2 Oct 2015

    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 (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

modern theologians who set the New Testament writers at

variance with each other, and who talk about Pauline, Petrine and

Johannine positions 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 Judaizer’s 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, philanthropy

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’ (11). We and they, Jews and Gentiles, are

saved in the same way, through the one and only apostolic gospel

of God’s grace.