Acts 15:1-21

November 3, 2002  

The Lawful Use of the Law

There is no greater issue with which Christians must grapple than the relationship between God’s grace to sinners and God’s law given to his people. Jonathan Edwards said of this issue:

There is perhaps no part of divinity attended with so much intricacy, and wherein orthodox divines do so much differ as stating the precise agreement and difference between the two dispensations of Moses and Christ. (J. Edwards, Inquiry Concerning Qualifications for Communion)

We may put the issue in a less erudite fashion using Luther’s warning against extremes when he said that history is like a drunk man on a horse who falls off one side, only to mount again and fall off the other. With the intricate issues involved in Law and Gospel, the covenant of creation and of grace, we likewise can behave like a drunk on a horse.  We are prone to extol the virtues of God’s Law without reference to God’s gracious empowerment to keep the Law just as we might celebrate the wonders of God’s grace without even a consideration of God’s just demands. To lose sight of either is to destroy both.  

The history of the church is rife with debate and dissension over this issue. The first church council met in Jerusalem to decide the matter, yet the perplexing problem remains. Is it necessary to keep the Law? If we say no, what then of God’s righteousness revealed in His Law. If we say yes, what then of God’s righteousness satisfied in Christ? Into this fray I delve with fear and trepidation, knowing that I have neither the mind to clearly discern nor the will to fight the battle. Yet God’s truth demands I speak as clearly as God will enable me.    READ Acts 15:1-21

Acts 15 is the pivotal passage in Luke’s book to Theophilus. The account of the early church hinges on these events, as the critical relationship between God’s justice and mercy are brought into harmony. As Gentiles were brought into the church, it was necessary to once and for all clearly express the relationship of the law and the gospel, not as conflicting entities or two ways in which to please God, but working together, each with distinct yet complementary functions.

With this chapter the Jerusalem church fades and the Gentile work comes to the forefront. Peter makes his final appearance and Paul takes center stage. But the transition is not an easy one as a great debate rages over the inclusion of the Gentiles. But what lies behind this debate, which to us seems so irrelevant to us today, is an issue still at the forefront of what the gospel means today.  What appears to be a heated discussion over a tradition of circumcision is the weightier issue of the relationship of the Law and the Gospel. We are forced to determine:

• Is the Law an antiquated beast of ages past which we must dust off to review nostalgically, as a reminder of a God who was once harsh but now no longer cares with how we live our lives?
• Or is the Law a continual guide for the believer? If so, how?
• Is our obedience mandated so that God will remain kindly disposed to us or is our obedience expected because God is kindly disposed to us because of Christ?

This morning I will only set the table, lay out the main features which help us to understand this passage. I will not answer all questions which this topic will raise, but I trust that I will be faithful in beginning the process. I want to provide some background this morning, so that next week we can gain a better sense how the church responded to these issues and how we must respond to them today. If this sermon seems pedantic to some, I am sorry. We are constrained by God’s Word to wrestle with these issues so that we can better understand how God’s grace must affect our lives.

Our passage describes several events stretched over perhaps a year or two with the common theme.

In verse one we see there are men who came down from Judea into Antioch, teaching the believers there that without circumcision, one can not be saved. This created an uproar so that the church was divided on this issue and Paul and Barnabas entered into the fray.

After this Paul and Barnabas among others were appointed to go to Jerusalem to settle this question. Once they arrive, the debate is stirred up again by others, in v5, those who belonged to the party of the Pharisees who demanded the Gentiles be circumcised and ordered to keep the Law.

First we must understand what is so important about circumcision to these Jews in order to then determine what is behind this debate about the Law so that we can better understand how we are to view the Law today.

Why the insistence on circumcision?

To us this seems to be a non-issue. Outside of the debate regarding possible health issues raised over the past fifty years by some doctors, this issue is far removed from where we are today. But it is necessary to understand the issue of circumcision in light of what this rite meant when given to Moses and what it meant by the first century.

Circumcision as a sign of the covenant

Circumcision as a sign of God’s promise to Abraham and his descendents is first seen in Genesis 17. As God renews the covenant with Abraham, that he will become a great nation, and that he, God, will be not only his God, but the God of his offspring, he gives a visible sign of that promise.

Circumcision was no mere ritual—it was the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. (Gen 17:10-14) By being circumcised men bore witness to God’s promise. To reject this shedding of blood was to reject God’s promise of the Messiah that was to come.  Failure to circumcise his son nearly cost Moses his life (Exo 4:24-26). Failure to be circumcised placed one outside the covenant community. In order for one to participate in the Passover meal, one had to be circumcised.

Let me put the issue in a more common framework. This Tuesday is Election Day. If you were born here you are a citizen and may vote. If you reside in this country but were neither born here nor naturalized after your arrival, you may not vote. You are not recognized as a citizen. Just as we would not want the nation of Iraq sending in absentee ballots on Tuesday, whereby Hussien is elected, so also the Jews saw circumcision as the badge of membership in God’s family.

Circumcision as a sign of obedience to the Law

But while the Old Testament’s statements regarding circumcision are helpful, the view of circumcision changed over the two millennium since it was first given. By the first century what was once a sign of God’s promise to save became a badge of one’s personal righteousness. To be circumcised was not so much a pledge of God’s promise to save as it was the recipient’s pledge to obey. Circumcision became synonymous with keeping God’s Law.

With that in mind, to reject circumcision was to reject not just God’s promise of salvation, but was likewise a rejection of personal obedience. This was more than just nationalism gone to an extreme. It was not just that the Jews wanted these new believers to be just like them, part of their ethnic group. To refuse circumcision was seen as a declaration to live lawlessly. 

But Paul and Barnabas saw the situation differently. They were convinced that to demand circumcision was tantamount to telling Gentile converts that faith in Jesus was not enough, not sufficient for salvation: They must add to faith circumcision, and to circumcision observance of the law. In other words, they must let Moses complete what Jesus had begun, and let the law supplement the gospel. The issue was immense. The way of salvation was at stake. The gospel was in dispute. The very foundations of the Christian faith were being undermined.

For those believers (that is what they are called) who were of the sect of Pharisees, they saw the issue as moving beyond just one’s standing before God in justification to the critical issue of sanctification. These Gentiles were refusing to live holy lives. But for Paul the critical issue was justification. It was, as Luther would later say, the doctrine upon which the church stands or falls. John Calvin said of the importance of justification

The safety of the church depends as much on this doctrine as human life does on the soul. If the purity of this doctrine is in any degree impaired, the Church has received a deadly wound. (On the Necessity of Reforming the Church, Tracts 1:137)

What is behind this debate?

What we don’t see in Acts 15 is what lies behind this issue. Most scholars believe that those men from Judea in v1 correspond to what Paul describes in Galatians 2:11-14 (read). After this incident and before the council convened in v4, Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia, those churches he visited on his first journey, after hearing that they too were falling prey to the same unlawful use of God’s Law. 

In Galatians 1 Paul warns the Gentile churches not to become enamoured with this unlawful use of the Law. In v6 he registers astonishment that they are deserting “him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” This different gospel distorts the gospel of Christ (v7), to believe it is to be accursed (v8). Paul then reviews how he came to know Christ, how his life transformed and was used of God. The temptation to fall prey to this different gospel is so powerful that Peter and even Barnabas succumbed to distancing themselves from those who were not circumcised, who did not swear personal obedience to the Law of God.

Paul lays out the centrality of the work of Christ, a work which excludes our work. In 2:16 he states that no one is justified by the works of the Law but through faith. In fact, salvation by grace alone through faith alone is so necessary that if works are involved then Christ died for no purpose (v21).

But that is an issue that Christians would easily agree upon. In fact, the men from Judea and those from the sect of the Pharisees may not have had trouble with that. Their concern was the place of the Law in the life of the Gentiles after they came to faith. Remember, it had been some 14 years since Cornelius was born from above. In fact when Peter explained what happened to Cornelius and his household, the folks in Jerusalem in Acts 11 at first criticized him (v3) but then they glorified God saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."(v18)

So when we read of the controversy Paul is addressing in Galatians, we may wonder to what is Paul referring here? Justification or sanctification? The answer is not so easy. We create a false dichotomy if we ignore how intricately related are justification and sanctification.

The problem Paul encountered in Galatia as well as in the Antioch and Jerusalem is commonly called Judaizing, where the works of the Law are considered necessary for justification. The insidious nature of this teaching affects not only those coming to faith, but how believers continue to view their standing before God.

In Galatians 3:2-3 Paul is perplexed why Christians will begin by faith and then proceed by works. The great exchange of my sin placed on Christ and his perfect record of law keeping is placed on me is all by grace through faith and nothing else. So also, growth in the Christian life is by grace through faith, and that alone. Just as works are not meritorious for justification, neither are good works meritorious for our growth as believers. Otherwise, if we rely on the works of the law we are under a curse (3:10). The curse of the law is lifted in Christ. It no longer has the power to condemn you.

The problem in Acts 15, in Galatians, as well as today, is that whenever we introduce our personal obedience to God’s law as enhancing or distracting from our standing before God, we set aside the work of Christ’s perfect work for us.

How are we to view the Law?

As we examine the turmoil which occurred in the first century, as we look at Christians today wrangling over law and gospel, we need to be clear. There are two dangerous extremes which we need to be wary of: antinomianism and neonomianism. Two big words for two deadly views.

To be antinomian is to be against the law, it is to mistakenly conclude that Christ’s death on the cross means we are no longer accountable to the law, that his punishment means I can do as I please. These people will mistakenly quote from Romans 6:14: we are not under law, but under grace, as though God cares little about how we live. Reading the New Testament clearly shows that God’s law is still applicable to the believer’s life, not to justify (it never did have that power), but to instruct and guide.

The other, the neonomian, sees a new law in effect that must shape and guide our lives. We may call this person a legalist, one who mistakenly falls for the same mistaken notions of the laws power that the Galatians did and that Christians have down through the centuries. This promotes moralism and may even appear good, but they attribute more power to the law than it possesses.

In 1 Timothy 1 Paul reminds his young disciple to be careful about false teachers who misuse the law of God when he says beginning in v5:

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

In order not to misuse the law, we need to discern how it should be used. We commonly speak of three uses of the law.

• The civil use of the law. The law restrains sin and promotes righteousness. It is a part of God’s common grace in the world and is seen as we go to the polls on Tuesday. As we determine the best candidate, we should choose that one who will reward the good and punish evil. How do we know good and evil? Through God’s law. That view of the Law is expressed in 1 Timothy 1.

The need for the civil use of the law is illustrated by the Police in Ontario, Canada, who stopped a car in a Toronto suburb after seeing a child unrestrained in the back. The officer found the child couldn't be belted in because the seatbelt was already in use – to secure a case of beer. "It was like this guy cared more for his precious beer bottles getting smashed than he did for his son going through the windshield," an officer said.

• The second is called the pedagogical use. When the law convicts a person of sin, makes him conscious of his inability to meet the demands of the law, the law becomes his tutor to lead him unto Christ. That would happen to each of us as we came to a saving faith in Christ. This view is seen in Galatians 3:23f.

The law as a school master is similar to any of us who prepared or are in preparation for a chosen profession. The teacher corrects us, reminds us of where we fall short so that we might come to the time and place in which we graduate, move from being a student into the “real world.”

• The third use is called the didactic use of the law, the use that is most common for those of us who know Christ as a rule of life, reminding us of our obligations as Christians and enabling us to see the perfect work of Christ done for us. This use of the law will reveal to us where the sinful pollutions remain and show us our constant need for Christ. 

This is the bathroom mirror in the morning which helps you see that there is a lot of work which needs to be done, especially if you have laying next to the sink a copy of Sports Illustrated or a Glamour mag filled with perfect bodies. You know what the ideal is and where you fall short. Now you need grace to make the changes.

Any use of God’s law outside these three areas is unlawful. To say that we must do anything, no matter how good and noble, to satisfy God’s wrath is abhorrent to God. The moment we use the law as a magic pill to make us better people in God’s sight, to determine we are righteous apart from Christ, we have fallen into the same trap as the sect of the Pharisees. If the Law is used apart from faith it has no benefit before God.

The unlawful use of the law, as described in Galatians 5, is to allow it to become a yoke of slavery, imagining that your standing before God depends on your performance rather than on the completed work of Christ. The unlawful use of the law is to think that obedience without faith working itself through love still counts for something before God. When that happens you are like the gerbil in the wheel, running for your life, getting no where.

We use the law lawfully when we do not use the forgiveness secured for us by Christ as a pretext for sin, but (v13) serve one another through love, when we love our neighbor as ourselves. The lawful use of the law instructs us not to go after the desires of the flesh which Paul outlines in v19, but rather to see the fruit of the Spirit explode in us. When you read God’s commands, when you confront what God expects of you, you can learn God’s perfect character, you will know more clearly how he desires you to live and it should drive you to faith in Christ more and more.