The Exclusivity Of Faith – Part 1
Acts 15:6-11
December 3, 2017
As you know we have been discussing SOLA FIDE
Thus far we looked at:
THE NECESSITY OF FAITH – and that was made obvious to us because of Hebrews 11:6
Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
Obviously then we know that faith is necessary for salvation.
• However we also said that no one during the Reformation really debated that.
• Even Rome agreed that faith was necessary for salvation.
So next we looked:
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FAITH – if we’re going to determine if faith alone is required for salvation then we need to figure out if faith alone is enough.
Are there any examples of people who only gave God faith who still ended up being saved?
And of course here we looked at Romans 4
And saw that this was precisely the case with Abraham.
“Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Faith is all he gave.
Now of course we did take a look at Abraham’s faith and determine that it must be true faith in order to produce justification, but it did answer our question.
Faith is enough – Faith is effective.
So we have learned that faith is necessary,
And we have learned that faith is effective,
(which is to say that it is up to the challenge.)
Tonight I want to move a little further and look at:
THE EXCLUSIVITY OF FAITH
THE DIFFERENCE HERE IS THIS.
We have seen that faith can stand alone, just as it did for Abraham. What we are looking at now is that faith MUST stand alone.
Let me put it another way.
• We know that if all you bring to God is faith, then God will save you.
• What you must also understand is that if you try to bring anything else in addition to faith then God WILL NOT save you.
Because saving faith trusts in God 100%, not 95%
It’s not just that faith is effective, it’s that faith is also exclusive.
Now we have a word for when people try to bring God something in addition to faith to obtain salvation. That word is LEGALISM.
Legalism is defined as: “Dependence on moral law rather than personal religious faith.”
So Legalism is any time people try to trust in their own actions
Either in addition to or instead of God’s actions.
And it really doesn’t matter how much or how little a person does,
Any action regardless of its size, that a person does to earn God’s favor,
Only reveals that their faith is not complete.
They don’t fully trust God to accomplish salvation
Because they see the need to supplement God’s work in some way.
That is legalism.
And it is universally condemned in Scripture.
It’s really somewhat surprising to me that anyone would even have to debate that salvation is by faith alone since Scripture is so overwhelmingly clear on this issue.
But, regardless of the clarity, it remains a debate
For Example:
• Certainly Rome with their indulgences and deeds of penance fail to understand.
• Seventh Day Adventists who hold that the Sabbath must still be honored.
• Hebrew Roots Movement which also adds in the dietary restrictions of the Law.
• Or even the Church of Christ who see repentance, baptism, and obedience as equal partners with faith in order to secure salvation.
So I think it will be worth our while to study this threat of legalism a little
And to SEE HOW THE APOSTLES HANDLED IT.
Legalism was a very real problem of the early church.
Thanks in large part to that dominating influence of the Pharisees
Those who were coming to Christ out of Judaism
Had an enormously difficult time letting go of their rituals.
And all of that might have been well and good,
But something happened which forced the issue.
GENTILE SALVATION
When Gentiles started getting saved
It forced the church to answer the question
Regarding just how powerful faith was and how necessary the Law was.
What you may not realize is that
The church answered definitively on the issue.
Not only did the church say faith alone was enough for salvation,
The church went the extra mile and declared that
If you try to add anything to faith then you can’t be saved.
The early church and the apostles whole-heartedly affirmed SOLA FIDE
What we’re going to do over the next several weeks is listen in while some of apostles address this issue.
• I want you to hear from Peter
• I want you to hear from James
• I want you to hear from Paul
But because the study will take quite a while to get through,
I want to make sure you have the answer ahead of time.
PETER will teach that:
LEGALISM TESTS GOD
JAMES will teach that:
LEGALISM TROUBLES GENTILES
PAUL will teach that:
LEGALISM TRASHES THE GOSPEL
If you try to add anything to faith as a requirement for salvation
Then all you will do is distort the gospel and lose salvation.
We’re going to start in Acts 15 and the first ever church council
Which was convened for the purpose of answering the question of SOLA FIDE.
It all stemmed around one key question in the early church.
SHOULD GENTILES BE REQUIRED TO BE CIRCUMCISED?
Now, more than a health issue, this was a covenant issue.
“Are Gentiles required to become Jewish in order to be saved?”
You had a large number of Jewish believers
• Who still believed that their commitment to Judaism
• And their adherence to the Law was vital to their salvation.
And now you have all these Gentiles who are entering the fold
• Who have never been circumcised and who are not under the Law,
• And it really pushed the question.
The issue boils over in Acts 15.
Acts 15:1-5 “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.”
SO LET’S BUILD THE SETTING A LITTLE.
• These men from Judea where teaching this legalism we are talking about.
• Notice their statement: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Not only where they upholding a works-based salvation,
But they were ALSO INDICATING that
None of these uncircumcised Gentiles at Antioch were even truly saved.
• Forget that they already had the Holy Spirit…
• Forget that they had already been walking in submission to Him…
• Forget that they had a love for truth…
• Forget that they had a love for the lost…
• Forget that they had left paganism to worship Jesus Christ…
These men came down and indicated that despite all that,
They were still not saved.
And so naturally Paul quickly rose to the defense of the Gentiles.
(He was after all the apostle to the Gentiles)
(2) “And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.”
Paul didn’t agree with their assertion one little bit.
He did not hold to their works-based doctrine of salvation
And he challenged them head on.
However, their argument was compelling enough that instead of just dismissing these men from Judea, notice what the church did.
“the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning the issue.”
This was a serious debate, and these Gentiles wanted to know.
And so what we have here is literally a debate that threatened
Not only to wreck the church, but to split it right down the middle.
We know the path the Jews took to salvation.
• They were chosen of God, and entered into a covenant with Him.
• They then broke that covenant repeatedly.
• Christ then came and purchased their pardon.
That was their path to salvation.
But now we have these Gentiles coming to Christ
From a seemingly different path.
They didn’t get circumcised…
They didn’t accept the Law…
They bypassed all of that and came straight to Christ
And that was very confusing to the Jews.
And that is the basis for the issue regarding circumcision.
NO, THEY HAVE TO DO IT LIKE WE DID
PERHAPS YOU’VE BEEN CONFUSED, MANY ARE TODAY
There are plenty of Scriptures in the Old Testament
That clearly command circumcision.
Genesis 17:9-14 “God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. “And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. “And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. “A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. “But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
In fact years later as God has called Moses back to Egypt
God nearly killed Moses simply because he had not circumcised his son.
Exodus 4:24-26 “Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.”So He let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood” — because of the circumcision.”
In fact, not being circumcised was really a statement of being Godless.
Remember David’s reproach of Goliath?
1 Samuel 17:26 “Then David spoke to the men who were standing by him, saying, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?”
Circumcision was literally “THE” sign
Of being in a covenant relationship with God.
It wasn’t just the physical part, but what it symbolized about your heart.
Deuteronomy 30:6 “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.”
Jeremiah 4:3-4 “For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, And do not sow among thorns. “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD And remove the foreskins of your heart, Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Or else My wrath will go forth like fire And burn with none to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds.”
Even Paul would tell the Romans:
Romans 2:28-29 “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”
So circumcision was an outward picture of an inward reality
And according to Scripture it was the most important symbol.
I mean a man could even be cut off from his people if he didn’t do it.
And this is just a few of the Scriptures that could have been quoted during this debate.
And I think you can see how this would have been a confusing issue.
It’s no wonder this issue became as big is at did.
So Paul and Barnabas and others are off to Jerusalem to settle the issue.
(3-4) “Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.”
Paul really sounds confused doesn’t he?
• The debate is supposed to be that these Gentiles aren’t yet saved
because they aren’t yet circumcised.
• But that didn’t stop Paul from stopping in every town on the way to
share about God’s salvation of the Gentiles.
Perhaps it was Paul’s zeal to speak of Gentile salvation
That caused the issue to flare up again in Jerusalem.
(5) “But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.”
Now there it is again, there is a group
Who wants to say that Faith Alone is not adequate for salvation.
At the heart of the discussion was: SALVATION
What is required for a man to be saved?
And to answer the question the council of Jerusalem is about to convene.
(6) “The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.
The implications of this are huge.
THIS MESSAGE RAN THE RISK OF WRECKING THE ANTIOCH CHURCH.
(You’ll see later that this will be James’ main point when we get there)
In fact later in the chapter when the church in Jerusalem responded
With a letter to the church in Antioch they wrote:
Acts 15:24 “Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls,”
THIS MESSAGE ALSO RAN THE RISK OF DISTORTING THE GOSPEL.
(You’ll see later that this will be Paul’s main point)
BUT TONIGHT WE WILL ZONE IN ON WHAT PETER HAD TO SAY.
#1 ACCORDING TO PETER: LEGALISM TESTS GOD
Acts 15:6-11
And Peter’s first point is that requiring circumcision ignores God.
How?
You’ll see that Peter basis his position
On what God personally taught him on the matter.
GOD CHOSE GENTILES
(7) “After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.”
Do you remember Acts 10 and Peter’s Gentile encounter?
It is really one of my favorite stories.
TURN TO: ACTS 10
• (10:1-8) An Angel tells Cornelius to send for Peter
• (10:9-23) God tells Peter to go with Cornelius’ men (took a lot of persuasion)
• (10:24-29) Peter says, “Look I came even though it’s wrong, what do you want to know?”
• (10:30-33) Cornelius says, “I have no idea, I was just told you had something to tell me.”
• (10:34-43) Peter gives a half-hearted, unemotional, fact only explanation of Jesus and how they had followed Him.
• (10:44-46) The Gentiles obvious believe and God gives them the Holy Spirit.
And here was Peter’s response:
(10:47-78) “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.”
Peter there actually made a decision right then and there that
These Gentiles (despite no adherence to the Law)
Were fully saved and he ordered for them to be baptized.
PETER IS DRAWING ON THAT ENOUNTER HERE.
And we clearly see that:
• Peter didn’t choose the Gentiles.
• The Jerusalem church didn’t choose the Gentiles.
• God sent Peter to Cornelius
• There was only One who wanted Gentiles saved, and it was God.
In fact, this is quite humorous.
In Acts 11 Peter gets in trouble for going to the house of a Gentile and Peter shares the story with the Jews.
Can I show you their response?
Acts 11:17-19 “Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone.”
The only person who wanted Gentiles saved was God.
And God saved them.
And Peter’s argument is that if you try to argue that they aren’t saved, then you are actually working against the plan of God who chose them.
Peter also wanted this council to know that, not only did God choose these Gentiles, but:
GOD CONSECRATED GENTILES
(8) “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us;”
God has a unique and special way of setting apart those who are His.
WHAT IS THAT METHOD?
He gives them His Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”
And Peter said, God gave them the Holy Spirit.
That is to say that if you were to ask God
If these Gentiles were saved, then God’s answer was clear: YES
(even though they had not been circumcised)
God chose them, God consecrated them:
GOD CLEANSED GENTILES
(9) “and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.”
Not only did God choose them and consecrate them,
God also cleansed them.
That is to say, HE CHANGED THEM!!!
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
A mark of a genuine believer is the process of sanctification in their lives.
These Gentiles had left pagan lifestyles filled with idolatry to walk in righteousness and serve Jesus Christ.
GOD DID THAT IN THEIR LIVES.
And this is Peter’s point.
God Chose them, God Consecrated them, God Cleansed them
And all of that without ever circumcising them.
To come in now and declare the necessity of circumcision completely ignores all that God has already done in their lives.
• Was God’s choosing and consecration and cleansing all for nothing?
• Did God accomplish nothing by this?
By coming in now, you ignore the obvious work
God has already accomplished.
And that opens the door for Peter’s great point:
LEGALISM TESTS GOD
(10-11) “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
Now that is really an interesting statement.
Peter directly confronts his opponents.
“Now therefore why do you put God to the test..?”
I think we all know the implications and problems of this.
Namely you aren’t supposed to put God to the test.
Matthew 4:5-7 “Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'”
Hebrews 3:8-10 “DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY TESTING Me, AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS. “THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’;
You don’t test God.
You don’t push Him to prove Himself to you.
Jesus preached that “an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign”
And yet Peter says that these people,
By enforcing circumcision were testing God.
“by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear”
It will do us good to understand what Peter means by this yoke.
“Why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?”
You know what a yoke was.
It was the device that was thrown over the neck of an ox
To make it possible for him to pull a plow or a cart.
The very presence of yoke indicated work.
And Peter said that the yoke Israel carried
Was a yoke they were not able to bear.
WHAT WAS THIS YOKE?
It was the Law, and more specifically it was the requirements of the Law in order to be saved.
For those Jews who sought to earn or deserve their salvation
Through their adherence of the written command,
The attempt was literally exhausting.
There were so many commands and so many requirements that the daily grind of trying to keep up with it all would have literally exhausted a person.
Keeping the entire Law was really impossible.
It was a yoke they could not bear.
And certainly this mentality was one of the things Jesus appealed to.
Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
That was Jesus saying that He could accomplish for them
What they could not accomplish on their own.
SO THE YOKE PETER REFERRED TO WAS SALVATION BY WORKS
We can see that it is foolish to keep that yoke in place,
But more than that, it is dangerous because:
KEEPING THAT YOKE IN PLACE ACTUALLY TESTS GOD.
HOW WAS REQUIRING CIRCUMCISION PUTTING GOD TO THE TEST?
By ignoring God’s obvious work and now requiring their own conditions
They were calling into question the effectiveness of God’s salvation.
Remember the Israelites?
Exodus 17:1-2 “Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”
Then after Moses brought water from the rock
Exodus 17:7 “He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us, or not?”
They called into question the REALITY or GENUINENESS or EFFECTIVENESS of God’s salvation.
And that is what these Judaizers and this sect of Pharisees had done.
They completely ignored God’s salvation of the Gentiles,
Called it into question
And then declared that more was needed.
WHO WERE THEY TO CHALLENGE GOD’S SALVATION?
Furthermore you are requiring something of them
That we couldn’t even live up to.
You are completely overlooking God’s work and enforcing your own.
“We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”
Peter says, “We aren’t saved by our works, we aren’t saved by our efforts, We were saved by grace.
• Which one of you earned God’s favor?
• Which one of you achieved righteousness on your own?
The only reason you are saved is not because
Circumcision earned you the right to be saved,
It is because God was gracious to you.
You didn’t atone for your sin, Christ did.
You didn’t satisfy God’s righteous requirement, Christ did.
He graciously granted you salvation when you did not deserve it.
But see, to require circumcision (or any other works)
Is to minimize the grace of God
And to call into question God’s ability to save without your help.
DO YOU REALIZE THAT?
If you say that salvation is not by faith alone then you are actually testing God and saying that you don’t think God can accomplish it without your help.
That’s like if you go out and hang a tire swing in your yard for your kids,
And then someone comes up and says, “Hey, wait, before they use it let me go put some extra brackets on there just in case you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
That is what adding works to the requirement of salvation says to God.
• It says You’re salvation is not complete.
• It in effect tests God.
Can we agree that this is extremely problematic?
God actually condemned an entire generation of Israelites
For having this mindset.
Do we not remember that famous statement about them?
Psalms 95:8-11 “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, “When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. “For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. “Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”
That was a generation that rejected SOLA FIDE
• It is not that just that faith is necessary
• Nor is it just that faith is effective
• It is that faith is absolutely essential
Next time we’ll see as James weighs in on the subject.
