WWUTT 1091 The Jerusalem Council?

Well, the enemies of the church have tried persecuting Christians, but that isn't stopping the spread of the gospel, so what's next? Heresy. Let's try some false teaching, but that will be defeated by the sound teaching of the word of God, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council

Thank you, Becky. Well, in our study of the book of Acts, we're in a big chapter this week, Acts chapter 15, which you might know as the chapter about the Jerusalem council. Since we're just getting into this chapter, I'm going to go ahead and read through the whole thing.

This is Acts 15, starting in verse one. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this.

Question.

So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.

But some believers who belong 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. The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider 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 should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

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.

And all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 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 has read every Sabbath in the synagogues. Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.

They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following.

Letter.

The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, 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. So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.

And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them.

But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord, and see how they are.

Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John, called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.

Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Salvation by Grace Through Faith, Not Works

So there you go. There's Acts chapter 15, the story of the Jerusalem council. We start again in verse 1 with men who had come down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Now remember, Paul and Barnabas had returned to Antioch and Syria. And that's where they were when these men from Judea had come teaching this heresy, this false teaching that you must do this. You must do this work if you are going to be saved.

It's no longer salvation by grace through faith. It is salvation by faith and works. You have to be circumcised. If you are not circumcised, then you cannot be saved. This is the false teaching that had come in and was beginning to plague the church.

And after they said this, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them. Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

So Paul and Barnabas are defending the true faith against these who want to come in and pollute the church by placing a burden on people, leading them to believe you have to do something in order to attain righteousness.

And we cannot be righteous by our works. From the very prophets, Isaiah 64 6, even our best deeds are as a polluted garment before a holy God. So there's nothing that we can do by our works that would be considered acceptable in the eyes of God.

If there is any work that we do to attain our salvation, then Christ's death on the cross was really all for nothing because it could not have accomplished the salvation that we needed. It wasn't enough for Christ to spill his blood for us, for the forgiveness of sins.

If there's something that we have to do in order to to actually be saved, Christ's sacrifice wasn't sufficient. Our work is apparently the thing that is sufficient because the salvation wouldn't be accomplished unless we did something.

And in this case, it would be circumcision. That's what it is that the Jewish party is trying to say to the church, telling the church, hey, you can be a Christian if you want. You can follow this Jesus.

But Jesus was a Jew. Jesus was circumcised. So if you want to be a good Christian, if you want to be saved, you must follow the law and the custom of Moses. You must be circumcised, too. And unless you are circumcised, you are not a Christian.

Paul and Barnabas debate with them now and recognize something here. This was before the epistles had been written. So this was before Romans. This was before Paul had even written to the Galatians, where he confronts exactly this very thing.

There are some from the circumcision party who had come into the churches in Galatia and were telling them that you needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. Paul lays down one of the best clapbacks in history in Galatians 5, 12, where he says, I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

They're telling you that you need to be circumcised in order to be saved. Well, I wish they would just castrate themselves, go the whole way, chop the whole thing off, cut themselves off entirely from the church instead of putting one foot in the church and one foot in works and claiming that you have to do this in order to be saved, putting an undue burden on you.

So Paul responds to this and says, man, I wish they just cut the whole thing off, cut themselves off from the church entirely instead of being in there and causing all of these problems. Galatians 5, 7, Paul said to them, you were running well.

Who hindered you from obeying the truth? And the truth of the matter is this, that we are saved not by our works. We are saved by the grace of God. And he pours out to us all of the benefits and the blessings of his grace by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in Christ, trusting in him, in his finished work on the cross.

That is the the the vessel that God has chosen to transmit all of the blessings of his grace when we put faith in Jesus Christ, which, by the way, is also not our work. That's the work of God. I'm kind of deviating a little bit rabbit trailing a little bit.

But Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast grace, salvation and faith.

All three of those things are the work of God. It is not the work of man. And so even having faith in Christ is his work. We could not choose God. We weren't even seeking after God, according to Romans chapter three, because of our sinfulness, our rebellion against God.

It's by the gift of his spirit that we have been regenerated. Titus three, five, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Our hearts have been changed to now hear the gospel and respond to it in a righteous and obedient way.

And all of this being the work of God, not the work of man. Salvation is from beginning to end the gracious work of God. We have no credit that we can take for it. It is all his work. If at any point we think we can take credit for our salvation, then we're saying that God's grace is not sufficient and that that what we have was not by grace at all.

For if it is done by works, then it is not of grace. But it is all of grace that God has given us this salvation that we have in Christ Jesus. This is what Paul and Barnabas were preaching, what they were contending with when they were debating against these from Judah who had come in and were trying to say, unless you're circumcised, you cannot be saved.

The Gentiles, the Prophets, and the Promise to David

Verse three, so being sent on their way by the church, they pass through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers. So they're backtracking.

They're coming back through those areas they had been through before where the gospel had been preached there. And Paul and Barnabas are talking about how the Gentiles have been saved. So they're coming, you know, again, they're coming back into areas that are mostly populated by Jews as they get closer and closer to Jerusalem.

So as they're stopping in Samaria and Phoenicia and talking about Gentiles being saved and the miraculous works of God that were being done among them to demonstrate that Gentiles were coming to salvation, the people were rejoicing to hear this.

This wasn't just among Jews. It was also among Gentiles. Now, sometimes it's surprising for us to go back through something like the book of Acts and be reading about this, because you and I, unless you come from some sort of a Jewish background, you and I are Gentiles who have been saved.

So, of course, we know that Gentiles are going to come to salvation, a Gentile, by the way, in case you really aren't familiar with this word, a Gentile is a non-Jew. You were either a Jew or you were a Gentile.

Now, the word pagan also tends to be synonymous with Gentile. They kind of was the same thing. All of us were pagans before we became Christians, before we heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and repented of our sin and believed we were in paganism.

We worshiped ourselves. We worshiped the created things rather than the creator. But it's only through the gospel of Christ that our heart is changed as a person who from a person who rebelled against God to now a person who worships God.

And again, all this by the work of his spirit within us. So Paul is preaching to Jews about how Gentiles are now coming to the faith. God had called Israel out of Egypt. He made himself known through this people whom he had chosen, had called to himself, had said to Abraham, the people who bless you, I will bless and whoever curses you, I will curse.

The Israelites thought that's how salvation was going to come through the Jews. It was going to come through Israel. Well, it did, just not the way that Israel thought it was going to. The savior of the world came through Israel.

He was born to Mary and Joseph, who were both descended from David. Jesus was an heir to the throne of David, just as was prophesied in the Davidic covenant. Christ sits enthroned on high now in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant on your throne.

I will establish my kingdom forever. And so Jesus, having come from Israel, having come through Israel, according to the prophets, according to everything that was said in the Old Testament, Israel thought that Jesus was a God for them.

But God came not just for Israel, but also for the Gentiles. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son and whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus said this.

He taught this to his disciples, but they're not coming to understand the reality of what he said and the fulfillment of everything in the law and the prophets until they are seeing for themselves. The Gentiles even are worshiping God.

And how do they affirm that what is happening is truly the work of God, not just by the miracles, although that certainly attests to it, but they they affirm this according to what God's word actually says.

James, the half brother of Jesus, makes reference to this coming up in verses 16 and 17, although we probably won't get to this section until tomorrow. But they are certain that this is the work of God because it fulfills exactly what the scriptures said about this, that not just the Jews, but the Gentiles would also come to salvation by faith in Jesus Christ.

So the people in Phoenicia and Samaria were hearing about this from Paul and Silas. Those who are Jews hearing about the salvation of the Gentiles, they're rejoicing. Israel is expanding true Israel through Jesus Christ.

Verse four, when they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders. This is Paul and Barnabas again. And they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said now note something here.

Verse five, some believers who belong to the party of the Pharisees. So these are people who believe in Jesus, but they don't yet believe that salvation comes by grace through faith. They believe Jesus is the son of God.

But you might consider their doctrine to be well, very wrong. They're heretics. And hopefully they turn from this sin. They're going to repent of this false teaching and come to understand the truth. But in the meantime, they're a part of the church because they proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord.

But this whole thing about circumcision not being the way of salvation, this has not yet been hashed out by the church. So you consider this to be the first gathering of a council to establish what is right doctrine and what is false.

We see councils arranged throughout the history of the church, even in the first century church right here in Jerusalem concerning the way of salvation, which is not by works. It is by grace through faith in Christ alone.

Peter has preached this. Paul has preached this. We've already seen it in the book of Acts. And now the whole church is going to come to an agreement on it. We're all going to agree that the yoke that was placed upon us in the past was too difficult for us to bear.

It didn't bring salvation to us anyway. The law does not bring salvation to us. It brings knowledge and awareness of sin. Salvation comes by grace through faith in Christ. And we'll continue to talk about this even more tomorrow.

The Pharisees, again, are standing up and they're saying it is necessary to circumcise them and order them to keep the law of Moses. So now the church is going to decide not is that the way because they already know what the way is.

The apostles, James, Barnabas, they know what the way of salvation is. It's by grace through faith in Christ. We've witnessed it. We've seen it. Gentiles have come to faith. They're uncircumcised and they're saved.

The Holy Spirit has come upon them. So we know that a person is saved not by works of the law, but by grace through faith. The church already knows this. It's not that they're going to decide something that hasn't already been decided.

God has decided, but they're going to come to a consensus on this together and say, as a church, here's what we need to teach. And here's how we're going to take it to the Gentiles. So they may know and understand salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.

Amen.

Prayer for Assurance in Christ Alone

Let us pray. Our heavenly father, we thank you for this gift of salvation. We could do nothing to attain it. Our works don't accomplish it. We had nothing righteous to bring to you. But you gave us your righteousness through your son, Jesus, that we might wear him as a garment or wear him as a breastplate.

As the apostle Paul talked about in with the Thessalonians and also with the Ephesians, the breastplate of righteousness. It's a righteousness that's not our own. It comes from Christ. But so we might stand before you as justified.

Teach us to walk in this grace, to pursue this righteousness and grow in this holiness that we may look more like Christ day by day as we pursue Christ likeness, as we grow all the more in his image. And we show Christ to others by our actions and then speak him by our words, sharing the gospel so that others may come to faith and believe and so be saved.

Keep us steadfast in these things. Help our reliance, our assurance to be fully upon Christ and not on ourselves. And how freeing that is. What a burden we are relieved of when we know we've been saved by Christ and not our works.

We ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

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