ACTS 15
(With allusions to Galatians 2: 1 - 10)
The great point before Satan and his tools was to make the church part of the world system, and the battle as to this has to be fought at Jerusalem.
The great point with many is to have an orthodox faith; but Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. The Spirit is life, Christ living in us and we in Him. The saints in Galatia were very much exposed to Judaising influences, because people came down from Jerusalem and influenced them, so we see God so ordering it that the matter should be gone into and settled at Jerusalem.
Paul went up by revelation; the important point with him was the gospel which he preached; it was not a mere question of circumcision with the apostle, it was a question of living. There is such a thing as circumcision in the spirit, it is now spiritual circumcision, that is, of the heart. ‘Concision’ is used as a term of contempt. Had circumcision been submitted to, the church would have become a sect of Judaism, and the heart would not have been gained for God, and there would not have been life for God; Christ came in order to bring in life.
The Christianity of today has become a mere creed, and you must be orthodox; but when the Spirit is seen as life, circumcision takes its true place, and it is then that of the heart. You can only put off the body of the flesh in the power of the Spirit. You enter upon new ground, resurrection ground, and you want to apprehend what God was about when He raised up Christ from the dead, “faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead”. In Galatians 2: 2 we see the wisdom of the apostle in speaking “[p. 477] privately to them which were of reputation” — to those who were conspicuous, before he brought it forward in a more public way. It was thus settled for the spiritual ones before it came forward publicly. Then the troublers evaporated in talk, and then Peter tells them how God had chosen him to go to the Gentiles and had given them the Holy Spirit, apart altogether from circumcision. Abraham was taken out of the world in the first instance; why, then, should not God visit the Gentiles to take out from them a people for His name? The promise to Abraham was, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”. In Acts 15: 12 we see “the multitude kept silence”, and then wisdom came in by James. It is wonderful that God should allow us to see what was attempted to be brought in to corrupt the gospel. The great point for us is to understand what the gospel means; the point of circumcision was settled once and for ever, but for us it is a great thing to see the principle that was involved, namely, was the church to be incorporated with the world? And for us to see what God intended by Christ: He came that we might live, and not to live according to the course of this world, but to live by Christ; it is that we might live in the present by Christ and not as a future thing, as Paul could say, “Christ liveth in me”. If I live in Christ, then Christ lives in me. Christ has brought us into the liberty of sonship — liberty belongs to sonship, and for sonship you must have life and the Spirit. It is the sense of divine love that enables anyone to cry, Abba, Father. The Galatians needed to be brought into liberty, therefore he puts before them sonship. You get three points brought out in Galatians of import as bearing upon liberty: (1) Abraham is our father; (2) I am a child of promise as Isaac; (3) Sarah is our mother, and then you have the exhortation: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty”.
You want to insist on what the coming of Christ [p. 478] really meant, namely, that we should live by Him; 1 John 4: 9. We want to understand the reality of our relationship with God; God could not give less than sonship, for the last Adam is the Son of God. There is a mighty energy in Him in the Spirit of God; and of the believer it says, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Everything for us depends on the measure in which we know the love of God.
“O love supreme and bright!
Good to the feeblest heart”. (64:6)
As to things to be eaten, and the rest, God goes back here to the original word to Noah: the blood was not to be eaten, it was to be poured out to God; all life belongs to God. You need not ask questions, but if it comes before us, we must not eat. Acts is a very interesting book, there were many difficulties and trials, but all were surmounted by grace. The great point for us is to maintain the gospel in its integrity, and the aim of it is life in Christ.