review: Paul and Barnabas had been sent out from Antioch by the Holy Spirit and had been spreading the Gospel to the Gentiles in Galatia (and some other places, too). They had established churches in a number of cities. (They had also encountered quite a bit of resistance from the Jews. In Lystra some Jews from a couple of other cities that they had preached in came and stirred up the crowd against them to the point that they stoned Paul, dragged him out of the city and left him for dead. (I pointed out last week that if you preach the message of the gospel clearly, you can expect—in fact, it should cause—a clear division between those who accept it and those who reject it.)
After Paul was left for dead, the believers gathered around him and he got up and went back into Lystra. Then he and Barnabas continued on their journey and returned to Antioch after stopping in some of the cities where they had already preached.
While Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch (teaching and preaching, I presume, because they were apostles and that’s what God had called them to do), some men came from Judea, according to verse 1 in today’s passage, and began to teach that unless you are circumcised, you can’t be saved. Paul and Barnabas sharply disputed that claim.
The Gentile believer had been convicted of sin—that they were sinners and that they would go to hell—and they had rejoiced when they were saved by God’s grace and mercy. That’s the message of the gospel. Jesus had died—had been punished in their place—and had risen from the dead and their sins were forgiven. And they had accepted that truth by faith and were saved. The death sentence had been removed. They were rejoicing. And now some people who were claiming to be experts were telling them that no, they were still lost. They were dead in their transgressions and sins. There was still one more thing they had to do.
Some years back I remember reading a little book published by Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was called How to Witness in the Spirit or something like that. (Actually, there were two books that I read. I don’t remember any more which one was which.) Anyway, Bill Bright said that before you tried to witness in the Spirit, you needed to make sure you were a Christian. He told about a woman who had told him that she had grown up in the church and thought she was a believer. Apparently she hadn’t been and had at some point realized that she wasn’t and had done something to change the situation. But Bill Bright didn’t say any more than that. I thought, “I think that I’m a believer, too. How do I really know? Maybe I’m not.” I really had a hard time with that story. Bill Bright never said why the woman was not a believer.
Bill Bright also had a story about a couple that came to him all the way from somewhere in Europe. They wanted to know what they needed to do to be saved. He said that he read them some scriptures and told them to pray the sinner’s prayer or some similar thing. They told him, “We’ve prayed that every day for the last six months and nothing happens.” He told them, “Well, try it just one more time.” They did—and after that they were laughing and rejoicing. That’s all Bill Bright said about it. I thought, “I’ve acknowledged that I’m a sinner and prayed for salvation. Maybe I didn’t do it right or from the heart—or something and am not saved. I really had a hard time. After that, for quite a while I would periodically here someone talk about salvation and would begin to doubt my salvation. So I would pray again, just in case and still not be sure. I think it must have been a demonic attack. (Actually, there’s more to it than that. But I don’t think it applies to everyone. If you want, you can ask me about it later.)
You know what? The criminal on the cross next to Jesus just said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He knew he was a sinner and he knew who Jesus was. Jesus told him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” It wasn’t complicated and isn’t complicated. I think the couple who came to Bill Bright were already saved. They just need some reassurance.
Well, I told that story because I was able to sympathize with the way the Gentile believers in Antioch must have felt when they were told that they had not done all that was necessary to receive God’s salvation. They were still lost in their sins—or maybe not. Whom were they supposed to believe. The church at Antioch decided to send Paul and Barnabas along with some of the other believers to Jerusalem to see what the apostles and elders had to say about this question. (verse 2)
Now I want to point out something. Paul and Barnabas were both apostles. They were led by the Holy Spirit. In fact, what Paul wrote—what we have in our Bibles today—is the word of God. And yet they all thought it was necessary to see what the other apostles and the elders in Jerusalem had to say about the issue.
If you look around today, you will see that there are all kinds of people who claim to be led by the Spirit and say all kinds of things that don’t agree with what others who are supposedly led by the Spirit are saying. We need further conformation when someone claims to be speaking for God. The believers in Antioch sent to the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem to see what they had to say.
Now let’s look at verses 3 and 4:
3The 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 brothers very glad. 4When 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. (Acts 15:3, 4)
Did you notice that they told everyone along the way—all the churches—about how the Gentiles had been converted—and that the brothers didn’t question that the Gentiles were saved—that they were glad. When they came to Jerusalem they gave the same report that they had in Antioch and along the way and presumably also explained what the issue was—why they had come. Let’s look at the way some of those at Jerusalem reacted. I’ll read verse 5:
5Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.” (Acts 15:5)
You notice that these people didn’t just want the Gentiles to be circumcised. They wanted them to keep the Law of Moses. I imagine pretty much all the believers in Jerusalem were either Jews or converts to Judaism. They all kept the Law of Moses. (Circumcision, by the way, was not part of the Law of Moses. God gave it to Abraham long before he gave the law to Moses.)
Now, why do you think these people from the party of the Pharisees wanted the Gentile believers to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses? Do you think they were concerned about the salvation of the gentile believers?
Here’s what I think. I don’t think they even thought about the salvation of the Gentiles. (If they would have thought about it, I think that, unlike those guys that were making trouble in Antioch, they probably would have said the Gentiles were saved.) Here’s what I think. I think it really had to do with pride—or at least with some sort of sense of fairness.
In my high school (when I went to high school a long time ago), we had the grades divided up into six semesters. (It was a three-year high school and there were six grades.) When you first arrived at my high school, you were assigned to a homeroom where they took attendance each day and made announcements. You kept the same homeroom all the way through. And there was an initiation for those who were there for the first semester. It varied from homeroom to homeroom, but ours was that you had to get down on your knees and bow down to anyone you saw in the hall that was in the sixth semester—a senior ready to graduate—and, of course they knew who you were, so you couldn’t avoid it. (The homerooms were segregated by sex, by the way.)
We were told, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get to do the same thing to the new guys when you’re a senior. However, half way through my high school years we got a new principle. He was worried about trouble (he had come from a gang environment) and we were forbidden to have initiations any more. I said, “It’s not fair!”
Well, some of the Pharisees said, “We’ve spent the best part of our lives trying to keep the Law of Moses. We carefully gave a tenth of all of our garden herbs and all of those things and you’re going to let these guys off with just God’s grace!? It’s just not fair!!” And notice that they didn’t say: “The Gentiles must be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses in order to be saved.” They just said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the Law of Moses.” Anyway, that’s my interpretation. I don’t think they could really have been believers and thought that you had to keep the Law of Moses to be saved. (And I could add one more comment. If you really did have to be circumcised to be saved, what about women?)
Now let’s look at verses 6 through 11:
6The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7After 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. 8God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? 11No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 15:6-11)
All the stuff that happened up to this point was before the formal meeting. They called a meeting to discuss the question. Verse 7 says, “After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them...” Probably discussion is a more mild translation. It could be translated ‘much debate’ or ‘much dispute’ or ‘much controversy’. I suspect it was a heated discussion. Then Peter got up and spoke.
First of all he reminded them of how he had been sent to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. (You remember Cornelius?) Peter said that it was God’s decision not his to go to the Gentiles. (Peter was probably the last person in the world who would have gone into the house of a Gentile, but God told him to go.)
Peter said, “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.” Here’s the crux of the matter. It’s what’s in your heart that God counts. It has nothing to do with what rituals you perform and everything to do with whether or not you trust God—everything to do with faith. Abel made the better sacrifice because he made it by faith. God accepted it. God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice because it wasn’t made by faith but, apparently, as a ritual—I think about the same way we pay our income tax. (I’m glad our salvation doesn’t depend on what’s in our hearts when we pay our income tax.)
Now look at verse 10. The Pharisees had seemed to be implying that they actually kept the Law of Moses. But Peter was much more honest about it. (Remember what he said when he first became a disciple of Jesus? “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Peter knew.) In verse 10 Peter said that it was testing God to require the Gentiles to be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses. When God says, “I made my own Son suffer and die in order to save these people from hell,” how can you say to God, “That’s not good enough. We want to add some other requirements to what you have already done.” How do you think God would feel about that? It’s an extreme insult and an extreme expression of ingratitude. Finally Peter said, “No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” The Jews are saved in exactly the same way that the Gentiles are—not through any rituals, but through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!
After Peter had finished speaking, Paul and Barnabas got up and told about what God had done among the Gentiles through them—about the miraculous signs and wonders. Then James spoke up.
This James was not the apostle James who had been put to death earlier (obviously). He was almost certainly Jesus’s brother (or half-brother, to be more accurate—but brother or half-brother is not a distinction the Bible seems to make).
James was a leader in Jerusalem (some say the leader). He is spoken of by the apostle Paul in Galatians, along with Peter and John as one of the pillars. He is mentioned several places in Acts where the church leadership is spoken of. He was also an apostle, but not one of the twelve that traveled around with Jesus as Peter was. (There were other apostles besides the twelve—Paul and Barnabas, for example.) James is also probably the author of the book of James.
Let’s look at verses 13 through 18. Here’s what James said:
13When they finished, James spoke up: “Brothers, listen to me. 14Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. 15The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16 “‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
17that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things’
18that have been known for ages. (James 15:13-18)
James started with the fact that God was saving people from among the Gentiles. It was a fact. That had been established. Then he gave further support by quoting from the Old Testament scriptures: “See! God planned on saving the Gentiles right along (‘...all the Gentiles that bear my name...’) and now he’s doing it. Here’s what he said. This is from verses 19 through 21:
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” (Acts 15:19-21)
Let’s look at each of the requirements:
The first requirement is to abstain from food polluted by idols. The Pagans offered the choicest animals as sacrifices to their idols (or really, to the demon gods the idols represented). Then they sold the meat in the markets. The Gentiles didn’t think anything about buying the meat. And, in fact, it was just meat, so there was really nothing wrong with it. But the Jews were brought up to avoid anything connected with idolatry. Meat sacrificed to idols was considered polluted. It would probably been harder for them to eat meat sacrificed to idol than for us to eat meat that was rotten and full of maggots. It would have been a stumbling block for them if the Gentiles ate meat sacrificed to idols. But, in fact, this requirement not to eat meat sacrificed to idols eventually passed away (at least partially). The apostle Paul later told the Corinthians that if they could eat the meat sacrificed to idols without offending anyone (or without offending themselves) to go ahead and do it. But really, he said that it would be better to just not ask questions at the meat market.
The requirements to abstain from blood and meat from strangled animals (rather than cutting their throats and letting them bleed) actually go back to the time of Noah after the flood. But it is also in the Law of Moses. Listen while I read Leviticus 17:10-14:
10 “‘Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood— I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. 11For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. 12Therefore I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.”
13 “‘Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.” (Leviticus 17:10-14)
Did you notice that verse 11 says, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” Have you ever heard that before—it’s the blood that makes atonement for one’s life? It’s the blood of Jesus that made atonement for our lives. Jesus fulfilled the law. He nailed it to the cross. It says so in Colossians 2:14. It no longer applies.
None of these things are really commands to the church from God. These are mostly to keep the Jewish believers from being offended. The requirement to abstain from sexual immorality is the only one that really is a command from God to the church.
In the pagan society, sexual immorality was actually part of Pagan worship. They routinely broke the seventh commandment by committing adultery. (And the practice of sexual immorality as part of Pagan worship goes back to the beginning of time. I really believe that sexual immorality is one of the primary ways Satan keeps people separated from God. Have you noticed how sexual immorality, both heterosexual and homosexual, has now become a right? It used to be illegal. We need to beware!) Anyway, the Gentiles needed to be told to abstain from sexual immorality because it was something they had taken for granted in their past lives.
Verse 21 in today’s passage says, “For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” When James says that Moses was preached in every city, he is talking about the Ten Commandments, not the ritualistic law. Apparently, even the Gentiles knew about the commandments. They all knew that it was wrong to steal and murder or commit adultery, to dishonor you father or mother, to bear false witness or to blaspheme or profane the name of God. (There didn’t seem to be a synagogue in Lystra where they had tried to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as Pagan gods, but Paul still told them that God could be known through his creation and his providing for them. And in Romans 1:18-20 Paul says that because of that, those who disobey God are without excuse.)
The apostles and elders along with the whole church decided to choose some of their own men and send them back to Antioch with a letter containing James’ requirements. They sent along with Paul and Barnabas two men who were also leaders among them, Judas and Silas. (Silas would be the one who would travel with Paul on the next missionary journey, by the way.)
Now let me read the letter—verses 23b through 29:
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29You 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.
They pretty much repeated what James had said. But one of the things I noticed was the way they addressed the letter—not from the church in Jerusalem to the church in Antioch, but “from the apostles and elders, your brothers” and “to the Gentile believers (literally brothers again—to the gentile brothers—I’m not sure why the NIV says believers, but it’s brothers)”. They considered the Gentile Christians to be their brothers, which is what they were.
Here’s the result of the letter—verses 30 through 35:
30The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers. 33After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. 35But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord. (Acts 15:1-35)
The people (both Jews and Gentiles, I believe) were glad to read the message. (You know, they could have been both disappointed—the Jews because it wasn’t strict enough and the Gentiles because it was too strict—but they were glad and were encouraged.)
Paul and Barnabas continued to do what God had commissioned and equipped them to do, which was to teach and to preach.
Finally, I want to say this: The main point of this passage is that we are saved by grace, not by works. We can’t save ourselves. Salvation is the gift of God. And there is no other requirement but to trust God. (If you add any other requirements, you are rebelling against God and you are in deep trouble. You may be causing others to stumble, too.) All the believers accepted the decision of the apostles and elders with gladness. Apparently, even the Pharisee that initially argued did, too.
We are saved by grace alone through faith alone. (And, by the way, this doesn’t mean go out and sin freely. If you think that, you are probably not a Christian. If you trust God...if you trust Jesus...you will not want to sin. You will want to please God. Abel made his offering by faith. He wanted to please God. Cain made his offering without faith. He wound up full of bitterness and murdered his brother. When we trust God, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit. He will not let us become like Cain.
May the Lord bless you and keep you (and me, too).
[prayer]