Acts 15:22-29 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. With them they sent the following letter: The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.
In the above focus we see wolves already invading the church for their own purposes. These men have little or no authority in the body of Christ, yet, they went to Antioch, Syria, to claim that a believer in Christ must be circumcised. This was a huge distortion of the purity of the gospel. Salvation is a product of believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, given to people by God as a propitiation for their sins. So as Paul says to the Romans, I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17) Circumcision was not a way of grace but a way of works. Their teaching would discount the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice because He was without blemish. In the Old Testament, we see that God would not accept or honor any sacrifice that was not perfect. Every animal or bird given to him as a sacrifice had to be perfect, without blemish. We know the Bible says that all have sinned; all have fallen from the perfection of God. God has never changed; He demands perfection if we are going to be in his presence. Only Jesus fulfilled God’s demands on people, to be completely holy and righteous, a static quality, never wavering. Jesus himself said, No one is good—except God alone. A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18-19) A good teacher is but a good teacher, but not good in reference to God’s holiness or goodness. He is but a teacher who knows a lot. But Jesus is separating himself from just a teacher; He is claiming to be God in this context. He is more than a man of wisdom, knowledge and miracles; He is the Son of God sent as a ransom for men and women’s souls. The man who addressed him with this question was probably a Jew in good standing, a circumcised man, yet Jesus informs him that no man or woman is good, only God. The men who left Jerusalem to interfere with the message of pure grace in the Antioch believers were propogating that circumcision had something to do with being acceptable to God or “good.” Which was a lie from the pit of hell, for their claim was that there was something needed other than faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus told the Jewish people that nothing more was needed than trust in Jesus’ works. Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” (John 8:51) What is the mainstay of Jesus’ words; what is needed to be obeyed? For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18)
Paul and Barnabas considered these propagators of circumcision as necessary to be right with God as wolves. Already in the nascent church, wolves were prowling around to destroy the purity of the gospel. Later in his ministry, Paul tells the Ephesian elders that wolves would invade the church. Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. (Acts 20:25-31) These wolves carry the logo of antichrist, the devil’s design. Paul and Barnabas were fighting the addition of circumcision to be saved. In 1 John 4, John is battling the ideas that Jesus did not literally come in the flesh. This was a deletion of the truth, removing Jesus from being a human in the flesh. Jesus had to be the fulness of God in the flesh or his sacrifice would be made of no affect. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (1 John 4:2-3) Peter also knows that wolves will be in the midst of the church. They will be boastful, capricious and not afraid to attack leadership in the world and the church. These false prophets will allow for licentious living, promising much to believers, but in reality corrupting the purity of the gospel of love and grace through Jesus Christ. They are false teachers, promising liberty to the people but they themselves are bound by their own corruption. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. (2 Peter 2:2-3) In the above focus, already there are people in the church who are willing to distort the gospel of faith in Christ Jesus alone. Paul and Barnabas know that circumcision is a real work, but not of the cutting away of the flesh. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:9-12)
After hearing the disciples' account of their first missionary journey and of the trials they endured to spread the gospel to Greek communities, the elders of the whole church of Christ decided to write a letter to the believers in Antioch. Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. As true elders of the church, who want the best for all believers, they are sending this letter of encouragement to the faithful in Antioch of Syria. This city was the third largest city in the area, only Rome and Alexandria were bigger so there are many believers in that city; the home base for Paul and Barnabas. The church elders did not want these believers to be corrupted by the idea that circumcision was necessary to be right with God. If they incorporate the law in their beliefs about salvation, they will be bound again to keeping the Sabbath holy and to other regulations of the law. They will evaluate people not on their beliefs in Christ but in how well they keep the law given to the Jews. The corrupt Pharisees were the religious police of Israel, evaluating people by how they observed the law. Even Jesus was evaluated that way. Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” (John 9:16) When Jesus knelt down and mixed his spital with dust, making mud to be placed on a blind man’s eyes, He was condemned by the Pharisees for working on the Sabbath. They cared little that this man had been blind from birth; they only cared that Jesus worked on the Sabbath. Paul, Barnabas, and the elders of the church knew this kind of hypocrisy would contaminate the church if allowed to spread. However, even though the law was a danger to faith, the church concluded their letter to the believers with these words. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Why? Because these practices were part of the pagan world. Many Jews were believers in Antioch. Therefore to abstain from doing these things was very important to the Jewish believers. The elders end their letter with You will do well to avoid these things. They did not say you will lose your faith if you don't, only that you will do well in life if you avoid these activities that can harm you and your testimony of faith in Jesus Christ. Dear friends, we do well if we follow Jesus with our whole heart, soul and strength. We do well if we love God with a passion and others with a passion. We do well to keep the purity of the gospel in our minds and life all the time. We do well when we sing of God’s glory early in the morning and late at night. Friends around the breakfast table: DO WELL!
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