Acts 15

Judaizers

So much is going on here but I want to start with an observation, and that observation is that what is happening in here in Acts 15 is an organized, formal, process, with proper lines of authority being observed and with clear lines of communication coming from the leadership of the church to the church body.

Our God is not a God of chaos, but of order. It is Satan who wishes to sow chaos and disorder in the Church. And so from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, from the moment that he called His first disciples, the Church has had an order to it with hierarchies and modes of leadership and qualifications going along with that leadership.

I may not seem like a likely candidate to extol the virtues of such administrative clarity. I am a small church planter with no denomination to call my own and a relatively informal bureaucracy within this church. But in point of fact I do take order and clarity and authority very seriously, and I love that the Church, the Body of Christ, is given in Scripture a model of organization and authority. A local church, no matter how small or how large should be an orderly place.

And along with that order, with clear lines of authority, should come transparency and clarity. Please note in this passage...the Pharisees who bring their complaint publicly, and the elders and the Apostles speak publicly. The controversy is out there for all to see and all to hear, there are no secrets, no hidden agendas, just an honest and open wrestling with what it means that the Gentiles are coming to the Lord and what would Christ have us do?

So if you are at a church and it’s not clear to you who’s in charge...that’s a warning sign. If no one is willing to take responsibility for any decisions then that is spiritual cowardice, not strength. Or maybe it is very clear who is in charge, but it’s not clear why decisions are being made the way they are being made, or the reasoning behind them, and what is more when people try to find out why something was decided a certain way they are shut down or shamed for ‘questioning the leadership’. That is not a healthy church either. I believe there are many ways to organize church leadership- the New Testament model gives us not so much a blueprint as it does principles, and the 3 main principles in view here are appropriate roles of authority, clarity, and transparency.

So that is an observation about our passage, but it is not what this passage is about. This is, along with Pentecost, one of the most important passages in the book of Acts. It is a pivotal moment in the history of the Church.

What had just happened- Paul’s first missionary journey through Galatia, modern day Turkey-

tremendous hardship but also significant success, largely among the Gentiles

a door of “faith” has been opened to the Gentiles, the Holy Spirit continues to move among them in undeniable ways.

Problem that transpires- always, always, always, when there is a victory for the Kingdom of God then there is spiritual pushback, there is demonic and Satanic attack and the greater the victory for the Kingdom of God the greater the attack, and this initial missionary journey was completely in the crosshairs of Satan.

And where does the attack come from? As so often is the case, the worst attacks on the Church come from within the Church, from believing, professing Christians who are nevertheless deceived or ignorant on some significant truth. And this is the first of such attacks in the history of the Church. Up until this point, not counting Judas’ act of betrayal, all attacks on the church have been from outside the church, what we call persecution, but this attack comes from within.

Last week Pearce used the word ‘fanatic’ to frame much of his sermon. Fanatic being a word that has to do with Temples and worshiping in the temple, and he spoke on how we all worship something and in a real sense all people are fanatics about something.

Well this week we are going to look at the word ‘heretic’ and its root and what it can tell us about this passage and our lives together as followers of Christ.

SLIDE

Acts 15:5 “But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.””

SLIDE- Heretic and its roots

Why is it that it is these men, and these in particular, who are in danger of torpedoing the early church and stopping the spread of the Gospel? What is it in them that makes them dangerous? Now there are only 2 facts that we know about these men. One, is that they are Christians, genuinely so. Luke calls them believers. They are not wolves in sheep’s clothing who are intending to or wanting to destroy the work of Christ. These are not the same as the ‘false brothers’ that Paul speaks of in the second chapter of Galatians, which seems to be an account of a different incident.

And the second thing that we know about them is that they ‘belong’ or are ‘of’ the sect of the Pharisees. And that is the core of the issue. They have not fully divested themselves, yet, of their commitment to and membership of, another group of principles that lie outside the Gospel.

Now, there may be overlap with the Gospel. Famously the Pharisees believed in the Resurrection and in the coming of the Messiah, and many other things that we would affirm as per the Word of God. But there were many other things of course that they held to that stood in opposition to the Gospel, primarily their strict adherence to a law code which far surpassed the laws set forth in the Torah, which is one of the reasons why Jesus encountered so much resistance from them in His earthly ministry.

When you bow the knee to Jesus and surrender your will and hand over your sins and your whole life to Jesus Christ, you will save yourself much time and agony if in that moment you also renounce commitment to any other group or ideology outside of the Gospel. You are no longer a Pharisee. Paul was a Pharisee but when he wrote to the Philippians he called his membership in that group as important to him as a pile of garbage, compared to knowing Christ. And this was a public letter that he wrote! It would have been the equivalent of burning his draft card publicly as some did during the Vietnam War, denying their membership, as it were, in the military system of America.

When you give your life to Christ, you are born again, and born anew with a new identity and a comprehensive membership, as a disciple, a Christian, a member of the Body of Christ. And nothing else. Nothing else. Every other membership, every other identity, will flow from that one or be discarded.

What do I mean by that? Well I am a Christian. As a Christian am I an American? In a sense, yes. I recognize that I was born in this country and benefit from its organization and its governance. The language I speak and the culture that has shaped me is American. So, yes, I am an American. Furthermore, the Word of God tells me to obey Caesar and render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to not be a scofflaw. So I try to be a good and productive American. Why? Because I am a Christian. And I am an American and a good citizen right up to the point when America asks something of me that goes against the will of God. And then I am a Christian. I would absolutely abandon the title of American in a heartbeat if holding that title means going against my Lord Jesus Christ in any way.

I had breakfast with my mother recently and we were reminiscing about the old days, and we touched upon politics and mom started telling me about the resistance that many people had to John F. Kennedy’s presidency because he was Catholic and there was a concern that his allegiance would be to the Pope and the Catholic church before his commitment to America. That’s an intriguing thought. Of course the Pope is just a man and fallible as any of us, but nevertheless I should think that any Christian running for public office should be suspect to some degree, because any Christian worthy of the name is a Christian, a follower of Jesus, led by the Holy Spirit, first and foremost, above and beyond what any human organization or institution might demand or desire from us. We are followers of Jesus first. It is the first commandment, to put the Lord before any and all other things, including our families and loved ones.

But in our text these are Christians who still think of themselves as Pharisees, and they want to meld that membership with their faith in Jesus. They do not yet recognize that one of those identities must be the underpinning for all other identities. They have not yet fully grasped the radical nature of the Gospel yet, and they have accepted Christ, but are still trying to mold His Kingship and His sovereignty into their own image or make a hybrid image that protects both their worldly kingdoms and their new life in Christ. They have not yet realized what their brother Paul has realized, that all other identities mean nothing compared to life in Jesus Christ.

And because of this heresy, this belonging to another group over and against their faith in Jesus, because of this they want the Church to do something that on the surface might seem relatively harmless, or possibly even helpful. And that is this, they want these new Gentile believers to embrace the Law of Moses, to basically become what we would call practicing Jews, starting with circumcision (just as Abraham did) and then just generally following the Mosaic laws as found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

But this is no small matter for them. This is not about a kind of preference or just about making good choices. No, they are clear and they say

Acts 15:1 “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.””

They believe in Jesus Christ. They believe in His death and Resurrection. They believe that His death saves us- as long as you also do some of these other things. SLIDE

And this is the central theme and concern of our passage today,

How are people saved? What is the mechanism, the means, the process by which a sinful and dying human being can be restored to shalom, right relationship with God, and enter into the fullness of life in glory. How are we saved?

Is there any more pressing or more important question for the human heart to ask?

This is THE question of our existence, THE question of history.

This is the very heart of the Gospel and, appropriately, it is here at the very heart of the book of Acts. There are 28 chapters in the book of Acts, so you might be tempted to think that Acts 14 is the center of the book but actually by word count in the Greek it is here, Acts 15, specifically the line

Acts 15:14 “Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name.”

That sentence is precisely in the middle of the book of Acts...the proclamation that God is taking for Himself all the nations, the Gentiles, for His name, for His glory. Of course I am sure Luke did not know that or plan that...that is just the Holy Spirit at work in composing the Scriptures through His servants.

Peter may have walked on water, and he may have healed the lame, but this moment in time is the apex of Peter’s leadership in the Church. This is the moment where the Holy Spirit used His servant, Peter, the Galilean fisherman, to underline, and preserve the heart of the Gospel, salvation being through faith in Jesus Christ, with no addendums or qualifications, salvation for all who put their trust in the Son of God, the Messiah Jesus Christ. And Peter is aware of the weight of the moment

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 should hear the word of the gospel and believe.”

This is Peter’s moment. And this is his last appearance in the book of Acts. After this the focus shifts entirely to Paul and his missionary work. Peter never comes back into the narrative. Which is not to say that Peter never does anything important after this, just that his work done in shaping the church as a whole finishes here. And what was his last work, his last word to the Church before he exits the stage? He preserves the very heart of the Gospel. He protects that radical and shocking truth that is always under attack by Satan and always will be until the end of this age, that our salvation is a gift from God, offered freely by His loving hand, and that you cannot earn it, you cannot work for it, and you cannot become worthy of it. You just have to trust in Jesus and make Him the Lord of your life. That is it.

Acts 15:8–11 “And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.””

What a tremendous comfort it is that grace is the heart of the good news of God’s saving work. What a tremendous comfort it is that God does not demand something of us that we cannot give- which is perfect obedience to the laws of God. He just asks us to trust Him- to have faith in Him and to make Him your Lord. Faith is what you provide- the Lord does the work.

(And yet, and here lies the divide between the Arminians and the Calvinists- do you even provide your own faith? Or is it the Lord that provides it?

My answer to this is that these are not equations that the Lord asks us to solve. The Bible is not a mathematics textbook of grace always asking you to solve for X. On the one hand we can do nothing without God’s empowerment. I cannot even take my next breath without Him- I wouldn’t have lungs without Him. What possible thing could we do outside the will of God? And yet it is clear from the Word of God that we also have our own will and that He allows us to use that will to reject Him if we so choose. I know that I could spend my whole life trying to figure out the mystery of the interplay between my will and God’s will and would only have succeeded at wasting my life. And I believe some have done just that and also sown seeds of discord among the faithful attempting to understand the mind of God which is a fool’s errand and is exactly what the Lord warns Job against in the closing chapters of that book. Where were you, exactly, when I formed the foundations of the heavens and the Earth?)

Let me return to the more laudable principle of grace then, because Acts 15 is all about grace.

The grace of Jesus Christ was spoken of in Moses farewell speech in the final book of the Torah, the Book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 30:4–6 “If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

Circumcise your heart. The whole of the law is about the heart in right relationship with the Lord. Physical circumcision cannot save. The blood of goats and bulls cannot save (Hebrews 10:4). All of these were nothing more or less than symbols pointing to the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, by whose blood we ARE saved.

Peter says a truth that was always true, that even Moses wrote about and Abraham exemplified, that our works, our labor, our private and personal attempts at righteousness, are in the end fruitless, at times perhaps even counterproductive.

Acts 15:10–11 “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.””

I hope this reminds you of Jeremiah and the yoke that the Lord commanded Jeremiah to wear, symbolizing the burden of sin and the judgment that was coming that was laid across all of Israel. And I hope you then remember that Hananiah broke that yoke, his human hands and his human will proclaiming freedom for the captives in Babylon, and the Lord struck Hananiah for his presumption in thinking that he could break that yoke. It was never to be our hands or our will that would deliver us from the sin that has us so tightly bound. The Lord tells Hananiah that the real yoke that Jeremiah wears is a yoke made of iron, one which no human hand can break. But the Lord also says that the day will come when that yoke is broken by His own hand, the hand and will of the Lord Himself.

Grace gives freedom, and it is for freedom that the Lord has set you free. Now, James gives a brief speech here as well, and it is also important but not as central as what Peter has proclaimed, but nevertheless it is needed so let’s take a look at what James has to say here amidst this debate.

Acts 15:13–21 “After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’ Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.””

So James starts by agreeing with Peter, that the Lord is finally gathering to Himself all the nations of the Earth, and he quotes Amos 9:11-12 which is yet another prophecy of this moment in time, when the Lord would reach out through His people to the ends of the Earth with salvation.

And he says something interesting, that they should not ‘trouble’ the Gentiles who turn to God, which is his agreement with Peter that no one can endure the weight of the Law, that everyone falls short. The Law by itself only leads to depression or false pride. So far so good, but then he says and he offers little explanation, that they should abstain from ‘things polluted by idols’, from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. Why? Something to do with the law of Moses being spread far and wide in the synagogues.

While it may not be immediately clear to modern readers, it is not actually that much of a mystery what James is talking about here. For one, and let’s get this out of the way quickly, he is not talking about salvation. This is not about the Gospel. This is made doubly clear when the letter that is written to the Gentile believers is composed...

Acts 15:29 “that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.””

If this was about salvation this would be written far more fervently and with far greater stress.

No, what this is about is community. Because maintaining grace as the heart of the Gospel is vital, but there is also a concern that the church might split in 2 at the moment of its birth- a Gentile church and a Jewish church. This is not the will of the Lord. And James is led by the Spirit to give instructions to these new Gentile believers that will make it far easier for Jew and Gentile to worship together as a genuine community. All of that talk about things sacrificed to idols and strangled meat as opposed to butchered meat, etc., that is all about what people will eat or won’t eat. And for many Jewish people, even those given now to Jesus Christ, that is just a bridge too far. They have grown up their whole lives abstaining from blood in meat and shunning food sacrificed to idols.

1 Corinthians 8:7–9 “However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”

James gives this advice to help make it easier for Jews and Gentiles to break bread together.

Abstain also from sexual immorality, James says as well, without elaborating. Now this deals not with a matter of a weak conscience but with actual sin. Nothing destroys a community faster than sexual immorality. James is not saying that your sexual sins can’t be forgiven, that they lie outside of grace. He is saying that the pagan way of life of promiscuity, of incest, homosexuality, of having sex with mistresses or slaves or prostitutes or children, all these things that the pagan world had normalized- that all these things would or could immediately destroy a church. It would not be right or sufficient to tolerate these things as a community under the name of grace- they are too inherently destructive.

So one could say that Peter preserves the Gospel, and James preserves the community. This council of believers preserved the church and the unity of Jewish and Christian believers, and did so without violence or prejudice or with any thought at all other than the honoring of what the Holy Spirit was doing among them.

It is a model of what church leaders should be doing today. Collaborating openly, transparently, with God given authority to advance the Gospel while preserving the unity of the Church.