The Jerusalem Counsel: Salvation is solely by God’s grace and faith in Jesus Christ - Part 2

Acts 15:6–11 “Both the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.””

Acts 15:6 “Both the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.”

When Paul, Barnabas, and their company arrived in Jerusalem they were received by the church, apostles, and elders, and they reported all that God had done through them. Their report would have included the persecution they faced while spreading the gospel, Gentile conversion to the faith, and the establishment of churches, discipleship, and the appointment of elders in the cities were they had ministered. I can imagine the joy they must of had hearing what God had done through them. But as we have seen several times in the book of Acts when there is a positive outworking of God through his followers something negative rises up.

We are told in v.5 that while this report was given the believing Pharisees stood up and said it was necessary to circumcise the Gentiles and command them to keep the law of Moses. In v.6 we are told that after hearing this “both the apostles and elders came together to look into this matter” that was raised about the necessity of the Gentiles to be circumcised and keeping the law. This matter needed to be hashed out and resolved immediately. Salvation by God’s grace apart from works is a doctrinal truth that needed to be established for the church.

Peter intervenes during the debate

Acts 15:7 “And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.”

Luke says that there had been a long debate. This was no small matter to discuss, the souls of people were being weighed in the balance of salvation by works verses salvation by God’s grace, through faith in Christ. Peter had enough of the lengthy debate and he is going to put this matter to rest. Peter stood up and reminded his fellow apostles and elders about his experience that happen 10 years ago with Cornelius and his household.

Peter says God made a choice among you. Peter begins to place God in the forefront of his argument. This was wise because if the apostles and elders had any problems with what he was about to say, they would have a problem with God because, Peter didn’t volunteer to share the gospel with Gentiles, It was God who chose Peter to share the gospel with Gentiles. When Peter came to Cornelius house he tells him what God had shown him about the Gentiles.

Acts 10:28 “And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man defiled or unclean.”

Peter said it was by his mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. His message to the Gentiles was belief in the gospel apart from circumcision and keeping the law and rituals.

Acts 10:44–48 “While Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the word. And all the circumcised believers who came with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and magnifying God. Then Peter answered, “Can anyone refuse water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for a few days.”

It is God who extends salvation as His gift to everyone by faith regardless of ethnicity and apart from circumcision and keeping the law and its rituals.

The Gentiles salvation is a work of God’s grace.

Acts 15:8 ““And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us;”

Peter had a better understanding about God’s divine knowledge than the strict religious law keeping Pharisees. Only God knows the heart.

Jeremiah 17:10 ““I, Yahweh, search the heart; I test the inmost being, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his deeds.”

The Pharisees were incapable to know the heart of the Gentiles, they didn’t know the heart of anyone for that matter. God gave the Gentiles the Holy Spirit just as he did for Peter, the apostles, and elders.

Acts 11:15–17 ““And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning. “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ “Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could prevent God’s way?””

God saw the Gentiles heart, He knew the genuineness of their response to the gospel, and the evidence of that was He gave them the Holy Spirit.

God is impartial

Acts 15:9 “and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.”

Peter went on to say that God made no distinction between us and them. In Acts 2:4 when Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost received the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other languages, the same spiritual phenomenon happen with the Gentiles in Acts 10: 44-46, after believing the gospel by faith they received the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in another language.

Peter tells his fellow apostles and elders that God made no distinction between us and the Gentiles, God cleansed our hearts and their hearts by faith.

God cleansed the hearts of the Gentiles because of faith, something circumcision is unable to accomplish.

The Jewish circumcision was the custom of cutting away of the male foreskin, it was a convent sign that God had made with Abraham, a sign of physical separation to God, and to be distinct from pagans, and symbolically it represented a cutting away the filth of the flesh of the old nature. The circumcision of Christ is a cutting away the body of sins of the flesh, which is a spiritual separation (Rom 6:6).

Paul writes that believers have been cleansed and they are the circumcision.

Philippians 3:3 “For we are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh,” In other words we have no confidence in human effort to merit spiritual blessings from God, especially when it came to circumcision and other customs and rituals of the Law.

Paul’s letter to the Colossians he says to them that they had been truly circumcised, not in the flesh,

Colossians 2:10–12 “and in Him you have been filled, who is the head over all rule and authority; in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

Salvation is unattainable through the law, But salvation is attainable through God’s grace and faith in Jesus Christ

Acts 15:10–11 ““Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.””

Peter has laid out a sound defense that the Gentiles had received salvation by God’s grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Circumcision and adhering to the law and its rituals was not necessary for salvation. Because the truth of the matter is neither has the ability to save. So Peter asked the logical question “why do you put God to the test?” The Judaizers were in grave danger of testing God. Testing God is having unbelief and disobedience towards God. And this is what they were doing. God has shown through his covenant with Abraham that He would justify the Gentiles by faith (Gen 12:3; 22:18) .

Galatians 3:8 “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.””

God has shown that He alone has cleansed their hearts. But these Judaizers and Pharisees want to place a yoke on the disciples. A yoke that Peter says that “neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.”

Peter’ statement comes from what Jesus said to the crowds and his disciples about the scribes and Pharisees.

Matthew 23:4 ““And they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”

Luke 11:46 “But He said, “Woe to you scholars of the Law as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”

Was the Law bad? Of course not. Paul said that the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Rom 7:12).

Paul admitted that he “would not have come to know sin except through the Law. For I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet” (Rom 7:7).

But the Law in and of itself was weak because the Law was incapable to save. All the Law did was to show how sinful a person was and their need for Christ for forgiveness of their sins and salvation.

Romans 8:3–4 “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Hebrews 7:18–19 “For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

The Law is liken to a yoke. A yoke is a wooden beam that is tied to an oxen who were bound to pull a plow. If a person tried to live by the Law they were bound to abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to do them and if they didn’t do all of them they were cursed, according to Gal 3:10. James writes James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”

But in Christ we have been set free from the curse of the Law, we are not burden by the yoke of the Law.

Romans 8:2 “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

Galatians 5:1 “It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, stand firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

Peter concludes his defense (by the way this is the last time we will hear from him in Acts).

Acts 15:11 ““But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.””

Glory to God for that! Right? We do not have to jump through a ritualistic hoops to be justified by God. There is one way to be justified by God and it is through faith in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 2:16 “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”

The Law is not the means of obtaining salvation. Salvation is solely by God’s grace and faith in Jesus Christ.