Acts 15:11

Χριστοῦ omitted with אABEHLP. Vulg. has ‘Domini Jesu Christi.’

11. ἀλλά, but. There is much implied in this one word. The Apostle means ‘But all this has been changed by God’s new revelation of Himself, and we should cease this tempting of Him, for we believe (if we are truly in Christ) that salvation is for all men.’

διὰ τῆς χάριτος τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ, through the grace of the Lord Jesus. A new and living way has been opened, and it is not in any conformity to the Jewish Law that we now look for salvation.

καθ' ὃν τρόπον κἀκεῖνοι, even as they, i.e. even as they believe. Thus the argument is: If our belief and hope are the same, and no other, than theirs, why should these new converts be urged to adopt observances which form to us no ground for our hope of salvation?

After this point in the N.T. history St Peter’s name appears no more, and when we call to mind the opposition which, at the close of the first, and in the second, century was represented as existing between the teaching of Paul and Peter, we cannot think that it was without meaning that this last appearance of the Apostle of the circumcision in the Scripture story sets him before us in full accord with the Apostle of the Gentiles. The collision between Paul and Peter at a later period in Antioch (Galatians 2) came about because the latter had forgotten for a time his own statement that ‘God is no respecter of persons.’ But like the παροξυσμός between Paul and Barnabas there was no rupture in the Church in consequence of the rebuke which St Paul administered to his fellow-apostle.