Did the Apostolic Council set aside the Sabbath? (Part 1)

In Acts 15, the leadership of the early church met to settle a controversy."Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: 'Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.' This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question" (Acts 15:1, 2*).

Around this time, the issue of circumcising Jews who had become Christians was debated among the Jewish proselytes in the Christian community. Josephus tells of Helena, queen of Adiabene, and of her son Izates, who embraced Judaism under the influence of a Jewish merchant named Ananias. King Izates feared that his subjects would not accept him if he submitted to circumcision. Ananias assured the king that circumcision was not the most important thing: "The king could, he [Ananias] said, worship God even without being circumcised if indeed he had fully decided to be a devoted adherent of Judaism, for it was this that counted more than circumcision. He told him, furthermore, that God Himself would pardon him if, constrained thus by necessity and by fear of his subjects, he failed to perform this rite. And so, for the time, the king was convinced by his arguments. Afterwards, however, since he had not completely given up his desire, another Jew, named Eleazar, who came from Galilee and who had a reputation for being extremely strict when it came to the ancestral laws, urged him to carry out the rite." (Antiquities 20.41-3, Loeb).

Among other things, this history tells us that Jewish agents traveled about the empire, some advocating a lax policy on circumcision, others a strict one. Paul wrestled with a similar situation in some of his churches. So the controversy over Jewish proselytes and circumcision was not limited to Christians.

The Jerusalem council took up the issue around A.D. 45. After much discussion, speeches by Peter and James crystallized the consensus, which was then written down. The Gentiles were commanded "to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality" (Acts 15:29).

Generations of scholars have wondered what reasoning process the apostles followed to arrive at their conclusion. On what did they base their decision?

Levitical precedent

Under the direction of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28) the apostles found a passage in the Torah that laid down rules that applied to aliens living among the Jews. Notice how the decree of Acts 15:29 follows Leviticus exactly, in precise textual order. Notice also that each segment of Leviticus repeats that the law applies to non-Jews:

"You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols:" Converts to Christianity must no longer offer any sacrifices to idols; "this is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come. Say to them: 'Any Israelite or any alien living among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to sacrifice it to the LORD that man must be cut off from his people'" (Lev. 17:7-9, italics added).

". . . from blood:" "Any Israelite or any alien living among them who eats any blood I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from his people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your selves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, 'None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.' Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, 'You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off" (Lev. 17:10-14, italics added).

". . . from the meat of strangled animals:"¹ "Anyone, whether native-born or alien, who eats anything found dead or torn by wild animals must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be ceremonially unclean till evening; then he will be clean. But if he does not wash his clothes and bathe himself, he will be held responsible" (Lev. 17:15, 16).

". . . and from sexual immorality:" "The Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: "I am the LORD your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt. . . . No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD. Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother.... Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. Do not have sexual relations with an animal. . . .The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things'"" (Lev. 18).

Leviticus 17-18 offers a far stronger parallel with Acts 15 than the Noachide covenant of Genesis 9, which forbids only blood but says nothing about food sacrificed to idols, things strangled, or porneia. The Noachide laws may have influenced Leviticus 17-18, but it is Leviticus 17-18 that stands behind Acts 15 (a later passage that mentions approximately the same offenses is Ezekiel 33:25, 26).

The apostolic rationale is obvious: the laws of Leviticus 17 and 18 explicitly refer to Gentile proselytes—the word translated "alien" here is the Greek proselytos in the Septuagint (LXX).

Was the apostolic decree provisional?

Modern expositors often claim that the apostolic decree was merely provisional or temporary. But the source documents suggest otherwise. Allusions to the decree are found in the last book of the Bible: "Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality" (Rev. 2:14).

This is repeated in 2:20. By twice citing the first and last stipulations of the apostolic decree of 15:29, John implies the binding nature of the whole. There is no doubt that the apostolic decree stands behind the text, for Revelation 2:24 alludes to it again ("I will not impose any other burden on you;" cf. Acts 15:28). Evidently some Christians at the end of the first century did not regard the apostolic decree as testing truth, and John, as he wrote the book of Revelation, regarded this group as heretical.

John's position prevailed in the second-century church. The Didache, which may be seen as a species of early Christian "church manual" written around A.D. 100, says "Keep strictly away from meat sacrificed to idols, for it involves the worship of dead gods" (6:3).

Justin Martyr claimed that Christians "abide every torture and vengeance even to the extremity of death, rather than worship idols, or eat meat offered to idols" (Trypho 34). Eusebius regarded the teaching that there was no harm in eating things sacrificed to idols as a heresy of Basilides (Hist. 4.7.7).

In the second half of the second century, Christians were still not allowed to eat the blood of animals (Hist. 5.1.26). Finally, all bishops of the Christian church, up until the capture of Jerusalem by Hadrian around A.D.

135, were Jewish (Hist. 4.5), not Gentile, and so were expected to enforce the apostolic decree. Evidence suggests that the apostolic decree was still considered normative well after the New Testament was completed.

Did the Apostolic Council set aside the Torah?

It is impossible to maintain that the church leadership in Acts 15 intended to set aside the Torah when their decision was based upon the Torah. It is important to remember that the apostolic decree exempted only Gentile believers from circumcision; Jewish believers were still expected to observe it. This is implied not only in Acts 15 itself but also in an interesting conversation between James and Paul recorded in Acts 21:20-25. It may help to read the passage aloud, emphasizing the words in italics:

"Then they Dames and the elders] said to Paul: 'You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. ... As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.'"

In other words, James and the elders were apparently chiding Paul for allegedly teaching Jewish Christians that they were no longer bound by the law (21:21), in violation of the agreement of 15:19, which exempted only Gentile Christians (21:25). This explains the elders' request to Paul in 21:23-27 to sponsor four Jewish brothers in observing a vow (probably the Nazirite, see Num. 6) to reassure the critics that Paul, a Jew, was "living in obedience to the law" (Acts 21:24).

It is unclear whether Paul agreed with James that Jewish believers should be circumcised. In 1 Corinthians 7:19 Paul writes, "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts," but he makes no distinction between Gentile and Jewish believers.

The issue would arise, however, only in the context of Gentile converts, though it is unlikely that Paul would have objected to Jewish believers circumcising their own children.

At any rate, his acquiescence to the elders here (Acts 21:26) and his earlier circumcision of Timothy (16:3) show, at the very least, submission to church leadership.

Even later Paul made sure he was ceremonially pure before he entered the temple (Acts 24:18). So Paul him self observed parts of the ritual law ("to the Jews I became like a Jew," 1 Cor. 9:20). He even seems to have supported in principle the prohibition against meat offered to idols (1 Cor. 10:14-21), although he created a major loophole where the origin of the meat was uncertain (10:25-28).

Unresolved differences among New Testament leaders

The New Testament debate over the law is easier to understand if we allow for the possibility that Paul and the Twelve had unresolved differences of opinion on the matter.² Galatians 2:12 seems to suggest that Paul's theological opponents in Acts 15:1, 5 were allied in some way with James.

This much, however, is clear: the Jewish founders of Christianity did not expect Jews to abandon their heritage when they accepted Jesus. Indeed, the earliest Christians considered themselves not as a separate religion but as a sect of the Jews known as "the Way."³

Paul regarded Christianity as fulfilled Judaism, and Gentile Christians as true Jews: "It is we who are the circumcision" (Phil. 3:3). "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code" (Rom. 2:28, 29). "It is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring" (Rom. 9:8). "Those who believe are children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7). "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (verse 29).

By the end of the first century John even refused to allow ethnic Jews the right to any longer claim the title "Jew."⁴ The church called itself "Israel"5 and assumed Israel's canon. The apostles saw the church as the legitimate continuation of God's covenant people.6 They believed they were authentic Jews, so they did not simply discard the Jewish Scriptures and start from scratch. Rather, they selectively discarded certain "external regulations applying until the time of the new order" (Heb. 9:10).

It is essential to remember that early Christianity was derived from the Old Testament. Christian evangelists did not preach from Christian texts before the destruction of Jerusalem at the earliest, and prob ably not until the second century. Their preaching was based on the canon of their parent community, Judaism—in the same way that con temporary Adventist evangelistic preaching appeals only to the traditional Christian canon, ignoring any later authoritative writings.

The apostles would have been astonished by the modern evangelical notion that nothing in the Old Testament is binding except that which is repeated in the New. Paul believed that "all [Old Testament] Scripture ... is useful for teaching" (2 Tim. 3:16). "Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?" he asks. "Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law" (Rom. 3:31).

Luke, Paul's disciple, records the words of Jesus: "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law" (Luke 16:17). He also records Paul's testimony in a Roman court of law, "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets" (Acts 24:14).

If the apostles did not simply dis card the Torah, how could they set aside circumcision for Gentiles? Notice that the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 17:10-14, where circumcision is commanded, is said to apply only to the descendants of Abraham and their slaves—not to the aliens living among them. Exodus 12:43-48 implies that aliens living among the Jews were not normally circumcised unless they wanted to partake of the Passover.