The early Church faced a crisis that required a church council in order to resolve it. Luke wrote about in the middle of his account of the early Church’s history he recorded in the book of Acts. In its beginning, the church had been built on the conversion of Jews to faith in Jesus. That was a non-controversial path. They had grown up as products of the law of Moses and the practice of circumcision. Then something radically changed. A Gentile and his household were converted. Cornelius and his family had come to faith in Jesus as Gentiles. Peter and others like him had affirmed their Christian experience.

Then circumstances began to change significantly. A church in Antioch was founded by witnesses from Jerusalem who witnessed to Greeks and Gentiles became Christians. They were converts from paganism and had not come through Jewish law and the rite of circumcision. The problem was extended when Paul and Barnabas went on their first missionary journey. They planted Gentile churches in the Roman world and there was a large influx of Gentile Christians. The issue that surfaced was whether or not a Gentile could go from paganism directly to salvation by trusting Christ without going through the Jewish practice of circumcision. The resolution of this question would directly affect the future of the Church and its expansion in the Gentile world.

Luke framed the controversy in Acts 15. “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’ ” (Acts 15:5). In a Church that now included Jews and a large number of Gentiles this dispute had to be finally settled. To address the problem the Church called a special council.

The Pharisees mentioned here were Christians but they carried over some of the beliefs they had prior to believing in Jesus. The Church Council in this chapter established that a Gentile didn’t have to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. Paul understood this and his letters continually argued for the fact that Gentiles didn’t have to submit to Jewish regulations to be followers of Jesus.

This decision would be of great importance because in every age there would be attempts to add to faith something we have to do in order to be saved. In Romans 4 Paul points out that Abraham had a relationship with God by faith long before he was circumcised. Paul refused to give in to attempts to add anything to faith as necessary for salvation.

Paul’s position going into this council was clear. Faced with a flood of Gentile conversions this Church Council was critical for dealing with circumcision as a requirement for salvation. Paul taught consistently that salvation is available to everyone by faith alone. We don’t have to submit to religious regulations first in order to be saved. Faith alone is what God requires of us if we are to be saved. We are saved by believing in what Jesus has done for us. Paul wrote in Romans, expressing the Church’s answer to the party of the Pharisees, “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith” (Romans 3:29-30).

In order to confront the teaching of the Christians who still demanded the practice of circumcision Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem to seek the agreement of the other Church leaders.

This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them [the Pharisaical Christians]. 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 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. (Acts 15:2-3).

Two of the Church’s leaders spoke up in that meeting. Peter, who had led Cornelius and his family to faith in Christ and James, the Lord’s brother, who was an acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem church. Peter spoke first: “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? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (Acts 15:10-11).

Peter pointed out two things. First, he called the laws they were discussing a yoke that he and his ancestors weren’t able to bear. That’s the key truth about the law. Nobody could keep. That’s why Jesus came and kept it for us. Since Jesus had kept the law there was no need for us to add our performance to believing in Him. The next thing Peter said saved the Church from division. Everyone is saved the same way—by the grace of Jesus. There aren’t two ways into the Kingdom, the grace way and the law way. Everyone comes through grace. The Church leaders sided with Peter. That settled the question for all time. The one way to God is through the grace of Jesus. The law reveals the problem—we are sinners. Grace reveals the solution. God has intervened in our lives with the gift of righteousness.

James spoke up and concluded the Church Council with his comments on Amos 9:11-12 that prophesied that God intended that Gentiles would be included in the Kingdom of God. “After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things”—things known from long ago (Acts 15:16-18).

That settled the controversy then and it settles it now. In the words of Peter: “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” Whether we are Jewish or Gentile, whether we are Americans, Europeans or Asians, whatever our ethnic background might be, salvation for all of us comes through the saving grace of Jesus.

Wally | GG Team