Acts 15:1-5

HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Acts 15:1

Judaising Teachers at Antioch; or, the Circumcision Controversy Raised

I. The Judaising teachers and their doctrine.—

1. The teachers. Certain men from Judæa. Not those who afterwards came from James (Galatians 2:12), but those who were brought in unawares (Galatians 2:4). Possibly converts from the Pharisaic party in Jerusalem who had been invited by their co-religionists within the Church at Antioch. 2. Their doctrine. That salvation was impossible without circumcision. That the way into the Church of Christ led through the doorway of Judaism. That without submission to this carnal ordinance the spiritual blessing of the gospel could not be enjoyed.

3. Their activity. They taught the brethren. Not content with merely suggesting the doubt as to whether even Gentile Christians could disregard the Mosaic ritual—a doubt which would, at least, have been not unnatural in a narrow-minded and bigoted Pharisee—or with expressing their opinion that the Law God had given to Moses could not safely be set aside, they confidently laid down the dogma that circumcision was imperative: “Except ye be circumcised,” etc.

II. The Christian Church and its resolution—

1. The Church.—Was

(1) divided into factions. “There was no small dissension.” The word points to the rise of parties in the Church. Even had all the Gentile Christians remained upon the side of freedom, there remained still the Jewish Christians (Acts 11:19), who espoused the doctrine of the false teachers; while it is possible that not a few of the Gentiles may have allowed themselves to be overawed by the seeming and perhaps assumed authority of the Judæan emissaries.

(2) Rent by disputation. Impossible that it could have been otherwise. To have admitted the tenet of the Judaisers would have been to subvert the gospel of Christ (Galatians 5:2). Hence Paul and Barnabas felt themselves impelled to stand forth in defence of Christian liberty against those Pharisaic legalists who desired to bring the Gentiles into bondage. “To whom we gave place by subjection,” do you say? exclaims Paul. “No! not for an hour” (Galatians 2:5).

2. Its resolution. To refer the controversy for decision to the Mother Church at Jerusalem. This determination was not necessary in the sense that the Church at Antioch possessed no authority to compose the quarrel had it been able. But it was clearly unable. Hence the reference to Jerusalem was a wise procedure, partly because the troublers had come from Jerusalem and may have represented that they spoke with the authority of the apostles and elders there, and partly because a decision by the mother Church would undoubtedly carry greater weight.

III. The delegates and their journey.—

1. The delegates. Paul and Barnabas, with certain others, not named, but most probably chosen from among the prophets and teachers that were in the Antioch Church (Acts 13:1), and the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, whose labours had founded the Church (Acts 11:20). Titus (Galatians 2:3), most likely accompanied Paul as a representative and specimen of the sort of converts that had been made among the Greeks.

2. Their journey.

(1) Its object. Whilst the delegates had in view the execution of the Church’s commission which had been entrusted to them—viz., the submission of the disputed question to the apostolic tribunal—Paul informs us (Galatians 2:2) that he went up by revelation; which may be harmonised with the statement of Luke by supposing that the revelation instructed Paul either to propose or to agree to the reference to Jerusalem; and indeed, without some such inward intimation of the will of his Divine Lord it would not have been surprising had Paul hesitated to submit the decision of this vital question to the mother Church, out of which the very parties had come who had attempted to fetch away from Gentile believers the liberty they enjoyed in Christ. “We need not be surprised if we find that Paul’s path was determined by two different causes: that he went up to Jerusalem partly because the Church deputed him, and partly because he was Divinely admonished. Such a combination and co-operation of the natural and supernatural we have observed in the case of that vision which induced Peter to go from Joppa to Cæsarea” (Conybeare and Howson); and, the same writers add, in Paul’s escape from Jerusalem to Tarsus, which was urged on him by the brethren (Acts 9:30), and at the same time commanded by Christ, who appeared to him in a trance (Acts 22:17).

(2) Its commencement. The delegates were accompanied a portion of their way by the Church, as a mark of honour to themselves and as an indication of the interest the Church took in their mission (compare Acts 20:38, Acts 21:5; 3 John 1:6).

(3) Its progress. They passed through Phœnicia and Samaria (see on Acts 11:19, and Acts 8:5). As Galilee is not mentioned, it may be concluded that they travelled along the coast as far south as Ptolemais (Acts 21:7), and then crossed the plain of Esdrælon into Samaria.

(4) Its accompaniments. The delegates, wherever they appeared, declared the conversion of the Gentiles, and caused great joy unto all the brethren.
(5) Its termination. They came to Jerusalem, within whose gates seldom had a more important embassy arrived.

IV. The mother Church and its procedure.—

1. The reception given to the envoys.

(1) By the whole Church, with the apostles and elders at its head, the various congregations having come together for this purpose.
(2) With the utmost cordiality: this implied in the verb used to express the ceremonial.

(3) In patient hearing of their story, when they rehearsed all things that God had done with them. That Paul laid not before the collective Church the gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, with its doctrine of salvation without “the works of the Law,” but reserved this for a private interview with the Church leaders, one naturally infers from Galatians 2:2. Had he done so, instead of confining himself to a simple narration of his Gentile mission, he would most likely have prematurely kindled a conflagration. As it was, his address acted like a spark thrown into a heap of combustible material. It awoke the slumbering prejudices of his Judaising hearers.

2. The opposition developed against the envoys.

(1) This proceeded, in all probability, from the party that had despatched the emissaries to Antioch—viz., the sect of the Pharisees who believed, and who may have felt their doctrinal position to be in danger through the enthusiasm aroused by the orations of the missionaries.
(2) The form it assumed was a reassertion of the false and pernicious doctrine which had brought the delegates to Jerusalem—“that it was needful to circumcise the Gentiles and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.”

Learn—

1. The persistence of outworn creeds.
2. The celerity with which error intrudes itself into the Church. 3. The duty of Christian teachers to resist every attempt to corrupt the simplicity of the faith.
4. The function of the Church, as a whole, to guard the truth.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Acts 15:1; Acts 15:5. No Salvation without Circumcision.

I. An old-time truth.—Under the Mosaic dispensation it was true that no Israelite could be saved who, in unbelief and disobedience, repudiated circumcision, though, from the nature of the case, submission to the rite was not left in the hands of the individual. Hence it is doubtful if, even under the Old-Testament economy, circumcision was of universal obligation as an indispensable condition of salvation. Certainly submission to the bodily ceremonial was no absolute guarantee of the soul’s forgiveness and renewal, or of its future enjoyment of eternal life.

II. A plausible doctrine.—Like many another mistaken theory, it had some considerations to advance on its behalf. It was by no means surprising that a Jew should have argued that circumcision must have been designed to be of permanent and perhaps also universal obligation, considering that Jehovah Himself had imposed it on the fathers of Israel, that it had descended from a hoar antiquity, and that its value as a religious ordinance had been recognised by so many even of the Gentiles themselves.

III. A dangerous error.—To assert that circumcision was indispensable to salvation was

(1) directly to challenge the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice as an atonement for sin;
(2) virtually to impair the fulness of salvation as a gift of grace, by imposing an external condition of enjoying the same;
(3) practically to teach the doctrine of salvation by works, against which the gospel is a vigorous and uncompromising protest;
(4) certainly to destroy all hope of Christianity ever becoming a world-wide religion;
(5) absurdly to exalt a positive enactment to the same level, in respect of saving worth, as a spiritual precept;
(6) foolishly to maintain that a positive institution could never be abrogated or set aside by its founders;
(7) sinfully to corrupt the truth of God which had been revealed through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

IV. An exploded heresy.—Nobody now within the Church of Christ thinks of maintaining the necessity of circumcision; though unfortunately the same error survives in spirit among those who teach the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and sacramental grace, or the impossibility of being saved unless one has been baptised and partaken of the Lord’s Supper.

Acts 15:2. How to Deal with Heretics.

I. Endeavour to convince them by reasoning (Titus 3:10).

II. Lay the matter in dispute before the courts of the Church (Matthew 18:17).

III. Separate from such as refuse to obey the decision of the Church (1 Timothy 6:5; 2 John 1:10).

Acts 15:3. The Conversion of the Heathen a Source of Joy to the Church of Christ. (A Missionary Sermon.)

I. As a solid increase to the sum of human happiness.—Every sinner saved being a soul rescued from the guilt and power of sin.

II. As an irrefragable proof of the saving power of the gospel.—The progress of foreign missions the most powerful apologetic of to-day.

III. As a valuable extension of the Saviour’s kingdom.—Every convert won from heathenism becomes a subject of the empire of truth and love, of salvation and eternal life.

IV. As a delightful prophecy of the millennial era.—Each tribe and nation brought under the power of the gospel being a foreshadowing of that happy era when “the kingdoms of the world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.”

Acts 15:3. Paul and Barnabas on the Way to Jerusalem; or, what all ministers ought to be.

I. Champions of orthodoxy.—i.e., of the truth. Certainly men who claim to be Church teachers should not war against the faith they profess, or propagate opinions contrary to the truth they have been appointed to expound.

II. Messengers of peace.—Constantly directing their endeavours towards maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. As representatives of the Prince of Peace, they should themselves be lovers of peace.

III. Publishers of grace.—Heralds of the good news of salvation through the free grace of God in Christ—a theme so great and glorious that none other in the estimation of a true preacher should for a moment be suffered to dispute its claims on his attention.

IV. Dispensers of joy.—Such those preachers and ministers cannot fail to be who are mindful of their calling, and unwearied as well as hearty in its exercise.

Acts 15:4. Paul’s Third Visit to Jerusalem.—Was this the visit recorded in Galatians 2:1? An affirmative reply seems justified on the following grounds:—

I. The impossibility of synchronising the Galatian visit with any other alluded to in the Acts.—Either with that recorded in Acts 11:30, which occurred before the famine predicted by Agabus, or that reported in Acts 18:22, which happened at the close of Paul’s second missionary journey; all others being practically out of the question. Decisive against the latter of the above two is the circumstance that Barnabas was not then a travelling companion of Paul, as he was on the occasion of the visit spoken of in Galatians; while opposed to the former stand a number of considerations, as, e.g:

1. The different object of the Acts 11:30 visit, which was to carry a benevolent contribution to Jerusalem; whereas the Galatian visit contemplated conversation with the Church leaders about Paul’s gospel to the Gentiles.

2. The date of the Acts 11:30 visit which coincided with that of Herod’s death, not more than ten years after Saul’s conversion, whereas the Galatian visit fell at least seventeen years after that event.

3. The unlikelihood of an ecclesiastical council being convened in Jerusalem during, or so near, the time of the Herodian persecution.
4. The improbability of Paul having attained, in the course of one year’s labour at Antioch, to such preeminence over Peter as he appears in Galatians to have reached.

5. The almost certainty that, if Paul’s mission to the heathen had already been recognised at the visit of Acts 11:30, there would have been no need to undertake a second journey to Jerusalem to obtain another decision thereupon; and

(6) the difficulty of harmonising this supposed commission of Paul to the Gentiles, received at the visit of Acts 11:30, with the express statement of Acts 8:1, that Paul’s mission was entrusted to him after that visit.

II. The obvious correspondence between the Galatian visit and this to the Jerusalem council.—

1. The two narratives assume that Paul and Barnabas had already conducted a gospel mission among the Gentiles.
2. In both journeys Paul is accompanied by Barnabas.
3. Both visits have the same end in view—to obtain a judicial settlement of the controversy which had broken out at Antioch, concerning the amount of liberty to be accorded to Gentile converts.
4. The settlement reported in both accounts is practically the same—that the Gentiles were not to be subjected to the yoke of circumcision.
5. In both narratives Peter and James appear as principal parties in bringing about the deliverance which restored peace to the Church.