Wednesday, 01 October 2008

  • The Root and Fruit of Salvation

     

    Acts 15:5-18… Some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

    In the first century, just like the modern day, there were some who stood up to proclaim their belief that circumcision was necessary for Gentiles (all non-Jews) to be saved. They apparently did not understand grace and were requiring Gentiles to become Jewish (through circumcision) in order to be truly saved by Jesus Christ.

    These legalists, called Pharisees, had a history of forcing the Jews to obey the letter of the Mosaic Law while they themselves missed the spirit of that Law. Therefore it isn’t surprising to find them foisting their legalism upon the Gentile church. This apparently growing belief among Jewish converts led to the first church council which met to discuss this problem.

    The gathering together of the church leaders that day was intense. One side was pushing for works in addition to God’s grace for obtaining true salvation while the other was about salvation by God’s grace alone through faith in Christ alone – the same debate that exists between denominations today. The Apostle Peter stood up in the midst of the debate and humbly asserted his own influence and spiritual calling among the brothers. He reminded the gathering that day that he had been appointed to preach to the Gentiles and bring them to belief in Christ. This he had done, and he witnessed, along with other Jews, the phenomenon of Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit and afterward speaking in tongues (Acts 10:44-48) as a result of their conversion to Christ for salvation. And at no time did these Spirit-indwelt Gentiles become circumcised! Peter reminded them that God had made no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, giving both groups the Holy Spirit and making them one.

    So Peter’s question in v. 10 solved the issue. Why would the Jews tell the Gentiles that they also had to keep the Mosaic Law in order to be saved – a burden that no Jew from Moses to John the Baptist was able to keep? This made no sense, and Peter told them that in doing so they were putting God to the test – they were slandering God’s gift of salvation by grace alone.

    Peter summarized the Christian faith in Acts 15:11: “we” (Jews) are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way “they” (Gentiles) also are. Peter himself taught that God’s grace alone saves a man apart from works. Today, some still claim that God gives grace but only to those who work for it by abstaining from certain food, drink, and activities. Don’t believe it! Good works follow salvation; they don’t merit it. Faith is the root of salvation; works are the fruit (Ephesians 2:8-10).

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