Transcript
In our ongoing series of studies in the book of Acts we come this morning to Acts chapter 15.
Acts chapter 15 introduces us to the second major internal crisis in the history of the
early church. I wonder this morning who of us here knows what was the first major internal crisis
of the early church? Anybody want to wager a guess? Had to do with deacons, had to do back
in Acts chapter 6. You may remember the Greek widows and their proponents were resentful because
they felt that they were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. They thought the
Hebrew widows were being favored. It became a geschmozzle and they solved that problem the
Apostles did by appointing deacons. That's where the office of deacon in the church came from
because the Apostle said, and we read in Acts chapter 6 verse 2, it would not be right for us
to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. And so that crisis was
averted. Well time goes on and now in Acts chapter 15 we come to the second major crisis,
one that threatens to blow up the early church or that threatens to seriously compromise its
mission to reaching the world. And again the conflict is between Jew and Gentile. You'll
recall I have said repeatedly the gap between Jew and Gentile in the New Testament is greater
than you and I can begin to imagine. It is like you and I living next to a pedophile. That is how
they viewed each other. And so when God was constantly at work bringing Gentiles into the
church that created huge stresses. And so what happens here is that there are those among the
Jewish new believers who have raised the issue that Gentile believers need to be observing the
law of Moses. Not good enough just to come to faith in Jesus. They must observe the law
of Moses. Particularly they must observe the discipline of circumcision. So notice how this
chapter begins with verse 1. Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the
brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses you cannot be saved.
Two things there that are rather interesting. First of all the phrase came down from Judea to
Antioch can throw you off a little bit because if you look at the map Antioch is way to the north
of Jerusalem. But the reason it is always going down from Jerusalem is because Jerusalem is at
higher elevation. And so you are actually going down whether it is to Jericho to the east or
whether it is going to Antioch in the north. It is a little bit like when I was a student in
school it took me a long time to get my head around lower and upper Canada. I used to think
you know lower Canada was Quebec and upper Canada was Ontario if you will remember your Canadian
history. You did study that I am sure. And I always used to say to myself doesn't make sense
because it is to the north and rather to the south. Well it is the same reason upper Canada
the rivers flow downhill. And so upper Canada is at a higher elevation, lower Canada is at a
lower elevation. But far more important than that little distinction in this passage of course is
the phrase unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses you cannot be saved.
This is no minor matter. This addresses the very heart of the gospel because it challenges the
basis for salvation. You cannot be saved. It is not enough to believe in Jesus. You must also
keep the law of Moses. So at the risk of making this a little bit complicated bear with me because
I want to give you the back story to this. The back story to this is incredibly important if
you want to understand the writings of the New Testament particularly as they relate to the
subject of law and grace. Books like the book of Hebrews, the book of Galatians, the book of
Romans even all ties into this picture when God entered into covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai
many hundreds of years earlier he gave them instructions as to how he wanted them to behave
as his lawfully wedded wife because that's really what the covenant was. God said I will be your
God and you will be my people and here's how we're going to get along with each other because I'm
holy and you're not holy. He gave them the law. We call it the law of Moses. Now the law of Moses
it's really important to understand is has two components to it in the Old Testament. It has a
moral law and it has a ceremonial law. The moral law are God's instructions on how to do life in a
way that honors him. The moral law can be said to go back all the way to the very beginning of
creation. You're to love God above all. You're to love your neighbor as you love yourself. You're
not to have idols. Think of the Ten Commandments. You're not to steal. You're not to murder. You're
to treat each other in a good and godly fashion. The ceremonial law instituted at Mount Sinai had a
whole series of rituals that Israel also had to keep. It centered on tabernacle worship. They had
to bring offerings. They had to eat certain foods. They had to abstain from certain other foods and
all of these had a purpose that we'll talk about in just a moment. So there was the moral law. There
was the ceremonial law all rolled together into the customs of Moses to make it even more complicated
there was the act of circumcision and the act of circumcision in this particular passage is attributed
to the customs of Moses but actually far preceded Mount Sinai goes back all the way to Abraham
because when God entered into covenant with Abraham as the father of all believers this is what God
says to him in Genesis 17 verse 11 you're to undergo circumcision and it will be the sign of
the covenant between me and you and without making that too complicated think of a wedding ring being
the symbol of marriage covenant or circumcision was the sign that you belonged to God and God
belonged to you it had a lot more implications than that but let's just leave it at that for the
moment now again very helpful for us to understand that the purpose of the law given at Mount Sinai
for our purposes this morning was threefold let me run the pasture really quickly but it's very
important to understand this first of all it showed as I said a moment ago that they belonged
to God it was a symbol of their marriage to the covenant God of Israel so when they observed the
ceremonial law when they observed the moral law when they observed the institution of circumcision
they were demonstrating to each other and to the nations to the principalities and the powers that
they belonged to God think of the Amish of the Hatterites or particular people groups around the
world who identify themselves uniquely either by their dress or by their behavior Israel was marked
as God's people secondly the purpose of the law was to keep evil in check by showing them how to
live and by punishing them if they wandered away from it the law was God's instruction this is how
I want you to live this is how I do not want you to live and this is what's going to happen to you
if you break the law the law was given as we'll see a bit later to restrain evil and the reason
it was given to restrain evil was and that's the third reason for the law is that it was instituted
to set the stage for the coming of the Lord Jesus Paul in Galatians puts it this way so the law was
our custodian or our guardian a lot of translations have our tutor until Christ came that we might be
justified by faith now that's a really important issue in the New Testament particularly in the
book of Galatians the issue here is this it was never God's intention for the law to make people
righteous before God why not because the law is imposed on you from the outside and what happens
when somebody from the outside tells you what to do what happens when you try to tell your kids
what to do what happens when your boss tries to tell you what to do what happens when the policeman
pulls you over and tells you what you haven't done right the human heart unregenerate always
resists the law in fact Paul makes a big case in the New Testament for the fact that the law brings
out our rebellion most of us don't know how rebellious we are until somebody tells us something to do
that we don't want to do isn't that true Paul says they didn't know what sin was until the law came
along and told me what sin was the law can change you force from the outside can change you because
it can't reach inside you and change you from the inside out and so the purpose of the law so says
Paul was to show us just how rebellious how difficult how obstinate we are how far from God's glory we
fall and how much we need Jesus to be our Redeemer and our Savior because he's the only one who can
change us from the inside out and so therefore the law is the tutor it is your guardian it keeps you
in place it keeps you from getting too far off track but it it underscores the need for salvation
so that by the time Jesus comes you're ready to acknowledge that you cannot save yourself you need
help from the outside and so as Jesus comes into the world everything changes and everything changes
in two ways in particular first of all when Jesus comes he fulfills the moral law what was the moral
law do this don't do that leave this way before the face of God love God above all love your
neighbor as yourself Jesus fulfilled that to a T here's how he puts it Matthew 517 this is in
view of the criticism of the Pharisees that he was not serious about keeping the law and he says
do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets I have not come to abolish them
but to fulfill them and so Jesus is born into the world conceived by the Holy Spirit doesn't share
Adams sin doesn't share your and my sin nature though he is fully human and for all the years
that he lives in the face of the earth and I've often talked about this and it continues to blow
me out of the water the only man who ever lived who kept the commandments of God without fail do
you ever think that through loved God all the time loved his neighbor perfectly all the time
and so when he died on the cross didn't die for his own sins died for our sins so that when by
faith we are joined to him our sins can be forgiven his life can come to dwell within us and we can be
born again from the inside out with the resurrection life of Jesus in our hearts helping us to put to
death the old and bringing to life that which is new diagrammatically as you know I like to picture
it this way we are give me a minute here by nature we're separated from God we're under his wrath and
judgment a lot of people don't understand that we are actually bonded to Satan we are selfish we are
in conflict and the end of all of that is death the big issue in the human race is how do I move
from here to here and that is where there is a huge difference between law as the Jews understood
it at Mount Sinai and grace because the law says it's up to you to get yourself over here the law
says if you keep the commandments if you will try harder if you live up to the standard that you know
you're supposed to live up to then God will accept you and he will like you and he will love you the
law leads to pride it leads to arrogance it always leads to selective righteousness because I emphasize
the things that I'm good at but I conveniently ignored the things that I'm not so good at that's
why Jesus says to the Pharisees you swallow you strain out the net but you swallow the camel you
overlook the really big issues but you concentrate on the minor issues if we can have that back up
again grace on the other hand says it has been done in Jesus great grace says nobody can go from
here to here because the gap is simply too big the righteousness that God requires of us we cannot
deliver there's only one whoever delivered it his name was Jesus and so I am saved not by doing it
right but by faith in Christ Jesus our Lord and so the summary is this under the law I obey and
therefore I am accepted my obedience is determined by my behavior my acceptance is determined by my
behavior but under grace I am accepted therefore I obey and biblically the difference is that
between a slave and a son both belong to the same household both have certain expectations
placed upon them the slaves value in the household is determined by his performance and when he gets
old and decrepit and he's no longer any use to his master or if his master decides to sell him he can
take him to the auction block like we do an old horse or an old cow and there you go I don't need
you anymore so under the law you always live in fear you always live in the fear am I good enough
is this the sin that's gonna make God turn his back on me is this the piece of stubbornness that
I have found in my heart that God finally looks at and he says you're beyond hope you're beyond
redemption I don't want you anymore off you go to the auction block that's what the law does the law
makes you hide your true self because your true self you know simply doesn't measure up to what
God has for you well a son is part of the household and his place is not determined by whether he does
it right or whether he doesn't do it right it's determined by does he belong is he a son and has
he been born into the father's family that's huge because whether he's good or whether he's
bad they're stuck together I mean how many of us wouldn't have gotten rid of a kid here or there
or everywhere if it was simply a matter of of behavior and not being embarrassed by them and
if we could put them off in the auction block and say well that kid's not mine life's not that simple
and any parent here can testify that some of the greatest joy is the success of your children but
some of the greatest pain is when your kids embarrass you and do all kinds of things that
are wrong and your name gets dragged to the mud because they're your kids not true are you getting
I'm belaboring this because the New Testament belabors this and I'm belaboring this because
it just about blew the early church out of the water and it continues in many ways to keep many
of God's people today as we'll see later on from living in the joy and in the freedom of gone so
Jesus fulfills the moral law but he does more than that he abolishes the ceremonial law remember
the ceremonial law is this business of all these sacrifices the foods you can or cannot each candy
park you you can't wear clothes that are made of two different materials you can't do all kinds of
things all of which are intended to be a teacher that will lead you to the Christ who is the
fulfillment of all of these things so Jesus comes along he fulfills the moral law but he abolishes
the ceremonial law Ephesians 2 15 Christ abolished in his flesh the law with its commandments and
regulations as I said they all point to the coming of the Christ whenever they were forbidden to eat
unclean food God was trying to teach them that they were God's holy people they were not to mix
with the Gentiles whenever God told them to bring sacrifices they were constantly being reminded we
are sinners God hates in blood has to be shed for the punishment of sin that blood is going to be
shed one day on the cross by the Lord Jesus the Lord Jesus shed his blood on the cross therefore
the law has been fulfilled because the law was a shadow of the reality that was to come but Jesus
is the fulfillment of that which is why you and I today don't make sacrifices of animals we don't
have to worry about wearing blended clothing we don't have to worry about whether or not we eat
pork or any number of Old Testament ceremonial laws all of which were fulfilled in the person
of Jesus Christ and the evidence of this reality is found among other things in two events that
happen particularly in the New Testament the first is that remember when Jesus died on the cross who
remembers what happened in the temple the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the holy place
got torn in two from top to bottom remember that sorry that was God saying to the people of Israel
this Old Testament structure of worship which is a model of heavenly reality is now fulfilled in
the death and the eventual resurrection of Jesus who was entered into the holy place according to
the book of Hebrews with his own blood which can truly transform us as opposed to the blood of
bulls and goats and sheep and whatever else you had to keep on making those sacrifices because it
didn't really change you one iota all that can change you is union with Christ the power of the
Holy Spirit on the inside that changes you from the inside out the other example of this of course
in the New Testament is earlier on in the book of Acts Acts chapter 10 Peter's and Joppa you will
recall and staying at the house of Simon the Tanner interestingly enough and has this vision
clean and unclean animals coming down in a sheet and his voice from heaven that says eat and Peter's
responses no because for all these years I have kept the law by not eating unclean animals and
God says don't call unclean what I call clean and thereby God was declaring the dividing wall
between Jew and Gentile had come down and Gentiles were now going to be brought into the kingdom of
God as demonstrated by the fact that God gave the Holy Spirit to Cornelius who was a God-fearing
pagan so the ceremonial law was undone in Christ and the book of Hebrews is full of that as are
other New Testament passages but the moral law in Christ was fulfilled which is why to this day you
and I are not to commit idolatry we're not to commit adultery we're not to kill that remains
unchanged what is changed is that it is no longer up to us to try to live up to that it is Christ
in us who will transform us by his spirit from one degree of glory to another you're still with me
that's a lot of stuff I'm throwing at you but it's foundational to understanding the gospel of grace
because what happens here in Acts chapter 15 the Jerusalem Church consisted primarily of Jewish
believers who had come to faith in Christ and they had been added to by Gentile God-fearers and that
is a word for Gentile proselytes who had become Jewish and who had adopted a Jewish way of life
the Antioch Church was a church largely composed of Gentiles and so the Jerusalem Church had a
strong contingent in it that couldn't separate themselves from their past or from the law of
Moses they had come to faith in Christ they truly had but in coming to faith in Christ they did not
yet understand how Christ had come to fulfill the law and to abolish it in in a biblical sense of
the word that we've just been talking about it and so they were convinced that it wasn't good
enough just to believe in Jesus no you had to practice what Moses taught you the customs
according to Moses particularly the element of circumcision and remember that was especially
complicated because though they thought that was part of Moses is doing it wasn't it goes back all
the way to Abraham so it predates the law at Mount Sinai so they were convinced about that
not only for themselves but they also wanted to apply this to the new Gentile believers and so we
have them coming down from Jerusalem to the Antioch Church with this message unless you were
circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses you cannot be saved it's not it would be
better it might be nice you really want to consider no no you cannot be saved it's not
enough to believe in Jesus you also have to observe the customs taught by Moses particularly
the custom of circumcision so what do you think happens when they get to Antioch we'll read on
with me in this story a big fight breaks out verse 2 this brought Paul and Barnabas into a sharp
dispute and debate with them they went at each other I suspect in the way that that only Middle
East people can fight I remember years back when Michelle and I were on a trip to Israel we ran
into two Arab peddlers who were fighting over a particular location and the one had stepped into
what the other person thought was his territory and I I thought the Dutch knew how to fight
nothing compared to these two going at it in full public view of all the tourists arguing about
this particular location so they have this controversy and they have this controversy
for two reasons number one at stake is the integrity of the gospel Lord willing we'll talk
more about that next week but the integrity of the gospel is at stake because the question now
is are we saved by works of the law or are we saved by grace are we made right with God because
of Jesus's righteousness or are we made right before God because we're bringing something to
him that he happens to like and he's gonna pat us on the back that is huge in the New Testament
because it gets at the very heart of what salvation by grace is about and whether or not the power of
the gospel can be released to actually transform and change people from the inside out as I said
Lord willing one talk more about that in detail next week but there's a second reason and that's
a very obvious reason of course it creates an additional obstacle for Gentiles to come to faith
if it's no longer just about believing in Jesus but now it's believing in Jesus and becoming a Jew
practicing not only the moral law which we know in Christ has been fulfilled but also practicing
the ceremonial law you have just up the ante for anybody out of the Gentile world becoming a
Christian and I'm sure I mean think of it this way think of yourself as having been raised in
a very prim and proper religious tradition where you say that really to worship God properly in
church and Sunday morning you've got to wear a suit and tie and you're trying to bring somebody
to church and bring somebody to faith who doesn't even own a suit or a tie and he must now first go
out and buy himself a suit and a tie before he can belong here what do you think are the chances
of his accepting your invitation to come with you to church or to come with you to Jesus see what
I'm getting at I think you just lowered your chances by like I mean judging the number of you
at least I'm I belong that's in jest but you see what I'm trying to say so from Paul's and Barnabas's
perspective and the perspective of the anti Antioch Church and all the mission churches which they had
just planted this was outrageous because you cannot do mission work under those conditions that's why
this chapter is so critical because of this issue does not get settled in favor of grace either the
early church is going to split into two factions the legalist faction and the Gentile faction the
Jewish faction and the Gentile faction or it's going to remain essentially a very narrowly centered
Jewish sect that will not succeed in making disciples of all nations let me say it again
if people have to become like the Jews culturally and in every other way in order to belong you've
just raised the barrier and the chances of world evangelization are next to zilch so they're at a
crossroads this is huge this isn't just a couple of people having differences of opinion now this
is the integrity of the gospel this is the future of the church that is at stake and it's the future
of missions that is at stake so what do you do well you go to Jerusalem because Jerusalem is where
the problem came from Jerusalem is where the Apostles are and so we read in verse two goes on to say so
Paul and Barnabas were appointed along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem to see the
Apostles and the elders about this question and I think that's where we'll stop this morning because
now what happens is they they hold what is known as the Council of Jerusalem this is the first time
the church leaders gather together to decide policy for the worldwide church and Lord willing as we
pick this up next time we'll start looking at at what happened in this meeting and how they
settled this very difficult issue how they solved the crisis and then we'll talk Lord willing as
time goes on about the implications for this of this for you and for me so here's a request and
a suggestion that I have for each of us if I may be so bold as to make that would you please take
that insert home or read Acts chapter 15 on your own in the course of the week or with your family
around the devotion table and then try to follow the argument that develops that reaches that that
enables this church assembly to reach a particular decision because in the end they they solve this
issue to everybody's satisfaction and then they you know write it in a letter to the church at
Antioch and and everybody is happy but here's the thing I want you to think about number one what
are the implications of this for believers today what how does this relate to my life because believe
you me it does and number two when you get to the end conclusion and I had hoped to get a little
further today than we can but when you when you get to the end conclusion read what they decide
and then ask yourself the question why did they decide what they decided why did they decide what
they decided because it is decidedly odd but read that over study it and then Lord willing we'll
come back to it because at the end of the day it is all about Jesus Christ and his grace alone
[BLANK_AUDIO]