Is Salvation by Law or Grace? Part 1
Acts 15:1-12
Acts chapter l5 is our study for this morning, and again we're going to consider the chapter as a unit and divide it into several parts, and this will be part l. The title could be a multiple of things, the church in conflict, uh, perhaps a better title would be, law or grace: question mark. Some have entitled this chapter, for obvious reasons, the Jerusalem council. And we'll see as we go the possibilities of titling which are really inconsequential here at the very beginning, except as a point of contact.
Now as we begin the fifteenth chapter of Acts, we are in the flow of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the expansion of the church. The Book of Acts records the churches history from Jerusalem to Rome, its early years of expansion, and we are tracing that. As we come to chapter l5 the gospel has by this time spread to the Gentile world, not totally, but beginningly. Paul and Barnabas have accomplished the first missionary journey. The Jerusalem church has already established a beachhead in the Gentile world in the church in Antioch of Syria, and from there, Paul and Barnabas went out to evangelize Cyprus and the area of Galatia in Asia Minor. They have finished their journey' returned back to Antioch, and the closing of verse ?8 indicates "There they abode a long time with the disciples." Ending off chapter l?.
Now this has been a difficult journey, it has been a record setting journey in the sense that it established a whole new, a whole new avenue for the church, a whole new approach, a whole new ministry, a whole new dimension. That is the invitation to pagans, to Gentiles, to heathen, non Jews, to enter into the fullness of the church of Jesus Christ, and in all of the attendant blessings promised Israel are theirs, equally, now the Apostle Paul along with Barnabas had not only evangelized, but we saw last time that they had also followed up. That they had taught, that they had organized the church with the appointing of elders, that they had commended the church to the Lord, and then they had returned to Antioch to carry on their ministry as they had begun it there.
Now the fact that Gentiles had been included in the church becomes the fuel for the fire that blazes in chapter l5. It was always a very difficult thing for Jews to allow the inclusion of Gentiles into the church. For the most part, Jews in the early years of the church saw Christianity, and this is important to note, they saw Christianity only as a sect of Judaism. Christianity had no distinctness from Judaism.
And it's easy to see how they felt like that because in the progress of Judaism, Christianity is only a logical fulfillment. All of the promises to Israel are fulfilled in the coming of Messiah. And so they just uh, came to the place where they were confident that Judaism simply resolved itself in Christianity. And that you could not honestly have Christianity in its purity, unless you were plugged into Judaism. That would be like jumping in a process at the end, and not really going through the process. And so they saw Christianity only as the logical end to Judaism, and for the most part they saw the only way into Christianity as jumping into the Judaism process, and going through Judaism to Christianity. And so the very concept that a pagan could simply jump right into the church, and be equal to a Jew was foreign for most of them, and they could not handle it, As a result of the inability to see Christianity independent of Judaism a conflict ensued, the conflict then is the theme of chapter. l5. Now really it's inevitable that the conflict is goin, hit. Because of this basic attitude, that Christianity was sort of the, the uh, the last step in Judaism and that without Judaism you didn't really have the progress to Christianity. It was inevitable because of that, that the presence of Gentiles in the church was goin' start a fire, that the whole issue would come to a head and it would explode and everybody would have to deal with it. We can admit however that the Jews had been somewhat tolerant, in the fact that they had allowed certain of the Samaritans to enter the church, and the Samaritans were half Jewish and half Gentile, and they had perhaps uh' reluctantly let a few Samaritans squeeze in. In addition to that, they had allowed a couple of Gentiles, namely the Ethiopian eunuch, and one other by the name of Cornelius and his entourage, his household. But if you'll remember correctly, you'll remember that both the Ethiopian eunuch, who was a saved Gentile, and Cornelius and his household, who were saved Gentiles, both of those groups were what we call God fearers, that is they had attached themselves to Judaism already. Though they had not been circumcised and gone through all the legal aspects of Judaism, they had at least begun to worship the God of Israel. And so the Jews sort of allowed them in without a lot of hassle, although they didn't understand quite Cornelius and his whole household, they at least allowed for that.
But now it was a whole new ball game, I mean it's one thing to let a Gentile in, who knocks and says I want in, it's something else to go scrambling all over the pagan world, just standing on the side of the street and yelling for all the pagans to come into Christianity. That's a whole different thing, I mean it got to the place where they were afraid they wouldn't be able to deal with it, To just run around the world hunting out Gentiles, and inviting them wholesale into the church, as equals was a mind blowing concept to the...more legalistic of the Jews and a little difficult for them to handle. And in, you know, in deference to these people it seemed a little bit unfair. I mean after all a Jew had from the time of his understanding, at least from the time of reaching the age of accountability and uh, maybe the age of twelve, the official you know, bar Mitzvah and all that. From that time on he had prescribed to him all of the patterns of living, and they legalistically and ritualistically and scrupulously and sacrificially abiding by all of these laws had conformed themselves to a rather strict kind of style. And here were a whole lot of Gentiles who'd just been swingin' through all their lives, doin' Just exactly what they wanted to do, and in one fell swoop they enter into equal blessings with these Jews who have been nailed to the wall, as it were morally all their lives, and they just can't really understand how anybody could have equal rights who didn't live a sacrificial, legalistic, law abiding, subscribed moral life, And really it is a little bit hard to understand, I mean you,re goin' say to yourself, I mean this is ridiculous, I mean these guys have been just doin' everything they want, all of a sudden Paul comes along and announces all you gotta do is believe in Jesus Christ, bang, you're in the church, and everything ever promised to Israel through Jesus Christ is goin, to be yours too. It seemed a little unfair. And so they began to resent the Gentiles. They began to resent the fact that they were entering into the church on an equal basis, and without having to subscribe to Jewish law. That they could get away with everything they'd been doing, worshiping idols and all of the moral things that were anti‑God and still received...be received by God on an equal basis, it didn't seem fair. And in fact knowing that the Jews were out numbered by the Gentiles, they could see the foreboding of a whole Gentile church just drowning out Jewish significance. And so the ultra‑conservatives saw a trend which they didn't like, and they decided it was time to take a stand against what Paul and Barnabas were doing. They had to put a stop to this Gentile evangelism on a wholesale basis, and at least qualify it some way. Paul and Barnabas then were designated as radicals, they were activists, they were undermining the great traditions of the fathers, they were, they were really destroying the sacred separateness of Judaism, And so they decided to take things into their own hands, did these conservatives, and because they decided to do that they precipitated the first great council of the early church, because they created an obvious problem that had to be dealt with. Now what they really expected and what they wanted as it boils down, and we'll see it here, was they wanted the Gentiles to become Jews first. You know it was as if the door of salvation was opened by grace, but the screen door was legalism, or Judaism. So ya had to go through double doors. I remember when I used to live in Philadelphia as a little kid, they used to...they.,.they...they had these tenement houses kind of that are just...they,re like one after the other and if you're not real careful it's easy to go in the wrong house. You've seen ,em, just row after row of these houses. And in those houses, because of the weather in the winter, everybody would build on a little tiny porch, that was about four by four at the most, and it was only to accommodate another door, and you'd go in one door and when it would shut it would take you out of the weather, then you could proceed in the next door.
Some of you have been through all of that. Well that's exactly what they were trying to impose upon these Gentiles. That the door to get to the door was Judaism, that Judaism was the four by four cubical that got you out of the outside, but didn't get you in to the inside. It was sort of no man's land. But at least it was necessary for entry, and so they were going to impose then Judaism on the Gentiles as a way to get to grace. Not Grace Church, but grace divine kind, Now, I need to add another footnote. The question of salvation for Gentiles wasn't an issue anymore, that was obvious. I mean even the Old Testament talked about the Gentiles being saved. And they had seen Gentiles getting saved, that..'the question of whether God wanted to save Gentiles wasn't an issue, that was obvious that God wanted to do that, the question was, how did he wanta do it, you see? They had already acquiesced to the fact that God was goin' save Gentiles, but the question was, how was he goin, do it? What was the mode of it, or what was the method of such salvation, and that became the issue. And friends, that is the issue, how do you get saved? That's the issue of the Jerusalem conference, how do you get saved? Is it by grace alone, or is it by grace and law? Is it by faith, or is it by faith and works? That is the issue of the Jerusalem council. How do you get saved? Believe me, that's still the issue of the church. And that's,,.with all of the sects and insects and everything else that we have within the framework of Christianity, with all of those things the deviated ones are the ones who are adding something to the basic method of salvation. You know it's amazing, and maybe it's because men never get anything for nothing, and the reason they don't is because they,re too depraved to give anything for nothing, but maybe because of that it is, it is the longest running heresy in the church, that is, wrong modes of salvation.
That is the thing the church has always dealt with, somebody taking basic grace and attaching something else to it. It's, it's...for some reason it seems very difficult for men to grasp absolutely free grace. It seems impossible for men to understand that they are saved by faith, plus nothing. On the grounds of Christs perfect work. But the Bible is so explicit in teaching that you're saved by God's grace, through faith plus nothing, that is obviously what the Bible teaches and yet people want to add things. We have a whole world full of legalistic heads, always want to tack on something. I always say, tacking something on to the perfect work of Christ done on the cross, would be like me taking my pencil and going to touch up the Mona Lisa, I mean that's stupid, I,m not even an artist, and it doesn't need touching up, It's a masterpiece. Some people say, oh yes, you're saved by faith but, you must keep the Ten Commandments to hold your salvation. That's Herbert W. Armstrong, the church that's on the radio, Radio Church of God, or whatever it is, Ambassador College. Salvation by...by grace through faith, plus the Ten Commandments, you must keep those to stay saved.
Some say, yes you,re saved by faith, but you must be baptized to get into heaven. A little rough on the thief on the cross. The Roman Catholic church says, yes you are saved by faith, and grace saves you, grace and faith, but grace is mediated through the sacraments, so you must take the sacraments, they mediate grace, and you must partake of the Lord's supper for it mediates divine life. And then they say, yes you are saved by faith but the ark of salvation is the church, you must join the church. And so you've got all kinds of people adding on must's, to grace. Like children with crayons scribbling on Rembrandts, you know?
Some reason man has trouble with free grace. And that's always been a debate. Well this is the cardinal issue of Christianity people, because if we don't know how to get saved then we don't know what basically Christianity is here to tell us, right? If in all of my study of the Bible, and all of my study of Christianity, 1 missed the right way to get saved:, none of it does me any good, right? I mean I do wanta get that straight. I mean I could foul up a little on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I could foul up a little on the doctrine of uh, future things and eschatology, I could be a little off beat on the doctrine of, of ecclesiology, or the study of the church, l could mess up in interpreting a few scriptures, but if I mess up on the doctrine of salvation, then I,m really in trouble. And I'll spend my eternity in hell tryin' to re‑think that doctrine, And so that's basic, and this is the first issue that comes up in the early church for,..for council decision. How to get saved?
Is it grace through faith alone, or is it grace through faith plus works? That's a critical issue,
And out of that issue comes the fifteenth chapter. Now l wanta share four things in this chapter, four features, and we'll take two today and two next time, And they just divide the chapter for ya. First there was the dissension, they there was the discussion, then there was the decision, and then there was the development. Let's look first of all at the dissension. Now it says in verse l, "Certain men who came down from Judaea taught the brethren," that sounds all right, but you know there had been in the church, for a long time and always will be, false teachers. Second Peter ?'l, Peter knew about these guys, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who secretly shall bring in (damnable or) destructive heresies," Now Peter says there have always been, there always will be false teachers. They will be the angels of light, emissaries from Satan to infiltrate the church with false doctrine, damnable heresies.
heresies that damn people, heresies that destroy. And one of those heresies is, the heresy of salvation by grace, through faith plus works.
And that's the one that is dealt with here. So some false teachers arrive, and they are the.,.really they may well have been Christians, which is amazing, It says, "And certain men," although that's maybe stretching it. "Certain men who came down from Judaea." Everything is down from Judaea, if you've ever been to Jerusalem you know everything else is down, because it's on a plateau, even though this is way north and we would think of it as up. "Certain men who came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you can't be saved." Now that was their lesson. Now this is the imposition of legalism on top of grace. Which if you know anything about Romans nullifies grace. If grace is law, then grace is no more grace. But nevertheless, they were going to impose circumcision on the Gentiles. Now the brethren in verse l are the believers at Antioch' a..
grou...a...little..'this is the truth squad, you know? Have arrived to straighten out the saints or the aint's really who aren't saints yet, and They've arrived in Antioch, as angels of light. Really they're ministers of Satan, and they're goin' teach false doctrine, they have no backing and they have no commission from the Jerusalem Church officially, they're self appointed guardians of legalism. And they've come to Antioch to straighten out all the Gentiles. Now it's very interesting, and it might well be true, some commentators feel that they also followed the path of Paul and Barnabas and visited every one of the cities they had just come from on their missionary tour, and taught the same stuff there, That seems very possible because when Paul wrote the Book of Galatians, he wrote the whole Book to answer this very same question.
So it may well have been that these guys not only came to Antioch, but that they traced Paul and Barnabas' footsteps, went back to those Jewish synagogues and spilled out all this legalism that you can't get saved unless you,re circumcised, which is like saying to the Gentiles, unless you come into the vestibule of Judaism you can't get through the door into salvation. And so the conflict was brewing all over everywhere.
Jews were coming down on Gentile Christians with some very heavy legalism. At this time Galatians was written, before the Jerusalem council, between the close of the first journey and the Jerusalem council, somewhere between chapter l? and l5 Galatians was written. And it was written back to those churches that they had visited, to straighten out this !
very heresy. Which leads me to believe that these guys may well have traversed the paths of Paul and Barnabas, If they did that they were pretty zealous, wouldn't you say? If they went to all of that trouble? Transportation in those days being what it was, by foot, everywhere through the Taurus Mountains, the whole bit. If that did happen, and we can't be dogmatic, but if it did they were zealous. Even their journey to Antioch alone gives some indication of their zeal. And along that line, I think they were probably, some of them at least sincere. Feeling that a whole lot of pagans who didn't know anything about Judaism couldn't jump in at the end of a process, they had to come the whole route, including Judaism and the law of Moses, Now here you had a terrible, terrible potential disaster, because this was to impose. legalism on the Gentiles, this could have been a...absolutely destructive, it could have created two churches, it could have created the Gentile church who would have maintained their salvation by grace, and the Jewish church maintaining their salvation by law, and you would have had two churches, the very thing our Lord prayed for that they may be what? One, would have been violated from the very beginning. And so it became a crucial issue to deal with this. Now this issue, just for your footnotes, the issue of uh, imposing law, being circumcised, is the position that is known as Judaizing. As you study scripture you'll hear Bible teachers and commentators as you read use the term Judaizers or Judaizing, that means to impose upon Gentiles ritual or ceremony or law or legalism that belongs to Judaism. And so these people saw Christianity as a sect of Judaism and wanted to impose it upon them. Now the Apostle Paul of course has got this clear in his head, he's not confused even though he was a Pharisee, even though he was of the tribe of Benjamin, even though he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, though he knew the law, he wasn't hung up on law, he was what we might call a liberated Pharisee. In Galatians 5'l he said, "Don't be entangled again with the yoke of bondage." We've been set free, remain free. He was liberated. And when he wrote the Book of Galatians he tried to liberate all these people who were gettin' hung up again. Look at Galatians with me for just a minute, Galatians talks about this all through it, but just picking out a couple of verses, just to show ya that Paul was square on the issue, he didn't have any problems. Verse l6 of chapter ?, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law." Now that's pretty straight stuff. Paul writing back to these little groups of Galatian Christians that he has left, who have now been confused and ripped by these would be teachers, and if it wasn't the ones from Jerusalem it must have been some from their own cities who were hung up on the same thing, because by this time the heresy has arisen in every place they've been. And he says to them just as clearly as possible that a man is not justified by the works of the law, "But by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Now that is clear information, Salvation is by faith.
In chapter 3 verse 11, just in case you didn't get the message, he says, "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident because," even in Habakkuk, in the Old Testament it says, "The just shall live by," what? by "faith. And the law is not of faith."
You can't mix the two, Over in chapter 5 verse 6, this is a clear statement, "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but," what's the next word? "faith." Now you see Paul in his own mind was clear on this issue, it wasn't a problem for him. In chapter 6 and verse 11, "You see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand." The idea here is interesting, this may have been in reference to an eye problem and he had to write large. "As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh," ha, they wanta show off their legalism, "they constrain you to be circumcised." So he knew there were teachers doin' this, "they make the issue in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised." But look at l3, "For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh." What does that mean?
That they made glory over the fact that you became a Jew, You see they have an exalted..'such an exalted view of Judaism, that the very fact that you had to become what they are to get saved, makes them think they're somethin', If everybody's gotta come,,.become what I am to be saved, then I must really be somethin,, Paul says, "God forbid that I should glory in the flesh," That's what he means. I should glory only in what? "In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for in Christ Jesus (verse l5) neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." So law, legalism, ritual, ceremony, circumcision, the whole thing means nothing in salvation, absolutely nothing. Now in chapter 2 verse 2l of Galatians he kind of gives what might be a summary statement. "l do not make void the grace of God;" You know what happens if you add law to grace? You know what you do to grace? You make it void. "If righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
If righteousness is ours through law, then we don't need grace, In other words if I go in to the court and the judge says, you're innocent, go free, I don't need grace, right? I didn't break the law. But if I go in to the court and the judge says, you're guilty, go free, that's grace. And every man is guilty. We've all broken the law, law can't satisfy, we shattered the law, only grace. You can't confuse law and grace, they don't go together, if you add law to grace you don't have grace. If you add grace to law for that matter you don't have law, And so the Apostle Paul was clear, he just simply said, there is no connection between the two. Nobody ever got saved by keeping the law all the law did was show you how bad you were, nobody ever was justified by the law, only by grace, and if ya try to mix the two you destroy grace, God wants to confirm every man a sinner and then give him grace.
Well, this is the issue that comes right down to, to Antioch. And there's goin, be a head to head confrontation, Paul had reported to the church that it was really simply. faith in verse ?7 of l?, God opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, he didn't see any vestibule of Judaism, just one door, that's all, faith. Well when those two guys hit Antioch, the pot began to boil verse ?, "When therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them," can't you imagine? I would have loved to hear Paul and Barnabas arguing with Judaizers, just at
the weight of argument,/must have been a tremendous thing with the mind of Paul, and Barnabas pitted against these people who were so know...
knowledgeable in what they thought was Judaism. Anyway they "had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question." They've gotta solve the problem, Well they really had a fight. It flared. You know, it's easy to see why, here would be,,.here would come supposed believers from Jerusalem, they all arrive in Antioch and you know what they won't do?
The first thing they won't do is eat with the Gentiles. They call themselves Christians? here are Gentile believers in Antioch, they won't eat with ,em, why? Because no Jew, self‑ respecting, in the minds of those Jews would eat with a Gentile, who was uncircumcised. They wouldn't go into their homes, to go into a Gentile home was to defile yourself, and I told you before that they believed Gentiles uh, put their abors,..
aborted children down the drain and thus a dead body really brought defilement on the house, and it was a seven day defilement, so they wouldn't go near it, They wouldn't even eat Gentile food, they didn't believe in the way they cooked it, etc, etc, etc. So here they were at a stone wall, when they arrived, And they wouldn't get at the Lord's table together, you can believe that. And so the whole thing erupted, And you know a guy that you'd expect better out of really goofed up, and it's Peter, In Galatians ?'11 Paul tells us what Peter did, Peter was at Antioch too, at the time that some of these people, whether the same group or not we don't know, but some Judaizers showed up, of the circumcision party, that was the group that believed you had to get circumcised to get saved. "When Peter was come to Antioch," verse 11 of Galatians Z, Paul said, "I withstood him to the face," that must have been quite a confrontation, Peter was no slouch, "because he was to be blamed."
Boy, do you know what he did? Listen to this, "Before certain men came from James," now James sent a group up there, whether James specifically commissioned them or not we don't kn