11. The Council of Jerusalem

For several years now Gentiles had been brought to faith in Christ and welcomed into the church by baptism. It began with that God-fearing centurion in Caesarea, Cornelius. Not only – in quite extraordinary circumstances – did he come to hear the good news, believe, receive the Spirit and be baptized, but the Jerusalem leaders, once the full facts were presented to them, instead of raising objections, ‘praised God’ (11:18). Next came the remarkable movement in Syrian Antioch when unnamed missionaries ‘began to speak to Greeks also’ (11:20), a great number of whom believed. The Jerusalem church heard about this too and sent Barnabas to investigate, who ‘saw what the grace of God had done’ and rejoiced (11:23). The third development which Luke reports was the first missionary journey, during which the first complete outsider believed (Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus) and later Paul and Barnabas responded to Jewish unbelief with the bold declaration ‘we now turn to the Gentiles’ (13:46). Thereafter, wherever they went, both Jews and Gentiles believed (e.g. 14:1), and on their return to Syrian Antioch, the missionaries were able to report that ‘God . . . had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles’ (14:27).

All that was fairly straightforward. After the conversion of both Cornelius and the Antiochene Greeks the Jerusalem leaders had been able to reassure themselves that God was in it. How would they now react to the even more audacious policy of Paul? The Gentile mission was gathering momentum. The trickle of Gentile conversions was fast becoming a torrent. The Jewish leaders had no difficulty with the general concept of believing Gentiles, for many Old Testament passages predicted their inclusion. But now a particular question was forming in their minds: what means of incorporation into the believing community did God intend for Gentiles? So far it had been assumed that they would be absorbed into Israel by circumcision, and that by observing the law they would be acknowledged as authentic members of the covenant people of God. Something quite different was now happening, however, something which disturbed and even alarmed many. Gentile converts were being welcomed into fellowship by baptism without circumcision. They were becoming Christians without also becoming Jews. They were retaining their own identity and integrity as members of other nations. It was one thing for the Jerusalem leaders to give their approval to the conversion of Gentiles: but could they approve of conversion-without-circumcision, of faith in Jesus without the works of the law, and of commitment to the Messiah without inclusion in Judaism? Was their vision big enough to see the gospel of Christ not as a reform movement within Judaism but as good news for the whole world, and the church of Christ not as a Jewish sect but as the international family of God? These were the revolutionary questions which some were daring to ask.

No wonder Haenchen can write: ‘Chapter 15 is the turning point, “centrepiece” and “watershed” of the book, the episode which rounds off and justifies the past developments, and makes those to come intrinsically possible.’ This is not an exaggeration. Luke draws attention to it by silent shifts of emphasis. In this chapter Jerusalem is still the focus of interest, and Peter makes his final appearance in the story. But from now on Peter disappears, to be replaced by Paul, and Jerusalem recedes into the background as Paul pushes on beyond Asia into Europe, and Rome appears on the horizon. Indeed we ourselves, from our later perspective of church history, can see the crucial importance of this first ecumenical Council held in Jerusalem. Its unanimous decision liberated the gospel from its Jewish swaddling clothes into being God’s message for all humankind, and gave the Jewish–Gentile church a self-conscious identity as the reconciled people of God, the one body of Christ. And although the whole Council affirmed it, Paul claimed that it was a new understanding granted specially to him, the ‘mystery’ previously hidden but now revealed, namely that through faith in Christ alone Gentiles stand on equal terms with Jews as ‘heirs together . . . members together . . . sharers together’ in his one new community.

1. The point at issue (15:1–4)

The tranquillity of the Christian fellowship in Syrian Antioch was shattered by the arrival of a group Paul later dubs ‘troublemakers’. Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch (1). Before going on to consider who they were and what they were teaching, I need to share with my readers that I hold the so-called ‘South Galatian’ view, namely that Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written to the South Galatian churches of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, which he and Barnabas had just visited on their first missionary journey; that he dictated it during the height of this theological crisis before the Council settled it (for he does not refer in his letter to the ‘apostolic decree’); that he was writing it probably on his way up to Jerusalem for the Council, which would be his third visit to the city, although he does not mention it in Galatians because it has not yet taken place; and that therefore the situation Luke describes at the beginning of Acts 15 is the same as that to which Paul refers in Galatians 2:11–16.

If that is correct, then the statement that certain people came down from Judea to Antioch corresponds to ‘certain men came from James’ to Antioch. Not that James had actually sent them, for he later denies this (24), but that was their boast. They were trying to set two apostles against each other, claiming James as their champion and framing Paul as their opponent. They were ‘Pharisees’ (5), and ‘zealous for the law’ (21:20). And this is what they were teaching the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’ (1). Nor was the circumcision of Gentile converts their only demand; they went further. Gentile converts, they insisted, were also ‘required to keep the law of Moses’ (5). Because they could not accept conversion without circumcision as adequate, they had organized themselves into a pressure group, whom we often term ‘Judaizers’ or ‘the circumcision party’. They were not opposed to the Gentile mission, but were determined that it must come under the umbrella of the Jewish church, and that Gentile believers must submit not only to baptism in the name of Jesus, but, like Jewish proselytes, to both circumcision and law-observance as well. It is hardly surprising that this teaching of theirs brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them (2a).

We need to be clear what they were saying, and what the point at issue was. They were insisting, in Luke’s summary, that without circumcision converts could not be saved. Of course circumcision was the God-given sign of the covenant, and doubtless the Judaizers were stressing this; but they were going further and making it a condition of salvation. They were telling Gentile converts that faith in Jesus was not enough, not sufficient for salvation: they must add circumcision to faith, and observance of the law to circumcision. In other words, they must let Moses complete what Jesus had begun, and let the law supplement the gospel. The issue was immense. The way of salvation was at stake. The gospel was in dispute. The very foundations of the Christian faith were being undermined.

The apostle Paul saw this with great clarity, and was outraged. His indignation increased when the Judaizers won over a notable convert in the apostle Peter, who was also in Antioch at the time. Before they arrived, as Paul explains in Galatians 2:11–14, Peter ‘used to eat with the Gentiles’. True, they had not been circumcised, but they had been converted. They had believed, received the Spirit and been baptized. So Peter, remembering Cornelius, was entirely happy to associate with them freely, and even to eat with them, doubtless including the Lord’s Supper, recognizing them as brothers and sisters in the Lord. But when the circumcision party arrived in Antioch, they persuaded Peter to withdraw ‘and separate himself from the Gentiles’.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning. What happened next Paul rehearses in Galatians 2. The rest of the Jewish believers followed Peter’s bad example and ‘joined him in his hypocrisy’ (for Paul knew Peter was acting from fear, not conviction), and even Barnabas, in spite of everything he had seen during the first missionary journey, was carried away by the flood and ‘led astray’. Paul was hot with anger – not from personal pique, because his position was losing ground, but out of concern for the truth. He saw that Peter and his followers were ‘not acting in line with the truth of the gospel’. So he ‘opposed him [Peter] to his face, because he stood condemned’, and rebuked him publicly for his inconsistency. His behaviour was a disgraceful contradiction of the gospel. So he said to him:

We . . . know [you and I, Peter and Paul, are agreed about this] that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

How then, if we know this and have ourselves experienced it, can we preach a different gospel to Gentiles? Further, if God has accepted them by faith, as he has accepted us, how can we break fellowship with one another? How dare we reject those whom God has accepted? Paul’s logic was irrefutable. His courageous confrontation of Peter evidently had the desired result. For by the time Peter reached Jerusalem for the Council, he had regained his theological equilibrium and went on to bear faithful witness during the assembly to the gospel of grace and its consequences for Gentile–Jewish fellowship. Barnabas had recovered too.

The issue can be clarified by a series of questions. Is the sinner saved by the sheer grace of God in and through Christ crucified, when he or she simply believes, that is, flees to Jesus for refuge? Has Jesus Christ by his death and resurrection done everything necessary for salvation? Or are we saved partly through the grace of Christ and partly through our own good works and religious performance? Is justification sola fide, ‘by faith alone’, or through a mixture of faith and works, grace and law, Jesus and Moses? Are Gentile believers a sect of Judaism, or authentic members of a multinational family? It was not some Jewish cultural practices which were at stake, but the truth of the gospel and the future of the church.

We are not surprised, therefore, by the ‘fierce dissension and contro­versy’ (2, neb) which arose. We may be thankful that the church of Antioch grasped the nettle, and took practical steps to ensure a resolution of the issue. The calling of a Council can be extremely valuable, if its purpose is to clarify doctrine, end controversy and promote peace.

2. The debate in Jerusalem (15:5–21)

No sooner had the delegation from Antioch been given a warm welcome by the Jerusalem church, especially by the apostles and elders, than the controversy broke out afresh. 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’ (5). They were entirely biblical to value circumcision and the law as gifts of God to Israel. But they went further and made them obligatory for everyone, including Gentiles. We note their word ‘must’, as we did the word ‘cannot’ in verse 1. Circumcision and law-observance, they insisted, were essential for salvation. So the apostles and elders met to consider this question (6), although others were present too. Luke gives no details of the much discussion (7a) which took place, but he summarizes the decisive speeches which were made successively by the three apostles involved: the apostle Peter (7–11), the apostle Paul supported by Barnabas (12) and the apostle James (13–21).

a. Peter (15:7–11)

Peter’s contribution was to remind the assembly of the Cornelius incident, in which he had been the chief human factor, and which had taken place some time ago, probably about ten years previously. He humbly attributed the whole initiative to God. First, he said, God made a choice among you that the Gentiles should hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe (7). The choice had been God’s, the privilege his. Second, God, who knows the heart [the word kardiōgnostēs, ‘heart-knower’, had been used of Jesus in 1:24], showed that he accepted them [literally, he ‘bore witness to them’, meaning ‘showed his approval of them’, neb, jb] by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us (8). This proves that Peter’s earlier statement that ‘God . . . accepts from every nation the one who fears him’ (10:35) meant that there is no racial barrier to conversion; but God ‘accepted them’ in the sense of welcoming them into his family only when he gave them his Spirit. Third, God did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith (9), demonstrating that it is the inward purity of the heart which makes fellowship possible, not the external purity of diet and ritual. It is also a purification by faith, not works.

This threefold work of God (choosing Peter, giving the Spirit, purifying the heart) led to an unavoidable conclusion. In expressing it, Peter addressed the opposition directly: Now then, why do you try to test God [that is, why do you provoke him by resisting what he has clearly revealed?] by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? (10). We Jews have not obtained salvation by obedience to the law; so how can we expect Gentiles to do so? No! Peter concludes; we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are (11).

As he makes this final affirmation, we notice that he is echoing, perhaps quite unconsciously, the gospel statement which Paul had made to him in Antioch while publicly challenging him. Together they make it plain that salvation is ‘through the grace of Jesus Christ’ and ‘by faith in Jesus Christ’. Grace and faith cannot be separated.

paul ‘We . . . know that a person is . . . justified . . . by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 2:16).

peter We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are (Acts 15:11).

The central theme of Peter’s testimony was not just that Gentiles had heard the gospel, believed in Jesus, received the Spirit and been purified by faith, but that at each stage God did not discriminate between us and them (9; cf. 10:15, 20, 29; 11:9, 12, 17). Four times in Luke’s condensed report of Peter’s speech the theme of ‘us–them’ or ‘we–they’ is repeated. God gave the Spirit to them as to us (8) and did not discriminate between us and them (9). So why lay on them a yoke we could not bear (10)? We conclude that we are saved by grace as they are (11). If only the Judaizers could grasp that God makes no distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, but saves both by grace through faith, they would not make distinctions either. Grace and faith level us; they make fellowship possible.

b. Paul and Barnabas (15:12)

The whole assembly became silent, evidently out of deep respect, as they listened to Barnabas and Paul [perhaps the priority of Barnabas is because he was better known in Jerusalem than Paul] telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. Previously God was said to work ‘with’ them (meta in 14:27 and 15:4, rsv); now ‘through’ them (dia) as his agents. This extremely brief résumé may be due to the fact that Luke’s readers were already fully acquainted with the details of the first missionary journey from having read Acts 13 and 14. And probably the emphasis on the signs and wonders is intended not to discount the preaching of the word, but because they confirmed and validated it.

c. James (15:13–21)

The James who spoke next was ‘James the Just’, as he came later to be known because of his reputation for godly righteousness, one of the brothers of Jesus, who had probably come to believe in him through being granted a resurrection appearance. In his New Testament letter he would later emphasize that saving faith always issues in good works of love and that heavenly wisdom is ‘peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere’. He manifested some of that wisdom now. Almost certainly an apostle, and already recognized as a (even ‘the’) leader of the Jerusalem church (12:17), he was evidently the moderator of the assembly. He waited until the leading missionary apostles Peter and Paul had completed their evidence. Then, when they finished, he spoke up (neb, ‘summed up’), addressing his audience as Brothers and requesting them: listen to me (13). Then, referring to Peter by his Hebrew name (an authentic touch), he summarized his testimony in these words: Simon [literally, Symeon] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles (14).

His statement is considerably more significant than it looks at first sight, for the expressions ‘people’ (laos) and ‘for his name’) are regularly applied in the Old Testament to Israel. James was expressing his belief that Gentile believers now belonged to the true Israel, called and chosen by God to belong to his one and only people and to glorify his name. He did not refer also to the testimony of Paul and Barnabas, perhaps because it was their mission policy which was on trial. Instead he went straight from the apostolic evidence to the prophetic word: The words of the prophets are in agreement with this (15). Councils have no authority in the church unless it can be shown that their conclusions are in accord with Scripture. To substantiate his claim, James quoted Amos 9:11–12:

‘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.

(16–18)

As it stands, this quotation from Amos is a powerful statement of two related truths. God promises first to restore David’s fallen tent and rebuild its ruins (which Christian eyes see as a prophecy of the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, the seed of David, and the establishment of his people) so that, second, a Gentile remnant will seek the Lord. In other words, through the Davidic Christ Gentiles will be included in his new community.

Thus James, whom the circumcision party had claimed as their champion, declared himself in full agreement with Peter, Paul and Barnabas. The inclusion of the Gentiles was not a divine afterthought, but foretold by the prophets. Scripture itself confirmed the facts of the missionaries’ experience. There was an ‘agreement’ between what God had done through his apostles and what he had said through his prophets. This correspondence between Scripture and experience, between the witness of prophets and apostles, was conclusive for James. He was ready to give his judgment. The Greek verb krinō could mean merely to ‘express an opinion’. But the context demands something stronger than that. ‘I rule, then’ (jb), on the other hand, is too strong, as is Kirsopp Lake’s explanation that ‘it is the definite sentence of a judge, and the egō implies that he is acting by an authority which is personal’. So we need a word stronger than ‘opinion’ and weaker than ‘decree’, perhaps ‘conviction’, since James was making a firm proposal, which in fact the other leaders endorsed, so that the decision was unanimous and the letter went out in the name of ‘the apostles and elders, with the whole church’ (22).

What, then, was the decision? In general, it was that we should not make it difficult for [‘impose no irksome restrictions on’, neb] the Gentiles who are turning to God (19). 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 (20). Putting these two sentences together, James was saying that they must recognize and embrace Gentile believers as brothers and sisters in Christ, and not burden them by asking them to add to their faith in Jesus either circumcision or the whole code of Jewish practices. At the same time, having established the principle that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, without works, it was necessary to appeal to these Gentile believers to respect the consciences of their Jewish fellow believers by abstaining from a few practices which might offend them. For, James went on to explain, the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is still being read in the synagogues on every Sabbath (21). In such contexts, where Moses’ teachings were well known and highly respected, Jewish scruples were sensitive and out of love should not be violated.

A degree of uncertainty, however, surrounds the four requested absten­tions. At first sight, they appear to be an odd mixture of moral and ceremonial matters, since sexual immorality belongs to the former cat­egory, and idol-meats, strangled animals and blood to the latter. How could James combine them, as if they were of equal importance? Besides, sexual chastity is an elementary ingredient in Christian holiness; so why state the obvious by including it in the list? In addition, verse 20 raises complex textual questions, as variant Greek readings reflect variant interpretations. Two main solutions have been proposed, both aimed at separating the ethical from the ritual.

The first is to regard the requested abstentions as being all moral. Since the third (‘the meat of strangled animals’) cannot by any feat of imagination or ingenuity be turned into an ethical matter, it is proposed to follow the Western text and omit it. We are then left with three. ‘Food polluted by idols’ (20) or ‘food sacrificed to idols’ (29) is understood as idolatry; ‘blood’ is interpreted as blood-shedding, that is, murder; and ‘sexual immorality’ retains its moral meaning. These three (idolatry, murder and immorality) were in Jewish eyes the main moral offences which human beings can commit. It seems a neat solution, but it raises more problems than it solves. (a) The textual warrant for dropping ‘the meat of strangled animals’ is very weak; (b) the interpretation of the unqualified word ‘blood’ as meaning murder is far-fetched; (c) the three sins are so grave that a special apostolic decree was not necessary to outlaw them; (d) the choice of only three moral prohibitions raises the question whether Gentile converts were permitted to break the rest of the Ten Command­ments, such as to steal, bear false witness and covet. It may be this gap which led a scribe to add the Golden Rule in negative form, preserved in the Western text: ‘and not to do to others what one would not have done to oneself’.

The alternative solution is the opposite, namely to regard the four abstentions as being all ceremonial, all matters of external purity. In this case, the first is not actual idolatry but the eating of idol-meats, to which Paul was later to refer in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. ‘Blood’ refers not to shedding it, but to eating it, which was forbidden in Leviticus, while ‘the meat of strangled animals’ related to ‘animals killed without having the blood drained from them, whose flesh the Jews were forbidden to eat (Lev. 17:13–14)’. In place of these two, the Gentile believers would be expected to eat ‘kosher’ food, prepared according to Jewish dietary rules. This leaves the fourth item, sexual immorality. It now seems to be the moral exception to a list of ceremonial requirements, just as ‘things strangled’ was the ceremonial exception to a list of moral requirements. One way of dealing with the problem is to omit the word, and there seems to have been at least one manuscript in existence which did this, and which was known to Origen in the third century. But the evidence for this is extremely flimsy. The better way is to interpret porneia (which covers, in any case, ‘every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse’, BAGD) as referring here ‘to all the irregular marriages listed in Leviticus 18’ (jb margin), in particular to ‘marriage within degrees of blood-relationship or affinity forbidden by the legislation of Leviticus 18’. A number of other commentators agree with this interpretation.

If this reconstruction is correct, then all four requested abstentions related to ceremonial laws laid down in Leviticus 17 and 18, and three of them concerned dietary matters which could inhibit Jewish–Gentile common meals. To abstain would be a courteous and temporary (although in some circumstances ‘necessary’, 28, rsv) concession to Jewish con­sciences, once circumcision had been declared unnecessary and so the truth of the gospel had been secured and the principle of equality established.

The abstinence here recommended must be understood . . . not as an essential Christian duty, but as a concession to the consciences of others, i.e. of the Jewish converts, who still regarded such food as unlawful and abominable in the sight of God.

3. The Council’s letter (15:22–29)

The Council agreed with James’s summary. The combination of prophetic Scripture and apostolic experience seemed conclusive to them, as it had done to him. And James’s proposal of Gentile Christian abstinence in four cultural areas seemed a wise policy to promote mutual tolerance and fellowship. So then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men [i.e. members of the Jerusalem church] and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas), evidently a Hebrew-speaking believer, of whom nothing else is known, unless by chance he was a brother of Joseph Barsabbas (1:23), and Silas, whose Latin name was Silvanus, a Hellenist who was also a Roman citizen (16:37) and who later became closely associated with both Paul and Peter. These two men Luke describes as leaders among the believers (22). The church decided, however, not only to choose messengers to send to the church of Antioch, from whom the request had come to adjudicate in this controversy, but also to write a letter to the churches with a Gentile membership, in order to convey the decisions. A letter can seem impersonal; it was wise to send people with it who could explain its origin, interpret its meaning and secure its acceptance.

The letter has justly been described as ‘a masterpiece of tact and delicacy’. It began in a markedly warm manner. With them [that is, Judas Barsabbas and Silas] they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

(23)

The niv text conceals, however, that the Greek text reads ‘The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile brothers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.’ Whenever brothers communicate with brothers, one has good reason to expect to find a conciliatory spirit. This was the case here.

The Jerusalem church and its leaders made three important points in their letter. First, they disassociated themselves from the circumcision party and therefore, by clear implication, from the requirement of circumcision. They went out from us but without our authorisation (rsv, ‘although we gave them no instructions’). The unauthorized message, moreover, had disturbed their hearers (24; the verb is tarassō, to trouble, upset or throw into confusion, interestingly the very word which Paul uses of them in Gal. 1:7 and 5:10). Second, they made it abundantly clear that the men they had now agreed to choose . . . and send (25), namely Judas and Silas, did have their full approval and support. They would not only deliver the letter, but also confirm by word of mouth what it contained (27). Third, they made clear their unanimous decision (made by the Holy Spirit and . . . us) not to burden Gentile converts with anything [certainly not with circumcision] beyond the following requirements (28), namely the four specified abstentions which we have already considered. The letter’s conclusion, which expresses more a recommendation than a command, was: You will do well to avoid these things (29).

4. The sequel to the Council (15:30 – 16:5)

Having shared the text of the letter with his readers, Luke now sets out how it was received by the largely Gentile churches, first in Syrian Antioch (15:30–35); second, in Syria and Cilicia (15:36–41); and third, in Galatia (16:1–5).

a. Antioch receives the letter (15:30–35)

Antioch was named at the head of the letter as its first recipient because it was there that the original controversy had broken out and from there that the appeal for help had come.

The gathering together of the church in Antioch described here must have reminded them of a similar meeting some time previously (14:27). Paul and Barnabas were present on both occasions. Then it had been to receive a report of the first missionary journey with its wonderful news of the conversion of Gentiles; now it was to receive the Jerusalem letter with its equally wonderful news that Gentiles who had believed in Jesus were to be accepted as Christians, without the need to become Jews as well. Small wonder that, on hearing the contents of the letter, the people . . . were glad for its encouraging message (31). Judas and Silas, now identified as prophets, stayed on for some time and said much to encourage and strengthen the believers (32), but they then returned to Jerusalem, sent on their way with the blessing of peace (33). The statement of verse 34 that ‘Silas decided to remain there’ (niv margin; cf. av) is obviously a gloss. The best manuscripts omit it. It was probably added to explain how in verse 40 Silas was in Antioch, but it contradicts the plain statement of verse 33 that he and Judas both left. Paul and Barnabas stayed, however, and with many others taught and preached [literally, ‘evangelized’] the word of the Lord (35).

b. Syria and Cilicia receive the letter (15:36–41)

The single province of Syria (to which Antioch belonged) and Cilicia (in which Tarsus was situated) had been the scene of some of Paul’s earliest evangelistic activity (9:30). It evidently had some Gentile churches, for they are specifically named at the head of the Jerusalem letter (23). But before Luke can narrate how the letter reached them, he is obliged in his honesty to tell the sad story of how Paul and Barnabas came to separate.

We observe that it was some time later (perhaps when winter gave place to spring and travel became feasible again) that Paul made his proposal to Barnabas that they should revisit the Galatian converts and see how they were getting on (36). Barnabas agreed, but wanted to take his cousin John Mark with them, perhaps to give him a second chance (37). But Paul considered this unwise, for he took a serious view of Mark’s desertion and lack of perseverance (38). The disagreement between them was so sharp that they parted company, Barnabas taking Mark and sailing for his home country Cyprus (39), while Paul chose Silas, whose recent ministry in Antioch had evidently impressed him, and they were commended by the church to the grace of the Lord (40), just as Paul and Barnabas had been for their missionary journey (14:26). God certainly overruled ‘this melancholy disagreement’, since as a result of it ‘out of one pair two were made’, as Bengel commented. But this example of God’s providence may not be used as an excuse for Christian quarrelling. It was now that he [Paul, though with Silas, as we have just learned] went through Syria and Cilicia, which would have involved their walking through the majestic narrow pass in the Taurus Mountains known as the ‘Cilician Gates’, strengthening [jb, ‘consolidating’] the churches (41), without doubt by delivering the letter, as well as by their teaching and encouragement.

c. Galatia receives the letter (16:1–5)

Lystra and Derbe were the last Galatian towns to have been visited on the first missionary journey. So now, as Paul approached them from the east, Derbe and Lystra were of course the first to be revisited. The most notable event took place in Lystra. Here lived Timothy (a disciple) and his mother Eunice, who was Jewish but had become a believer. Presumably both mother and son had been converted during Paul’s previous visit about five years previously. Timothy’s father, however, was a Greek (1), and because in verse 3 the verb ‘was’ (hypērchen) is in the imperfect tense, some commentators infer that he was now dead. Since Timothy had an excellent reputation with the Christians in both Iconium and Lystra (2), Paul wanted to recruit him into his mission team, not just as a companion but as a worker, perhaps to take Mark’s place, as Silas had taken Barnabas’s. His Jewish–Greek parentage would give him an entry into both communities. But, although he will have been brought up by his mother in the Jewish faith, he had never been circumcised. So Paul circumcised him because of [neb, ‘out of consideration for’] the Jews who lived in that area, and to make his ministry acceptable to them, since they knew about his Greek father (3) and would have guessed that he was uncircumcised. It is really marvellous that, so soon after Paul’s hot indignation over the Judaizers in Antioch (15:1), and his vehement statements against circumcision in his letter to the Galatians, he should now be prepared to circumcise Timothy. Little minds would have condemned him for inconsistency. But there was a deep consistency in his thought and action. Once the principle had been established that circumcision was not necessary for salvation, he was ready to make concessions in policy. What was unnecessary for acceptance with God was advisable for acceptance by some human beings.

Probably Timothy was also ‘ordained’ before leaving Lystra. At least Paul and the church elders laid their hands on him, presumably to com­mission him for his ministry. Now, as Paul, Silas and Timothy travelled from town to town, they delivered the decisions contained in the letter (4), and in consequence the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers (5, cf. 2:47).

It is noteworthy that in each of these three paragraphs which describe the reception of the Jerusalem letter, Luke makes a similar statement about the church. In Antioch Judas and Silas spoke the word in order to strengthen the believers (15:32). Then Paul and Silas went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches (15:41), and as they journeyed on through and beyond Galatia, the churches were strengthened (16:5). The first two verbs are both epistērizō, as in 14:22, where we noted that it is almost a technical term for the establishing or consolidating of Christian individuals and churches; the third is a similar verb, stereoō, to make strong or firm. So wise and healthy was the Jerusalem Council’s decision, incorporated in their letter, that wherever its good news went, the churches grew in stability and steadfastness.

5. Permanent lessons

Students who read Acts 15 today are tempted to dismiss it impatiently as being of purely antiquarian interest. There is no circumcision party nowadays trying to impose Mosaic rituals on anybody, and it would be ludicrous to expect any contemporary Christian group to accept the four apostolic abstentions, although some of them (like eating kosher food) could still apply to Christians living among conservative Jews. Otherwise, the whole incident appears remote, even irrelevant. Yet it contains at least two lessons of permanent value, the first relating to salvation, and the second, to fellowship.

a. Salvation: an issue of Christian truth

The Judaizers were arguing that circumcision was necessary for salvation (15:1). There was, therefore, a danger of the church breaking up into competing theological factions, with different apostles teaching different gospels, and the church’s unity destroyed. The danger was real enough. The Judaizers claimed the authority of James and contradicted Paul. Peter was led astray and was opposed by Paul. The three apostles appeared to be at loggerheads, with James and Paul on opposite sides and Peter oscillating between them. The situation was critical. So Luke was at great pains to describe how in the Council Peter spoke first, then Paul, then James; how Scripture and experience coincided; and how the apostles (Peter, Paul and James), the elders and the whole church reached a unanimous decision (22, 28). Thus the unity of the gospel preserved the unity of the church. In spite of its rich diversity of formulation and emphasis in the New Testament, there is only one apostolic gospel. We must resist theologians who set the New Testament writers at variance with each other, and who talk about the position of Paul, Peter and John as if they were incompatible gospels. Even Paul and James, who were reconciled at the Council, can be reconciled in their New Testament letters too. They taught the same way of salvation.

Moreover, the gospel of Christ’s apostles is the gospel of God’s free grace, of his undeserved love for sinners in the death of his Son in our place. Further, it is the gospel of God’s sufficient grace. It cannot be regarded either as a supplement to something else (e.g. Judaism) or as needing to be supplemented by something else (e.g. circumcision), without being undermined. Yet this was exactly the Judaizers’ mistake. To them faith in Jesus was not enough; circumcision and law-works had to be added. Today people try to add works of a different kind: generous support of charity, perhaps, or religious observances, or a particular ceremony or experience. In each case it is a ‘Jesus plus’ gospel, which is derogatory to the adequacy of his work. We need to echo Peter: ‘We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are’ (11). We and they, Jews and Gentiles, are saved in the same way, through the one and only apostolic gospel of God’s grace.

b. Fellowship: an issue of Christian love

It was one thing to secure the gospel from corruption; it was another to preserve the church from fragmentation. Paul was resolutely unwilling to compromise ‘the truth of the gospel’. He resisted the Judaizers, rebuked Peter publicly and wrote a passionate appeal to the Galatians. At the same time, he was extremely anxious to maintain Jewish–Gentile solidarity in the one body of Christ. So how could he unite the church without ­compromising the gospel, or defend the integrity of the gospel without sacrificing the unity of the church? His answer reveals the greatness of his mind and heart. Once the theological principle was firmly established that salvation is by grace alone, and that circumcision was not required but neutral, he was prepared to adjust his practical policies. He made two notable concessions, both for the same conciliatory reason. First, he accepted the four cultural abstentions proposed by Jewish leaders to Gentile converts, because the law of Moses was widely read and preached, and this Gentile restraint would ease Jewish consciences and facilitate Jewish–Gentile social intercourse. Second, he circumcised Timothy (he who had just been strongly opposing circumcision!), out of consideration for the Jews who would be offended if he remained uncircumcised.

Some commentators have been so astonished by the apparent discrepancy between Paul the inflexible, who opposed circumcision, and Paul the flexible, who circumcised Timothy, that they have pronounced them irreconcilable. But the fact is that the discrepancy is found within the Acts narrative itself. Besides, Paul’s concessions in Acts 15 and 16 are entirely in keeping with the conciliatory teaching of his letters. He urged Christians with a ‘strong’ (or educated) conscience not to violate the consciences of the ‘weak’ (or overscrupulous). A strong conscience gives us freedom to behave as we wish, but we should limit our freedom out of love for the weak. Again, though free, Paul was willing to make himself a slave to others. To those under the law he was prepared to become like one under the law, in order to win those under the law. Was that not exactly what he was doing when he circumcised Timothy, as also when some years later he accepted James’s proposal in Jerusalem that he join in certain Jewish purification rites (21:17–26)?

We may say, then, that the Jerusalem Council secured a double victory – a victory of truth in confirming the gospel of grace, and a victory of love in preserving the fellowship by sensitive concessions to conscientious Jewish scruples. As Luther put it, Paul was strong in faith, and soft in love. Or as John Newton once said during a meeting of the Eclectic Society in 1799, ‘Paul was a reed in non-essentials – an iron pillar in essentials.’

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