Acts 15:6-31
November 10, 2002
Cleansed for Obedience
Some years ago, when Lars Johnson, an old Norwegian farmer, sold his land and moved to a nearby town. He soon realized he was the only Lutheran in his new town of all Catholics. That was okay, but the neighbors had a problem with his barbecuing beef every Friday. They were not allowed to eat red meat on Fridays, but the tempting aroma was getting the best of them. So they confronted Lars.
"Lars," they said, "since you are the only Lutheran in this whole town and there's not a Lutheran church for many miles, we think you should join our church and become a Catholic." Lars thought about it for a minute, and, since he was a pragmatic but not a practicing Lutheran, he decided they were right. Lars talked to the priest, and they arranged it.
The big day came, and the priest had Lars kneel. He put his hand on Lars' head and said, "Lars, you were born a Lutheran, you were raised a Lutheran, and now," he said as he sprinkled holy water on Lars' head, "you are a Catholic!"
Both Lars and the neighbors were happy. But the following Friday evening, the aroma of grilled beef still wafted from Lars' yard. The neighbors went to talk to him about this, and as they approached the fence they heard Lars saying something strangely familiar to the steak: "You were born a beef, you were raised a beef, and now" he said as he sprinkled salt over the meat, "you are a fish!"
For Lars, change was merely external. It didn’t deal with his heart. Quite often we can, though, all behave like Lars, the old Norwegian farmer, imagining that with a simple ceremony, some magical words, we can claim to be changed, but our actions, our behavior, betrays that our hearts are still the same.
Our passage this morning forces us to look at the relationship between God’s grace given to unworthy sinners and God’s demand for our obedience. Last week we began looking at this perplexing issue by reviewing the background to Acts 15.
As you recall, the church began among God’s covenant people, the Jews. But within the early years non-Jews, Gentiles, responded to the gospel and were accepted as part of the church. Yet as the years progressed, the obvious question was raised: “What responsibility did the Gentiles have to God’s Law? Namely, were the Gentiles required to be circumcised and need they be obedient to the Law of Moses?”
While this specific issue, the matter of circumcision, is no longer a pressing issue, what lies behind this and what the early church decided, is still relevant. The problem they faced may stated as this:
If I am saved by grace, what is my responsibility to God’s Law? May I claim that Christ died for my sins and ignore obedience? Or is my obedience a necessary aspect of God forgiving me?
Perhaps I can put it another way: Does grace allow for sloppy living?
Let’s face it, law produces order, it restrains and corrects. One can articulate law, but grace is like hugging Jell-O. If we tell people that law does not matter for salvation, wouldn’t we end up with mayhem? Isn’t there the fear that as people grasp grace they’ll stop volunteering for the church nursery. It’s guilt that keeps people serving on church committees, right?
The problem today has been with us for 2000 years. We impose regulations to constrain behavior in order to make sure people do what is right. Why should people obey if God forgives? Turn to Acts 15 as we continue to look at the early church wrestle with this problem. READ Acts 15:6-31.
As there were those in the church that demanded the Gentiles fall in line and become Jews in order to be accepted as recipients of God’s favor, the church gathered together for a council, a gathering of its leaders to debate this topic and conclude the matter for the whole church. Peter begins by reviewing for them that:
God initiates our salvation 7-12
God initiates salvation by making the choice 7
Peter speaks first, using his own experience as an argument that obedience to the law is not necessary in order to for one to receive God’s grace. What happened ten years before helped Peter see that since God initiates our new life in Christ, what we do does not earn us any favor.
Peter stresses God’s sovereignty, for in v7 he tells them that God made a choice. If you recall from Acts 10, God clearly orchestrated the events, for what He commanded Peter to do was way outside the box for this kosher Jewish boy. It took an angelic visitor to Cornelius and a vision from God to Peter to make this monumental change.
Peter’s argument is not simply anecdotal, that Cornelius became a Christian without circumcision and that should be good enough for everyone else. But rather, Peter stresses that God made the choice, God bore witness to them, gave them the Spirit, cleansed their hearts (8-9). That God initiates our salvation tells us that what we do adds nothing to what God has done.
Years ago when Janet and I were poor students and our anniversary came around, we wanted to celebrate the occasion, so we asked an older couple where was a nice restaurant, given our circumstances. They made a suggestion, we made reservations and went. The prices on the menu were perhaps fine for the more established Whitefish Bay couple, but not for us. Nevertheless we ordered, trying not to think about the bill that would come. Yet when it was time for the check, the maitre-de informed us that the bill was taken care of, someone had called in their credit card to cover our expense.
That is what God did, he initiated and completed our transaction. He does all the work, we enjoy the benefits. Janet and I could have protested, tried to pay the bill ourselves, but there was no bill to pay. When Christ took care of our sin, he completed the task.
God initiates salvation by making no distinction 8-9
On what basis does God make this choice? Peter continues to remind his audience that the choice belongs to God. In v8 Peter says that God knows the heart. At first this may imply that God could see Cornelius was inherently good and took him.
But that would contradict the passage, that it was God who makes the choice and that is by grace. Elsewhere in Scripture we are told that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. (Jer 17:9). But in v9 we are told what the God who knows the heart does with sin stained people – he cleanses their hearts by faith.
Again we see God’s sovereign choice in salvation. For this reason Peter is able to conclude Cornelius and the other Gentiles came to Christ not on the basis of their own obedience to God’s Law, but by faith (9) and through grace (11).
We see here why those who stress the sovereignty of God also stress the work of salvation by God alone. It is important to not lose sight of either. The moment we think we did anything to affect God’s opinion of me, then the gospel is compromised.
For some, it may not be good works, but a single good work – faith, that God looks and sees my faith and takes me for his own. It is not that God saw just a spark of faith in Cornelius and on that basis responded with grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9 tell us that we are saved by grace through faith and that this is not your own doing. What does this refer to? It modifies both grace and faith. To say grace is not of ourselves, but is a gift is self-evident. But what is radical is to realize that we believe because God gifted us the faith to believe.
Since God initiates salvation, don’t put him to the test 10-11
Peter concludes with a warning – don’t provoke God by resisting what is clearly revealed. To demand a person come to Christ on the basis of his/her own obedience to the law, to put hurdles to jump through before one accepts that God’s grace has been poured out in one’s life, despite his/her profession of faith – is to test God. Faith plus anything is an offense to God.
Peter’s audience should have known better than to demand the Gentile come by faith plus obedience. Peter refers to this demand for circumcision as a yoke. By speaking of the yoke of the law, he did not mean that the law was an intolerable burden that Jewish Christians should abandon. Rabbis saw the Torah not as an instrument of enslavement but as a yoke that bound them to God’s will. It was a gift of his mercy.
Nevertheless, while the law is a good gift to guide and direct, like a yoke or a harness for an ox to plough the field, it would not do the work necessary. What is more, as the law was incapable to change hearts, without God’s grace, it would be then an impossible burden.
To use the Law as a means to garner God’s favor is to use the wrong tool for the job.
Years ago while I was away at General Assembly, Janet and a friend took the kids and went up north to the friend’s cabin. While in the dark night in the north woods, a fuse blew, so these two master electricians went to work. It was an old fuse box, with the screw in fuses. As they tried to extricate blown fuse, it became stuck. Soon they found themselves on a metal bunk bed, the power still on, with a screw driver prying at the old fuse. If there ever was a case of using the wrong tool for the wrong job, that was it. But as dangerous as that was, it is more dangerous to use the law for something it was never intended, to earn God’s favor.
The truth be known the struggle for faith alone never ends. It is part of our inability to accept a gift, we don’t want to be indebted to anyone, even God. Consequently, we use the wrong tool, the law to try to earn our salvation.
If there is any point in your life where you can feel certain that God showered his grace on you because of what you have done, you had best re-evaluate your life. There is nothing you have done to merit God’s favor. How much more then, should you not demand that others show you why you should accept them as a brother or sister in Christ.
God integrates our lives 13-19
What comes next may appear confusing. After Peter relates his experience, and Barnabas and Paul likewise corroborate Peter’s point of God’s supremacy in salvation, James speaks. But what he says may not appear that relevant until we look more closely at what is said.
This James is Jesus’ half brother, Mary’s son by Joseph. He was called James the Just because of his piety, known to be ascetic and scrupulous. When he died, his knees were allegedly callused like those of a camel because of his many hours in prayer. He was a pillar of the church (Gal 1:19-2:9) and the moderator of the assembly now considering an all-important dispute. His name is affixed to the New Testament letter where he emphasized that saving faith always issues in good works.
Evidence of James came to light with the discovery of a bone box or ossuary, bearing an inscription on its side in Aramaic: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Andre Lemaire of the Sorbonne in Paris verified the inscription's authenticity and dated it to about A.D. 63. James was stoned to death in 62. Although all three names in the inscription were fairly common in first-century Israel, the likelihood of a man named James having a father named Joseph and a brother named Jesus narrows the field, Mr. Lemaire suggested. Plus, naming a brother on an ossuary was highly unusual; this brother must have had some special role or reputation. Thus, it's "very probable" that the reference is to Jesus of Nazareth.
James’ opening statement uses language which is more significant than it looks at first sight, for the expression “people” (laos) and “for his name” are regularly applied in the Old Testament to Israel. James was expressing his belief that Gentile believers now belonged to the true Israel, called and chosen by God to belong to his one and only people and to glorify his name.
Next he goes to Amos 9 to see the fulfillment of that passage in what has happened in the church.
The fallen tent of David here refers to the events of the captivity in 586 B.C., when the kingly line of David was enslaved by the Babylonians. The promise given centuries before to King David were then fulfilled when Jesus, the seed of David. The restoration of the fallen tent, pictured in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, is now realized, not as a future reign, but a present reality. Those that will become a part of this new entity are both the remnant of the Jews as well as Gentiles who are called by his name.
What James says is Paul’s point in Ephesians 2. Since salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, as it is God’s initiative to place us in Christ, you and I have an organic unity.
Paul reminds us of our inherent alienation from God due to sin and God’s grace that calls us to himself. Then he makes, what appears to us, a shift in 2:11. Gentile were once alienated from God, but because of Christ were brought near. (Read 2:14-16) This is what James is saying as he quotes from Amos 9 – Christ’s work is to unite Jew and Gentile into a third race, one new man.
James was saying that they must recognize and embrace Gentile believers as brothers and sisters in Christ, and not burden them by asking them to add to their faith in Jesus either circumcision or the whole code of Jewish practices. Grace and faith level us; they make fraternal fellowship possible – as Peter experienced. James then shows this from God’s Word.
When we come to Christ, we all come on level ground, at the foot of the cross. Who you are and what you have done or not done is settled once and for all there. Now the key is to leave it there, knowing that as Christ hung on the cross he uttered those wonderful words: “It is finished!” His payment for your sins is accomplished, complete and final. But with that settled, how are we then to live?
God instructs our obedience 20-31
James then brings to conclusion what should be done. It is clear that salvation is by faith through grace alone, but how we live still matters. Just because you say some mumbo jumbo over a piece of tenderloin on the grill, it does not become a fish. So James proposes what should be written to the Gentiles about how they should live.
At first sight, the list appears to be an odd mixture of moral and ceremonial matters. Sexual immorality is certainly moral, but the latter two appear to be a part of the more ritualistic aspects of Judaism. Besides, sexual chastity is an elementary ingredient in Christian holiness; so why state the obvious by including it in the list? Because the church needed to know that Gentile Christians were not adrift from practical godliness as properly defined by God’s Word.
- The Gentiles must disassociate themselves from the idolatry of their culture. Paul would deal with this issue as well in 1 Corinthians. Believers were to be sensitive to their fellow Christians and not wolf down a sirloin that was a part of a pagan ritual and so offend their brother in Christ.
- What is more the Gentile world, like today, treated promiscuous sexual relations as an acceptable part of normal behavior. This was sin then and remains sin to this day.
- Third, they should not eat strangled meat, which is connected to the last item, they should not eat blood. Blood was symbolic of life and was to be reserved for sacrifice to the Lord, thus underscoring his role as the giver of life.
All four items listed here are found in Lev. 17-18 as requirements expected both Jews and of resident aliens: abstinence from pagan sacrifices (17:8), blood (17:10-14), strangled meat (17:13) and illicit sexual relationships (18:6-23). This may be why James adds in v21 about Moses being read eve Sabbath in the synagogues. The Gentiles should be sensitive to the Jewish scruples and not give them offense in these ritual matters, for they too may be reached with the Gospel.
Why is this list given? The Decalogue is already assumed. All Christians, Jew and Gentile, lived by them. Morality was not the issue at the Jerusalem Conference. Fellowship was, and the decrees were a minimum requirement placed on the Gentile Christians in deference to the scruples of their Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. We are cleansed from the guilt of the law, but not from obedience to the law. We are cleansed by Christ to obey, and that for those around us.
What does this mean for us today?
That we’re saved by faith alone never means that our faith will remain alone – lifestyle follows faith. Obedience is neither meritorious nor optional. Whatever obedience I render to God’s moral law is simply derivative of my salvation. My keeping of God’s law is the evidence that I belong to Christ, but my obedience never forms the basis of that relationship.
With that being said, we must notice the context of our obedience in this passage is the community. The decision of the council is not to call the Gentiles into conformity for the sake of doing what is right, but the context of our obedience to God is seen in serving one another.
God’s commands are not in a vacuum, but are community oriented. Scripture does not focus on private morality, for all that we are and do has a public component. Even the sin we imagine is in private, where no one sees, affects our relationship with those around us.
When Paul writes to the churches he follows this same pattern, he begins by laying down fact of their standing before God is secured by Christ and then concludes his letter with their call to love each other through obedience. In Romans 12, Paul turns to the issue of obedience in the context of the fact that we are part of the body of Christ. In Ephesians 4:25ff he likewise applies the law in the context of the community ethics (read).
So in Acts 15, the issue for us may not be whether we eat our steak rare, but application remains that we must know we are cleansed for obedience. That means what I must do must be in conformity with God’s Law and be loving to those around me. This goes beyond the clear commands of Scripture summarized in the Ten Commandments to how does my interaction with the world affect my interaction with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Does my life evidence a real internal change by God’s grace or am I a Lars Johnson, playing the game, but remaining unchanged.
