The Jerusalem council: Gentiles are saved by grace, not by circumcision

Acts 15 stands at the centre of the book of Acts, written by Luke. It follows the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas (chapters 13-14), on which many Gentiles believed, and it precedes the second journey. Most scholars date the council to about AD 49, though the date is an inference. The dating of Acts itself is disputed: some place the book in the early 60s, others in the 80s.

The cause was a dispute in the mixed church at Antioch. Men from Judea taught that Gentile converts could not be saved unless they were circumcised according to Moses. Circumcision was the sign of God's covenant with Abraham and his household (Genesis 17:9-14), and for Jews it marked who belonged to God's people. A Gentile who wished to join Israel was circumcised as a proselyte. The Pharisaic believers in Jerusalem (15:5) held that the same rule must apply to Gentile Christians. For them the question was whether the gospel was an extension of Israel's covenant on Israel's terms.

The relationship of this chapter to Galatians 2:1-10 is debated. Many scholars identify Paul's visit in Galatians 2 with the council of Acts 15. Others, who hold that Galatians was written before the council, identify it with the earlier famine visit of Acts 11:30. The question affects how the two accounts are read together, but not the main outcome: the leaders in Jerusalem, including Peter, James and John, gave Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship and did not require circumcision of Titus (Galatians 2:3-9). James, who speaks for the council, is the brother of the Lord (Galatians 1:19) and leader of the Jerusalem church.

Acts 15 is historical narrative in which Luke has included speeches and a letter. The reader should ask what the account shows about how the church settled a question. Luke gives three kinds of evidence in turn: the experience of God at work among Gentiles (Peter, Barnabas, Paul), the testimony of Scripture (James) and the judgment of the whole church under the Spirit's guidance (verse 28). None of these stands alone. Experience is not set above Scripture, and James does not reach his verdict until he has shown that the prophets agree with what God has done.

The chapter has to be read with the book's structure in view. After the Cornelius episode (10-11) and the first journey (13-14), the council settles a question that the church could not otherwise have avoided. The letter of 15:23-29 and the apostolic decree reappear in 16:4 and 21:25, so Luke treats it as important. The chapter has two parts of different tone: the council in verses 1-35 and the sharp division in 36-41. Luke tells both honestly, and the reader should not hurry to turn the second into a moral lesson he does not draw.

There are two textual points. Verse 34 is absent from the best manuscripts and from many translations, which is why the BSB goes from verse 33 to 35. And the apostolic decree appears in different forms in some ancient manuscripts, notably Codex Bezae, which omits the strangled meat and adds a form of the golden rule, giving the decree a more purely moral sense. Most scholars regard the longer four-part form as original.

Verses 1–5

Men from Judea teach that circumcision according to the custom of Moses is necessary for salvation. Paul and Barnabas dispute with them, and the church sends them to Jerusalem with others. On the way they pass through Phoenicia and Samaria, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles, and the news brings great joy. In Jerusalem some believers of the Pharisees' party say the Gentiles must be circumcised and told to keep the law of Moses. The question has widened: it concerns both entry (circumcision) and living (the law).

Verses 6–11

After much debate, Peter reminds them that God chose that the Gentiles should hear the gospel from his lips. God, who knows the heart, gave them the Holy Spirit just as he did to the Jewish believers, making no distinction and cleansing their hearts by faith. Peter's argument rests on what God did at Cornelius's house (chapters 10-11). He then asks why they put God to the test by laying on the disciples' necks a yoke that neither they nor their fathers could bear. The yoke is the law as a requirement for salvation. And he concludes that Jews are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus 'just as they are'. Note the order: the Jews are saved the way the Gentiles are, not the reverse.

Verse 12

The assembly falls silent as Barnabas and Paul tell of the signs and wonders God did among the Gentiles. Barnabas is named first, perhaps because he was well known in Jerusalem (4:36-37; 11:22). Their evidence is God's work, and it confirms what Peter has said.

Verses 13–21

James, calling Peter by his Hebrew name Simeon, says that God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for himself. The wording echoes the Old Testament language for Israel as God's own people (Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6), now applied to a people drawn from the nations. He quotes Amos 9:11-12: after this God will return and rebuild the fallen tent of David, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by his name. James quotes the Greek translation (the Septuagint), whose wording at this point differs from the Hebrew text, which speaks of Israel possessing the remnant of Edom. The Septuagint wording suits his argument, and the point does not depend on the difference: the restoration of David's house is joined to the inclusion of the nations. James then gives his judgment (krino): the Gentiles who turn to God should not be troubled, but should be written to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood. He adds that Moses is read in every city every Sabbath.

The four requirements have been read in three main ways. One reading takes them as the laws for foreigners living in Israel in Leviticus 17-18, where idolatrous sacrifice, blood, strangled meat and sexual offences are forbidden to the resident alien. A second reading takes them as moral: idolatry, murder or bloodshed, and sexual sin. A third takes them as practical rules for table fellowship, to spare Jewish consciences when Jews and Gentiles ate together. The verse about Moses being read everywhere supports the first and third readings: Jews in every city know these rules.

Verses 22–29

The church chooses Judas Barsabbas and Silas to carry a letter. It disowns the troublemakers, who went out without authorisation. The decisive phrase is 'it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us' (28), which places the council's judgment under the Spirit. The letter lays on the Gentiles no burden beyond the essentials and tells them they will do well to keep from these things.

Verses 30–41

In Antioch the letter is read and the people rejoice at its encouragement. Judas and Silas, being prophets, strengthen the brothers. Then Paul proposes to revisit the churches, but he and Barnabas quarrel over John Mark, who had left them in Pamphylia (13:13). The dispute is sharp, the word (paroxysmos) giving us 'paroxysm'. Barnabas takes Mark to Cyprus, and Paul takes Silas through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Luke does not name a winner. Mark is later useful to Paul (Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11).

Acts 15 settles the question of how a person is saved: by the grace of the Lord Jesus, through faith, and not by circumcision or by keeping the law as the way in. Peter's words in verses 9-11 are the same teaching Paul gives in Galatians 2:16 and Romans 3:28 (see the class on Romans 3). The Spirit's gift to Gentiles is God's own verdict that they are accepted, and the council receives it as such.

The chapter also teaches the unity of the people of God. Jews and Gentiles are not two peoples with two ways. Peter's phrase 'just as they are' makes one salvation for both. The unity is lived out in a church that discusses, listens to testimony, reasons from Scripture and decides together. The council is a pattern of the church settling a matter in its own assembly, not through any single authority acting alone, though Peter and James have prominent parts.

The law's place is not denied, but changed. James says that Moses is read in the synagogues everywhere, so the Torah remains Scripture, taught and heard. What changes is that Gentiles are not required to take on the covenant sign or the whole law. Paul and others work out the consequences in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14 Paul treats idol meat and food with more nuance, and in Revelation 2:14 and 2:20 the Lord himself condemns eating food sacrificed to idols alongside sexual immorality. The decree's concern with idolatry and sexual sin continues.

The centre of the chapter is Peter's sentence in 15:11: Jews and Gentiles alike are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus. The chapter ends its controversy by pointing away from circumcision and law to a person. The apostles also speak of those who have 'risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ' (15:26), so that the name of Jesus is the cause for which the missionaries suffer.

James' use of Amos 9:11-12 is a fulfillment claim. The fallen tent of David is the house of the Davidic king, in ruins after the exile. In Acts the risen and exalted Jesus is David's son, enthroned (2:30-36; 13:22-23, 32-37). James reads the Gentiles' turning to God as the sign that the tent has been rebuilt. The nations seek the Lord because David's heir reigns. This fits the promise in Amos itself that the nations would be called by the Lord's name, and the New Testament's wider claim that the Gentiles share in the promise through Christ.

The 'yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear' recalls the invitation of Jesus: his yoke is easy and his burden light (Matthew 11:30). This is an echo and not a claim made in the text, but it fits: what Christ gives is not a heavier yoke but rest. The cross, finally, is what makes the verdict of grace just, a theme Paul develops in Romans 3:21-26.