Paul 17

 

Acts 15:5-11                 

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.”

The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

For Christians the events in Jerusalem at Pentecost, described in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles saw the coming of the Holy Spirit. Through that narrative, a transforming religious event, we are able to trace the birth of Christianity. That transition from the old covenant to the new covenant arising from Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, that sacrifice that would forever expose and reveal God’s love for a fallen and broken humanity; an exposition of love divine, forever unsurpassed. We see this in Paul’s passion as he proclaims his gospel saying:

 For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:12)

For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirit. (1Corinthians 6: 20)

And in his letter to the Galatians, Paul speaks to us of the significance of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, how as a believer he applied it to himself, saying:

I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ that liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (2:20)

We turn now to the book of the Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 which continues to detail the Spirit led beginnings of the Christian church, of that early movement of which Paul was so central to. I want to remind you that as before, that we are really looking at the evolution of the church from what it was then, a Jewish sect, a significant group, but still a sect within the fold of Judaism. There its followers grappled with that thorny question of accepting the Gentiles into the ranks of this growing Christian movement.

So now we return to that somewhat stormy meeting in Jerusalem, AD 58, that meeting that came to be known as the Church’s first council, the Council of Jerusalem. That’s where some of the Pharisees who had become followers of Christ, began to say that these Gentiles who were becoming Christians mostly through Paul’s missionary efforts, would first have to convert to become Jews. They said that if these Gentiles were to become accepted, they would have to be circumcised and observe all the Jewish laws, the laws of Moses.

Let’s consider for a moment, the passion and the concerns that gave rise to this meeting in Jerusalem. That meeting arose because the stricter Jews were concerned that they stood to be outnumbered by waves of incoming Gentile converts, as a result of Paul’s missionary efforts; Gentiles coming into their church who had never committed themselves to the purity of the Jewish religion, as they saw it. Naturally, we can understand their concerns, the concerns of the Jewish believers, concerns for the continuation of their identity and culture and yet it was clear that through God, events were taking them in a new direction. Peter of course, reminded them of this when at that meeting, he got up and spoke as we now read:

The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 15:5-11 NIV)

In these few verses we can see that Peter points out to those assembled at this meeting, that God had already made a choice and that God had made the decision to pour out the gift of his Holy Spirit on Gentile believers. Years before, you will recall that Peter preached in the house of Julius, the Roman centurion, at Caesarea, a Gentile household of course, and all those in that household who heard what Peter said, all those who heard that message became filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues and praising God. Returning to Jerusalem at that time, Peter’s account of this event was given to the apostles at Jerusalem and they accepted it after Peter said:

So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God? (11:17)

So, Peter, as we can see, had already made, years ago a compelling argument, for bringing the Gentile believers into the embryonic church. How indeed, argued Paul, could anyone prevail against the will of God? But if we read on from verse 10-11, he put forward another question to his contemporaries, as we have seen:

Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

When Peter talks of a yoke that nobody is really able to bear, we could say that that this yoke could also be likened to a weight or a burden that nobody has ever really been able to carry. More than that he clearly points to a yoke, a weight, a burden that neither the people gathered at that meeting in Jerusalem, or the Jews as a whole and their ancestors were really not able to bear. He was referring to the Jewish law that had led to hypocrisy and shows of false religiosity. Peter, wasn’t saying anything new here, and he’d no doubt heard Jesus himself expound on the same question:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (Matthew 23:4).

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

And if we just look again at Peter’s statement at verse eight, he refers to God as ‘God knows the heart.’ Again, we are not without reference to Peter’s utterance for we should know as Peter did, that story of the prophet, Samuel who was sent to anoint the shepherd boy, David as the future king of Israel. When Samuel saw David’s brother, Eliab he thought at first that he had found the Lord’s anointed, but we have this verse in scripture that reads:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1Samuel 16:7)

In the Psalm of David, the 23^rd Psalm, the fifth verse, we have these words:

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

The God who knows the heart, who knows our innermost thoughts, knows each one of us fully is the God who anoints us, or not as the case may be, this is the same God who poured out his Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, on Julius and his household in Caesaria. Thus, Peter could say:

God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

If we return once again to God’s anointing of David by Samuel we will find at first, in that story, that David wasn’t even brought up for consideration, let alone thought about as a viable candidate for kingship, neither you will remember did Jesse, his father consider his youngest son. David wasn’t even present when Samuel turned up to meet Jesse, as the youngest and perhaps the least of his sons in terms of maturity he was out in the fields looking after the sheep. So it was that David’s seven older brothers came one by one under Samuel’s gaze before David, after some pressing from Samuel was finally presented. And here in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth verse of Samuel 16 we get a real sense of that holy and auspicious occasion.

And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.

It seems that no one expected David to be chosen for kingship, to be God’s chosen one, least of all Samuel, God’s prophet. But as we know, God looks at the heart and not at the outward appearance. Earlier I mentioned Pentecost, and for Christians we have our record of that day, the Holy Spirit coming like fire upon the apostles impelling them and driving them with fresh courage, and energy to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Peter had witnessed this event and he himself had received the Holy Spirit, and again he witnessed that same outpouring at Caesarea, that power that could only come from God. Should the Gentiles be admitted to the Church? Peter, as we have seen, gave his answer:

God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by   giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

Paul 16

 

 

Acts 15: 3-6                                     

The Church sent the delegates to Jerusalem and they stopped along the way in Phoenicia and Samaria to visit the believers.  They told them, much to everyone’s joy, that the Gentiles too, were being converted. 

When they arrived in Jerusalem, Barnabas and Paul were welcomed by the whole church, including the apostles and elders.  They reported everything God had done through them. 

But then some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and insisted: “The Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the law of Moses.” So the apostles and elders met together to resolve this issue.

We pick up the thread from where we left off, as we continue to consider the first ever church council, the Council of Jerusalem that took place as described in the 15^th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the year AD 48. It was at this Council, the Council of Jerusalem, that decisions were made which paved the way for the expansion of the Christian Church beyond the limitations of Judaism into the gentile world. To be clear, this small community of believers especially under Paul’s leadership was fast becoming an international church, where it was hoped by Paul that both Jews and gentile converts to Christianity could be treated equally.

In fact, when you think about it, looking back, if this equality had not been granted then the Christian Church would probably have remained a small and obscure Jewish sect. 

In the previous sermon, we heard the comments of the American Pastor, teacher and writer, John McArthur, who wrote:

They (that is many Jews) could not conceive those pagans (that is gentiles) could simply enter the church and immediately be on an equal basis with Jewish believers.  That seemed unfair to those (Jews) who had devoted their lives to keeping God’s Law.  They feared too, that in an increasingly gentile church, Jewish culture and influence would be lost.

If you think about it, the debate at the Council of Jerusalem, presented a very specific problem.  And the problem is not the familiar Jewish position that rejects Jesus’ status as the longed-for Messiah, or rejects Jesus as the unique Son of God and heir to the throne of David. Rather, I need to emphasise that in this instance we are referring to Jews who had become Christians, who had become believers. But these Jewish believers had become hostile towards the gentile converts to Christianity, those gentile Christians who would not be circumcised or would not commit to following the Jewish law; the law of Moses.

We can see this Jewish position very clearly if we turn to our reading at verse five where it says:

But then some of the believers, who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, stood up and said, “The Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the Law of Moses.”

Well now, that’s an interesting proposition, is it not?  After all, wasn’t Jesus a Jew? Didn’t he follow the law of Moses? As a Jew we know he certainly preached a first in the synagogue and at open air meetings, where we can be sure he’d be preaching to the crowds who in the main would be Jewish.  After all, wasn’t Jesus seen as the Messiah who would restore the throne of David and restore the Kingdom of Israel?  Which by any definition would mean the expulsion and the defeat of the Roman forces of occupation.  Jesus was a Jew who celebrated the Jewish religious feasts and occasions.  We Christians may talk of the Last Supper, but when Jesus and his disciples gathered to eat and drink in that upper room, we know also that they were celebrating the great Jewish festival and the Passover meal.

So, certainly, when the Christians who were also Jewish Pharisees insisted that, for all righteousness sake, the pagan or gentile converts should embrace the same religion and culture as Jesus, their declared Lord and Master there was a certain logic to what they were saying, surely?  But then who at this Council of Jerusalem was it who advocated for the Gentiles and opposed that point of view other than Peter and Paul? 

In any case we know that God had spoken to the believer Ananias, in Damascus and said:

Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to Kings as well as to the people of Israel. (Acts 9:15)

Essentially, the Jews who counted themselves as Christians, as believers, (as Luke would have it) (in Acts) were saying that the gentile converts could not be saved without first adhering to the Jewish law. What they were arguing was that to be a true convert, a gentile had first to become a Jew before they could become a Christian otherwise, they would not be acceptable to the church or acceptable in the eyes of God.

But, if this were so, why, I ask, you would God want an anyone to become ‘the apostle to the gentiles,’ and why should he select Saul to be this apostle, particularly if Paul was going to say, as he did in his letter to the Romans, these words:

After all is God the god of the Jews only?  Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles?  Of course he is.  There is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith whether they are Jews or Gentiles. (Romans 3:29-30)

These words from Paul who himself was a Jew and yet Paul remained a Jew even though he argued that the ritual and the strict dietary requirements of the Jews and circumcision should not be obligatory or forced on Christian converts who were not Jews.

In fact, at the meeting under discussion today – the Council of Jerusalem, the apostle Peter also challenged the Judaizers, he challenged those wanted Christians to become Jews, he challenged then by saying:

So why are you now challenging God by burdening the gentile believers (disciples) with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear?  We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 15:10)

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the very laws that the Jews want the Christian converts to adhere to are, as Peter says, were ‘a yoke’ - in other words a burden, and a yoke, round the neck and shoulders that no Jew has ever been able to bear.

It’s not as though the law is bad—it is good to follow the Law, but just following the Law is not enough.  As Paul observed in his letter to the Romans, Jews should not conclude that they are better than others because, despite following the Law of Moses, the Jews, just like the Gentiles, still fall under the power of Sin. Paul said:

As the scripture says ‘No one is righteous not even one. (Romans 3:10)

Paul writes that no one can ever gain God’s favour by simply obeying the Law – the Law just shows how sinful we really are.  We cannot achieve salvation through our own efforts, so we really have nothing to boast about.

In fact, far from boasting about our good deeds, our sacrifices, we need only turn to God in our wretchedness, and to show humility when we come before God.  As stated in Psalm 51:

You do not desire a sacrifice or I would offer one.  You do not want a burnt offering.  The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. (51:16-17)

So, I come back to the claim made by some Christian Jews at the Council of Jerusalem – that claim that the Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the Law of Moses.  Again, the argument could run if Jesus was a Jew, then Gentiles who convert to Christianity should also become Jews.  I’ve already mentioned too that the last supper was indeed the Jewish Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples were celebrating. 

But if we turn to the oldest of the four gospels, the Gospel of Mark, we can read these words:

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it.  Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples saying, Take, it, for this is my body.  And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it.  He gave it to them and they all drank from it, and he said to them “this is my blood which confirms the new covenant between God and his people.  It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. (Mark 14: 22-24)

How can we read that, how can we understand these words, except to see in this ritual of bread and wine, that Christ himself so clearly said, the bread represented his body and the wine his blood, his body broken and his blood poured out in a sacrifice on the cross. And for those who will take him at his word and confess their sins they will be forgiven; they will die with Christ and share in his resurrection to everlasting life. This is the New Covenant.

What can we say about the Old Covenant except to say that it was the Jewish a sacrificial system involving sacrifices that needed to be constantly repeated for the forgiveness of sins. But now the Old Covenant replaced by the New Covenant, no longer exclusively for the Jews but for all the people of the world.  This is the Good News, as we know, and it is expressed beautifully in the Gospel of John, 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one only begotten Son that whoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life

We give the last word to Paul who in his letter to the Galatians wrote:

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female.  For you are all one in Christ Jesus.   (3: 28)