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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them:
“Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that He accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as He did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for He purified their hearts by faith.”
“Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Acts 15:7-11
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
“…it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
These words were written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus as a reminder that salvation is not earned by accomplishing tasks. There isn’t some checklist that prospective believers need to complete before they could be saved. No, salvation is a gift from God. He is the divine Giver of every good and perfect gift from above (James 1:17).
Note here that Paul is placing the focus on God and God alone. He is to be the One who gets the glory when it comes to the matter of being saved from sin. After all, didn’t Jesus say this?
“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.” John 3:16
Salvation started with God, just like everything else in creation. He loved the world, not just some of it but all of it, that He offered up His Son Jesus so that anyone who believed in Him would not perish but live forever.
God did that. He is central to all things and He is in total control of all things.
God does what He wants, when He wants. No man dictates the way things should be.
This was obviously a concept that was lost by some of the Pharisees for in yesterday’s message, we saw where they demanded that all new Gentile Christians “be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:5). These Pharisees were still living in the past and unwilling to consider that God had decided to enact a new covenant with His people, a new covenant that only required a prospective Christian, Jew or Gentile, to believe in Jesus as Savior to gain everlasting life. As we move on in our study of Acts 15, we find Paul surgically attack the flaw in the Pharisaical argument and he did so by refocusing the Jewish believers on their God. His rebuttal after much discussion contained these main points:
1. God made the choice to extend salvation to the Gentiles.
Paul was just an apostle who was carrying on the work of Jesus to make new disciples and that work didn’t discriminate between Jews and non-Jews. God had deemed that Gentiles might hear the Gospel, believe and be saved, and that’s exactly what was taking place. Things happened just like God said they would.
2. God accepted the Gentiles as much He did the Jews.
God chose to save the Gentiles along with the Jews and with that came immediate acceptance. He was the God of all, no matter a person’s national origin. It was true in New Testament times and it has been true ever since.
3. God imparted the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles.
Up to now in Acts, we
have seen this happen on more than one occasion. You may recall how Peter was
in Joppa when a Roman centurion named Cornelius had a vision from God,
commanding him to send for Peter. At the same time, Peter was experiencing a
vision of his own while on Simon’s rooftop in Joppa which provided him guidance
from God on what was clean and unclean. You’ll remember that it was centered on
eating certain animals but the point made in the vision was much broader than
that. Peter was told that only God had the right to deem something unclean and
He had decided to grant salvation to the Gentiles. Ultimately, God had the
authority and right to do what He wanted to do and Peter realized that he had
to adjust his thinking to align with God’s changing salvation policy. And so,
he went to Caesarea and shared the Gospel with Cornelius as well as his family
and friends. The household believed and received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10).
This was what Paul was getting at. God had shown already that the Gentiles could receive the Holy Spirit from Him just like everyone else. No one group had special privilege with God over another in this regard.
4. God purified the hearts of the Gentiles by faith.
To purify something was to make it holy. The Jews had treated all Gentiles (essentially anyone not a Jew) as being anything but holy. Gentiles weren’t even allowed into the temple courts in Jerusalem. An area of prayer was set up outside the temple for anyone that wasn’t a Jew and the message sent was clear. The Jews wanted the Gentiles to know they were outsiders when it came to relations with God. They would always be in line after the Jews, that was the attitude, so Paul sought to attack that assertion in his address.
Like a skilled lawyer, Paul had built up main points to set up his closing words to the Pharisees, and as our passage concludes, we see him finish off the argument. Look again at those words here:
“Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
Here, we see Paul go right back to refocusing everyone on God. His question should have cut to the heart of the Pharisees raising objection. For we see Paul asking a simple question:
“Why do you put God to the test?”
Indeed, why? Who has the right to do that to an almighty, sovereign God?
Certainly, no one, not even Jews who were at one time God’s specifically chosen people.
In the end translation, the Pharisees had no place imposing their own beliefs on what should happen with the Gentiles. Their only concern should have been making sure that God’s will was done, no matter what that will was, no matter if they agreed with it or not. If God said it was to be, then it was to be. End of discussion.
Friends, today we need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. We can’t allow ourselves to be modern day Pharisees, misguiding people by sharing how we think they should live in lieu of focusing our attention on God and what He desires. In other words, none of us has the right to trump God when it comes to what He deems should happen. His will and way is to always reign supreme.
How would the Pharisees respond to Paul’s words?
As we’re going to see in tomorrow’s message, Paul, along with Barnabas, still had much to say. I hope you’ll join me to see what they had to say.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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