Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Acts 15 – The Council of Jerusalem (Background and Context)

Acts 15:1-4. A certain man which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.” When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles.

And they caused great joy unto all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church and the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you that they are light and lamp to us. Help us to understand them correctly this morning. Give us the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Help us, Father, to understand what you would have had us know about yourself and about your gospel and about our relationship to you through Jesus Christ, our savior. In his name we pray. Amen.

The children may—we’ll be spending a lot of time going through Acts 9 through 15. So you want to have that portion of your scriptures open. We’ll also be spending some time in Galatians, the entire book, going through certain verses in it as well.

Today we continue now with our series of going through the confessional statement of Reformation Covenant Church. We’ve been spending several months now on church office. We come to a very important passage of scripture in relationship to the government of the early church in Acts 15, at the council of Jerusalem. This is a passage that can be very controversial. There are many difficult things to understand about this passage.

For instance, you have the question of what chronology is depicted in Acts 15 in relationship to Galatians, the first three chapters of the book of Galatians. That’s an area of much discussion and debate. We’ll talk more about that in the weeks to come. There’s also the issue of what was the relationship of the church at Antioch, which we’ll be talking about this morning, to the church at Jerusalem. Why do they send men up to a council at Jerusalem? There are various interpretations of that as well. And that of course relates directly to church polity, the organization of the church, and the inter-relationships between churches. This is a very critical passage for understanding that as well.

There’s also the question of the law and what exactly was the council of Jerusalem debating? After all, was it the place of the law in justification, or was it the place of the law in sanctification? And as a result of that understanding, what does the decree that was issued from this council of Jerusalem mean for the churches it was sent to, and then to us as well?

These are just a few of the difficult problems that come up with this passage of scripture. It’s a difficult portion of scripture, but it’s an important one. It is critical to understanding the polity of the church specifically, and that’s our primary interest in it. However, to understand correctly the determination of what polity or what form of church government is taught by this council, we have to understand all the issues relating to the council as well.

Therefore, we’re going to take at least three weeks, maybe as many as four or five weeks, going through this passage of scripture. And today, all we really want to do this morning is to give a good background—the historical background of the church at Antioch, the scriptural background of the church at Antioch, and then the specific contextual background for the passage we’ll be looking at in Acts 15.

After we do that, we’ll look specifically at the issue that came up, a problem as it were. So we have two basic things we’ll be discussing this morning. First is by way of introduction or background to the whole discussion, and then we’ll look at the first couple of verses and the actual problem that arose that created the need to go to the council of Jerusalem. So that’s our plan this morning: the background and then the issue itself.

Now some of this may seem not really relevant to the issues that I’ve brought up so far, but you’ll see as we go through this over the next few weeks that all these things in terms of background are important for understanding what actually is occurring here. We have to know more about the church at Antioch specifically to understand its relationship to Jerusalem and to the discussion and dissension that came up with this contention in verses 1 and 2.

**Historical Background of Antioch**

So it’s important for us to recognize first of all a little bit of the historical background of the church at Antioch. The church at Antioch in this particular passage of scripture is Antioch, Syria—designated that way to tell which specific region it was found in. This particular Antioch is found about 100 miles north of Jerusalem and 15 miles east of the Mediterranean Sea.

Now, you have to keep that in mind when you read about Antioch in the scriptures because there are several Antiochs mentioned. In point of fact, historically, we know that there were 16 different Antiochs at the time of this particular discussion of Acts 15. There had been a conqueror coming through and he had named 15 or 16 different cities after his father, Antiochus. And so we have to understand that when we talk about Antioch in Acts 15, it’s Antioch, Syria. Later on we’ll be looking at Antioch in chapters 11 through 13, and in Acts 13 the Antioch is Antioch, Pisidia, and we’ll make that differentiation as we go along.

There are several Antiochs though, and this is just one of many, but this was a very important Antioch. This Antioch became one of the three primary cities of Rome during the time in which we’re relating now in Acts 15. In fact, in 64 BC, Antioch, Syria was made the capital of the Roman province of Syria. And that’s why it’s called Antioch, Syria. It was the third leading Roman city following only Rome and Alexandria in terms of importance for the Roman Empire. This was a big town. The estimates are that the population at the time of what we’re dealing with this morning was in the vicinity of 500,000 people. This was an extremely prosperous town. It was called “Antioch the Beautiful,” “the queen of the east” because of the culture that was there, the beauty, the luxurious cultural setting that the church in Antioch lived in the context of in this passage of scripture.

Having said that though, it’s also true that Antioch was also a very debased town. There were fertility religions in great prominence in the city of Antioch. There were religious orgies that would go on in terms of the culture, the pagan culture that was incipient there. At the same time, however, there was a large Jewish population. Jews had been brought in to colonize the city early on, and so we had a large Jewish population there as well.

So we have the perfect setting as it were for the sort of discussion and debate that will come up in the first couple of verses of Acts 15. We have a large Gentile population coming out of paganism. We have a large Jewish population as well, some of them coming out of Orthodox Judaism and being of the party of the circumcision. We’ll get more word of that in a couple of minutes.

**Biblical Background of Antioch**

In terms of the biblical background, in Acts 6, which we talked about several weeks ago in the selection of the seven deacons, you’ll remember that one of those deacons was Nicholas, who is described as a proselyte of Antioch. And again, this is not unusual. There were many proselytes in Antioch. The Jewish population was big. And so they also had a fair degree of proselytes coming into the Jewish church in Antioch.

In Acts 11:19, remember after the selection of the deacons and after the stoning of Stephen, a great persecution comes upon the church in Jerusalem, and as a result of that persecution, many of the Jewish Christians then disperse out and specifically are said in Acts 11:19 to go into Antioch as well.

Acts 11:19. “Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.”

And so Antioch became important in terms of the spread of the Jewish Christian community in Acts 11 after the persecution following Stephen. After there’s some degree of success in the preaching of the gospel in Antioch, this passage in Acts 11 goes on to tell us that Barnabas then is sent unto the church at Antioch.

Verse 22: “Then tidings of these things came into the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem. And they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch.”

So they sent Barnabas to Antioch to help establish the church that had been planted there, now basically due to the persecution and the fleeing from the persecution and the missionary efforts of the early Jewish church at this point in time.

Barnabas, when he goes there, recognizing the context of the culture there, recognizing it was a large Gentile city as well as Jewish population, recognizing that the Gentiles also are going to hear the gospel there, goes back to Tarsus in the next couple of verses and picks up Saul.

Verse 25: “Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul.”

So Barnabas goes and gets Saul and brings him back to Antioch to teach the gospel there. Saul and Barnabas have a successful mission in Antioch for about the space of one year. In verse 27:

“In these days came prophets from Jerusalem into Antioch.”

So we have a whole other group now coming from the Jerusalem church in the form of prophets to assist in the missionary work that’s going on in Antioch and in the building of this church. And then one of these prophets in verses 28 and 29 relates to the fact that there’s going to be a great famine in Jerusalem. And lo and behold, of course, we mentioned that Antioch was a prosperous city. And as a direct result of that, then we see that in verses 29 and 30 that the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea.

Now that phrase “dwelt in Judea” is important. Luke normally when he says “dwelt in Judea,” he’s primarily speaking not of the general geographic region of Judea. He’s usually referring to the city of Jerusalem. And that’s where the money went, of course, was to the Jerusalem church. So the Antioch church, being started with the people fleeing the persecution, being built up by Barnabas and Saul, is now actually sending relief money back to the church of Jerusalem from whence the people that had started their church had come. So they’re a prosperous city and they could afford to do that.

Verse 30: “Which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.”

So Barnabas and Saul go back to Jerusalem and deliver the money to the elders. That’s an important piece of data, by the way—verse 30—in terms of chronology. We’ll talk more about that in the next few weeks, but it’s likely that at that particular point in time when Saul and Barnabas go back to Jerusalem to deliver the money, they simply drop the money off and leave because there is a great persecution, there’s a famine, and it’s not likely they spent any time there discussing the issues which we’ll be talking about in a little bit.

So the church at Antioch was important in terms of the biblical context for the development of the first Gentile church there in Antioch. It was the first church also. Acts 11:19-26 tells us that the church at Antioch was the first place also where Christians were called “Christians.” That’s where the name “Christians” originally developed, was in the Gentile church at Antioch.

So we have the first Gentile church, Jewish population, Barnabas and Saul ministering there, showing their fruits in Acts 15. The church at Antioch was important to recognize also as the beginning place of Christian missions, the mission specifically to the Gentile area, and the founding of Gentile churches in the regions of the Mediterranean Sea on the north side of the Mediterranean Sea.

So those are some of the historical and biblical contextual background for this church at Antioch that it’s important to remember going into the text before us in Acts 15. In Acts 14:35 and 36, which we don’t deal too much with this morning, is the beginning of the second missionary journey of Paul. And again we see Antioch as being the initial place for that as well, when they go back to visit the churches they had been to before and preach to more people.

It also is the scene of the confrontation with Peter that Paul talks about in Galatians 2:11. Antioch is an important city, an important church in the New Testament.

**Later History of Antioch**

Later history of the city of Antioch itself—Chrysostom was born there in 347 AD. There have been numerous excavations of that part of the region there. They found at least a dozen, maybe as many as 20 different churches that were distinctly Christian from that time period. Many churches started in the context of Antioch itself. Constantine built an octagonal church that was built there in the 4th century that’s been unearthed. Additionally, there was a church found in the form of a cross that was also built in the 4th century. So it was an important place for many years for the Christian church.

Eventually, however, it was basically taken over by followers of Muhammad, fell into quite a bit of decline, and the current city that sits there in Antioch now is known as Antakya. And there are only about 6,000 people there apparently. So it has died, as it were, as a thriving city with the departure of Christian faith in that community.

**Immediate Biblical Context**

That’s some historical background. Now let’s look more at the specific immediate biblical context. Acts 15, and we’ll start back as far as Acts 9:28 to build up to an understanding of what’s going on in Acts 15.

In Acts 9:28, we read about Paul: “Paul was going with them, them being the apostles in Jerusalem, coming in and going out at Jerusalem.”

I won’t belabor the point again this week, but last week we talked about that language. That’s language that imitates or mimics language out of the book of Joshua where the people were going in and coming out around the land. And the book of Joshua, as we said last week, has a parallel development with the book of Acts. In both books, we see the spread of the people of God and the teaching of God’s word and conquering, as it were, the pagans for the benefit of God and his people.

And so Acts, then—the entire context what we’re going to say—what the immediate context of Acts 15 is that the church now is in an expansion mode. Paul and the apostles are now going in and out among Jerusalem preaching the gospel. And we’ll see that same going in and going out amongst the nations as well. And so we have here the same basic motif as we have in the book of Joshua where you have conflict and you have victory for the faith.

And of course the victory that we see in the New Testament is the victory that comes from the preaching of the gospel of Christ. It’s that preaching of that gospel that slays men, as it were, and brings them to Jesus Christ as offerings for him, and he then translates them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and they serve him.

So we see then the expansion of that preaching of the gospel and the victory that will come with that being the entire context what we’ll talk about in the rest of the missionary portions of this book.

**Application to Our Church Today**

In Acts 10, by the way, I might just mention that whole motif of Acts is applicable for our church today as well, isn’t it? Jesus Christ has told us to go into all nations of the earth preaching the gospel, making disciples of all the nations. The motif we’re going to develop here in terms of Acts—of going out, having conflict, but having victory in the midst of that conflict, the expansion of the preaching of the gospel and the effects of the kingdom upon the whole world—that should be our understanding of what we’re doing here as well.

When we go down to Salem, we’re preaching the gospel. We’re talking about the implications of the ascension of Jesus Christ to the throne, the implications of that for the civil magistrate. We do that when we go to work. We take the gospel with us. We try to show the implications of what the scriptures tell us—the gospel of Jesus Christ, his reign, what the implications are for that reign in our businesses.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing here in this church. We’re trying to say, “What are the implications of Jesus Christ, upon whom God has put the government of all the world? What are the implications of that government for his reign, for this church?” We don’t want to look to management techniques for how to run this church. We want to look to the word of God because we recognize that we’re under the reign of Jesus Christ.

And we have to understand that the preaching that went on in Acts preached the ascension of that savior king, the implications of that for all these various areas. And that should be the same motif that we’re following today. We should be going out into our communities, into our churches, and into our governments, preaching the gospel of Christ, expecting conflict, but also expecting the victory that we’ll see happen here in the book of Acts as well.

**Peter and Cornelius as Prefigurement**

Now, so we have this motif set up. In Acts 10:1 through Acts 11:18, we have the story of Cornelius and Peter. Now this is also important to recognize for what we’re going to be talking about in terms of Acts 15. It’s almost, you could say, that the encounter between Peter and Cornelius and what happens then is almost like a mini story of what’s going to happen in terms of Paul and the preaching of his gospel and what happens in Acts 15.

Why do I say that? In Acts 11:1-3, after Peter comes back, having successfully witnessed to the Gentile Cornelius, having been shown by God in a vision that the Gentiles are being cleansed by God through the preaching of the gospel, that they’re being included into the body of Christ, not as a separate group. And now God has put both bodies—Gentiles and Jews—into one man in Jesus Christ. Peter comes back with that message, and in Acts 11:1-3, lo and behold, we have controversy.

Acts 11: “The apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. When Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them.”

So right away when he comes back reporting the conversion of the Gentiles to whom he had administered, we have controversy back in Jerusalem with the party of the circumcision.

In verse 18, the circumcision relents to Peter’s discussion of the repentance that was evidenced and the gifts of that repentance, the fruit of that repentance, the demonstration that they were really part of the body of Christ through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. In Acts 11:18, we read:

“When they heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”

So the controversy is stemmed, but it won’t be the end of that controversy. That will pop up again and again. So we have first the Joshua motif—conflict and victory. We have then almost a prefigurement of Paul, as it were, where we have Peter and his interaction with Cornelius, then controversy in terms of the party of the circumcision, and then right after that, verse 18, we read in verse 19:

“Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch.”

This is the verse we read earlier. Immediately after the resolution of the conflict of the party of the circumcision relationship to the Gentile Christians, we have immediately thereafter the mention of Antioch, and we’ll see then the story of Antioch now develop over the next four or five chapters in Acts 11:19 through 15:35. That’s the Antioch story and the implications of that story.

That’s the immediate context what we’ll be talking about in terms of Acts 15 proper.

**The First Missionary Journey**

Now I mentioned earlier the missionary journeys that Saul and Barnabas are put to as they’re commissioned by the church at Antioch. They go out into the first missionary journey and they go specifically to several cities. There’s a reference to the various cities they went to in 2 Timothy 3:11.

2 Timothy 3:11: “Persecutions, afflictions which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me.”

Now the Antioch there he’s talking about is Antioch, Pisidia. Those are the three primary cities that are recorded for us in Acts 13-15 in terms of the first missionary journey of Saul and Barnabas. He goes first to the city of Antioch, Pisidia, being sent out from Antioch, Syria—okay, that’s the big city. Goes up to Antioch, Pisidia, preaching the gospel there, and he has a great sermon that he delivers there. Fruit begins to come forth for that. But immediately after the fruit comes forth for that, we see that Paul and Barnabas encounter opposition.

Acts 13:50: “But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts.”

So after the successful preaching of the gospel, after the conversion of Gentiles, after Paul relates in this particular portion of scripture that God now is turning to the Gentiles with his ministry, the Jews then rile up people against Saul and Barnabas and drive them out of the coast. They go from there to Iconium. And in Iconium, the same thing occurs. There’s a preaching of the gospel. There’s success to that preaching of the gospel. There’s conversions in the Gentile population. But once again, there’s opposition from the parties of the circumcision, the Jews. And the Jews in Iconium actually plot. They specifically stir up the minds of the Gentiles against their brethren. And as a result of that, they then plot to stone Paul. They hear about the plot and they escape from Iconium.

And then in Lystra, they go to Lystra next. And here it says the Jews, the party of the circumcision, won over the multitudes. And as a result of that, they do stone Saul at this point in time—or Paul. And he is thought to have been killed by the stoning that he receives in Lystra. But in Acts 14:20-21, where we read about this, it says:

“However, as the disciples stood around about him, he rose up and came into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.”

So he wasn’t killed after all. He was stoned to the point of death, but God spared him, delivered him out of those persecutions, as it were.

So you get the idea here of what’s happening. We have this Joshua motif—conflict and victory. We’ve got that being prefigured with Peter and Cornelius and then the opposition of the circumcision party in Jerusalem. And now we’ve got Saul and Barnabas being commissioned to a missionary journey in which they go to these three important cities: Antioch, Pisidia, Iconium, and then Lystra. And in each of those cities, we have parties of the circumcision—Jews—who rile up other people against Paul and Barnabas to defeat the preaching of the gospel.

In every one of those cities, you have a dedicated minority who really do not like Saul and Barnabas, who are trying to actively work against the growth of the kingdom of God. They then affect a much larger group of people who are probably the people in the middle—squishes we might call them—who go whichever way the wind blows. These people push on those people, turn them against Saul and Barnabas. In Antioch, it was the devout women, the prominent people. In Iconium, it was the Gentiles they stirred up. And in Lystra, they stirred over the whole multitude of people in Lystra to go out and stone Paul.

This is what we were talking about last night at this meeting of the Oregon Constitutional Forum I was at. It’s the same sort of battles we face down in Salem with the home school bill. There were some people who are dedicated to defeating what we were doing. They understand the implications of family control of education and they don’t like it. Most people in Salem could care less. You get a few people stirring up a lot of other people and that can give you a lot of trouble. And we have to be aware that’s commonly the tactic that Satan will use against us.

We’ll have a very few people who are self-consciously against us. And they will stir up other people against us. And that’s what happened to Saul and to Barnabas in their missionary journeys. But there’s an amazing verse. The very next verse is amazing. Imagine yourself going out into your community, going out, let’s say you live in Aloha, going out into Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Cornelius, or other neighborhoods in Portland preaching the gospel and let’s say you had won some converts but at the same time had a lot of people hating your guts out there and taking steps to stone you and beat you up and kill you—almost stoning you to the point of death.

Let’s say that happened to you and then you get out of those cities finally, your missionary journey’s at an end. What are you going to do? You’ll probably go rest up, won’t you? But what did he do in verse 21? Immediately after verse 20, Acts 14:20, where we read that Paul is actually saved through this stoning unto death, verse 21:

“When they had preached the gospel to that city in Derby and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch.”

They went right back to the people that were trying to kill them. They were actively working to subvert the preaching of the gospel. These men had an understanding of the missionary zeal that God has called us to do. They had a commission from God to preach the gospel to all the nations, and they were going to fulfill it. And they recognized God had given them that commission, that God would give them the blessing and the victory that would go along with them. They knew that there’d be conflicts. If they didn’t know there’d be conflicts, they would have been disheartened by what had happened and given up. They knew it. They were prepared for that. And as a result, when all that was over, they went back to those same cities that had stoned them, that had driven them out, that had plotted to kill them. And still, they went back to those cities. Why?

To encourage the brethren that had believed in the faith there, and to establish churches, to go back and to appoint elders in each of those churches. They knew the importance of those small groups that they had started in the midst of tremendous opposition from the Jewish parties in each of those three cities. They knew those people needed help and they were willing to put their necks on the line once more to go back to strengthen the brothers and to encourage them.

And that’s another consistent theme throughout the book of Acts: when you plant churches, you encourage the people in the faith. And we’ll see that same thing in Acts 15 as well.

It says verse 22: “Confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”

They wanted the people to understand that they were going to have tribulation and conflict as well in their own lives and in the preaching of the gospel that they would do in their own cities. And yet they were to persevere. Perseverance is something I’m afraid that most of us probably don’t have a lot of practical experience with. We live in times that are extremely opulent. We have very luxurious homes we live in compared to what most people live in and have lived in the nation’s history. We have a lot of blessings that God has given to us. And it’s awfully easy to sit back then and to take those blessings for granted. And with some degree of opposition to stop and to not persevere.

Perseverance in the faith is important. It’s important to teach each other, to encourage each other in the faith. I’ll be talking about this a little bit more in a couple of minutes, but here in the church specifically, when we get together on Sundays, we should get together here and shake other people’s hands, encourage them in their walk and their ministry and in whatever they’re doing throughout the week, encourage them to fight the good fight, the way that Paul and Barnabas encouraged those early churches to continue in the faith, recognizing that there will be tribulation as we enter into the kingdom of God.

And then verse 23: “And when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed.”

So we have almost a commissioning process now for each of these churches that have been established as well. And that fits in real well with what we were talking about last week—the laying on of hands. Commissioning and commending people to the faith is not just a few people in the church to the ministry of the church. It’s an understanding that all the people in the church share in the ministry of that church. We don’t have one person who does the work of the church. We have a whole congregation that does that. And that’s taught through the laying on of hands, the imposition of the laying on of hands of all the men of the church upon whoever is set apart to a specific task. And they in effect do the same thing here with committing the churches to the Lord that they have established.

Now it says that they ordain them elders in every church. We’ll spend more time on this a little later when we talk specifically about the roles of elders in the council of Jerusalem. But it is important to recognize there that this is a very important portion of scripture for the establishment of a correct understanding of church government.

And just briefly, there is indication here that these elders—there’s no specific reference in verse 23 that these elders were elected by the congregation. But that’s certainly what we’re to understand in light of what we read in Acts 6 with the selection of the seven, being chosen by the people. That being consistent with the selection of judges and elders and shofars in the Old Testament on the basis of people’s election of their representatives, we’re to assume, I think, that that’s what occurred here with the elders.

The word “to ordain” means to stretch out, and some people say there’s a reference there to voting. I don’t think that is a specific reference to voting, but I think there was voting then in the congregations and they had selected those elders. Then they were actually ordained by Saul and Barnabas who would establish the church in the first place.

Now it’s interesting too to note there, by the way, that there apparently was about a year and a half to two years gap in this traveling around before they went back and established these elders in each of these churches. And that’s important to keep in mind too. Remember we talked months ago about the qualifications of elders, which we’ll return to in the next few months. We talked about the deacons specifically having to be proven: “let them serve.” But it says “let them be proven also.” And in that Timothy passage, it says in reference to elders also, they have to be proven in terms of their character. They have to be known amongst the people. They have demonstrated gifts for government, as it were, that they were called to that specific office.

And if Paul and Barnabas had appointed elders immediately upon the preaching of the gospel, they really could not have made sure they’re appointing men that would meet those qualifications. So we see then a basic principle again in terms of church polity organization—that in terms of the growth of a church, the organism of the church itself, the conversion of the people that form that church and the growth of that organism, precedes the institutionalization of that church.

The institutionalization, as demonstrated by the selection of elders, is important and it must be done. And so Barnabas and Paul risked their lives again to go back and make sure that was done in the churches that they had planted. But it always follows the organism of the church and the development of that organism. You must have believers who mature in the faith, and then when those believers mature in the faith and demonstrate their call to government, then they’re appointed into the office of elder.

And I think this church, for instance, we followed that basic pattern when we established ourselves four and five years ago. We let the organism grow first, and now we’re putting in place the institutionalization of the church and the selection of an elder. And we continue that process. Now, as the church grows, the institution also has to grow accordingly. We don’t want to get the cart before the horse. We’ll talk more about that in the next few weeks, but we’ll come back to this passage of scripture with the appointing of elders, but it is an important thing to recognize.

They had to have elders in these early churches.

**Return to Antioch and the First Conflict**

That’s the basic background then—the context of the church at Antioch, the problems that were going on, the Joshua motif, the conflict and victory, Peter with the party of the circumcision and his problems, and then Paul with the party of the circumcision in these various missionary cities and the persecution that he suffered. That’s the basic problem.

Now we get to Acts 15. Actually, we should probably go back to Acts 14:26. I’ll read a little bit there:

“They then sailed to Antioch from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And when they were come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. And there they abode long time with the disciples.”

So what we have there is the picture now of the successful completion of that first missionary journey, the planting of those very important churches, the spread of the gospel, the conquering of the nations of that area, as it were, with the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, winning men to Christ. And then Saul and Barnabas come back to the Antioch church that had commissioned them. They report back. They show their accountability to a church here, a local church, which is extremely important to recognize in terms of missionary activity as well.

And then they come back and they stay a long time with the disciples. Remember, this church is like the gem of the Christian world at this point in time. We have a cultural setting that’s good and rich to provide sustenance to the church. We have people that have been converted to the faith from various backgrounds. We have a thriving church here that actually sends relief effort to Jerusalem, sends missionaries out to plant more churches. This is a great mother church, as it were, for the mission that goes on. And yet here within the church itself, Paul comes back to rest and to recuperate with Barnabas.

But can they rest? Can they do that successfully? No. Shortly after they come back, we have this problem that exists in Acts 15:1.

“They abode there with the disciples, and certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, Except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Now this must have been extremely discouraging for them. We know when we go out to preach the gospel, we know when we go out into the world, as it were, teaching men the gospel of Jesus Christ, the implications of that, and calling them to obedience, we expect conflict and victory, don’t we? We expect that conflict. We expect that conflict to be accompanied by victory at the end as we preach the gospel successfully.

But when we come back to the churches that have sent us out, we hope there to find rest and to find peace. But that was not to be what occurred here in this situation. In the very context of the church that commissioned them, now we have this great controversy that comes up over the circumcision issue again. The same troubles that Peter had fought with in Jerusalem. The same people, or same-minded people anyway, come back to persecute the work of the church here in Antioch as well.

**The Importance of Church Unity**

Now this is important for us to recognize. I said earlier: we come together here once a week. We come together to be encouraged in the faith, to be built up in the faith, to walk in obedience to what God has commanded us to do. And we are each of us a minister within the church, ministering to God, and because of that we minister to the people that he has called us to minister in the context of—which is each other. We should be encouraging each other in the faith when we come together on Sunday. We should be building one another up.

This is the place where we have to have peace and solidarity from which to base all other efforts. And the people in this church probably appreciate that fact quite a bit. I know that for myself, we struggled for years in the context of churches that did not believe the same theology we’ve believed in. As a result, the application of that gospel to various areas of life was different. And we all know what struggle that is when you’re in the context of a church situation that is not supportive of your efforts—where you got to go to church on Sunday and have the biggest battles of your week dealing with the people from your own church.

That’s a terrible thing. And that’s beginning to occur here in Acts 15. We think that the great blessings that God has given us over the last three or four years in this church are directly a result of coming together with a unity of doctrine. As a result of that, a unity of purpose and applying that doctrine to issues of the faith. And so we come together here to build one another up in that faith and to encourage each other to press that faith into every area of life throughout the week.

That’s important. And remember that when you come together, try to find somebody to encourage specifically. Ask them what’s going wrong in their life right now. How can you pray for them? How can you give feet to the prayers, as it were, by helping them out of their particular situation? We have needs in this church. We have physical needs from various families. We have spiritual needs for all of us as we fight the good fight of faith.

As I said earlier, the conflict and victory motif is constant throughout our lives. We’ll have conflict this week with anti-Christian forces. And we have to learn that we have to encourage each other so we can fight those battles successfully.

Well, that wasn’t going on in Acts 15. It was originally, but then these men come down from Judea.

**The False Teachers from Jerusalem**

Now, the fact that they came from Judea is particularly discouraging here for Saul and Barnabas. Remember, we said that when Luke uses the term “Judea,” he usually means Jerusalem. And we’re told specifically that that’s the case here in Acts 15:1. It says they came down from Judea. But in Acts 15:24, when we get to which we’ll talk more about in the future—but in the letter that was sent back to the churches, it says:

“For as much as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised and keep the law to whom we gave no such commandment.”

So these men who came down from Jerusalem came down with the illusion that they were being sent from the church of Jerusalem—the mother church that had spawned this church originally and to develop them, to which they had sent back relief and acknowledged their debt of gratitude to this church in Jerusalem. Now this church in Jerusalem, according to the people that came down to teach this to them, was actually coming down and telling them: “Your whole gospel is all mixed up. You’re all wet in what you’re doing down here. Here’s what you really should be doing.”

In Galatians 2:4, a verse that I think relates specifically to this particular passage—and we’ll talk, the chronology is somewhat difficult, but I believe that’s true. It says that they came in secretly at first, spying out the liberty we have in Christ, Paul says. And so these men came in, they came from Jerusalem, they began to subvert the faith of the church there and began to undermine the work that was going on in this tremendous church at the city of Antioch, purportedly from the Jerusalem church.

Now, there’s another lesson for us. Satan will frequently use people saying that they represent other people. Don’t believe them. It would have been wrong for the church in Antioch to have gone off half-cocked and said, “To heck with the church in Jerusalem. We’ll do our own thing. If they’re going to be like that, they can do whatever they want to do. We’re not going to follow them.” They didn’t do that. And we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t believe people who give us reports from other people. We should trace those reports back to ensure that they’re really telling us the truth.

And that’s of course one of the things that happens with the Council of Jerusalem. They go back to the Jerusalem church. Jerusalem Church says, “We didn’t send those guys. We’re sorry they went to you, but we did not commission them to go out there. They’re not part of us.” So don’t believe everything that you hear about other people in our church or in other Christian churches as well. Go back to the source.

**The Nature of the Problem**

Okay. What was the problem with what they were saying? It says in verse 1 that the message, the problem, the dissension that came up was this:

“Except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

So what they’re saying here is that circumcision after the manner of Moses is necessary for salvation. Now the implications of that are that if you haven’t been circumcised and haven’t entered into all the fulfillments of the ceremonial laws envisioned by circumcision and the rest of the commandments of Moses, then you’re not saved. You’re going to hell. They were telling the church in Antioch—that had commissioned men to go out and preach the gospel—that that whole gospel was a gospel of damnation, of sending people to hell, because it wasn’t accompanied by circumcision.

They weren’t trying to say, “We think this is something else you probably should think about doing to grow in grace.” They didn’t say that. They said, “This is necessary for your salvation. If you’re not circumcised, you won’t be saved. If you’re uncircumcised, though you believe in Christ, you are still going to hell.”

That was the problem. That is the basis then for all that occurs with the rest of the council of Jerusalem. It’ll be very difficult to understand the letters that the council of Jerusalem sent out if we don’t remember and keep in mind the historical background of the conflict here between Judaizers and the Christians, and then specifically the message these men had brought to the Antioch church—which was the message of a gospel of works righteousness, not faith righteousness.

They didn’t say that “this is how we should live since we are saved.” They didn’t say “you need to keep the laws of circumcision and the laws of Moses because you’re Christians.” They said, “You need to be circumcised to become a Christian.” There’s a tremendous difference there.

Now, we know that if they had said “these are some portions of God’s law that we think you ought to be thinking about keeping,” there would not have been the dissension and disruption that occurred as a result of this.

**The Response and the Controversy**

After this verse, it says in verse 2:

“And therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them. They determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others should go up to Jerusalem.”

The word there for “dissension” is used in other places of scripture to indicate a riot. For instance, in Mark 15:7, that same word is translated “insurrection.” “Murders were committed in an insurrection or dissension.” That same term, Luke 23:19 and 25, same term refers to an insurrection there. In Acts 19:23 and 40, that same word, “dissension,” is interpreted “riot”—terrible upheaval. This is not a small little problem. It was a riot. And it wasn’t just a small riot as well. It says there was “no small dissension.” It was a big deal. This had completely troubled the church at Antioch. It had subverted the faith—is what we read in verse 24 earlier—of these people.

And the word “subvert” there means to take furniture and toss it upside down. That was the effect of the preaching of this foreign gospel, as it were, to the church at Antioch. And telling them that they were going to go to hell if they weren’t circumcised according to the commandment of Moses. It was a big dissension.

If this message had been one of the necessity of keeping portions of the law now that you were Christians, and that the law was given to us to determine our pattern of sanctification, we would not have had this kind of dissension.

Paul himself in Romans 13:5 quotes the death penalty as being an ordinance of God, a commandment of God. We could spend lots of time here on various verses where Paul talks about the necessity of understanding that we have been freed from the law so that we then can fulfill the righteousness in the law.

In Romans, we also have the second covenant of the law quoted in Romans 12 and 13. In Galatians, just read a few passages from Galatians. Remember, we said that Galatians is more or less a parallel book to go along with this account in the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.

In Galatians 5:14, and the bulk of Galatians, of course, is dedicated to a discussion of this idea of works justification or works righteousness. But in Galatians 5:14, we read:

“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Paul commends here the second of the law to the people. It says, “But all the law is fulfilled in this.” You must do these things. In Galatians 5:22-23, he says:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.”

These are fulfillings of the law. In Galatians 6:2:

“Bearing one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

He’s not saying you shouldn’t have any obedience to the law of Christ, but he’s saying that the law is given to us for sanctification. That the ceremonial portions of the law are given to us to lead us to justification by faith in Jesus Christ. In Galatians 5:6 and 6:15-16:

“For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God.”

This shows the continuity then of the New Testament church with the Israel of God in the Old Covenant. Paul continues to emphasize even in the very epistle that some people have used to teach that Paul has no use for the law—even in that very epistle, we’ve seen a number of references there that say that Paul says we should walk in obedience to the commands of the law as a result of being set free in Jesus Christ so the law can be fulfilled in us.