The Spirit of God next brings before us the first signal working of that judaizing which was destined to play a deep, wide, and permanent portion in the history of the church of God. “And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (ver. 1).
In every point of view this was serious. It was an error, and yet it claimed to be founded on the word of God. It proceeded from men bearing the name of Christ, and withal it struck at the foundation. Satan's habitual effort is to insinuate evil, not only under fair appearance and if possible by one part of the word made to neutralize another, but through disciples. No principle more false than to urge the reputation of advocates in defense of their doctrine, which must stand or fall according to scripture interpreted in the light of Christ and His work; for these ever call for the energies of the Holy Spirit, as they command the hearts of the faithful.
It is clear also that the truth of God is imperiled by an unwarranted addition even more than by the manifest opposition of unbelief. These men did not avowedly deny the gospel, nor teach that one could be saved by an ordinance only; but they did insist on the necessity of circumcision in order to salvation. This is to undermine Christianity, which is not merely promise but accomplishment; but mere promises leave the door open, as inspired history shows, for thereby insinuating the law, instead of sovereign grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. It was really ignorance of Christ risen from the dead and glorified in heaven, the proper object of the Christian. He never can thus be by faith before the soul, without maintaining the efficacy of His atoning death. What has law or circumcision to do with Him who is at the right hand of God? On this side of the cross law has its place.
But these men were occupied with their prejudices and were looking back at things and persons on earth, not through the rent veil upon Christ above. Hence their pride was wounded. They could not bear to hear that the distinctive mark, the ancient glory of a Jew, was now eclipsed and gone. They had feebly learned the teaching of the cross. They had not discerned there the sentence of death on the flesh at its best. They would no doubt have acknowledged their need of Him who suffered once for all for their sins; but they saw not their religion (and circumcision was its initiatory and characteristic badge) treated as naught, yea utterly condemned therein. Error flows from a wholly false measure. Had Christ, the truth, been before their souls, had they estimated aright His death on the cross, they had never fallen into a mistake so profound and unworthy.
But they were wrong otherwise also. The Lord had promised the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, to guide into it all and to teach what they could not bear daring His earthly ministry. The truth was there in His person; but yet the best taught of His disciples did not understand at all fully even fundamentals till He was risen and glorified. But now the Holy Spirit had been sent down from heaven, and Gentiles without circumcision had received Him, no less than did the circumcised believers. Was this nothing in their eyes? Is it not a solemn lesson that disciples could be so blinded by their religious habits as to overlook a fact so plain, certain, and conclusive? For God had taken care that not the apostles of the uncircumcision but Peter himself should be His chosen instrument for the call of Cornelius, in the presence of the six brethren of the circumcision that accompanied him from Joppa.
It is instructive also to observe, if faith is ever humble, bold though it may be, how presumptuous error is. For these men who were clamorous for the necessity of circumcision, ventured not to plead that apostolic authority had laid down any such dogma as they sought to impose. Their judgment and their dignity, we may say, proceeded from themselves, in this behaving like the Gentiles who know not God.
Insurrection against the truth was thus permitted to display itself in the face of the apostles, that the Lord might give us His own distinct and ever-abiding correction. What a mercy to us, as well as to the church of God ever since, that this question was not suppressed till the apostles disappeared from the earth! We should then have had only an uninspired answer however sound. Now we have what all Christians own to possess divine authority. That which an apostle writes is really the Lord's commandment (1 Cor. 14:37).
The troublers came from Judaea, which with the weak and ignorant would be apt to lend weight to their words. Of this Satan is ever active to take advantage. Human tradition readily creeps in, and as naturally flatters the flesh. The Holy Ghost falls back upon the word; only we must take care that we do not require the letter which kills when we can only have the spirit which gives life. Subjection to Christ alone keeps us right; life in Him is always obedient and holy, and is the way of true intelligence. Human tradition is never to be trusted even among disciples. God is jealous for His word, which bears constant testimony to Christ and therefore against human pride. The men who came down from Judea were imperious nominally for God; it was really for the flesh and self. They would have cut off, if they could, not only the Gentile saints but the apostles of the uncircumcision.
“And when Paul and Barnabas had not small dissension and questioning with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up unto Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question” (ver. 2). Here again let us admire the wisdom of God's ways. Paul and Barnabas themselves were unable to settle the dispute. Self-will is invincible, even for apostles. God had it in His mind to interpose in a much more impressive and efficacious manner. It might have been dangerous, however desirable in itself, to have terminated the present matter of debate at Antioch. For the evil, being inveterate as to principle in the nature of things, would surely have broken out afresh subsequently, and elsewhere, probably worst of all in Jerusalem itself. It was true wisdom, therefore, to transfer the further discussion of the question to the source from whence the mischief had come; more particularly as Paul and Barnabas would go there, in order that it might not only be heard but there and then settled by all the authority given of God for the governing of His assembly on the earth. All was thus directed under the good hand of God; for the evil was judged in the quarter from whence it emanated, where presumably, not to say notoriously, was its hotbed, where lived those who knew best its promoters, and where all was rather favorable than hostile to them; with on the other hand the immense moral weight that would follow the judgment from such as God had set first in the church to govern in the Lord's name.
In Gal. 2 the apostle Paul says he went up “according to revelations” Here the inspired historian says that they (i.e. the brethren or the laborers generally without defining more) arranged or decided that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem about this question. There is no more contradiction than in Acts 13 where the Spirit called unmistakably and exclusively the same servants of the Lord to a definite missionary work, while they also enjoyed the cordial and holy fellowship of their fellow-laborers in commending them to the grace of God for that tour. They may have had the revelation direct as in Acts 16 or through the prophetic intimation of others as before; what is certain is that “according to revelation” Paul went up, and not merely as a step appointed by others. Each statement is in perfect keeping with the document where it is given, and the Holy Spirit's design in each, though men as usual have not been wanting to set them in antagonism. Titus was one of these others, and his case at least of immediate bearing on the question, as an uncircumcised Gentile endowed and honored of God beyond most; but this again is specified only to the Galatians for its importance there, though room be amply and evidently left for it in the Acts. The rationalistic misuse of God's word is an instance of that ignorance or dishonesty, if not both, which characterizes the system. The believer ought to have no hesitation or difficulty, inasmuch as faith adheres to all scripture as divine.
“They therefore, having been set forward by the assembly, passed through both Phenicia and Samaria, recounting the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy to all the brethren” (ver. 3). Is there any good reason why προπ should not be rendered here as in Rom. 15:24, 1 Cor. 16:6, 3 John 6? No doubt the heart of the saints was with them, not with the legalists; but there was considerate and affectionate care for their wants by the way, whether or not there was any escort, as in ch. 21: 5, which some conceive here. The picture is a lovely one, the joy in all created by the accounts heard of God's grace outside Israel. What a contrast, with Jewish jealousy! Yet are unlettered men and women peculiarly open to superstition, prejudice, and human feeling. But divine love prevailed, in accordance with the truth. Others alas! who for the time ought to have been teachers had again need to be taught the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God and had come to need milk, not solid food. It is harder to unlearn than to learn.
“And on arriving at Jerusalem they were welcomed by the assembly and the apostle's and the elders, and reported all things that God did with them. But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, believers, saying, It is necessary to circumcise them and charge [them] to keep the law of Moses” (ver. 4: 5).
The heart of the church beat truly; but there were adversaries now within as well as without. It was not yet the conference, but meetings preliminary to it, where the wonderful works of God by the gospel drew out sympathy or opposition among those at Jerusalem who bore the Lord's name. Those who at this time resented the liberty of grace are expressly said to have believed. The crisis therefore was grave. Unity—unity not merely by-and-by in heaven, but now on earth—is the blessed privilege and the unalienable responsibility of the body of Christ, the assembly. There was no such unhappy wish as to forestall the due place, by dealing with the question where Paul and Barnabas had especial and commanding influence, and then arguing on the church's unity to compel the communion of the assembly in Jerusalem and of course everywhere else. Yet Antioch might have been plausibly set forward as the only proper place to discuss and determine a question which so intimately concerned the Lord's glory among the Gentile believers. For not from Jerusalem but from Antioch were those ambassadors of Christ sent forth who had been the great pioneers in the missionary work of the Holy Spirit. Self or party could have furnished abundant reasons; but Christ held His place, which first sought His will and then made all saints dear, even those who were creating trouble by their lack of grace, lowliness, and intelligence. Thus the snare was avoided by which Satan sought even then to scatter and make a Jewish church apart from the Gentile; or, at the least, by leaving out the assembly in Jerusalem the apostles, and the elders, to begin a separate course at Antioch, which would ere long end in division if not immediately. But grace and truth prevailed, the respect clue to all those whom the Lord had honored, and, as we have seen, the particular principle of dealing with evil in its root, and not merely its fruits.
It was, I presume, at this juncture that the apostle, as he tells us in Gal. 2, set the gospel he preached to the Gentiles before those of reputation in private. It was then they saw that he had been entrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with that of the circumcision; and that James, Cephas, and John gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship according to that partition of the work which the Lord had already marked out for all that had eyes to discern. This was of the utmost moment to state in, the Epistle; but it was outside the public history and independent of the council which is the Spirit's. object in the chapter before us. The independence of Paul's mission and work does not enter into view here; whereas in the letter to the Galatians it was of capital moment, and the decrees of the council not named, where they could have no just place, and their mention might have wrought only mischief. How truly, in the New Testament as in the Old, to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Above it is uncalled for, where all is light, peace, and love to God's glory.