Clough Acts Lesson 37

Dispensationalism – Acts 15:1-5

Acts 15:1-5, “And certain men who came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. [2] When, therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. [3] And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia, and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. [4] And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. [5] But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, who believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.”

In Acts 15 we face the first ecumenical council of the Church. It’s called ecumenical in the right sense of the word ecumenical, not in the wrong sense, because this represented the entire Church. Acts 15, from the way Luke put that together it’s very obviously an important chapter. It’s important for many reasons. These Church councils that were held from time to time in church history, at least in the early days, before apostate became rampant inside the Church as well as outside, in the early days of the Church it was the ecumenical councils where great doctrinal issues were decided. When there was a difference of opinion among believers it wasn’t settled by whose opinion versus our opinion; it was settled by reference to a deep theological discussion on the basis of Scripture. The places in which these councils were held subsequently became the labels for these great councils. For example, the Council of Nicea, the Council of Ephesus, the Council of Chalcedon, and finally this one, the Council of Jerusalem.

These Councils are important from many points of view. They’re important because it shows a method that the early Christians used to solve their differences. It was a method of solving differences decently and in order, no riot, no breaking of fellowship, but a reference back to the ultimate standard of truth and on the basis of that ultimate standard of truth the issue would be decided. So that’s the first thing we can learn from Acts 15, is how to solve doctrinal differences and the answer we’ll get is watching how they did it in the early days.

But there’s something else, another lesson to learn from Acts 15 that we want to go over and over and over again, and that is the emphasis the early Church placed on creed, that is, what to believe; not just that they believed. Now there are several Christian organizations which have promulgated this slogan, it’s kind of an inane slogan when you think about it but nevertheless it’s a very popular slogan, in fact, a very pious sounding slogan. The slogan goes like this: “We have no creed but Christ.” Now if people today had known their Latin instead of taking creative writing or some other stuff in school, they would understand that “creed” comes from the Latin word credo, which means I believe. When you say you have no creed but Christ, you have just said I do not belief; I don’t think that’s what you really want to say, but in fact, that’s what is being said. “I have no creed but Christ” means that my Christ is content-less, it doesn’t matter who Christ is, he may be Adolph Hitler, or he may be Joseph Stalin but that’s all right because “I have no creed but Christ.” I’m not caricaturing the belief, this is the logical conclusion of such a statement, an inane silly, silly statement, “I have no creed but Christ.” Or, “I have no creed but the Bible,” that’s another silly statement. What is the Bible? Which Bible, the Koran? Or the New Testament and the Old Testament? If the New Testament and the Old Testament then what books? And do you hold to inerrancy or not? Is the Bible your sole criteria of truth or is it an add on along side reason? Or aren’t going to answer those questions? If you don’t answer them then your faith is content-less; if you do, then you have a case, but in no way can you ever say “I have no creed but Christ.” That’s a silly statement and I hope people, at least at Lubbock Bible Church are never snowed by that kind of a silly inane type of thing. The early church had creeds and they were proud of them. It was solely on the basis of their creeds that they established their unity. Unity is a result of a creed; unity is not threatened by a creed. The people that howl today against doctrinal dissension are people who in fact have a very, what we call in certain circles of management, they have a hidden agenda that they love to come to people with and they love to manipulate people with a slogan of unity and a slogan of loving Jesus when in fact what they want to do, but never say it honestly is they want people to conform to their creed, carefully [can’t understand words—

the tape is a very poor recording] their creeds by themselves.

We have a symptom of this kind of thinking in this week’s newspaper where the head of the Baptist Life Commission and Rabbi Tenenbaum are attacking evangelicals for questioning religious candidates on their religious beliefs. Of course some things they say and criticize are true, I don’t think Christians have the right of asking a candidate whether he’s born again; it’s none of their business, but Christians certainly have the right to ask candidates their beliefs, their creed, and why? As I’m going to point out to them that the reason why this is happened is because the government first began to interfere with the local church. We didn’t have evangelicals pestering candidates for their religious views five years ago for very good reason. Five years ago the government stayed out of the churches business. But the government first chooses to interfere, like the state of Texas tried last year, if the church decides it’s going to close down charitable orphanages that Christians have worked hard to support as they’re doing in Corpus Christi, if the government decides they’re going to close down Christian schools like they’re trying to do in South Carolina and New York and in Ohio, then it is the government’s fault, don’t blame the evangelicals for a backlash; it is the government’s fault for first intruding a domain they have no business intruding in, and as soon as the government backs out and keeps off of it, evangelicals will then stop asking candidates for their religious views, but it’s not the evangelical community that’s at fault; the evangelical community is simply rallying to defend itself. It’s going to stop being the world’s biggest doormat while the Baptist Life Commission does nothing except pass papers around, but then criticize those of us who are trying to do something.

So the first ecumenical council gives us a model for showing us how to meet creedal problems: content, content, content! See, politicians don’t like to be asked specific questions because they love to equivocate and when they can’t equivocate with a specific question they get very irritated. So let’s look at Acts 15 and see how the early church did not equivocate; when asked a question they demanded an answer to the question, they demanded a true answer to the question. And they did not rest until they got an answer to the question.

So let’s look at Acts 15:1, “And certain men who came down from Judea and they were teaching the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Now these people were self-appointed reformers, if you let your eye drift down to verse 24, when they finally get down to Jerusalem to straighten things out it’s said that “You must be circumcised, and keep the Law, to whom we gave no such authorization.” In other words, these were the lone rangers, self-appointed experts in doctrine, who were going to straighten out certain local churches. Instead of proceeding through the mechanisms that were available to them… for example Lubbock Bible Church in our constitution and we go over this and over it and over it again and again with new members, that in the constitution there is available to you all sorts of mechanisms if you disagree with what is taught. But no, people generally when they disagree with what is taught get mad, start a gossip campaign, start calling people up on the telephone, they’re self-appointed agitators; they are lawless people, antinomians who do not believe in doing things decently and in order, and so are these people in verse 1. Instead of taking advantage of the legal system of meeting and discussion, they’re going to perform their self-appointed ways.

Now the issue that is being raised, notice what they say, “unless you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Why is this issue raised at this time? The reason this issue is raised is obviously a result of chapters 13 and 14, Paul’s missionary journey. What’s happened on that missionary journey? Two things have happened on that missionary journey; first the Gentiles have begun, en masse, to respond to the Word of God. And they’ve been allowed to join the ranks of the Church without going through Judaism first. And that’s really bugged a lot of the orthodox Jewish people. And then the second thing is, there’s been an increasing hostility on the part of the Jews.

All right, let’s see, we have to go back to a doctrine, in some circles this is bad news to ever mention the word, but we’ll mention it: dispensationalism. The problem here is defining what age they were in; what was going on at this point in history. Is it true that what ought to have happened was for these men first to become Jews and then after they’re inside the Jewish camp then inside that camp become Christians? Or do you get into the Christian camp direct, without going through first this intermediate step of becoming a Jew. See, this is the great debate that was going on and it had to be settled. It was settled and out of the settlement of Acts 15 came one awareness of dispensations.

First let’s go back and look at dispensations and then we’ll go to the text itself and we probably won’t get further than the 5^th verse. What is the definition of a dispensation? A dispensation is defined by Dr. Charles Ryrie, the head of the graduate school Dallas Seminary, he has written the classic text on Dispensationalism, Dispensationalism Today, by Moody Press. In this book he defines a dispensation as: a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God’s purpose. Now a synonym for dispensation would be administration. For example in politics, the Ford administration, or the Nixon administration, or the Carter administration. From one man to another would be a different dispensation. That’s all the word dispensation means; it’s an administration, a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God’s purpose.

Now let’s define it a little bit tighter; what is God’s purpose? God’s purpose can be two things; this is God’s ultimate purpose. There are a lot of people who follow the orthodox Reformed Theology who are what we call covenant theologians. And that is, not that they believe in the Mosaic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant, they do but that’s not the issue. The way they use the word covenant is a synonym for… I would use the word God’s overall plan, that God has a covenant of grace that is sequentially administered in history. And therefore all things can be explained in terms of the covenant of grace; or they have another one called the covenant of redemption. Their point is that the only purpose of God’s plan is redemptive, that that is the end point, the end goal, the reason why God bothered to create in the first place, the reason why Jesus Christ died on the cross, ultimately, and the reason why we have history wind up the way it does, because God wants to redeem. Now that’s the Reformed position.

Those of us who are dispensationalists disagree; we say that that purpose is true but it’s not all there is to God’s ultimate purpose. By itself it’s incomplete, it needs something in addition to it. God’s purpose is bigger than just this specific purpose of redemption. We believe that God’s ultimate purpose, a purpose so large that it can encompass heaven and hell together, is doxological, that God’s ultimate purpose is for His own praise, that God’s ultimate purpose is stated in Revelation 4 and 5, “Thou art worthy.” See, whether the Christian winds up in heaven or in hell, he will be forced to admit for all eternity that God is worthy of all creature worship. It says in the Bible that the creatures in hell must worship Jesus Christ, and yes they will, though reluctantly and so we say under a degree of coercion. But nevertheless they will worship knowing very clearly that God is worthy of every creature’s bowed knee. That is God’s purpose from the dispensational point of view—doxological. So much for God’s purpose.

A dispensation is a specific or distinguishable economy in the outworking of God’s doxological purpose. What do we mean by “distinguishable economy?” We mean that there’s a different set of rules. Under the Old Testament you have one administration; under the New Testament you have another administration. Two different administrations, worlds of change. In the Old Testament, you, if you are a believer, or if you’re a member of Israel, believer or not, you will be held accountable for offering of physical blood sacrifices, and you would be out of fellowship with God if you didn’t offer blood sacrifices for your sin. That would be a specific responsibility placed on your shoulders and you’d better perform or you’d be out of fellowship. That is the rule, and that rule no longer holds in the New Testament, so there’s been a change in the rule and that is what we mean by “distinguishable economy.”

But more than that we have to be careful because some people will say, men like Dr. Rushdoony, who apparently do not read very carefully in areas of dispensationalism, insist that dispensationalists divide history into totally different compartments, that the dispensational God is not immutable. But that’s wrong and that’s not what dispensationalists have taught. Dr. Rushdoony shows us, because he never footnote’s Dr. Ryrie’s book in any of his writings, which shows he never read it. The point remains that we have a set of rules in the Old Testament, we have a set of rules in the New Testament, for example like you’d have the Nixon administration and the Ford administration. The Nixon administration might have one policy in HEW and the Department of Defense; the Ford administration might change the policy in HEW but retain the policy in the Department of Defense. It would be an entirely different administration but some things would carry over and some things would change.

Now that’s all the dispensationalist is saying; some rules change but some rules don’t change. Let’s take the Ten Commandments as one example. In the Old Testament there were Ten Commandments, now if you study the New Testament epistles, nine of those epistles are repeated. So therefore, nine out of the Ten Commandments remain the same from one administration to the next, but one does change; the rule about worshiping on the Sabbath day. So therefore, dispensationalists look to continuity but they look also to change from age to age.

Critics of dispensationalism say that we teach that there are many ways to be saved. Dispensationalists have never taught, I haven’t read any dispensational literature ever, that even hinted that men were saved in different ways. To make sure we understand this, let’s draw a little chart. Salvation in the Old Testament, salvation in the New Testament, and then let’s study and compare how these actually transpire. First let’s look at the object of worship. The object of worship in the Old Testament is God the Son, whether He’s made known as “the name of God,” “the angel of God,” “the Word of God,” it is always God the Son. Now that’s classical Trinitarian theology, it’s been around for all little while, approximately a thousand nine hundred years, so it ought to be understood, that the object of man’s worship is God the Son. The object of man’s worship in the New Testament is God the Son; so what’s changed? Nothing has changed; the object has remained the same. How dare people say dispensationalists are teaching something radical has changed.

Let’s go to the basis of salvation; how is a man like Abraham saved? How could he approach God and be perfectly acceptable as a [can’t understand word] sinner before a holy righteous God? Was Abraham saved because he kept the Torah? He couldn’t have been, the Torah didn’t exist in Abraham’s day. So Abraham could not have been saved by keeping the Law. How, then, was Abraham saved? He was saved because God looked forward to the cross, that’s how he was saved. God anticipated His work on the cross and because He anticipated this Abraham was saved. Now in the New Testament how is a person saved? He is saved by looking back to the cross. So has this change? Not at all; basis of salvation in the Old Testament, basis of salvation in the New Testament exactly the same.

Let’s look at the means by which a person was saved. How was Abraham saved in the sense how did that salvation work get applied to his account? It got applied to his account by grace, accepted by faith. How does it get applied to our account in the New Testament? Grace, accepted by faith. So what’s change? Nothing has changed there either.

So three major issues have remained the same. How then, can anyone who has studied the issues, are say that dispensationalism means radical change in God. Not at all. What has changed, and everybody finally has to agree that this has changed, is the content of revelation. In the Old Testament there was less; in the New Testament there was more. Now who’s going to debate that subject? Did David know as much about Christ as you do? Obviously he did not. David knew no more about Christ than you and I know about the Second Advent of Christ; we have a little prophecy about what’s going to happen, we know approximately where it’s going to take place but we don’t know when, we don’t know exactly all the details that’s going to happen when Christ comes back to this planet. Well if we don’t, therefore, how can we believe it? Because we have a basic outline, that’s why. And I trust God with the basic outline. And that’s my expression of faith. All right, that’s how the Old Testament saints looked forward to the cross of Christ; they had a basic outline in the blood sacrifices and the typology of the temple and the Torah and the imagery and so on, and out of that they placed their trust in Jehovah. So they had less revelation than we do.

Let’s go on, one more thing; what about the duties of the saved. In the Old Testament, someone counted them up, I can’t authenticate the figure because I haven’t bothered, but some counted up, there’s 613 do’s and don’ts in the Torah; 613 do’s and don’ts in every area of life, from taking out the garbage in the morning to what you’re eating in the evening, do’s and don’ts over all areas of life. And those were duties imposed upon believers. That’s the area of sanctification; you couldn’t say I follow the will of God and not do these commandments. All right, in the New Testament what do we read? Well, you read it in the epistles and so the duties of Christians and believers in the New Testament is outlined in the epistles, and these fit; there’s a distinct change in the responsibility of people in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Now I do not know why people have such difficulty with this truth. I see nothing illogical about it, I see nothing unbiblical about it, to me it is one of the keys to Scripture, and I can’t understand why people object to this but they do. So that is all we said about the definition of a dispensation: a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God. Now all this background is necessary for Acts 15 so hold on.

Another criticism that is often made against dispensations is that it was dreamed up by C. I. Scofield; in Reformed circles it’s called Scofieldism, but certainly dispensationalism is a radically new thing, it just came down the pipe. In Dr. Ryrie’s book here are some of the men who are dispensationalists in church history. Justin Martyr lived about 150 AD, I’d say that’s a few years before C. I. Scofield, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine; Augustine you might say is kind of an outstanding person in church history; Jonathan Edwards, Isaac Watts, all you have to do is open a hymn book and read Isaac Watts, the great friend of the Wesley brothers, wrote all of our hymns, he was a dispensationalist. In fact, he’s a more rabid dispensationalist than C. I. Scofield ever thought of being. So next time you hear this little phrase about Scofieldism and everybody starts it with Scofield, bologna. The real history of the Church is where it’s all at.

What is the key behind dispensations? What is it that makes a dispensationalist a dispensationalist. Why is he one? Does he go to a club and pass through a secret initiation and suddenly he has a little label, Big D under his navel and this makes him a dispensationalist? Is there some smoke-filled room somewhere, where everybody gets together and plots how to take over the church with Scofieldism. Is that what makes a dispensationalist a dispensationalist. Not at all. A dispensationalist is a dispensationalist for one reason only; he is trying to be consistently literal with his interpretation of Scripture all across the board; that’s what makes a dispensationalist a dispensationalist, period. Nothing else; you can be dispensationalist and never have heard of Dallas Seminary or C. I. Scofield but if you carry out that one principle you will wind up every time as a dispensationalist. And one of the key areas where you will wind up as a dispensationalist is distinguishing between the Church and Israel.

Now here’s where the Protestant Reformation never got its stuff together. It started a lot of good thing things but Reformed Theology never finished the job that it started. Reformed Theology saved us from allegorical interpretation; Catholicism has reeked with allegorical interpretation over the Middle Ages and it fouled up a lot of genuine believers and the only way the Reformers could get the thing straightened out was to say hold it here, we can’t have a book that means eight things to seven people, because I see this and I see that, that’s not the way you interpret literature. You’ve got to have some control over this thing and so the Reformist said the control is literal interpretation, it goes all the way back to the school at Antioch in church history. Now that doesn’t mean that when you see Jesus says I am the door that means He has hinges and a door knob on Him; that’s not literal interpretation. Literal interpretation means that you interpret the Scripture like any author would want you to interpret them. Use your head, common sense. Literal interpretation means that if I write you a letter I expect to communicate something or I would waste postage, it’s going up every day, I wouldn’t bother with a 13 cent stamp to write you a paper that would be a mirror so you could sit there and out of the quarry of the paper and ink you could build your own system of what you thought I said. That’s not the purpose, this is not why you write letters, why businesses pay thousands of dollars each year for secretaries that sit down and type letters, because the guy at the receiving end can interpret any way he wants. Come off it, get real.

The reason for writing and speaking is to communicate content. But suddenly this rule doesn’t apply when it comes to religious writing and religious statement, now [can’t understand word] shifts and there is a new rule, now content doesn’t much matter any more. [can’t understand word] is a dispensationalist, content does matter, and when we use these words, church and Israel, we’re talking about two entirely different things. And this is one of the flag issues or one of the touchstones of dispensationalism. In Reformed theology they believe that the Church is an extension, somehow, of Israel. They speak often times of the church of the Old Testament, or the spiritual Israel of the New Testament. And this is a theme that is strong in their theology.

But now if you go to interpret Israel the way it’s interpreted in the Old Testament, there’s only way of doing it and that is if the person has the genes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Said another way, it means the Jewish people [can't understand word], Israel means Jewish people. Now that’s the interpretation of Israel literally. It doesn’t mean Gentiles, it means Jewish, Jewish people. Now there’s two ways is in which Israel is used in the Old Testament; it can refer, for those of you who have a little modern math, use your set theory, here’s a set of all people, who are Jews, who are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Inside that set are a subset of those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who are born again. And the word “Israel” can mean either of those two entities; it can mean the overall set of physical Jews or it can mean the subset of born again physical Jews. But it never in the Old Testament is used of the people that lived at Nineveh; it’s not used of the people that live at Phoenicia, it’s not used of the people that live at Alexandria, it’s never used that way. It’s only used of Jewish people.

Now what right do you have to come to the New Testament, rip off the word Israel and suddenly it becomes this new word with this metaphoric all Christians? There are lots of believers in the New Testament and the Old Testament that were not in the nation Israel; there was Naman, the Syrian captain, there were the men of Nineveh that responded to Jonah’s teaching. There were lots of believers in the Old Testament, maybe Cyrus the Great was a believer, we don’t know. But there were believers in the Old Testament and they were never said to be part of Israel. Israel was not used as a synonym for believers. It was used as a label for Jewish people, period, no other meaning.

Ah, but says the people who are taught dispensations and literal interpretation, they say come on over here to Galatians 6. Okay, we’ll walk over to Galatians 6 and take a look with them. In Galatians 6:16, they say, here’s your proof text, here’s where it says that the nation Israel is used in a metaphorical way, here’s where it drops its literal meaning and here’s what the principle and verse invalidates your dispensational view of literal interpretation. By the way, they’ll never take you to another verse, this is the only one they can find. Now in this verse says, “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God,” they say look there, “Israel of God,” there’s a metaphorical use of the word Israel, there it’s used as a label for Christians. And Christians include Gentiles and Jews, not just all Jews but Gentiles and Jews, so there’s a proof text that Israel refers to all born again people and not the nation Israel.

All right, let’s look at it again and just go through very slowly and think along the lines of English grammar and recognize that there is a complexity in this verse; there’s a little thing called a-n-d and that is a conjunction in the English language, and a conjunction divided two parts of the sentence. And there is a part that precedes the conjunction and there is a part that follows the conjunction. And if you look at the part that precedes the word “and” what does it say? “As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God,” there are two groups of people in verse 16, “them” and “the “Israel of God.” Okay, now who’s the “them?” Gentiles in Galatia; who’s “the Israel of God?” The sub set of born again Jews that are incorporated into the Church, so Galatians 6:16 does not violate the principle of literal interpretation, Israel is still meaning Israel here.

All right, so that’s the sine qua non of dispensationalism, a literal interpretation; this is why when we go back to the prophecies that refer to the nation Israel in the Old Testament we don’t apply these to the Church. It doesn’t say “church,” it says “Israel.” And so we’re so bold as to believe that when the Bible says Israel it means Israel. It doesn’t mean the Church, if God wanted it to refer to the Church He’d use the word “Church.” He refers to Israel and so the prophecies about Israel refer to literal physical Israel. That’s why we say there’s something significant about 1948, there’s something significant about 1967 when the Jews take over the temple area, there’s something significant because that’s a fulfillment of prophecy literally interpreted, that Israel has got to come back onto the scene politically before Christ can return because Christ is pictured as referring to Israel. And what did Christ say, “Pray not that I come on the Sabbath day,” that implies that there is going to be Sabbatical legislation. What nation on earth do you know today that has Sabbatical legislation? Palestine, Israel, they have Sabbatical legislation and that’s why Christ is praying, “pray that I not come if you have to flee on a Sabbath day,” the buses don’t run, transportation is down and it’s just a tremendous logistic mess of getting a large group of people anywhere more than a mile on the Sabbath day. So this is why we believe in literal interpretation.

So let’s come back to Acts 15 and see why dispensationalism is so important to understand this chapter. In Acts 15 you’ve got the Church not yet realizing what’s happened. We’ve stressed this again and again, if we work carefully through the book of Acts, we can sit down as Monday morning quarterbacks and say oh, yes it’s all obvious to us. Well, that’s fine, we have just a little perspective of 1900 years retrospection on the thing, but it wasn’t obvious to the people who were there. Let’s look at some of the things that wouldn’t be obvious; suppose we could all take a time machine and get transported back to the land of Palestine, 30 AD. Now I’m sure some of you have the idea that well, you could spot Jesus in the crowd because He looked different. Huh-uh, Isaiah 53 says you couldn’t spot Him, He’d blend in with the crowd. Huh, you mean the Son of God didn’t look different from other people? That’s right, He was a member of the human race, He was the same as other people. There wasn’t any distinguishing marks physical about the Son of God? No, Isaiah 53 distinctly says He looked just like plain Joe, that’s all, He wasn’t particularly handsome, He wasn’t particularly outstanding in His physique, He just blended in with the crowd.

You say isn’t that striking, you mean the Son of God, God Himself is incarnate walking about the face of the earth and he didn’t look different? No, He didn’t. You see this is why, a lot of people could say He didn’t look different, how do you expect when God comes back, you know, you’d expect to see Mr. Perfect walk down the aisle, perfect physique, perfect looks, the most handsome man that ever lived. Jesus was not the most handsome man who ever lived. How come? Isaiah 53 says he is one of us; He’s not prejudicing the case by a physical issue. Well, then how would you, if you were involved in an interview, say, how would you recognize Christ if you came up to Him physically? Only one thing, what He spoke and what He did. When He began to reveal His soul to you you’d recognize who it was. You see, the recognition of Christ always was on a spiritual plain, not a physical one. The criteria of spotting the Messiah was not physical and so if people cannot spot Christ in this today, what is that telling us? They would never have spotted Christ if He walked right up to them and knocked on their door. Now that’s hard for some people to really think. They think oh, but it’s different, it’s different, this is just a book, if Christ were really here it would really be different. No it wouldn’t, because the Holy Spirit is here now with you. So the same people that are responding to the Word of God today are exactly the same people that would have responded to Jesus, and the people that frankly could give a damn for this [think he holds up Bible] could frankly give a damn for Jesus. Same attitude, doesn’t make any difference between the two. One to one correspondence.

Well, in the early days of Acts after they accepted Jesus and recognized who He was they had another problem; recognizing the existence of the Church. Let’s see if we can track this so we understand the problem so we’ll have a little sympathy at least for the big argument that’s going to start here in Acts 15. The first thing we know is that the Church began on the day of Pentecost. We can show from a number of Scriptures, I did this in Acts 2, I refer you to the tape if you’re interested in the details, Dr. Ryrie’s book or something like that. The Church began on the day of Pentecost, but here’s the problem. The Church was not recognized on the day of Pentecost. If we plot the book of Acts out on a chart we find that the blue area here is the theme of the kingdom of God, and when Acts began it just continued where the Gospels left off; hadn’t Jesus said to the Gentile woman, I’m not going to heal you, you Syrophoenician dog, and she said well, but even the dogs get crumbs off the table. And then Jesus responded to her, but the disciples remembered that; you remember how He treated Gentile women? They were dogs. Jesus was a good Jew, He even had Jewish prejudices in that sense of the word “prejudice.” Well, said the disciples, if Jesus treated the Gentile women as dogs and if Jesus prevented us from going to the Gentile villages in Matthew 10 when He sent us out, isn’t Paul a little off in going to all these Gentiles up there in Derbe and Lystra? Doesn’t that represent a break with Jesus?

Let’s try to understand the process because out of this is a little reward for us all. So it’s going to take a little work to put yourself back into the confusion of Acts 15; forget your Monday morning perspective of 1900 years, put it all aside and come back and just think of what it must have been like without our added insight to the New Testament. You’ve got a loyalty to this Christ, this Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth, but He is always very Jewish. Now all of a sudden this new guy, Paul, he’s not even one of the original apostles, he comes up and he starts this crusade for the Gentiles. Then he turns around and he’s letting these Gentiles come into the membership of the Church without even being circumcised; they’re not even becoming Jews before they’re becoming Christians. Isn’t Christianity a Jewish movement? Isn’t it part and parcel of Judaism? Isn’t it part of a set within the set of Judaism. That’s what the thinking was. They had this idea that the kingdom was still to be proclaimed that it was still a battle over whether the nation Israel would respond to the king’s claim.

But just a minute, what had happened in Acts 13 and 14? Remember we notice something happening everywhere Paul went; he went into the synagogues and what happened in the synagogues? He was thrown out. There was a rising tide of Jewish opposition corresponding with the rising tide of Gentile acceptance. Something was shifting in history and what is going on, if you can take a piece of paper on this chart, what is going on is kind of like a motion picture where it starts out as all blue, the kingdom, and then as the time goes on throughout the book of Acts and the content of the Jewish opposition increases, and the numbers of Gentiles increase, God the Holy Spirit slowly shows more and more of the Church and less and less of the kingdom. And that’s what’s happening throughout the entire book of Acts until you get to the epistles and it’s all Church. Now don’t interpret this as the Church is being suddenly phased in; it was already phased in in the book of Acts, what’s happening is that the Church is slowly being recognized.

Now herein is the wonder. And here’s the thing that is most startling, particularly in this day when people are saying oh, but in the last days God is going to pour out His Spirit and we have to have the direct revelation of God once again to know what God’s will is. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that one of the worst doctrinal disputes of all the church’s history, with very, very fundamental doctrinal disputes, was not settled by direct revelation? Doesn’t that strike you as saying something? A major doctrinal dispute was not settled by reference to new revelation; it was settled by men coming together to digest, debate, discuss, the revelation already available. In other words, when they say are we really reading the signals right, is this teaching, are we really interpreting what Jesus told us correctly; they’re going back in other words to prior revelation. And from going back to the prior revelation, that’s how they’re finding out the will of God.

If we listened to some of our friends today they’d say well, all that was necessary was Paul had the gift of prophecy, he could have given a prophetic spirit and could have said folks, this is how it is, boom, boom, boom, one two three, cut and dried, solve the problem, been no need for a Church council, no need for the discussion, no need for the argument. Strange isn’t it, the ways of God, even during the days when there was active revelation going on. Well, even this active revelation, can we plot that? Turn to 1 Corinthians 13:9 for a moment, right smack in the middle of the central passage on speaking in tongues we have verse 9, what does it say? It says “we know in part, and we” preach, or “we prophesy in part.” Now strictly translated what that’s saying is we know piece by piece, and we prophesy by part by part. The picture is something incomplete and we’re building it, a little bit here, add a little bit, add a little bit, add a little bit, add a little bit, and then he says in verse 10, “But when that which is complete is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”

It’s like this, if you build a building you put scaffolding around the building. What are the scaffolds for? Are they part of the building? No, the scaffolding is to build the wall bit by bit by bit and when the building is complete you take the scaffolds down; that’s all Paul’s saying in verse 10. “When that which is finished,” when the process is finished, the scaffolding comes down. What is the scaffolding? The temporary spiritual gift of prophecy, speaking in tongues, and knowledge. These were necessary while the Church was being built; they were the scaffolding. Why was there a necessity for a scaffolding? Because the Church had to be understood, that’s why. What had happened on the day of Pentecost had to slowly be revealed to Christians. And a little bit at a time it was, and out of this discussion in Acts 15 came an awareness of the Church.

Now here’s what most people in that day believed. They had three dispensations; you’ll see it referred to again and again in Scripture. This age or the age to come, or the last days. Now this is a scheme of classical Judaism. “Last days” refers sometimes to the time of Messiah’s trouble. Now the question being faced in Acts 15 is this? Here’s the Church; they have up to this time functioned under this age, which is the age of Moses, the age of the Law, the age of the blood sacrifice. That’s their age up to that point and they function under that age. The question they’re struggling with is now that Jesus has come, are we here or are we here? Because if we’re back here, then these guys are right; then the Judaisers are right, you come to Israel through Judaism. But if we’re in a new age then there’s a new administration and new rules. So this is why the issue in Acts 15 is the issue of dispensations. You can’t answer the critics until you answer what age are we in.

Now let’s look at Acts 15 and look at the two arguments that are being used against Paul. One in verse 1 and one in verse 5. They are two different arguments so be careful. There’s two enemies here, not one, Acts 15:1 and Acts 15:5. In Acts 15:1 the people come down from Judea and what do they do? They claim unless you be circumcised you can’t be what? Sanctified or saved? You can’t be saved. So what’s the position of the enemies in verse 1? Salvation by Torah, by the Law of Moses; that’s their position. Now when they get down to Jerusalem and have an argument again, in verse 5, there’s a little different argument used. Here it’s used by some of the Pharisees and they claim that “it was needful to circumcise believers, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.” Now that is sanctification by Torah. So there’s two issues being fought out here.

Now one of these is out to lunch completely and the other one is only partly out to lunch, so let’s go back and think. What was the purpose of the Torah? What was the purpose of the Law in the first place in the Old Testament. Well, you can read a theological journal and get 85 different purposes so for convenience sake we’ll just summarize under three headings. There were three ways of looking at the purpose of the Law in the Old Testament, from the time of Moses to the time of Christ, God was doing three things. The first thing He was doing was revealing sin; the purpose of the Law, the Torah, was to reveal sin, all sin, imputed sin, inherent sin and personal sin. Verses: Romans 3:19 says the purpose of the Law was to reveal sin. Romans 5:13 says the purpose of the Law was to reveal sin. Romans 5:13 and Romans 7:7-14; Romans 3:19, the Law reveals personal sin. Romans 5:13, the Law reveals imputed sin. Romans 7:7-14, the Law reveals inherent sin or my sin nature. You say I don’t understand how the Law reveals sin. It’s very easy. Ever see a little kid and tell him not to do something. What do the first thing? They do it, the little brats, and so therefore because they have a sin nature that makes them respond to the law by not doing it, then so we are viewed as the little brats of history under God’s Law and we respond to God like brats. And when God says don’t do something immediately there rises up within us the old sin nature that wants us to do it. So that’s what we mean by the Law revealing sin.

Now a second purpose of the Law in the Bible was to restrain sin. It sounds a little odd that it reveals it and restrains at the same time. 1 Timothy 1:9-10. In this case the Law acted as a deterrent to crime; it acted to suppress general societal crime. So it acted as kind of a restraint. If you’re told that that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, after a while you kind of get programmed, okay, it’s wrong. So restrain sin is the second purpose of the Law.

Now the third purpose of the Law was to frustrate men so much that they’d be driven to grace. It was to drive men to grace. Romans 3:20-28 and Galatians 3:24. These verses stress the Law was to drive us to Christ because we realize I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it, every time the Law happens, the Law presses me in, I fail. So there’s got to be a resource outside of myself and that resource is provided by God in grace.

So those are the three purposes. But now if those are the three purposes of the Law, let’s go back to these two arguments and see which one of them is invalid. Look carefully at the argument in verse 1 and look carefully at the argument in verse 5. One of those two arguments is wrong even on the basis of the Old Testament. The other argument is a little more difficult to meet. The answer is that the argument in verse 1, that argument is wrong even on an Old Testament basis. Those people were out to lunch even from the standpoint of Abraham, Isaac Jacob and Moses. Moses wouldn’t have agreed with that; Moses would know that you’re not saved by circumcision for the reason that the generation that went into the land was not circumcised until they got to the river Jordan; it didn’t mean they gained their salvation when they put their big toe in the Jordan River. It means that they just simply went through the process of the ritual circumcision.

So argument number one is just totally out to lunch. But the argument in verse 5 is not out to lunch, and there’s no way you can meet this argument on the basis of the Law, and that’s what the council was all about. When they finally got down to Jerusalem, that is the statement of the issue. Does the Torah act as the will of God handbook for Christians? Or do Christians have another handbook to tell them what to do after salvation? Which one is it? Moses’ handbook or Jesus’ handbook? Well, the problem was that Jesus’ handbook wasn’t written yet; only Moses’ handbook was actually physically there; you could pull out a scroll and say here’s Moses’ handbook, right here, just roll it to the verse and you’ve got it, but where’s Jesus’ handbook? Well, Jesus’ handbook was slowly being develop and that’s what 1 Corinthians 13:9-10 are all about. It was in the process of being written, and Acts 15 writes part of that handbook before this chapter finishes.

So the second argument is going to be answered; this argument is out, verse 1; verse 5, this argument is going to be answered by the answer of a new age. And that’s the only way you can answer this, that somehow Gentiles, when they become Christians, aren’t under the Law either. They are not obligated.

Let’s look at the sequence of activities; we can look at it quite quickly now because we understand the big issue. Acts 15:2, “When, therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension [and disputation with them,]” that’s the roaring King James English to describe they had a knock down, drag out fight; wouldn’t you love to get back to the days of the book of Acts, blood all over the floor. See, people are so silly when they talk about let’s get back to the book of Acts; this is what the book of Acts is all about, hashing out doctrine, fighting about it, because it wasn’t clear yet. We prophesy part by part, we only know part by part, we are in the process of the scaffolding. To show you just how bad the argument got, turn to Galatians 2, this is the epistle written to the very churches that caused the dispute. Now there is some scholarly disagreement as to whether Galatians 2 refers to Acts 15 or Acts 11; we’re not interested in answering that problem right at the moment. All we’re interested to show you is the general turmoil that was involved in the early church.

In Galatians 2:1 Paul says, “Then fourteen years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and I took Titus with me also.” Now Titus was a Christian but he was a Greek fellow; he was not a Jew, and he was uncircumcised. So therefore now this really is where the mud hits the fan. [2] “And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them the gospel, which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them who were of the reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain. [3] But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised,” in other words, Paul says isn’t it strange that when I went to the apostles they didn’t demand that Titus be circumcised. So not only can circumcision not have anything to do with salvation, apparently it has nothing to do with sanctification, because if these guys are interested in Titus spiritually, they would have said hey Titus, you know, one of the next things you have to do… but they didn’t.

So therefore that is an admission that Titus, as a Christian was not to be under the Torah. [4] “And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privately to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus [that they might bring us into bondage.]” [5] “To whom,” and notice the attitude of verse 5, it shows a little bit about this feisty little apostle Paul, “To whom we gave place by subjection, no not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.” He was dogmatic that he was not going to allow these legalists to mess up his new converts. [6] “But of these who seemed to be something … for they who seemed to be something in conference added nothing to me. [7] But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter,” verse 9, “And when James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen [Gentiles] and they unto the circumcision.” There was no problem, Paul solved it. But a little incident happened shortly thereafter.

To show you there still was a problem in the Church, verse 11, “But when Peter was come to Antioch,” remember he fled, Herod was after his head, the angel got him out of prison, Peter is still running, “when Peter came to Antioch,” that’s the place where all the riot broke out, this argument, “I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed.” You’ve heard of robbing Peter to pay Paul? This is Paul telling off Peter in front of the public. [12] “For before that certain came from James,” that’s the group that’s trotted down there in Acts 15 apparently, “he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision. [13] And likewise other Jews [dissembled in like manner with him, insomuch that] even Barnabas” did it.

So now the problem is that they’re having a nice friendly Christian fellowship up at Antioch, then along comes the squelcher crowd, oh, you’ve got to be circumcised and you’re unclean. Well, how would that [can’t understand word] your Christian fellowship because what would happen to communion service? What is communion service but a meal in the early church, it wasn’t just coming down here with these little grape juice things and a few things. In that day they had real wine and they had unleavened bread. And when they did this they had a meal that went with it. If you were a Gentile you were considered to be unclean and you couldn’t eat with a Gentile. So now what’s happened to the whole communion service in the local church the moment this crowd comes down from Jerusalem? They fractured it, they had to have two communion services, Gentiles come at 8:00, Jews come at 11:00. That’s what they did to the early church. So Paul said huh-un, and so he came up to Peter, and this shows you something else about how feisty Paul was in verse 14 he came right up to Peter in front of these guys from Jerusalem, [14] “But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If you, being a Jew, lives after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as Jews?” In other words, he said Peter, what were you doing yesterday before these guys showed up, tell them Peter. And you can just see Peter kind of slip behind the chair. So this is how Paul solved the theological problem.

Now come back to Acts 15 and you get appreciation more in depth for this dissension, no small dissension. [2] So “… they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question,” so there’s the first thing to notice about their method; they went to the apostles. You say well I thought Paul was an apostle? He was but he wasn’t one of the twelve. What would we do? If you’re in the middle of a doctrinal dispute today where do you go? You have to go to the apostles? Where do you go to go to the apostle’s? You got to the apostle’s teaching and where is the apostle’s teaching? The pages of the New Testament. So that shows you right away the solution of unity is back to the New Testament.

[3] “And being brought on their way by the church, they kept passing,” this is imperfect, it describes a process, it shows you the second thing about solving the doctrinal problem; not only did they go, in verse 2 to the apostles, but in verse 3 they developed a consensus in the Christian community and that’s why most local churches like ourselves have what we call congregational government, because we believe that the Holy Spirit will lead the congregation through many individuals and you might have an error here and this person errs but kind of on balance they balance each other out; hence the justification for congregational government. Now in verse 3, “as they were going through Phoenicia, and Samaria, [declaring the conversion of the Gentiles; and]” they tested the churches, see, they were going down, they wanted to see, I wonder what the reactions of the Christian here is to that first missionary journey of Acts 13 and 14? Let’s try it, and so everywhere they’d go they’d say hey, you know what happened last year, we went up to Turkey and this happened, and Lystra, Derbe, blah, blah, blah and they went on through the whole thing, what do you think about that? Then they’d give them their opinion. They’d go to the next church and say hey do you know what happened at Lystra and Derbe, so and so, blah, blah, blah, what do you think about that. And then they’d give them their opinion. And so that’s why at the end of verse 3 the report of Luke is that it caused great joy unto all the brethren.”

There’s the second thing, they didn’t proceed half-cocked, it wasn’t a lone ranger operation, they sought a Christian consensus, are we off the track or not, what do you think about this. And generally it was a majority view that they were right. So verse 4, they come to Jerusalem, they were received, and verse 5, the issue is now defined by the converted Pharisees. [4, “And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. [5] But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees, who believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.”]

All right, let’s summarize what we’ve seen. We’ve seen the concern in Acts 15 for a creed; the apostles in the first church were not content with no creed but Christ, they had to solve creedal problems and the creedal problem was what do we do with new Christians. The second thing we’ve noticed is that here in Acts 15 you have added more powerful sensation that hey, something’s new, it’s changed here, a new dispensation has begun and now they’re becoming aware of it. “We know in part, we prophesy in part,” we’re gradually making sense of this, it’s starting to fall together now what’s happened.

But over and above it all is a central lesson we can draw from this chapter as Christians and that is that these men’s allegiance was to the God of Scripture, not even to past Scripture. In other words, it wasn’t an autonomous conservatism; it wasn’t conservatism for conservatism’s sake, you know, as the refrain goes, “as in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be,” and this is used as a slogan in some Christian works, you know, if we did it this way and our father did it this way and our grandfather did it this way, why Paul must have done it this way. That kind of thing. Now that’s phony conservatism; conservatism for conservatism’s sake. The Christian isn’t that kind of a conservative; you can’t be.

Dr. Schaeffer has said that the consensus today, the status quo is humanist, we don’t want to be conservatives, conservatism means you preserve the status quo; well if the status quo isn’t Christian who wants to preserve it? We’re not really conservatives though it’s a convenient label in some areas. What we really are are radicals; we want to undo the foundation, we want to undermine the whole structure and rebuild the name of Christ. That’s the point, and that’s what these men did. Their sacred Judaism was coming up for discussion; their religious creeds were coming up for discussion and this is why in the practical way you want to do this as a Christian. Every belief that you now hold, somewhere along the line you ought to take it by the nap of the neck and hold it up to Scripture to make sure that this is correct and fits Scripture, even cherished beliefs. Be a healthy spiritual skeptic to check the content of your faith by Scripture. That’s the attitude we’re going to see more and more of as we go on in Acts 15, it’s a call to God to look at Him and His standard, not even our cherished beliefs.

Let’s sing hymn….