Old Habits Die Hard
15:1 And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question. (Acts 15:1-2)
The conference of apostles and elders was convened to consider the question of what was required for Gentile salvation (Acts 15:1-2, 5-6). But was that all it was about? No! The news of how the church was changing has come to the attention of believers with a nasty penchant for nationalism, jealousy for their God, and an evil envy (Acts 13:45) toward those who were entering the kingdom without the rigmarole of trying to keep the law.
The push for Gentile circumcision and adopting the Law was a effort in a larger stratagem aimed at hindering the entrance of so many non-Jewish people (Acts 23:13) and forcing a conformity on outsiders. The conformity would make strict Jews feel more comfortable. Especially as it regards the Pharisees, this effort is a remnant tendency from their life before Christ (Matthew 23:13); they had a habit of hindering people as they were endeavoring to enter the kingdom of heaven.
23:13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. (Matthew 23:13)
Legalists neither lean on saving grace nor allow others to enjoy the gifts of God’s unmatched goodness.
It is still happening today. That is, today there is still an effort to bottleneck the way to God through additional religious requirements, rigid demands decorated as piety, and seemingly sacred rituals. The way to God, though, is just Jesus. What is the way? Again, just Jesus. He is the Way (John 14:6). He is the ladder leading to the Father, the only avenue to the Almighty, and the exclusive means by which we must be saved. Pharisees both then and now are going to keep trying to mess with the message of reconciliation. They had to be stopped then. They have to be stopped now.
Even when the evidence has been mounting the legalist’s habit of hampering others coming to God with rules persists. In the context of the passage we are considering, this is a settled matter that legalists keep bringing up. That is, even though the issue has already been settled through the prior experience of Peter and other Jews with the commander of an Italian regiment, the tendency to try to bring everyone into legalism will not die. It is for many a hard habit to break. Look with me at what had happened before and after the incident recorded in Acts 15:1-2.
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Acts 10:1 — Cornelius, centurion of the Italian Regiment
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Acts 10:44–48 — Holy Spirit falls on Gentiles
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Acts 11:15–18 — Peter recounts the event
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Acts 15:1–2 — dispute brought to apostles and elders (we are here)
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Acts 15:7–11 — Peter uses the earlier Gentile conversion as evidence
Later Peter (Acts 15:7-11) will refer back to how God chose that Gentiles should hear the gospel through his mouth, and how God gave them the Holy Spirit without first making them Jews. His references clearly points back to Cornelius and his household. What does this mean? It means that the Jews that came from Jerusalem have already seen that God accepts Gentiles that believe in Christ without circumcision. But they cannot let it go. They are on their own mission to stop the spread of a gospel that does not require circumcision. The mission of the church comes after their own mission to make everyone like themselves.
Both then and now there has to be a Spirit-led focus on the mission of the church. This is what led the Christian Jewish leadership in Jerusalem to write a letter that released Gentiles from circumcision. They saw the stifling effect of demanding adherence to the law on non-Jews who were ready to receive Christ. Serious about serving God well in their traditions, they could also see beyond their preferences and prejudices. They put Christ and His mission of reaching the nations before their own desires for uniformity and cultural comfort. Polhill says it well:
[T]he Jewish Christian leadership showed a concern for the world mission of the church that overshadowed their own special interests. They took a step that was absolutely essential if the Gentile mission was to be a success. To have required circumcision and the Torah would have severely limited the appeal to Gentiles, perhaps even killed it. Yet the Jewish Christians only stood to lose by not requiring Jewish proselyte procedure of the Gentile converts. It was bound to create problems with nonbelieving Jews. That it indeed did so is indicated in a later passage in Acts (21:20–22). If the Jerusalem leadership had only been concerned about the effectiveness of their own witness among the Jews, they would never have taken such a step. That it did so is testimony of their concern for the total mission of the church. Their vision stretched beyond their own bailiwick—indeed, to the ends of the earth. (Polhill, 1992, pp. 337-338)
People who are missional in their thinking are capable of getting out of the way and letting go of their wants. In the love of God that has been poured out into their hearts (Romans 5:5) they have the capacity to both see the truth of how the command to love others applies and then execute. In the early church it is seen in Jewish leaders that are willing to let their Gentile brethren be themselves insofar as it did not displease the Lord Jesus. Instead of bending Scripture to suit their goal of manipulating believers, they bent themselves to accept differences and promote a world with more people following Christ.
In His grip by His grace,
Roderick L. Barnes, Sr.
References
Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, pp. 337–338). Broadman & Holman Publishers.
