Four Rules for the Gentiles

We have another interesting and important question for this issue of the News. “Why did the leadership (James, etc.) of the church require the four ‘essentials’ that are listed in each of these three verses: Acts 15:20, 29 and 21:25?”

Acts 13-14 tells the story of Paul’s first missionary trip. He and Barnabas had been gone about a year preaching in different cities of Cyprus and in central Asia Minor or Turkey. Finished, they returned to Antioch in Syria, their home church, and “there they abode long time with the disciples” (14:28).

Some Judaizers from Judea headed north and began to teach in Antioch that circumcision was necessary for salvation (15:1). Paul and Barnabas opposed them and their teaching, and were sent to Jerusalem with others to report to the church there (2-4). The same dispute about circumcision also arose in Jerusalem about that time, and the matter was submitted to the judgment of a council of apostles and elders (5), as well as prophets, such as James, our Lord’s half-brother and the author of a canonical epistle, Judas and Silas (32), and Agabus (11:27-28).

After considerable debate, the counsel of Peter, Paul, Barnabas and James was followed, so it was decided that the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised. The debate over this issue did not end with the council. It continued to trouble the churches and is the subject of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he says, “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (5:2-5). The debate about circumcision was not over non-essentials but over the gospel itself.

Having established at the council the truth that circumcision is not necessary and the gospel that justification is by faith alone without works, the council decided on four rules, and it commissioned Paul and Barnabas to report these decisions and rules to the Gentile churches (Acts 15:22-26). The rules they set are the four “essentials” to which our reader refers.

The four essentials or rules are “that they [i.e., the Gentiles] abstain [1] from pollutions of idols, and [2] from fornication, and [3] from things strangled, and [4] from blood” (20) or, in a different order, “[1] from meats offered to idols, and [2] from blood, and [3] from things strangled, and [4] from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well” (29). These four things, as our reader notes, were mentioned again when Paul returned to Jerusalem from his third and last missionary trip (21:25).

Pollutions of idols in Acts 15:20 is the same as “meats offered to idols” in verse 29. Fornication refers to any sexual sin but probably refers here to the immorality that was part of the worship of idols. Things strangled would be meat of birds or animals that had been killed by strangling and in which the blood was still present. Blood refers to the eating of blood as in blood sausage and such like.

Fornication is always wrong, a violation of the seventh commandment, but the other things are not in themselves evil, though an argument can be made against the eating of blood, since that prohibition was given along with the death penalty to Noah after the flood. Certainly the eating of meats sacrificed to idols was not in itself wrong but forbidden only if it was an offense to others. Paul makes the point in I Corinthians 8 that, even if offered to idols, meat is only meat and has no power to save or damn anyone, an important principle of Christian liberty. Paul tells the Christians in Corinth to avoid offense but also tells them to ask no questions about the meat they purchased in the “shambles,” the meat markets of the day, much of which came from the pagan temples.

Though fornication is listed among the things the Gentiles were to avoid, the decision of the Jerusalem Council emphasized avoiding fornication and the other things because they were especially offensive to the Jews. The Jews regarded the eating of meat from beasts that had been strangled, meat with the blood, as a violation not only of the laws of Moses (Lev. 17:13) but of the precepts God had given Noah after the flood (Gen. 9:4). They also regarded the eating of blood as abhorrent, following the teaching of Leviticus 17:10-14. It was the life of the beast eaten or sacrificed and belonged to God as an atonement for sin. Idolatry and its associated practices were hated by them as well.

The history of the Maccabees, though not inspired or part of sacred history, is important background that illustrates the importance of these rules of the Jerusalem Council in the relationship between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. The four hundred years between Malachi and Christ include the subjugation of the Israelites by the Syrian Seleucid kings, with Antiochus Epiphanes IV being the worst of them. During their dominion, they defiled that which was to the Jews the holiest place of all.

The Seleucid army had set up an idol, probably a bust of Antiochus Epiphanes IV, in the temple, offered swine’s flesh on the altar of burnt offering, forcing the Jews to participate in these heathen rites and to eat the flesh of those idol sacrifices (168 BC). They had introduced temple prostitution into the courts of the temple as well and the temple became a place for drunken orgies dedicated to the worst of the Greek gods. It was no wonder that the things forbidden by the Jerusalem Council would have been particularly offensive to the Jews. The history of Antiochus Epiphanes IV was not long past.

During that same period, the apostasy of many Jews, under the influence of Greek culture and philosophy, would have been remembered by the Christian Jews of Paul’s day with detestation. History speaks of those apostate Jews sporting naked in the gymnasiums, and associating with the Greeks in the sacrifices and pagan worship that often accompanied the Hellenistic infatuation with sports and games. The two apocryphal books of I and II Maccabees, and Daniel 11:31-39 tell some of this history.

This is the best explanation of the rather unusual set of injunctions established by the Jerusalem elders and apostles. The main thing was avoiding giving offense to the Jewish community and that fits the context as well. Paul and Silas had just returned from establishing new churches of largely Gentiles converts. The controversy with the Judaizers over circumcision was raging. It had to be established that circumcision was not necessary for salvation, but it was also needful that the Jews be shown that the rumours about Paul and the Gentile churches were not true. Those rumours are mentioned in Acts 21:20-21: “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.” The prohibitions of the Jerusalem Council are then mentioned in Acts 21:25.

All of this is a reminder to us of the important principle, that we must avoid offense, not only in matters of sin but even in things indifferent, things that are not in themselves right or wrong. This principle is established in I Corinthians 8 not only but also in Romans 14. Even in things indifferent, we can cause another to sin, and must be very careful not to do that out of love for a brother. As Paul puts it in I Corinthians 8:13, “Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.”

Avoiding offense: that was the issue in Acts 15:20. That may seem like a small thing, but is part of manifesting the love of our heavenly Father to others and showing that we have that love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). Offense cannot sometimes be avoided but it should then be what Paul calls the offense of the cross (Gal. 5:11), the offense that sinful hearts take at the Word of God. It should not be anything that can be avoided, anything personal. Rev. Ron Hanko

John Calvin: “In sum, if love be the bond of perfection and end of the law; if God command that we study to preserve mutual unity among ourselves, and that every man serve his neighbour to edify, no man is so ignorant which doth not see that that is contained in the word of God which the apostles command in this place, only they apply a general rule to their time. Furthermore, let us remember that which I said before, that it was a politic law which could not ensnare the conscience, neither bring in any feigned worship of God; which two vices the Scripture condemneth everywhere in men’s traditions” (Comm. on Acts 15:29).

The Sword: Advice for Christians Today

I wish to encourage members, ministers, elders and deacons in the churches to hold fast to “the faith which was once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) in a day of compromise and lack of love for the truth. I will bring out some spiritual comparisons and parallels from a striking incident in nineteenth-century military history.

During the Crimean War (1853-1856), in which the United Kingdom, France, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia-Piedmont fought against the Russian Empire, there was an epic cavalry attack in the Battle of Balaclava immortalized in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854). The poem records a stirring exhibition of valour and daring. Yet I will not focus on the battle itself but rather on an incident that took place within it.

At the end of the attack, a British lancer was found dead, killed in the battle. This was not unusual, for the British cavalry suffered very heavy casualties in this charge. Nevertheless, there was something unique about this lancer and his circumstances.

He was found alone with no fellow lancers with him, though his corpse was surrounded by dozens of enemy dead whom he had slain. He had evidently lost his horse, which had probably been shot from under him, and had charged at the nearest enemy position to engage them with his sword.

Now what was it that enabled this lancer to slay so many of the enemy? Was it his greater strength and longer reach than the Russians? Was it that he was armed with a sword and they were not? No, this lancer was as were all in the light brigade: light. He was not tall or muscular. Instead, it was the Russian artillery troops who were big and strong. They had to be in order to lug the heavy artillery pieces around the battlefield. They would have had the longer reach and they too were armed with swords.

On investigation, those who found the dead lancer discovered that on his body were over fifty strike marks made by Russian swords, twenty of which were on his head. Yet they had failed in most cases to draw blood. He was more bruised than cut. In contrast, the enemies had life-ending wounds inflicted upon them. Thus it became apparent that the lancer’s main advantage was that, whereas the enemies’ swords were blunt and ineffective, his sabre was sharp and clinically efficient.

Many times the lancer was told during training, “Your sword is the means of your staying alive and you must let it do its work. Keep your sword sharp and do not rely on your own strength. If you rely on your own strength, your weakness will let you down. Trust your sword!” He would have been taught to sharpen the sword using a whetstone, a leather strop and chamois leather until it was honed to perfection. The scabbard was to protect the sword’s edge, not to protect the user from cutting himself, as it is commonly thought today.

The lancer’s second advantage was the experience of his predecessors written down in a manual detailing how to use the sword skilfully. A sharp sword without the necessary skill to use it is of little use. Our lancer would have been warned not to lean on his own understanding but rather to follow what had been handed down in the manual, reinforced by practice, practice, practice!

We read in Hebrews 4:12 that “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword.” The comparison here is highly significant. Unlike a physical sword, Scripture is already sharp, as well as being powerful and even living! Let the Word of God do its work! Put your trust in it as Jehovah’s own mighty weapon. However, if you lack the skills to use it, it will be wielded as if it were blunt and ineffective.

Over the years, through assiduous study, tough experience, doctrinal controversies, much prayer and faithful councils, assemblies and synods, something akin to spiritual swordsmanship manuals has been written: the great catechisms, creeds and confessions of the churches! Here the theological professor, pastor, elder, deacon, seminarian and church member learn how to use the sword skilfully.

Those churches which have ignored and forsaken the creeds have forgotten how to wield the sword, so that for them it is now rusty and blunt. In the day of battle, they will be ineffective and will be defeated easily.

I humbly urge all God’s people to remain steadfast, when a great falling away is blatantly obvious in the vast majority of churches in the British Isles and across the world. Do not try to make the blade of “the sword of the Spirit” “smooth” (Eph. 6:17; Isa. 30:10). Maintain the ecumenical and Reformed creeds faithfully. Do not weaken the teaching and training of Christian adults, covenant children or future ministers, but rather be diligent to be even sharper than ever before. Let the sword do its work!

After the charge of the light brigade was over, the surviving Protestants from the island of Ireland held a worship service in a cave to praise their sovereign God. They also recalled a Dutchman, William of Orange, who brought them the liberty to worship free from Roman Catholic tyranny at the Glorious Revolution (1688) and through the Battle of the Boyne (1690) in their homeland.

As Christians, we recall with honour the worthies in Old Testament (cf. Heb. 11) and New Testament days, as well as the great saints whom God has raised up since, like Athanasius, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Francis Turretin and Herman Hoeksema, to teach and defend the beloved truth of which we witness.

Most importantly, we remember and worship our glorious Saviour who brought spiritual freedom to His beloved people through His atoning sacrifice, the Christ from whose mouth proceeds “a sharp twoedged sword” (Rev. 1:16; cf. Isa. 49:2; Rev. 2:12, 16; 19:15, 21). Remember, “the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (II Tim. 2:19). Elder Brian Crossett

Jesus’  Weeping

This month’s questions is: “Why did Jesus weep at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35)? Some say that His tears here teach us not only His humanity, but also that there was a human desire in Jesus for something that was contrary or different to the Father’s will of decree. His Father in heaven had eternally determined this event—and Jesus, being God, would have known this. But He wept. Could not this indicate that He nevertheless compassionately willed, wished or desired that these things be not so? That things would have been otherwise? The humanity or human heart of Christ desiring, willing or wishing something different to the divine determination? Even if it is small? If so, why could this not also imply that He could have elsewhere a different or contrary wish regarding the destiny of the non-elect? A desire or wish that they would be saved?”

Before I answer this question, let me thank all the readers who continue to submit their questions. I am amazed at the number of questions, at their variety and at their quality. I have not had a question that was not worth answering, though I have not yet gotten to all of them.

“Jesus wept.” This is the shortest verse in the Bible, but one of the most profound and heart-breaking. That my Saviour wept at the tomb of Lazarus makes me weep for my sins and for all that He endured on my behalf, unworthy sinner that I am, for death has come into the world as the punishment of sin.

The question is, Why did He weep? Was He weeping for a friend? Weeping over death as the punishment of sin? Was He wishing that Lazarus had not died, though He knew it to be the will of God? Was He weeping for all those who die in unbelief, wishing they could be saved?

There are important theological arguments against the view of Jesus’ weeping presented by our questioner. If His weeping reveals a will or desire contrary to the will of God regarding the death of Lazarus or the destiny of the non-elect, then Christ’s will is not in harmony with the will of God. If He did not mean what He said, “I come to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:9), then we can never be sure that what He did do was all the necessary will of God for our salvation.

If weeping Jesus desires the salvation of all and somehow that is also God’s desire, then the God of election is not in harmony with Himself, is not one in His will and desires. Then, in relation to God’s love, we are like a little girl pulling the petals off a daisy and saying, “He loves me … He loves me not.”

Some say that this desire of Jesus is only His humanity showing through. If as God He willed the death of Lazarus, as well as the damnation of the non-elect, while as man He willed otherwise, then the two natures of Christ are not in harmony with each other. Then He is not God come in the flesh, God and man in one divine Person. Then we have two Christs, the old error of Nestorianism. As one Person in two natures, He cannot want one thing as man and something else as God.

Thus the view presented by our questioner either compromises the doctrine of election (one will of God in election and another in God’s revelation of Himself in Christ) or it compromises the doctrine of God’s simplicity, that He is one in all His works and ways, always in perfect harmony with Himself, or it compromises the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ’s two natures, that He is God and man united in one Person. These are the devastating theological consequences of that erroneous view.

Those who see in Jesus’ weeping a compassion for all men, perhaps especially for those who are unsaved, claim to magnify His mercy and pity, but they end up doing the opposite. If Christ’s weeping was for those who go lost, then His pity and mercy are no different from, and no more useful than, my own. I need a Saviour whose pity saves, whose mercy lifts me out of my misery, whose compassion delivers, whose tears were shed for my redemption. A saviour whose pity and compassion are helpless is of no more use to me than any other person who sympathizes with me. How shallow and unsatisfactory, then, to see in Jesus’ weeping an unfulfilled desire for the salvation of those whom the Father had not given Him or a helpless pity for the lost.

I need a Saviour who, in perfect harmony with the will of God, not only knows the hour of my death but brings it about in His sovereign government of all things, a Saviour who is ready to come for me in order to receive me to Himself at death (John 14:3). I need a Saviour who is waiting till precisely the divinely appointed moment of my death, just as I am waiting for Him.

There is, however, another side to Jesus’ weeping. His weeping is not just an emotional response to suffering and death, like our weeping at the graveside of a family member. It is not only sorrow over the breaking of earthly bonds and relationships. It is that but not only that. Lazarus was Jesus’ friend, and the thought of Lazarus rotting and stinking in his tomb must have moved Him deeply. Christ knew that He would raise Lazarus, just as we know a departed believer is in heavenly glory waiting the final resurrection, but that does not make death any less horrible.

Also He must have wept at the knowledge that death was the consequence of sin. Who would have realized that more than the Son of God? We are so inured to sin and its horrors that we seldom think of sin at the graveside, but Jesus, the holy Son of God, would have seen that in a way that we can not.

Certainly Christ also wept because the death of Lazarus reminded Him of His own impending death at Calvary. Just as He groaned and sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane, with knowledge of what His own death would be under the just wrath of God against sin, so He must have wept at the tomb of Lazarus.

Nevertheless, the most important things about Jesus’ tears at the tomb of Lazarus is that they are part of His atoning suffering, every tear more precious than diamonds. Hebrews 5:7-9 tells us this, “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.”

Weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, Christ was learning obedience in suffering, the obedience that would bring Him to the horrors of His own death on the cross. That same obedience would bring Him through death to the perfection promised. Thus He brought salvation. His tears, therefore, are described as “strong” or powerful. They accomplished what no other tears would do. “Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow, All for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and Thou alone.”

Instead of the theological speculation and wishful thinking involved in this month’s question, all should understand that, as Christians, we must think biblically (Isa. 8:20). John 11 states three times that Jesus loved Lazarus (3, 5, 36), as both his two sisters (3) and the Jews recognized (36). Out of His love for Lazarus, Christ prayed for him (11:41-42; 17:9) and died for his sins (and those of all His elect) just a few days later (John 13:1; Rom. 5:8; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5:2, 25).

John 11 states that Lazarus was Jesus’ “friend” (11). On the night of His arrest, our Lord averred, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” before adding, “Ye are my friends” (John 15:13-14), a term of endearment which includes not only the eleven disciples but also Lazarus, as well as all God’s true children.

In the chapter before the account of Christ’s weeping at the tomb of His beloved friend Lazarus—a sheep if ever there was one!—Jesus declared, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14-15). Later He added, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one” (27-30). These words are true not only regarding Christ’s beloved friend Lazarus but also for all who trust in Him alone as the mighty Redeemer.

A saviour who wept helplessly at the tomb of Lazarus is not the Saviour I need. I need One whose tears are strong to save and of atoning value, for nothing else can pay for my sins. Unable even to weep for my sins apart from His saving grace, I find in my Saviour’s tears the power to weep for my sins, the hope of eternal joy and the reason why all my tears will be wiped away in the future. Rev. Ron Hanko