Can Gentile Believers Be Admitted To The Church?
CAN GENTILE BELIEVERS BE ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH?
ACTS 15:1-5
Most people were thrilled with what was happening among the Gentiles, but some argued it couldn’t be done that way.
The immediate occasion of the council was the success which attended Paul’s missionary journey. Jews and Jewish proselytes had been won, but, more significantly, the gospel had made a noticeable inroad into pagan territory and (chiefly in Galatia) a ready welcome to the message had been received. So much so that Paul had introduced a rudimentary church organization for the maintaining of congregational life and growth (14:22-23). News of this had reached the Jerusalem church, where alarm was felt. Why?
The “dissension and debate” centered on the admissibility of Gentile believers to the church. Cornelius was clearly a special case, and at all events he was half-way to becoming a Jew before his conversion to Christ. The issue was whether Gentile converts were to be welcomed en masse the moment they were converted—or to be gradually introduced to full Christian standing by receiving the imposition of certain Jewish rites and rituals. Note the chief qualification which the strict Jewish Christians were insisting upon (15:1).
The danger of a divided church, split into two factions and with two headquarters, at Jerusalem and at Antioch, was present. So to settle the question (15:2) a consultation was arranged. The precise relation between this visit (15:2) and an earlier one (11:30) in the light of Galatians 2:1-10 is much canvassed. The simplest solution is that the Galatians 2 visit is the same as that of 11:30, and that the letter to the Galatians was written before this council in AD 49. This explains why there is no reference to the decree in Galatians. It is less easy to account for its omission from 1 Corinthians. Probably Paul accepted it in principle, but based his appeal to the Corinthians on other grounds (1 Corinthians 8; cf. Romans 14:1–15:6).
Clearly Paul and Barnabas stood for a liberal attitude, which Paul strenuously argues for in his Galatian epistle, while at the opposite end of the scale was a rigid policy of turning Gentile converts into good Jews before according them a full Christian status. Who were the spokesmen for this line (15:5)?
Notes 15:3: Paul evidently enlisted much sympathy, including Luke’s. 15:5: this restriction was intolerable, and a betrayal of the gospel of God’s free grace, according to Paul’s (earlier) letter to Galatia. Why?