The Apostles’ Council: Was The Law of Moses necessary
Apostles’ Council
The main topic of the Apostles’ Council was whether circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses were necessary for believers.
The “men from James” clearly felt that accepting hospitality from such Gentiles was impossible for Torah-observant Christians; and if this issue had not been explicitly discussed in Jerusalem, then it is not improbable that they had good arguments to persuade Peter and Barnabas. “Righteous Gentiles” may indeed be acceptable to God through his grace, but they could not be part of Israel, and relationships with them would continue to defile Torah-observant Jewish Christians. With the growing success of the Gentile mission, this problem and the threat it posed to Jewish-Christian self-identity will have grown ever greater.
Paul’s own understanding of the grace of God, however, led him to affirm that there could be no distinction before God between the Christian Jew and the righteous Gentile (cf. Rom 3:29–30). Galatians is a sustained argument that his converts already enjoy all the blessings of the covenant—they are already children of Abraham (Gal 3:7, 28–29). Hence for Gentiles to accept the yoke of Torah observance is not simply a matter of indifference, but a denial of God’s acceptance of them in the gospel, and therefore a denial of Christ (Gal 5:4).
In Galatians then—almost certainly one of the earliest extant letters of Paul—we already see not only a fully developed rationale of the Gentile mission but also a deep conviction about the nature of the church as the true Israel of God, with Jew and Gentile on equal standing before God and to each other. Within this perspective it is more likely than not that in Romans 11:26 Paul reiterates his redefinition of “all Israel” (cf. Rom 9:6) as a new people in Christ, wherein is “neither Jew nor Greek” Gal 3:28; Douglas R. De Lacey, “Gentiles,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 338.
When they arrived in Jerusalem, the church, the apostles, and the elders welcomed them. They reported all that God had done with them. However, some believers from the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said,
“It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:4–5).
Peter addressed the assembly, stating that God made no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, cleansing their hearts by faith. He asked, “Why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are” (Acts 15:9–11).
James did not refer to the testimony of Paul and Barnabas, perhaps because their mission policy was on trial. Instead, he moved directly from apostolic evidence to the prophetic word, stating, “The words of the prophets are in agreement with this.”
Councils have no authority in the church unless their conclusions align with Scripture.
To support his claim, James quoted Amos 9:11–12.
Simeon has reported how God first intervened to
take from the Gentiles a people for his name. And the words of
the prophets agree with this, as it is written:
After these things I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
I will rebuild its ruins
and set it up again,
so that the
rest of humanity
may seek the Lord—
even all the Gentiles
who are called by my name—
declares the Lord
who makes these things known from long ago (Acts 15:14–18)
Peter also used Old Testament Scripture, emphasizing that nothing in Scripture is done without it:
All the prophets testify about him that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43). Moses said: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to everything he tells you. And everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be completely cut off from the people. In addition, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, have also foretold these days (Acts 3:18–24).
Paul went to Jerusalem again after this council (Acts 21:20–24).
Interestingly, Luke’s record of the gates being shut is the last mention of the temple in Acts. This marks the final major spiritual and geographical turning point in Acts. Paul would never again return to Jerusalem for worship or witness. By rejecting the messenger and the message of salvation, Paul’s opponents sealed the city’s fate (Luke 13:34–35; 21:6, 20). By allowing ethnic pride to prevent them from fulfilling their mission as “a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6), the Jews not only rejected their place in the true people of God but also deprived the Temple of the universal glory God intended for it as “a house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:7; cf. Luke 19:46).
Allison A. Trites, William J. Larkin, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol 12: The Gospel of Luke and Acts (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2006), 588.When the Jerusalem mob, in their effort to defend the temple, seized Paul, dragged him out of the inner court, slammed the gates shut behind him, and tried to kill him (Acts 21:30–31), they passed the point of no return. The actions of the high priest and his colleagues (Acts 23:12–15; 25:2–3) eventually forced Paul to appeal to Caesar, sealing their fate as a priestly order and that of the temple.
...who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins, but wrath has overtaken them at last 1 Thess.2:15,16).It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.
But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice Phil. 1:15–18
In Acts 21:24, James says that if Paul performs the vow, everyone will know that the accusations against him (that he teaches Jews to abandon Moses, etc., as in Acts 21:21) are false, and “that you too are behaving as a law-observant Jew should.” What should have been the response from someone who believed the gospel was “for the Jew first”?
“Do this and we will know you are loyal to Torah; don’t do it and everyone will believe you have torn up the scriptures!”
Faced with that loaded and dangerous alternative, Paul would unhesitatingly choose the former, since everything he believed was based on the assumption that the law and the prophets were fulfilled in the Messiah. Those who have never faced tricky and potentially life-threatening political or religious situations, full of distorted questions and false alternatives, should refrain from casting the first stone.
N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol. 4, Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013).To understand Paul’s view of freedom, we must recognize that he was so free that, unless a theological issue was at stake, he could willingly surrender his freedom in order to facilitate the spread of the gospel. This is seen most clearly in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23.
Although free, Paul voluntarily became a slave to the weaknesses of others … [He] would have no problem urging Gentile believers that they should keep the decree when they were in the presence of Jews, for truly free persons are only free when they can surrender their freedom out of love for the weak. For Paul this could even involve taking a Jewish vow, if it helped in his ministry among the Jews (Acts 18:18; 21:26).
Besides God had not yet fully shown that the law was abolished. He tolerated it until the iniquity of the Jews was complete; then, by the destruction of Jerusalem, He swept away every rite and ceremony of the Jewish law with the broom of destruction.
Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible with a Commentary and Critical Notes, New Edition, vol. 5 (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife Corporation, 2014), 860.
The men of the church learned [thereby] not to use their freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love to “be servants of one another” (Gal. 5:13).
Thus Christianity was safeguarded against a reimposition of the Law; the very real danger that Christianity might degenerate into a Judaic sect (and so perish with Judaism) was averted.
Robert L. Reymond, Paul, Missionary Theologian (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2000), 150,151.
Sadly, in the end, the strategy failed. In the events that followed, nothing indicates that Paul’s Jerusalem relief fund was accepted, and no one in the Jerusalem Christian community came to his rescue during the confrontation that continued to unfold.
The Jerusalem church, so prominent in the early chapters of Acts and now grown to “many thousands,” disappears from view during the final seven chapters.Dennis Hamm, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in New Testament, ed. Daniel Durken, The New Collegeville 422
At my first hearing, no one came to my defense, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles would hear it, and I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
In AD 64 (or earlier, according to some), God had the Epistle to the Hebrews written and circulated, calling on Christian Jews everywhere to abandon the temple system of worship, which had become the center and expression of determined rejection of the Lord Jesus. Six years later, the temple was destroyed, and the Sadducean priestly class faded away, but not before their guilt was established beyond excuse.
David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and Defending the Gospel, Myrtlefield Expositions (Coleraine, Northern Ireland: Myrtlefield House, 2013), 443.The basic notion underlying ἀδόκιμος-disqualified,unqualified is one of being removed from consideration due to lack of qualifying factors.
These people have been disqualified regarding the “faith.”
This is a translation of the common word πίστις, ‘faith.’ This phrase, “concerning the faith” occurs two other times in the Pastorals, both in First Timothy:
I am setting before you this instruction, Timothy my child, in accordance with the prophecies spoken long ago about you, in order that by them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience, which some, because they have rejected these, have suffered shipwreck concerning their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, in order that they may be taught not to blaspheme. (1Tim. 1:18–20 )
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Turn away from pointless empty talk and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, which some, by professing it, have deviated concerning the faith. Grace be with you all. (1Tim. 6:20–21)
In all instances in the Pastoral Epistles, this phrase is offered as a qualifier to describe people who have turned their backs on the gospel Paul preaches.
In the only other time this prepositional phrase is used, however, it is used positively of someone turning toward the gospel Paul preaches: And after some days, when Felix arrived with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and listened to him concerning faith in Christ Jesus. (Acts 24:24)
In the New Testament, then, the phrase “concerning (the) faith” is used as a qualifier to the turning toward or turning away from a life of faith in Christ. Rick Brannan, Second Timothy, Lexical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (Appian Way Press, 2018), 112–113.
False teachers oppose the truth and have a corrupt mind: 2 Tim. 3:8;. The only more or less close parallel is Uzziah, “who was puffed up and corrupted; he became unfaithful to Yahweh his God” (2 Chr. 26:16; cf. 2 Chr. 27:2—“the people were corrupted”; Lev. 26:39—“those among you who remain will waste away [Hebrew māqaq] because of their sin”).
In most of its LXX occurrences, kataphtheirō translates the Hebrew šāḥaṯ, “destroy, cut down; corrupt, pervert.” These two meanings are used together: “God saw that … all flesh had corrupted their ways on the earth. So behold I shall destroy them” Gen 6:12–13; but this second meaning is by far the best attested, especially with respect to the destruction of a city, of the whole earth (Gen 9:11; cf. Isa 24:1—bāqaq), of a kingdom (1 Macc. 8:11), of a ravaged land,(Isa 13:5; 36:10;49:19; 1 Macc. 3:39; 15:4) of its products (Judges 6:4), its fruits, its harvests (Wis. 16:19, 22), and its trees Dan. 4:14;. So the idea is that of devastation, always with the connotation of violence (1 Macc. 15:31).
These usages show that the false teachers of 2 Tim 3:8, their minds wasted or ravaged—today we speak of losing one’s mind—are radically incapable (cf. the perfect passive participle) of carrying out any magisterial function. When one’s ability to think and reason is corrupted, one is straightaway disqualified for teaching (cf. adokimoi-unfit; cf. Titus 1:16). Ceslas Spicq and James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 278,279.
“ You do always resist the Holy Ghost”: i.e., the testimony of the Holy Spirit as given by the prophets.
The Holy Ghost in His testimony is always resisted by the natural man: i.e., opposed by him. He cannot, of course, be resisted in the sense of being successfully repelled. The Greek word here is ἀντιπίπτω (antipiptō), to fall against, oppose. It occurs only here, but the context clearly shows the nature and character of the opposition, the reference to the “ears” indicating that they refused to listen to His testimony. The natural ear is always closed against the Divine testimony, until it is “opened” by One who is stronger than the strong man armed. Ethelbert William Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (London; New York: Eyre & Spottiswoode; E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1898), 542–543.
Christ alone is the sanctuary and the mercy seat of the New Testament.
Christ himself is present to us in a very earthly way. Everywhere in the history of revelation God embodies himself for us. His Spirit came in the form of a dove and of the fiery tongues of Pentecost. And God still embodies himself for us.
Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 22,23.
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