The Council at Jerusalem
1 Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “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. 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. 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 brothers 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.
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 obey the law of Moses.”
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 made no distinction 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 the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers 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.”
12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up: “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simon has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself. 15 The 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,
17 that the remnant of men may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’
18 that have been known for ages.
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead 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. 21 For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
My Understanding: The passage begins by letting us know that there were men who were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised… you cannot be saved.” Then, we read that when Paul and Barnabas arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church there. Yet, 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.” So, this is the issue that is at hand here, and the one that Paul and Barnabas and the other apostles were called upon to address. Peter then addressed this issue, after much discussion had taken place on the matter, and he confirmed that the Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit, just as the apostles and believing Jews had, and that God had purified their hearts by faith, too. Then, this is the clincher – Peter asked those who were making these external requirements of the Gentile believers why they were trying to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither the apostles or Jewish believers and their fathers were able to bear. And, then he states the truth that is opposed to the lie – We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are. And, that settles the matter!
We are no longer under the Old Testament and/or Jewish regulations and we are no longer under the old covenant that God had with his people, the Jewish nation. God provided a new way, and the only way under which we can be saved, and that is by grace through faith, not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast (See Eph. 2:8-9). Through Jesus’ death on the cross, his burial and his resurrection he canceled the written code, he became the fulfillment of the law, he conquered death, hell, Satan and sin on our behalf, and he set us free – not only from the penalty of sin but from the bondage to sin and the control of sin over our lives. He also set us free from the old covenant and he placed us under the new covenant. He summed up the law in these two laws – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (See Luke 10:26-28). If we truly follow those two laws, we will obey the Ten Commandments. Yet, there are people who want to take us back in time and to place us under the Old Testament regulations and under the old covenant which required circumcision of the males in the household as a sign of the Jewish people’s covenant with God. So, we must be reminded that Jesus set us free and we are saved by his grace.
Now, for those of us who have lived in the 20th and 21st Centuries, and especially those of us who have been brought up in the U.S.A., and in particular if we are female and not male, we have not had to face this kind of requirement from others within the Body of Christ as a stipulation for salvation, most likely. Yet, that does not mean that we have not had other well-meaning or maybe not so well-meaning brothers and sisters in the church try to put on us a yoke of slavery that God does not intend for us to bear. On the contrary, this still happens in today’s church, only it just comes in different forms. Some church congregations require speaking in tongues, for instance, for salvation. That is not Biblical. Others require a physical baptism for salvation and/or they might require a particular mode of Baptism for inclusion in the Body of Christ or that it might have to be done by a certain qualified individual or under a particular denomination, all of which is also not Biblical. Other man-made requirements may be a little more or less subtle than these, but just as binding as the other more obvious ones. The point of this passage of scripture, nonetheless, is that the only requirements for salvation are God’s grace, provided by Jesus’ death and resurrection, and our genuine faith, as evidenced by repentance and obedience to God (this is Biblically supported), yet none of this is of our own doing. Even the faith we have, I believe, is a gift from God. There are no external requirements that must be added on to salvation. When man does this, he is trying to test God who judges men’s hearts.
Yet, the leaders of the church at that time recognized that there needed to be some kind of compromise in order to keep unity within the Body of Christ. And, sometimes we may be required to make some concessions, as well, in order to show love to our brothers. Yet, we must note that they did not compromise on the essentials, only on the non-essentials, i.e. what we might consider disputable matters that are more a matter of man’s conscience, with one exception, and that was the requirement to abstain from sexual immorality. That is a clear teaching of scripture and it deals with specific sin issues, so that one is to be applied across the board as something we, as believers in Jesus, should abstain from as we are to forsake all sin. The others – abstaining from food polluted by idols and abstaining from the meat of strangled animals and from blood – fit into the category of disputable matters and matters of personal conscience. And, sometimes the Lord requires us to make concessions and/or compromises in these areas in order to keep peace and/or to keep a brother from stumbling in his faith, if his faith is weak. Some other scripture passages that deal with this issue are: Romans 14:1-15:13; I Co. 8; 10:23-33; and Galatians 5.
What I learned from reading these other passages of scripture is that Christ set us free, and we should stand firm in our faith and we should not allow ourselves to be burdened again by a yoke of slavery that is of man. If we try again to be justified (saved) by law and human regulations, then we alienate ourselves from Christ and we have fallen away from grace. May that never be! Gal. 5 says that “In Christ neither circumcision or uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Amen! When we give in to coming under a yoke of human regulations again, thinking they will somehow gain us merit with God, then we are being persuaded by the enemy of our souls who wants nothing more than to bring us under bondage and to keep us enslaved to man. Paul said that if he was still preaching circumcision, then why was he still being persecuted? He said that, in that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. Amen! The “offense of the cross” has to do with death – Jesus’ death on the cross and our coming to him in faith, and in so doing we dye ourselves to our old way of life (bondage) and being raised to new life in Christ Jesus (freedom). Jesus called us to be free, but not free to indulge in the sinful nature, but rather to serve one another in love, this passage says.
So, under what circumstances should we make concessions or compromise, and on what matters should we do that? The teaching in these other passages explains that well. We should not seek our own good, but the good of others. We are free to eat anything, yet if someone tells us that the food before us has been sacrificed to an idol, we should not eat it. Again, in modern-day America, this is not something we would face every day, yet there is a principle here that can be applied and that is that if someone tells us that something has been used in a sinful act of some kind, and we partake anyway, I believe we are giving the devil a foothold in that person’s life and we are letting him know that we don’t take sin and idolatry seriously. My opinion is that I think that person may be testing us to see if our faith is genuine or not, so we need to be discerning about this matter. We are commanded to not do anything that would cause another believer to stumble (to sin).
The scripture says clearly that food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and not better if we do. This is important to know this, because one of the lies out there says that what goes into our stomachs affects our spirituality, i.e. our relationship with God. I know of only one stipulation with regard to food, other than to not cause someone to stumble, and that is that we are not gluttonous, i.e. that we do not overeat, and this, too, is subject somewhat to interpretation, so we must pray and give that to God and ask for his wisdom as to what he regards as overeating. We should not judge the one whose faith allows him to eat everything and we must not judge the one whose faith does not permit him to eat everything. We just need to make up our mind that we will not put a stumbling block in another’s way that would lead him or her to sin.
Finally, in this passage in Romans 14 it states that “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And, that brings us right back around to what really saves us and that is God’s grace through our faith, and I believe both are a gift from God and not of man’s own doing, lest he should boast. We are not to believe the lies of the enemy that would get us back under a yoke of slavery – lies that add human regulations and stipulations as requirements for salvation or for spirituality, i.e. for us to be in a right relationship with God. These are external things that are destined to perish. Instead, we should follow the way of love and the way of righteousness provided for us through Jesus’ death and his resurrection and through us coming to him in faith - repentance and obedience – and we should walk in the freedom of the Spirit and not use our freedom to indulge in the sinful nature and/or to cause another brother to sin.
God So Loved the World / Bob Kauflin / Sung by Glad
In the garden long ago love was all there was to know
Pure, innocent and free – like we were made to be, long ago
Afraid – we followed after lies, and pain filled the Father’s eyes
But oh, from the first He knew what He’d planned to do,
… to bring us home
God so loved the world He gave His only Son
To face the death that we deserved and overcome
And everyone who hears His word and believes
The promise that he’s heard will never die, will never die
Hope – like an unexpected friend
Came to the helpless and condemned
And peace was offered far and near
To answer every fear in our hearts
Grace – only God could understand
Flowed freely from His hands
When the perfect Lamb was slain
To bear the guilt and shame of us all
Thru His death our forgiveness was obtained
And Heaven can be claimed once again
Thru His life He’s crushed the pow’r of sin
Now we can reign with Him forevermore
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