It is about twenty years after the crucifixion and gentiles are joining the ranks of believers. It must be remembered that the Christian religion had its beginnings with a group of Jews who simply believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the long promised Messiah. It was essentially no more than a Jewish sect. To this point, it has not occurred to anyone that the Jewish law is done away with. But now the question is asked "Just what is the relationship between gentile Christians and the Mosaic law?"

In the 15^th chapter of the book of Acts this question appears to be addressed head-on. To traditional Christianity the thrust of this chapter is entirely in accord with the historically accepted notion that Christianity is a departure from the laws and customs of Judaism, and that moreover it is consistent with the teachings and writings of Paul that the law is obsolete and no longer applicable to the followers of Christ. In fact, it is argued, the events described in this chapter signal the final acceptance, by the Jewish elders of the Church in Jerusalem, of Paul’s daring new teaching that the law has been overthrown, and the final defeat of the more orthodox proponents of the Jewish law.

A brief reading of the chapter appears to affirm this interpretation. A group of men, whose identity is not specified, appear among gentile members of the church and teach that they must accept the Mosaic Law or they cannot be saved. A council of church elders is convened to discuss this question and it is resolved that all people, Jewish or gentile, are saved by faith alone, and that for all practical purposes the Mosaic Law is abrogated for Christians. This seems to pretty well conclusively settle the argument concerning the continuation of the Jewish law in favour of the antinomians doesn’t it? Not so fast.

A closer examination of this chapter reveals a number of very peculiar results if the conventional view is applied. Indeed this chapter is a veritable mine-field for the antinomian interpretation of Christianity, and one which should be approached with the utmost care by those who subscribe to the traditional view.

Let’s look at some of the peculiarities of this episode which are not evident at first sight to the casual reader. The modern Christian reader will apply the events described in this chapter to conditions in the modern world, without qualification. Today’s Christians are overwhelmingly gentile, as opposed to being Jewish, and here we have a biblical teaching which seems perfectly relevant to a question which may present itself to the average (gentile) Christian - namely the place of the Old Testament law in Christian (non-Jewish) culture. But wait just a minute. Don’t forget that at the time of this Jerusalem council the church was overwhelmingly Jewish! In this context obedience to the Mosaic Law is the norm, not some strange exception. The council is talking about the problem of a small number of gentiles in the church, not the great body of members. There is no reason to think that the question at issue is the survival of Old Testament law within Christianity in general. It might be assumed that this would continue since the brethren are still predominantly Jewish. There is no suggestion that the council is deciding a fundamentally theological question concerning the relevance of the Mosaic Law among Christians, Jews and non-Jews alike, in principle. Only the much more limited question of how to deal with a small and relatively insignificant number of gentile believers.

That this view is correct can be seen when we consider that at no time are the deliberations of the council evidently intended to apply to Jewish Christians. The debate seems to assume the continuing validity of the Mosaic laws among Jewish believers, whose pre-eminent position among the brethren is beyond question. In short the Jerusalem council is not deciding the issue of the relevance of Old Testament law to Christianity at all in any kind of fundamentally theological sense. It is tempting to apply the decisions and deliberations of the Jerusalem council in the 1^st century A.D. very casually to the world of 2,000 years later, when non-Jews make up 99.9% of the Christian population, without having due regard for the circumstances which existed in the church at that time, when there was never any question concerning the survival of Jewish law among the believers. If this council was held today, against the background of a modern Christian culture which has strayed far from the word of God and divine law, its deliberations would have taken on a somewhat different complexion.

Notice also that "these men" from Jerusalem were making the claim that one had to be circumcised "in order to be saved". This view is a direct contradiction of the Christian teaching that no man is saved by good works, and the good work here is the act of circumcision. The exact relationship between the doing of good works and salvation is an issue which preoccupied Paul and shall be dealt with at length in the following chapters. However it is sufficient at this point to state that good works in themselves will not qualify anyone for the kingdom of God, and that these proponents of circumcision and the Old Testament law were fundamentally wrong in their understanding of this point. However to say that the Mosaic Laws are no longer applicable because we are not justified by our good works is just as wrong in the other direction. The Jerusalem council in Acts 15 is addressing this very issue of works versus faith which has confounded theologians for centuries and continues to be misunderstood in the present day. It is to this issue, and not the value of the Mosaic Law in principle, that we must look in order to really understand this episode.

And what does the council say about the Law of Moses? In v.21 it is stated that "Moses has had in every city those who preach him...every Sabbath in the Synagogue". If as we are to believe Moses has been done away with in the Christian religion, why is Moses still spoken of by the council as if his words still have validity. The implication seems to be that there is a correct way to understand the applicability of the Law of Moses in Christianity, but that it is not the role of the church leaders to be enforcing obedience to the Old Testament law among gentile believers. If Old Testament law is truly abrogated by the council, why does it bother to make mention of the Mosaic Law code at all in this verse. Just as argued above, there seems to be no attempt here to declare authoritatively that the Old Testament law is dead in principle. The debate seems to be conducted on the basis of mere practical matters of the enforcement of divine law on gentile believers. The Church leaders appear to be discussing the question not of the place of the Law of Moses in Christian teaching, but rather an entirely different kind of issue, namely the enforcement of church law, and coming down on the side of "let every man be his own conscience on the question of religious law", and not "do what we tell you or else!"

This is roughly comparable with the issue of divorce and remarriage in many Christian churches today. Some churches will rigorously enforce a "no divorce" rule on pain of exclusion. Other churches will teach against divorce but still tolerate the presence of individuals who contravene this teaching. The difference lies not on the point of belief in this matter, but how strictly this particular church law is enforced in a given instance. In neither case is there any doubt about whether it is right or wrong for divorcees to remarry in principle.

In the case of the church council at Jerusalem the elders resolve to lay down a minimum number of church laws in keeping with the teaching that one is not saved by works. This does not however imply the abrogation of the laws of the Old Testament as the divine standard of conduct for men.

Finally, let us consider for a moment the fact that the Council did command obedience to parts of the Mosaic Law in any case. Consideration of these specific laws raises some interesting issues. To begin with, if the Mosaic Law was truly abrogated why are these laws still enjoined? Why are any laws at all still relevant? If antinomian Christians are sure of anything it is that the dietary laws of the Bible are done away with. Why then are dietary laws still commanded for gentile converts? If we are not saved by our good works (ie. obeying the Law of Moses) why was it necessary to preserve the law against eating blood? It cannot be argued that the laws listed here represent merely the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic Law. They cover moral aspects as well ("fornication"). On the other hand no mention is made of murder or theft. Why are these particular laws enumerated and not the others as well?

The fact is that these stipulations constitute what is known as the Noachide Laws. These laws were the standard applied by the Jewish religion to the moral culpability of gentiles (as distinct from Jews) in the eyes of God. Gentiles held an inferior status according to the Jewish religion on the question of moral responsibility, as the gentiles - unlike the Jews - did not have the benefit of knowledge of divine law. They were thus bound by a lower standard of conduct than that deriving from the 613 commandments of the Torah. These requirements were the most which could be expected of gentiles. The council was merely applying the same standards to the gentile converts as Judaism customarily applied to the gentile world in general. But the existence of the Noachide Laws does not negate the effect of the Mosaic Law in Judaism as the ultimate standard of right and wrong. Why should it do so in Christianity? The decision of the council represents a concession to those not blessed with a knowledge of divine law, and even then only as regards the demands which the elders themselves might make of the new gentile believers, and not an abrogation of God’s own standards of behaviour.

The point is that obedience to divine law in principle is reaffirmed. If not the council would have laid down no laws at all for gentiles and would have been quick to declare "Christian freedom" to the Jewish believers as well. This is quite obviously not the true import of this chapter!

It is claimed that the stipulations laid down by the Council were only intended to allow for the eating of meals in common between gentile and Jewish believers, but if this is the case why is the totally unrelated matter of fornication raised?

So how ought we to interpret the events related in this episode? As I have already suggested above, the real significance of Acts 15 is not the issue of the Mosaic Law, but the question of church government! The continuing validity of the Mosaic Law is not disputed but a novel question is the degree to which non-Jews who have not lived by the discipline of God’s laws should be made to conform to the commandments through the exercise of church authority. This was not an issue for Jewish Christians because practising the biblical laws was part of their culture, something they were taught to do from childhood. With the gentile believers there was a new issue at hand which was, to what extent were they to be compelled to submit to the Old Testament law by the leaders of the church. The whole character of the controversy in Acts 15 concerns questions of outward obedience and not inner religious experience which was what Jesus had really been on about. In laying down the requirements they do in v.20 no mention is made of such matters as murder or theft. Why are these things left out of their deliberations? It is because the matters at issue are those of outward formality not inward spirituality. The claim is made that only through circumcision and obedience to the forms of the Jewish religion could a person be saved. This is not what Christianity was centrally concerned with for the believers at this time and nor should it be at any time. The council was exercising religious authority and was being asked effectively to legislate on what was, and what was not, acceptable conduct for church members for them to be considered (by the elders) as Christians. The stipulations laid down were nothing more than rules of fellowship.

The council’s decision reflects a number of things which are consistent with Christ’s teachings and not the customary attitude of traditional religious authority. They re-state the basic Christian teaching regarding works, and that in this matter we all fall short of being worthy of salvation. They lay down a minimum number of formal requirements which they themselves regard as absolutely binding, and they appear to eschew the role of strict religious authoritarians, in keeping with Christ’s admonition that his followers should not "lord it over one another as do the Gentiles" (Mat.20:25-27). The leaders of the Church show themselves to be the antithesis of harsh rulers in the name of a Christ who was a bearer of forgiveness to all men and above all a declared enemy of the religion of outward forms of righteousness, and of the tyranny of religious authority. Unlike the Pharisees these men were not about to lay upon others burdens which they themselves would not bear (as suggested in Mat.23:4).

Acts 15 raises an interesting issue in the history of the early Christians, and that is the rather gradual growth of institutionalisation and church government. It has been observed that Jesus himself did not set up formal lines of authority among his followers, and they were only very loosely organised at the outset. The growth of a strict church hierarchy and the existence of formally accepted rules of outward behaviour enforced upon members began to appear only as hopes for the imminent return of Messiah and the setting up of his kingdom began to recede. In the earliest days of the new faith Christians lived communally - not because they were budding Marxist revolutionaries as has been suggested by some overwrought political activists of recent times! - but simply because they expected the kingdom to arrive literally at any moment! In such a state of mind these people were not overly concerned with mundane questions of material existence such as houses and property, etc., since the existing world order was about to be swept away. It was only as the expectation began to diminish of the imminence of Christ’s return that Christians settled in for the long haul and began to bother about such relatively commonplace matters as church organisation and institutionalisation. In the context of the present discussion a similar phenomenon can be seen. Here the leaders of the church are looking towards future growth among its gentile adherents and the question arises of laying down some ground rules for acceptable behaviour among those for whom knowledge of and obedience to the Mosaic Law code cannot be assumed. Rules for gentile converts become necessary as their role in the church begins to be taken seriously. The first step is to recognise that the outward rite of circumcision will only serve to deter those who would otherwise enter the church, and its abolition as a requirement of membership of the church (whatever the standing of such a person may be in the eyes of God) is a response to matters of practical concern for the administration of the church in the immediate future. What we have here is not a calmly reasoned treatise on an issue of principle. If the Law of Moses had become obligatory on new converts Christianity would soon have degenerated into a religious institution, hide bound by rules and regulations in exactly the same way as 1st century phariseeism was, because human thinking tends to default to the trivialities and non-essentials of religious conduct, and away from the truly spiritual. Christian churches have gone this way in any case. There was no need for a further exercise in trivialising and corrupting the law of God in the name of religious formality. God’s purpose was that in the latter part of the 20th century one could come to the law of God free of religious tradition and false understanding.

How did Christianity come to get it all wrong about the Jews, their place in the Christian religion and their role as the chosen people? I have already alluded to the effects of ingrained anti-Semitism and antinomianism in Christian culture which have influenced our understanding of the Bible and Christianity. Crucial to these developments has been a substantial misreading of the works of the Apostle Paul, and in the next chapter I seek to set the record straight about the true relationship between the Jewish people and the Christian religion, and the way in which Paul’s thinking has been misconstrued on this question.

CONTINUE