Gentile and Jewish Christians

Some twenty years had now elapsed since the death of Jesus. The church was well established through two large districts. The first district had for its center Jerusalem, and included the churches of Judæa, Samaria, Galilee, and the cities of the adjoining coast lands such as Cæsarea and Joppa. These churches were predominantly Jewish. The second district was to the north, and included Syria and Cilicia. These churches were predominantly Gentile. At the head of the former work were James and Peter. At the head of the latter was Paul.

These two divisions of the church were not merely geographical. Nor were they racial, a matter of Jew and Gentile. The real question at issue was: What is Christianity? The immediate question, however, was that of the Jewish law. The life of the faithful Jew was regulated by innumerable laws. Besides the religious feasts and ceremonies, there were endless restrictions about what was clean and unclean applying to food and places and persons. To these rules the Jew was accustomed from his childhood. They were looked upon as sacred and unchanging, as given by God through Moses. What should the Christian do about these rules?

The first disciples probably thought nothing about the matter. The rules were more or less a habit of life, and they continued them. It was another matter when the gospel spread to the Gentiles. Here two serious questions arose: (1) Must the Gentiles be circumcised and keep the Jewish laws in order to be Christians? (2) If the Gentile converts do not keep the law, how can the Jewish Christians who keep the law associate with them? For the great object of the law was to keep ceremonially clean; to associate with those who did not keep the law would render a man unclean in the same way as if he did not keep the law himself.

These questions the church had not fairly faced and settled. Luke, it is true, tells us that this whole matter was met by Peter. He gives us the story in Acts 10:1 to 11:18. There he tells how Peter, in obedience to a vision, goes to Cæsarea and preaches the gospel to a Gentile, a Roman centurion named Cornelius. The latter is called "a devout man," that is, a Jewish proselyte, though apparently not circumcised. Peter goes in to this man, and baptizes him and his household, though such association meant ceremonial impurity to a Jew. On his return he is remonstrated with by the brethren at Jerusalem. In reply he tells of the vision that he had of the clean and unclean meat, and the words that came to him, "What God hath cleansed, make not thou common." The church then acquiesces in this position. As a matter of fact, however, this was the whole cause of Paul's conflict. If the church did take this position at this time, they did not maintain it. It seems quite likely that Luke has put this story concerning Peter at an earlier date than where it really belongs.

The real crisis came at Antioch at the close of this period of Paul's work. So long as he was not disturbed from without, Paul had felt no need of raising the question. He had preached his gospel of faith to the Gentiles without asking them to keep the law. He had probably allowed Jewish Christians to take their own course. There was no harm in his eyes in keeping the law so long as men saw clearly that they were not saved by this, but by their trust in Christ, and so long as these Jewish Christians were ready to associate with their Gentile brethren. The church at Antioch was mainly Gentile and the Jewish Christians did not hesitate to sit down with these Gentiles at the Christian meals which they ate together. This was the "liberty in Christ Jesus" which Paul preached and which the Jewish brethren accepted.

It was men from the Jerusalem church that brought about the crisis. The church there, it seems, had been moving backward toward Judaism rather than away from it. Among the new converts were not a few Pharisees, and there was an increasing element that stood for strict observance of the law (Acts 15:5). They had at least the example of James, if not his leadership. This party sent representatives down to Antioch to find out what the practice there really was. Paul calls them false brethren, "who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage" (Gal 2:4; Acts 15:2). These men began teaching Paul's converts that they could not expect to be saved if they did not keep the law, putting circumcision as the sign and test of the whole (Acts 15:1). They probably attacked Paul's authority at the same time, declaring that he was no genuine apostle, but that the true apostles were at Jerusalem, and that these kept the law.

Paul decided to act at once and went up to Jerusalem. He had a threefold reason for going. (1) The immediate reason was that he saw his work in danger, and he wanted to secure freedom for carrying on that work among the Gentiles. He did not ask for authority, for he believed that his authority came direct from God. He simply wanted recognition of the fact that his right to proclaim this gospel was on a par with theirs. (2) Paul wanted to maintain fellowship with the mother church for the sake of his Gentile converts. That church was the living link with a great past. They represented a heritage of which Paul the Christian was as proud as Paul the Jew had been: the whole story of Jehovah's dealings with his people, the words of prophet and psalmist, and all the rest of the Scripture. The Christian Church was but the continuation of that history, the true Israel. The Old Testament was its Sacred Scripture.

The mother church joined these pagan converts to that past. (3) And, finally, Paul believed in the one church and the one fellowship of Christian believers. By this he did not mean one organization or one central authority. He never submitted his churches to direction from Jerusalem or elsewhere. The unity was that of the Spirit and of fellowship. Then, as later, he did all that he could to maintain it. The body of Christ was one. The disciples were all brothers and members one of another.

Luke gives us some interesting material in his account of the Jerusalem meeting (Acts 15), but we must turn to Paul to get the real meaning of that occasion. Of the details we cannot be sure. It seems that there were two gatherings. Paul and Barnabas reported their work before the church as a whole. The Judaizing disciples raised their demand that Gentile converts should keep the law. Paul had with him a Greek convert, Titus, who was not circumcised. Their request that Titus should submit to the rite Paul flatly refused. Then, however, Paul lays the matter before Peter and James and John in private conference. From them he asks the recognition of his right to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and that there should be fellowship between the Gentile churches and Jerusalem. Face to face with the story of his great work, these men cannot say no. They see the Spirit of God in what Paul is doing and they give him the hand of fellowship. They will preach, as before, to the Jews; he to the Gentiles. Paul has won his first great point, freedom to carry on his work. In return he promises to remember the poor at Jerusalem, a promise that he loyally carried out.

Luke relates, in addition to this, that the church issued a formal decree requiring that the Gentile Christians should "abstain from the pollutions of idols [that is, from meat that had been offered to idols], and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood" (Acts 15:20). If such a decree was given at this time, it does not appear to have had any particular effect. Certainly, it did not solve the problem of the relations of Jews and Gentiles. Paul does not mention this in speaking of the conference, nor does he refer to it later when he takes up, with the Corinthian church for example, one of the matters here referred to. The decree as such seems to have had no authority for him. It is quite possible that such a decree was issued later and sent to the churches of Syria and Cilicia. It was certainly not carried by Paul west of the Taurus.

The agreement at the Jerusalem conference was really a compromise, not a solution. How insufficient it was soon appeared. Peter in the course of his work came to Antioch, where the Jewish Christians had associated freely with their Gentile brothers. When Peter came down he did the same. Into this scene of fellowship there came some of the Judaizing Christians from Jerusalem. Paul says they came from James. What they said we do not know. They may have admitted that the Gentiles could be Christians without keeping the law. But they insisted that a good Jew must keep the law and dare not associate with such Gentiles. What right had he to throw over the sacred law of Moses? Why should he give up the heritage of the fathers that had set Israel apart, and put himself on a plane with the Gentiles? With such arguments they not only swept Peter off his feet, but the rest of the Jewish Christians, and even Paul's old friend, Barnabas.

Here, at last, the real issue appears, and it is Paul that brings it out. The real question is not that of dividing territory, Jewish and Gentile, or recognizing each other's work. The question is, What is Christianity? Or, as Paul puts it, How shall a man be justified? Paul does not simply take the defensive. He attacks Peter. Peter is dissembling, playing a part. Peter believes as truly as Paul that he is saved not by keeping rules, but by faith in Christ; by the mercy of God, and not by what he earns through keeping the law. But if Peter expects to be saved by this, why does he try to compel these Gentiles to keep the law? (Gal 2:14-16).

Just what the issue of the matter was at Antioch we do not know. Two results are plain. (1) The Jerusalem agreement turned Paul definitely toward the larger Gentile world. The final and greatest period of his ministry now begins. From Antioch he moves on to Galatia, from Galatia to Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia, while beyond these his eyes rest upon Rome and distant Spain. (2) The conflicts with the Judaizers continue, and form Paul's severest trial. But there is never any doubt in Paul's mind as to his right or as to the final issue. History justifies him. The gospel which moves through the Roman world is a gospel that is free from Judaism and Jewish law. And Christianity ceases to be a Jewish faith and becomes a world religion.

Directions for Reading and Study

Read Gal 2; Acts 15:1-35.

Compare carefully these two accounts. Some scholars hold that Luke is following the common custom of writers of his day in composing the speeches that are assigned to Peter and James, either using materials that he had on hand or setting forth what he assumed to be their position.