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 of the 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 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.”
Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. - "The problems raised by the presence of Gentiles in the church now came to a head. Peter had learned that no man should be called unclean — not even a Gentile (Acts 10:34), and the Jerusalem church had accepted the first Gentile converts on an equal basis with Jewish converts, without the necessity of being circumcised. However, some believe Pharisees (v 5) went on the offensive and insisted that Gentile converts be circumcised. A parallel question was also being raised: Should there be unrestricted social contact between Jewish and Gentile believers? The Judaistic party separated themselves from those who did not follow the dietary laws and would not partake of the common meals. Chapter 15 is concerned with these two questions: circumcision and foods (socializing)." (Ryrie)
"...the question of the relation of the believing Gentile to the Law and to circumcision had to be determined. This question was but the natural outcome of the situation in the beginning of this age. To make this clear we quote from another: 'Wherever the Jews went in the Gentile world, their presence gave rise to two conflicting tendencies. On the one hand, the Jew possessed the knowledge of the one true God; and amidst the universal corruption, idolatry and superstition of the ancient world this saving knowledge exercised a powerful attraction. The synagogues of the Jews became the center of a large body of seekers after truth, whether actually circumcised proselytes or simply God-fearing Gentiles. On the other hand, this knowledge was enshrined in a law, which imposed upon the Jews a number of distinctive customs and observances and these separated them from the rest of mankind and made a real coalescence impossible. Four characteristics in particular struck the Gentiles, the absence of all images or emblems of the deity in Jewish worship, the observance of the Sabbath, abstinence from unclean meat and especially swine's flesh, and circumcision. This last was sufficient in itself to prevent the world from adopting Judaism. But the law of uncleanness caused the Jew on his side to look upon the Gentiles with contempt, as unclean, and put an effectual bar on any real fellowship. The Gentiles in their turn readily paid back Jewish exclusiveness with an ample interest of ridicule and hatred. This double relation to the Gentiles divided the Jews themselves into two schools. On the one side were those who with some consciousness of the brotherhood of common humanity were striving to remove barriers and to present the Jewish faith to the world in its most spiritual and philosophic aspect. Such were the Hellenists of Alexandria. On the other side, the salvation of the Gentiles was inconceivable to the genuine Hebrew, and this was the attitude of mind which prevailed in Judea. There the Hebrews were growing more and more rigid; instead of lowering, they were raising the fence around the law and trying to make the barrier between Jew and Gentile absolutely impassable." (Gaebelein)
"We come now to the record of the first great controversy between the followers of Christ, the inevitable clash between the believers at Jerusalem and Antioch, and of how it was used of God to settle once and for all the question of Paul's authority as the apostle of the new dispensation ...for while Peter had indeed been sent to one household of Gentiles and had witnessed the evidences of their salvation, he could only explain that he had been commanded to go 'nothing doubting,' adding: 'What was I that I could withstand God?' Nor had any revelation as yet been given to them that the law, 'the middle wall of partition' had been abolished by the cross. The misgivings of these Judaean believers were doubtless aggravated by the fact that great numbers of Gentiles were now being won to Christ under the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, who were establishing churches among them in which neither circumcision nor the Mosaic law had any place ... It should be noted that with them it was not merely a matter of fellowship: evidently they were genuinely concerned (the 'false brethren' of Gal 2:4 entered the scene later at Jerusalem) about the salvation of these Gentiles, for they began teaching them: 'Except ye be circumcised after the manner [custom] of Moses, ye cannot be saved.' They were not looking upon circumcision merely as a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, but as that which had been commanded by Moses, the principal rite of Judaism, indispensable to the rights and privileges of membership in the favored nation, and therefore necessary to salvation. And it was indeed the basic ceremonial requirement of the law and that which separated them from the Gentiles, as the people of God (Jn 7:22; Lev 12:2-3; Gal 5:3). But with all their evident sincerity in this matter they were wrong, for they had undertaken this mission without due authority, and, as it turned out, unsettled matters at Antioch instead of settling them. After the matter was finally settled at Jerusalem, the church there wrote to the Gentiles regarding these brethren (Acts 15:24). Years later when Judaizers sought to impose circumcision and the law upon the Galatians, Paul wrote almost the same thing about them (Gal 1:7)" ... We see no ground, therefore, for the theory that the Judaizers at Antioch and Galatia proclaimed a spurious gospel or that which was not a gospel at all, else Paul would have said so. While, perhaps, the emphasis on difference is usually somewhat greater in the case of 'heteros' than in the case of 'allos,' they are close synonyms used by Paul, evidently, to show that the gospel which the Judaizers had brought to the Gentiles was another, yet in a sense not another. That is to say, the difference was one of development rather than of contradiction, just as elsewhere Paul makes it clear that grace was no contradiction of the law (Rom 3:31). These Judaizers were not unscriptural; they were undispensational. What they taught was to be found in Scripture, but it did not recognize the further revelation given to and through the Apostle Paul. They sought to bring Gentiles, saved by a message of pure grace, back under the program of the kingdom with its circumcision and law — and thus they perverted the gospel of Christ." (Stam)
"It is quite generally agreed that this visit of Paul to Jerusalem is identical with that referred to in Gal 2 ... The main objection raised against this view is that in Gal 1:18-2:1 Paul himself solemnly declares that after his visit with Peter, three years after his conversion, he had not gone up to Jerusalem to see the apostles again until 'fourteen years after.' But this difficult in not insurmountable, for the apostle's argument in Galatians is not that he had been to Jerusalem so seldom, but that he had been in contact with the apostles so seldom, and therefore could not have gotten his teaching from them. His omission of the visit of Acts 11:30 in the Galatians passage is evidently because he saw none of the apostles at that time, and does not indicate a want of candor ... Thus on these two occasions he was sent, first from Jerusalem and the to Jerusalem by both the brethren and the Lord. And the relation of these two visits is significant too. On the former occasion he was sent from Jerusalem by the brethren for his physical safety, but by the Lord because Israel was being concluded in unbelief (Acts 22:18). On the second occasion he was sent to Jerusalem by the brethren to settle a troublesome controversy regarding circumcision, but by the Lord that he might communicate to the leaders at Jerusalem that gospel which he had been preaching to the Gentiles and that they might acknowledge him officially and publicly as the apostle of the Gentiles, sent to proclaim 'the gospel of the uncircumcision' (Gal 2:2, 7, 9). Paul had full authority from the Lord entirely apart from the twelve ... The reason he was now sent to Jerusalem by the Lord was not for his [Paul's] sake, but for their [the twelve] sakes and for the sake of the program now being launched. It must be remembered that the apostles at Jerusalem had first been sent to 'all the world' and 'all nation' (Matt 28:19; Mk 16:15). It was their hope and expectation that Israel would receive Christ, the risen King, and that so salvation and blessing might flow through Israel to the Gentiles. But Israel had rejected her King and the long-promised 'times of refreshing.' The stoning of Stephen was, in the words of Sir Robert Anderson, 'the secret crisis' in Israel's history and, preparing to set Israel aside temporarily and to hold the establishment of the kingdom in abeyance, God now raised up another apostle and sent him forth to proclaim grace to the Gentiles entirely apart from Israel's instrumentality; not because of her acceptance of Christ but because of her rejection and rebellion. Naturally this affect the 'great commission' to the eleven. Under this new program Paul, not the apostles at Jerusalem, was to become the apostle to 'all nations' and 'all the world' and the apostles at Jerusalem were henceforth to confine their ministry to those of the circumcision. Paul fully understood this, but they must understand and recognize it fully too, so that they might not be working at cross purposes. Furthermore, under this new dispensation the middle wall of separation between Jew and Gentile was to be gradually broken down, and it was therefore necessary that the Jewish believers recognize the Gentile believers as their brethren in Christ. This was still but the beginning, of course. They could not yet comprehend their complete oneness in Christ, but before long they were to recognize each other for what they truly were: 'one body in Christ, and every one members one of another' (Rom 12:5; cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 12:13). This all, in addition to the fact that it must be settled once and for all that at least the Gentiles must not be made subject to the law of Moses. Again, this was but a beginning, for the council at Jerusalem did not even consider the question whether or not the Jewish believers were to remain under the law. They assumed that they were, for no revelation had as yet been given by God to the effect that they were to be freed from it. As late as Acts 21:20 they were still 'all zealous of the law.' Thus with the raising up of Paul and his early ministry among the Gentiles we have the gradual transition from the old dispensation to the new. God does not reveal everything at once, nor start churches among the Gentiles which remain unrelated to the believers at Jerusalem. The Jerusalem saints are expected to recognize the change in program, to move on with it, and to enjoy their oneness with the Gentile saints. Of those who accompanied Paul on this journey to Jerusalem only two names are mentioned in the sacred record: Barnabas (Acts 15:2) and Titus (Gal 2:1). The choice of these two could hardly have been more appropriate, for Barnabas had originally belonged to the company at Jerusalem and was a Levite by birth, while Titus was an uncircumcised Greek. With these two and some others besides, the apostle left for Jerusalem." (Stam)
"It must not be supposed that the apostle and his part simply appeared on the scene, that the council was called and the question regarding the Gentiles discussed and settled. So important a matter could not be disposed of so imply. There were at least two, probably three and perhaps even four separate meetings. In the Epistle to the Galatians Paul explains that a private preliminary conference was first held with 'them which were of reputation' (Gal 2:2). It is possible that Acts 15:4-5 does not refer to a meeting of the church, but the phraseology of the passage together with the fact that it would not have been much of a welcome by the church had it not been public, lead us to believe that it was a public meeting and that after this the Pharisees rose to object and 'the apostles and elders' then met to consider the matter (Ver 6). The meeting of the apostles and elders would then be the third meeting, followed by a fourth, attended by 'all the multitude ... the apostles and elders with the whole church' (Vers 12,22)." (Stam)
Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. - "The problems raised by the presence of Gentiles in the church now came to a head. Peter had learned that no man should be called unclean — not even a Gentile (Acts 10:34), and the Jerusalem church had accepted the first Gentile converts on an equal basis with Jewish converts, without the necessity of being circumcised. However, some believe Pharisees (v 5) went on the offensive and insisted that Gentile converts be circumcised. A parallel question was also being raised: Should there be unrestricted social contact between Jewish and Gentile believers? The Judaistic party separated themselves from those who did not follow the dietary laws and would not partake of the common meals. Chapter 15 is concerned with these two questions: circumcision and foods (socializing)." (Ryrie)
"...the question of the relation of the believing Gentile to the Law and to circumcision had to be determined. This question was but the natural outcome of the situation in the beginning of this age. To make this clear we quote from another: 'Wherever the Jews went in the Gentile world, their presence gave rise to two conflicting tendencies. On the one hand, the Jew possessed the knowledge of the one true God; and amidst the universal corruption, idolatry and superstition of the ancient world this saving knowledge exercised a powerful attraction. The synagogues of the Jews became the center of a large body of seekers after truth, whether actually circumcised proselytes or simply God-fearing Gentiles. On the other hand, this knowledge was enshrined in a law, which imposed upon the Jews a number of distinctive customs and observances and these separated them from the rest of mankind and made a real coalescence impossible. Four characteristics in particular struck the Gentiles, the absence of all images or emblems of the deity in Jewish worship, the observance of the Sabbath, abstinence from unclean meat and especially swine's flesh, and circumcision. This last was sufficient in itself to prevent the world from adopting Judaism. But the law of uncleanness caused the Jew on his side to look upon the Gentiles with contempt, as unclean, and put an effectual bar on any real fellowship. The Gentiles in their turn readily paid back Jewish exclusiveness with an ample interest of ridicule and hatred. This double relation to the Gentiles divided the Jews themselves into two schools. On the one side were those who with some consciousness of the brotherhood of common humanity were striving to remove barriers and to present the Jewish faith to the world in its most spiritual and philosophic aspect. Such were the Hellenists of Alexandria. On the other side, the salvation of the Gentiles was inconceivable to the genuine Hebrew, and this was the attitude of mind which prevailed in Judea. There the Hebrews were growing more and more rigid; instead of lowering, they were raising the fence around the law and trying to make the barrier between Jew and Gentile absolutely impassable." (Gaebelein)
"We come now to the record of the first great controversy between the followers of Christ, the inevitable clash between the believers at Jerusalem and Antioch, and of how it was used of God to settle once and for all the question of Paul's authority as the apostle of the new dispensation ...for while Peter had indeed been sent to one household of Gentiles and had witnessed the evidences of their salvation, he could only explain that he had been commanded to go 'nothing doubting,' adding: 'What was I that I could withstand God?' Nor had any revelation as yet been given to them that the law, 'the middle wall of partition' had been abolished by the cross. The misgivings of these Judaean believers were doubtless aggravated by the fact that great numbers of Gentiles were now being won to Christ under the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, who were establishing churches among them in which neither circumcision nor the Mosaic law had any place ... It should be noted that with them it was not merely a matter of fellowship: evidently they were genuinely concerned (the 'false brethren' of Gal 2:4 entered the scene later at Jerusalem) about the salvation of these Gentiles, for they began teaching them: 'Except ye be circumcised after the manner [custom] of Moses, ye cannot be saved.' They were not looking upon circumcision merely as a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, but as that which had been commanded by Moses, the principal rite of Judaism, indispensable to the rights and privileges of membership in the favored nation, and therefore necessary to salvation. And it was indeed the basic ceremonial requirement of the law and that which separated them from the Gentiles, as the people of God (Jn 7:22; Lev 12:2-3; Gal 5:3). But with all their evident sincerity in this matter they were wrong, for they had undertaken this mission without due authority, and, as it turned out, unsettled matters at Antioch instead of settling them. After the matter was finally settled at Jerusalem, the church there wrote to the Gentiles regarding these brethren (Acts 15:24). Years later when Judaizers sought to impose circumcision and the law upon the Galatians, Paul wrote almost the same thing about them (Gal 1:7)" ... We see no ground, therefore, for the theory that the Judaizers at Antioch and Galatia proclaimed a spurious gospel or that which was not a gospel at all, else Paul would have said so. While, perhaps, the emphasis on difference is usually somewhat greater in the case of 'heteros' than in the case of 'allos,' they are close synonyms used by Paul, evidently, to show that the gospel which the Judaizers had brought to the Gentiles was another, yet in a sense not another. That is to say, the difference was one of development rather than of contradiction, just as elsewhere Paul makes it clear that grace was no contradiction of the law (Rom 3:31). These Judaizers were not unscriptural; they were undispensational. What they taught was to be found in Scripture, but it did not recognize the further revelation given to and through the Apostle Paul. They sought to bring Gentiles, saved by a message of pure grace, back under the program of the kingdom with its circumcision and law — and thus they perverted the gospel of Christ." (Stam)
"It is quite generally agreed that this visit of Paul to Jerusalem is identical with that referred to in Gal 2 ... The main objection raised against this view is that in Gal 1:18-2:1 Paul himself solemnly declares that after his visit with Peter, three years after his conversion, he had not gone up to Jerusalem to see the apostles again until 'fourteen years after.' But this difficult in not insurmountable, for the apostle's argument in Galatians is not that he had been to Jerusalem so seldom, but that he had been in contact with the apostles so seldom, and therefore could not have gotten his teaching from them. His omission of the visit of Acts 11:30 in the Galatians passage is evidently because he saw none of the apostles at that time, and does not indicate a want of candor ... Thus on these two occasions he was sent, first from Jerusalem and the to Jerusalem by both the brethren and the Lord. And the relation of these two visits is significant too. On the former occasion he was sent from Jerusalem by the brethren for his physical safety, but by the Lord because Israel was being concluded in unbelief (Acts 22:18). On the second occasion he was sent to Jerusalem by the brethren to settle a troublesome controversy regarding circumcision, but by the Lord that he might communicate to the leaders at Jerusalem that gospel which he had been preaching to the Gentiles and that they might acknowledge him officially and publicly as the apostle of the Gentiles, sent to proclaim 'the gospel of the uncircumcision' (Gal 2:2, 7, 9). Paul had full authority from the Lord entirely apart from the twelve ... The reason he was now sent to Jerusalem by the Lord was not for his [Paul's] sake, but for their [the twelve] sakes and for the sake of the program now being launched. It must be remembered that the apostles at Jerusalem had first been sent to 'all the world' and 'all nation' (Matt 28:19; Mk 16:15). It was their hope and expectation that Israel would receive Christ, the risen King, and that so salvation and blessing might flow through Israel to the Gentiles. But Israel had rejected her King and the long-promised 'times of refreshing.' The stoning of Stephen was, in the words of Sir Robert Anderson, 'the secret crisis' in Israel's history and, preparing to set Israel aside temporarily and to hold the establishment of the kingdom in abeyance, God now raised up another apostle and sent him forth to proclaim grace to the Gentiles entirely apart from Israel's instrumentality; not because of her acceptance of Christ but because of her rejection and rebellion. Naturally this affect the 'great commission' to the eleven. Under this new program Paul, not the apostles at Jerusalem, was to become the apostle to 'all nations' and 'all the world' and the apostles at Jerusalem were henceforth to confine their ministry to those of the circumcision. Paul fully understood this, but they must understand and recognize it fully too, so that they might not be working at cross purposes. Furthermore, under this new dispensation the middle wall of separation between Jew and Gentile was to be gradually broken down, and it was therefore necessary that the Jewish believers recognize the Gentile believers as their brethren in Christ. This was still but the beginning, of course. They could not yet comprehend their complete oneness in Christ, but before long they were to recognize each other for what they truly were: 'one body in Christ, and every one members one of another' (Rom 12:5; cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 12:13). This all, in addition to the fact that it must be settled once and for all that at least the Gentiles must not be made subject to the law of Moses. Again, this was but a beginning, for the council at Jerusalem did not even consider the question whether or not the Jewish believers were to remain under the law. They assumed that they were, for no revelation had as yet been given by God to the effect that they were to be freed from it. As late as Acts 21:20 they were still 'all zealous of the law.' Thus with the raising up of Paul and his early ministry among the Gentiles we have the gradual transition from the old dispensation to the new. God does not reveal everything at once, nor start churches among the Gentiles which remain unrelated to the believers at Jerusalem. The Jerusalem saints are expected to recognize the change in program, to move on with it, and to enjoy their oneness with the Gentile saints. Of those who accompanied Paul on this journey to Jerusalem only two names are mentioned in the sacred record: Barnabas (Acts 15:2) and Titus (Gal 2:1). The choice of these two could hardly have been more appropriate, for Barnabas had originally belonged to the company at Jerusalem and was a Levite by birth, while Titus was an uncircumcised Greek. With these two and some others besides, the apostle left for Jerusalem." (Stam)
"It must not be supposed that the apostle and his part simply appeared on the scene, that the council was called and the question regarding the Gentiles discussed and settled. So important a matter could not be disposed of so imply. There were at least two, probably three and perhaps even four separate meetings. In the Epistle to the Galatians Paul explains that a private preliminary conference was first held with 'them which were of reputation' (Gal 2:2). It is possible that Acts 15:4-5 does not refer to a meeting of the church, but the phraseology of the passage together with the fact that it would not have been much of a welcome by the church had it not been public, lead us to believe that it was a public meeting and that after this the Pharisees rose to object and 'the apostles and elders' then met to consider the matter (Ver 6). The meeting of the apostles and elders would then be the third meeting, followed by a fourth, attended by 'all the multitude ... the apostles and elders with the whole church' (Vers 12,22)." (Stam)
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