Acts 15:1

The first thirty-five verses of this chapter (Acts 15:1-35) relate the event which has been called The Jerusalem Council, where, it has been alleged, the mother church convened a formal session to pass on the preaching of the apostle Paul, especially with regard to the relationship between the law of Moses and the Christian gospel. However, this so-called council can never be understood without reference to another report of it in Galatians 2:1ff, delivered in that epistle by the apostle Paul himself. The widespread disagreement among scholars, many of them denying that the two reports are of one event, is due to false assumptions regarding the nature of this event in Jerusalem.

It is rather a complicated question; but the strong feeling expressed here is that there is but one event, Paul's Galatian letter being therefore supplementary information to what Luke gives in this chapter.

First of all, the purpose of the meeting in Jerusalem was that of correcting the religious position of the majority in that church, including, it may be presumed, most if not all of the apostles, as well as James the Lord's brother. The notion that Paul needed their approval in any manner is wrong, except in the limited sense of his hoping to retain the unity of the Christian movement. Paul did not need the "council"; they needed him.

THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

This event in Acts 15 is the same as that in Galatians 2 for the following reasons:

(1) Paul was converted in 37 A.D. (see under Acts 9:2); and, if Luke's placement of this event is assumed to be chronological, then the date of it must be in the vicinity of 50 A.D. This corresponds exactly with the "fourteen years" following Paul's conversion (Galatians 2:1), especially if the inclusive reckoning followed by New Testament writers is taken into account, giving a net thirteen years after the year 37.

(2) The variations in the accounts, which are somewhat startling, derive from Paul's reporting in Galatians some conversations which took place in Jerusalem between himself and James, Cephas and John, evidently before the formal meeting was convened. As far as Paul was concerned, the issue had already been decided before they had the "council"! It should also be noted that Paul's withstanding Peter to the face was an event that took place "in Antioch" (Galatians 2:11), and does not belong to the narrative of what took place in Jerusalem.

(3) The objection that Paul did not report the finding of the council to the Galatians or any other of the churches addressed in his epistles is due to a misunderstanding of what happened in that council. The sectarian idea that this was a General Council of the Church, convened to settle true Christian doctrine, misses the point altogether. The council was in error, not the apostle Paul. Although the brethren appointed Paul to go up to Jerusalem, it was God who sent him there (Galatians 2:2), not to permit the council to pass on Paul's preaching, but in order to correct the shameful failure of the apostles and elders in that city to admit the Gentiles, without any restrictions, into the Christian fellowship. In Galatians, Paul flatly affirmed that:

They ... imparted nothing to me; but contrariwise ... when they perceived the grace that was given unto me ... gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship (Galatians 2:6-9).

Paul had fully as much authority as anyone in the Jerusalem church; and it would have been shameful for the great apostle who for years had already been preaching God's will regarding circumcision and the law of Moses, both of which had been nailed to the cross of Christ and totally abrogated, - it would have been a shame for him to have submitted the issue to the Jewish party in Jerusalem, bolstered as it was by James and the apostles. No! Paul never did any such thing; but through God's revelation, he went up there to correct them and to bring conciliation, and to bring them into line with the will of God, not the other way around.

The idea of the Jerusalem church having jurisdiction over what Paul delivered, as gospel, to the elders at Lystra and Derbe is foreign to the New Testament. The Roman Church makes the event in this chapter the first Ecumenical Council of the Church; but there is absolutely nothing of this notion in the New Testament. All the objections, therefore, about Paul's not reporting the decision of the "mother church" to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians fail to get Paul's point, namely, that "The Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother"! (Galatians 4:26).

Paul was the instrument by which the Holy Spirit guided the apostles (the Twelve) into all truth, as Jesus had promised, especially on the question of the relationship between Judaism and the church of Christ.

(4) The book of Galatians was Paul's first epistle, written almost immediately after the meeting in Jerusalem, hence his saying to them, "I marvel that ye are so soon (quickly) removed from him (Christ)" (Galatians 1:6). This would give the epistle a date of 50 A.D. That Galatians was addressed to Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe as "Galatian churches" is supported by the mention of Barnabas (Galatians 2:1), his mention of "marks of Jesus in his body" (a reference to his stoning at Lystra), and the impetuous, almost indignant tone of the letter. The churches mentioned in Acts 13-14 are the only churches Barnabas helped Paul to establish (as, far as New Testament information reaches).

(5) The objection that Paul assumes for himself the sole credit for converting the Galatians, "elbowing Barnabas" out of his share of their conversion, overlooks the fact that Paul was "the spokesman," and as such could truthfully say he had converted them without denying credit to anyone. It was Paul who appointed the elders; it was Paul who was stoned; it was Paul alone, of the entire apostolic world at that time, who was preaching the true gospel (on the Gentile question); and, besides all this, Barnabas had been carried off into dissimulation with Peter and others of that conviction, this alone being sufficient grounds for not injecting Barnabas' name as one who had "converted" them. Paul's Galatian letter carried the sad news of Barnabas' dissimulation, which, at that time, had not yet been corrected, the same being another strong argument for the early date of Galatians.

Of course, the date of Galatians is a question that properly belongs in another volume; but the bearing of this chapter on the question almost compels notice of it here.

(6) The alleged reference of Paul in Galatians (Galatians 1:9; 5:3; 4:13f) to more than one missionary trip is uncertain. In fact, Macknight said: "There is nothing said in the epistle to the Galatians, of Paul's having been in Galatia more than once."[1] A reading of those passages cited above supports Macknight's view of this.