The Gospel's Hinge: The Jerusalem Council Text: Acts 15:1-12
Introduction: The First Great Fight
Every generation of the church is called to fight for the gospel. We are not called to a quiet life of pious sentimentality, but to a long war. And the first great pitched battle of that war, after the resurrection, was not against the paganism of Rome, but against a corruption from within. The greatest threat to the church has always been the one that carries a Bible, quotes the right verses, and has a very sincere look on its face. The threat is the gospel of Jesus Christ, plus something else. Jesus, plus your ethnicity. Jesus, plus your political party. Jesus, plus your personal holiness. And here, in Acts 15, it was Jesus, plus your circumcision.
This was not a minor theological squabble. This was not a debate over secondary matters, like what kind of music to have in the worship service. This was the hinge upon which the entire history of redemption would turn. The question was this: Is the gospel of grace sufficient, or does God need our help? Is the work of Christ on the cross a finished work, or is it a down payment that we must complete with our own religious resume? The men from Judea who came down to Antioch were not wild-eyed heretics in the popular sense. They were earnest, zealous, and utterly wrong. They were attempting to put the new wine of the gospel back into the old, brittle wineskins of the Mosaic covenant. They wanted to make the church a gated community for Jews and those willing to become Jews.
But the gospel is not a tribal religion. It is a world-conquering kingdom. The grace of God is not a puddle; it is an ocean. What happened at Jerusalem was the church's first great council, where the apostles, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, formally declared that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They slammed the door shut on salvation by works, salvation by heritage, and salvation by religious ritual. And in doing so, they threw the door wide open for the nations to flood into the kingdom of God. We must pay close attention, because this same fight, in different costumes, erupts in every century, and it is most certainly erupting in ours.
The Text
Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." And when Paul and Barnabas had not a little dissension and debate with them, the brothers determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, recounting in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brothers. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses."
Both the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are."
And all the multitude kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
(Acts 15:1-12 LSB)
The Poison of Plus (vv. 1-2)
The trouble starts, as it so often does, with men who have an insufficient gospel.
"Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brothers, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'" (Acts 15:1)
These men are often called "Judaizers." They were believers, likely Pharisees, who insisted that Gentile converts to Christianity must first become Jews. For them, the church was a subset of Israel, and the front door to the church was through the Mosaic law, specifically through circumcision. Notice the absolute nature of their claim: "you cannot be saved." This is not a suggestion for deeper spirituality; it is a condition for eternal life. They were adding a prerequisite to the gospel. The formula was Faith + Circumcision = Salvation. But the moment you add anything to faith as the instrument of salvation, you have created a different gospel, which is no gospel at all.
This is the poison of "plus." It is the deadliest heresy because it sounds so reasonable, so pious. Who would argue against obedience? Who would argue against the law of Moses? But they were confusing the categories. The Old Covenant was the scaffolding for the New. It was good and necessary for its time, but the building was now complete in Christ. To demand that Gentile believers be circumcised was to demand that they crawl back onto the scaffolding after the building was finished. It was to deny the sufficiency of Christ's work.
Paul and Barnabas, fresh from their missionary journey where they had seen God save Gentiles by the score without any reference to circumcision, knew this was a frontal assault on the gospel. Their reaction was not polite disagreement. We are told they had "not a little dissension and debate." This was a sharp, intense, theological brawl. The gospel is not something to be compromised for the sake of a false unity. When the core of the faith is attacked, faithful men do not form a committee; they fight. And because this issue was so foundational, the church at Antioch rightly determined to seek the wisdom of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. This was not a power play, but a recognition of God-given authority.
The Joyful Report and the Pharisaical Objection (vv. 3-5)
On their way to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas are gospel men. They cannot help but spread the good news.
"Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, recounting in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brothers." (Acts 15:3)
Notice the reaction of the ordinary believers in Phoenicia and Samaria: "great joy." True believers rejoice when they hear of God's grace extending to others, regardless of their background. There is no jealousy, no suspicion. The expansion of the kingdom is a cause for celebration. This joy stands in stark contrast to the grim-faced legalism they were going to confront in Jerusalem.
When they arrive, they are welcomed, and they give their report. They don't report on their clever strategies or their powerful preaching. They report "all that God had done with them." They were instruments; God was the agent. This God-centered humility is the hallmark of true apostolic ministry.
But then the opposition makes its formal case.
"But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, 'It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.'" (Acts 15:5)
Here the issue is broadened. It's not just circumcision, but the whole Law of Moses. These were men who had a high view of Scripture, a high view of God's law. Their error was not in their zeal for the law, but in their misunderstanding of its purpose and fulfillment in Christ. They saw the law as a ladder to salvation, which we must climb. The gospel reveals that the law is a mirror that shows us our sin and drives us to Christ, who has fulfilled it on our behalf. They wanted to place the Gentiles under the entire ceremonial and civil administration of the Mosaic covenant, a covenant that was now obsolete with the coming of the Messiah.
Peter's Testimony: God Makes No Distinction (vv. 6-11)
The council convenes, and after much debate, Peter stands to speak. He doesn't appeal to abstract theology but to concrete, historical revelation. He reminds them of what God did through him years earlier in the house of Cornelius.
"Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe." (Acts 15:7)
Peter's argument is simple: God has already shown us His will in this matter. This isn't a new issue. God Himself opened the door to the Gentiles, through Peter's own ministry, and He did it without requiring circumcision. And how did God confirm their salvation? Not by their keeping of the law, but by the ultimate sign of acceptance.
"And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:8-9)
This is the heart of the matter. God gave the Gentiles the Holy Spirit, the seal of the New Covenant, on the exact same basis as He gave it to the Jews at Pentecost. The basis was faith, not works. God, who sees the heart, saw their faith and declared them clean. The cleansing is internal, a "heart cleansing," accomplished by faith alone. The Judaizers were focused on an external, fleshly sign, but God was doing a deeper, spiritual work. To demand circumcision now would be to second-guess God's own testimony. It would be to say that the gift of the Holy Spirit was somehow insufficient.
Peter then drives the point home with a sharp rebuke.
"Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" (Acts 15:10)
To "put God to the test" is to stubbornly demand a sign when God has already made His will clear. Peter calls the Law of Moses, when viewed as a means of salvation, an unbearable yoke. No one, not even the Jews, had ever been able to keep it perfectly. It was never designed to be a means of justification, but rather to show the need for a Savior. To impose this yoke on the Gentiles was not only cruel, it was a denial of the Jewish people's own history of failure under that law. It was a form of spiritual amnesia.
He concludes with one of the clearest statements of the gospel in the book of Acts.
"But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are." (Acts 15:11)
This is revolutionary. Peter doesn't say that the Gentiles are saved like the Jews. He says the Jews are saved like the Gentiles. The ground is perfectly level at the foot of the cross. There is only one way of salvation for all people in all times: "through the grace of the Lord Jesus." Grace is the foundation. Not race, not ritual, not rule-keeping. The Jewish believers were not saved by their heritage or their circumcision; they were saved by grace, just like the raw pagans from Antioch. This statement demolishes every form of spiritual pride and ethnic superiority.
The Corroborating Evidence (v. 12)
Peter's argument, grounded in Scripture and experience, has a profound effect.
"And all the multitude kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles." (Acts 15:12)
The silence is telling. The force of Peter's Spirit-anointed logic has settled the room. The debate is effectively over. Now, Paul and Barnabas stand up, not to argue, but to provide corroborating evidence. Their testimony of "signs and wonders" among the Gentiles serves the same purpose as the gift of the Spirit to Cornelius's household. It is God's own exclamation point on Peter's sermon. These miracles were divine attestations, showing that God's power and approval were with the Gentile mission, a mission that was proceeding on the basis of grace through faith alone, with no mention of the Mosaic law.
The Judaizers had a theory about how God ought to work. Paul and Barnabas had a report about how God was actually working. And in the kingdom of God, facts on the ground, established by God Himself, always trump our neat and tidy theological systems. The gospel was on the march among the nations, and the only sane response was to get in step with what the Spirit was doing.
Conclusion: Still No Plus
The Jerusalem Council was a victory for grace, and it secured the future of the Gentile mission. It established for all time that the church is not a Jewish sect, but a new humanity, a "third race," composed of Jew and Gentile made one in Christ. The dividing wall of hostility, which was the ceremonial law, has been torn down (Ephesians 2:14-15).
But as I said, the battle of Acts 15 is never finally won in church history. The spirit of the Judaizers is alive and well. It is the spirit that whispers, "Yes, believe in Jesus, but you also need to vote for the right candidate to be saved. Yes, trust in grace, but you also need to adopt our particular standards of dress. Yes, rely on Christ, but you also need this political theory, this dietary law, this educational philosophy." The list of pluses is endless.
Every time we add a human requirement to the finished work of Christ, we are placing an unbearable yoke on the necks of disciples. We are testing God. We are denying the central truth that salvation, from first to last, is a gift of pure, unadulterated grace. Our good works, our obedience, our sanctification, these are not the root of our salvation; they are the fruit of it. They are the evidence that God has cleansed our hearts by faith, not the means by which we cleanse them ourselves.
Therefore, we must be vigilant. We must, like Paul and Barnabas, be ready for "not a little dissension" when the gospel is threatened. We must, like Peter, stand on the revealed truth that God makes no distinction. And we must, like the early church, rejoice with "great joy" every time we see the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ break through another barrier and save another sinner, just as He saved us.