Holy Scriptures and Israel

Announcer (Male): Shalom. Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: Shalom everyone. Please turn with me to the book of Acts today. We are going to continue in our study of the book of Acts and we are going to go into chapter 15 today. In Hebrew, we call the book of Acts Ma'asei Shlichim, or the Acts of the Apostles, but really, it is the acts of the Holy Spirit of God through the apostles as He was using them in the preaching of the gospel to this world in which we live. So please turn to Acts chapter 15, and we are going to read today the first 21 verses.

Guest (Male): And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles, and they caused great joy unto all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them.

But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, "Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe."

"And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they."

Then all the multitude kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, "Men and brethren, hearken unto me. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name."

"And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written: After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things."

"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God, but that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day."

Gideon Levytam: This is the conclusion of the verses that I am going to read today in this ministry meeting. Verses 1 to 21 is the first section of what is known to be the council, the deliberation in the council of the city of Jerusalem. It happened already in the early years of the first days of the church where the gospel had been going to be presented before the Goyim, the Gentile world, where the message of Yeshua the Messiah had been already delivered to many of the Gentile cities in Asia Minor.

Beloved brothers and sisters, already in the beginning in the first century, problems had begun among the people of God. But this thing here, what we read here in Acts chapter 15, was a really important issue that needed to be dealt with before the apostles could continue in the preaching of the gospels among the nations of the world.

Paul and Barnabas, Shaul and Barnaba, which were commanded by the assembly at Antioch to be separated for the ministry by the Holy Spirit of God, have finished their first missionary journey. They have already visited about seven cities. They were preaching the message of the gospel and many from among our nation, the Jewish people from among the synagogues in those cities, and many Gentiles came to faith in Yeshua the Messiah.

When they had finished their first missionary journey, they returned to the city of Antioch, as we read in Acts chapter 14, verse 26: "And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And when they were come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. And there they abode long time with the disciples."

As they remain in the city of Antioch—this is Antioch in Syria, from whence they were commanded to the work of the ministry of the gospel—a very serious problem had begun by some individual Jewish believers in Yeshua the Messiah who came from the city of Jerusalem, from Judea, and began to teach things that were not right. It is very important to understand that.

In fact, in the first five verses of Acts chapter 15, we have the reason that there was that gathering in the council of Jerusalem. There was a real, important reason why the council gathered together to deliberate that important issue that rose up in the earlier century. We see the reason for the gathering together of the council in Jerusalem. It began in verse 1 because we read here, "And certain men which came down from Judea, they taught the brethren and said, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved."

Jewish believers who grew up among our own nation, just like myself and others of us that are here, knew from the scripture that God had given instruction to our forefathers, to Abraham in Genesis chapter 17 and to Moses in Leviticus chapter 12, on the important issue of circumcision of every Hebrew boy that had ever entered into this world.

I would like you to turn for a moment to Genesis chapter 17. It was so serious that God said to Abraham that if anyone will not be circumcised, this soul shall be cut off from among the nation of Israel. Genesis 17, verse 14, says, "And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant."

God had made a covenant with our forefathers, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya'akov. God made a covenant with our forefathers and He told them very seriously that they had to circumcise every male child that entered into this world on the eighth day. It was not "if" and "but" or any excuse that they would give. It was ordained by God.

If you will read in Leviticus chapter 12, we read in verse 1, "And the Lord said unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, saying, if a woman have conceived seed and born a man child, then she shall be unclean for seven days according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." And verse 3 says, "And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."

It was not only given to our forefathers prior to the law when God had given it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob later on, but it was placed in the law of Moses. That was a responsibility under the law for our own forefathers to circumcise a man child. We can talk about circumcision and its importance and what it is speaking to us of. It symbolically speaks of the cutting off of the flesh, and it is speaking of self-judgment—that man is a sinner by nature and the necessity of cutting off of the flesh.

It was a covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the descendants of Israel, the Hebrews, the Jewish people. But here now, look what happened. Because many of the Jewish people in the first century got saved and accepted Yeshua the Messiah, many of these were part of the Pharisees, part of the elders, those who were the religious people from among our people at the time when Yeshua was here in this world.

Their measure of understanding of this new body of Messiah, the church, the Ecclesia, was really limited. Their knowledge was very limited. So some of them came down from Jerusalem. Every time you go out of Jerusalem, it is "down." Into Jerusalem, you go "up." They came down from Jerusalem from Judea and they taught the Gentile brethren. Obviously, it is the Gentile brethren because the Jewish brethren were all circumcised.

They talked to the brethren and said to them, "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." I want you to highlight this phrase: "ye cannot be saved." In other words, they were teaching false teaching, as if salvation depended upon circumcision. This is downright false teaching. This kind of teaching in other things is happening today. Various groups have their various manners and teaching. They say unless you come to our group and you believe what I believe, you cannot be saved.

This is something existing today in the last days of the church, but it already started in the first century. Now, circumcision was given to Israel. Circumcision was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Circumcision was given under the law of Moses to the Hebrews prior to the coming of the Messiah to build what you call the body of Messiah, the church of Yeshua the Messiah.

For the nation of Israel, it was given, it was appropriate, it was commended, and it was instructed to them. They ought to have been circumcised prior to the coming of the Messiah because the law was enacted and they had to be circumcised. But to go to the Gentiles and say to the Goyim, to the believers from among the nations, "You cannot be saved unless you are circumcised," that is downright false teaching.

If you are male and you are not circumcised, according to this statement from what they said 2,000 years ago, you are not saved if it is true. But thank God, it is not true because salvation is only on the basis of faith in Yeshua the Messiah who died for our sins and was raised for our justification.

In verses 2, 3, and 4, we read of the sending of Paul and Barnabas and some others to the city of Jerusalem to deal with this issue. Number one, when those individuals—false brethren they are called in Galatians chapter 2—were mixing law and grace, they were not recognizing the new and living way according to Hebrews chapter 10. They were actually not acknowledging that God had broken down the middle wall of partition, as in Ephesians chapter 2.

In fact, they were occupied with the shadow and not with reality, according to Colossians chapter 2, verse 17. That is what they were doing, and it is understandable on the one hand because those of us who are Jewish can see today how difficult it is for us, not only to become believers, but to recognize what it means that there are certain things we were taught by our grandparents and parents.

When we spend many days, weeks, months, and years in the synagogue and we have been taught by our grandparents as little children about the God of our fathers and the tradition God had given to our people and the commandments we find in the Hebrew scripture, it is hard. It was indeed very difficult for these earlier believers. They taught the non-Hebrew believers and said to them, "You cannot be saved unless you are circumcised."

Can you imagine what it left on the mind of these Gentile believers who came from paganism? What do they know about circumcision? What do they know about the Torah, the Tanakh, or the Hebrew scripture? They knew nothing. They were worshipping idols. They were out living in paganism. They knew nothing about the true and living God.

The apostles Paul and Barnabas preached the message of the gospel, and they got saved gloriously. Then they had the dilemma where some were telling them they were not really saved because they had not been circumcised. That was a very important issue. Paul and Barnabas were sent to the city of Jerusalem to deal with this matter.

Notice in verse 2, there was disputation. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, apparently there was an argument. It was, in a sense, a Jewish argument. The Jewish people who came from Judea and the Jewish believers who were in Antioch, like Paul and Barnabas, were disputing with them.

They said, "What are you saying? You mean all this time that we have spent in preaching the message of the grace of God through Yeshua the Messiah is in vain? You mean now these Gentiles who became believers have to be circumcised in order to be saved?" In fact, they probably told them, "Show me the scripture that the Gentiles have been commanded to be circumcised in order to be saved." And they have no scripture for that. It applies to the Jewish people, but it is not applied to the Gentiles.

They had dissension and disputation, and then it says the church, the believers at Antioch, determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them will go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and the elders about this question. They had to deal with it because it is the foundation in the earlier stage of the church age. Do Gentiles who become believers need to be circumcised in order to be saved?

And so they sent them. In verse 3, they began to go on their way. It says they have been brought on their way by the church. If the church is a building, the building could not move. But it is the believers. You see how the Bible is so clear. The believers are the church, the Ecclesia. They were brought on their way not by the building but by the believers.

They sent them away as they were moving to Jerusalem. As they were traveling towards the city of Jerusalem, they passed through Phenicia. This is a Gentile city. They passed through Shomron, Samaria. This is where the Samaritans were. They declared to them all what had happened to them, and they gave a lot of joy unto the brethren in Phenicia and Samaria. Finally, in verse 4, they were received by the church in the city of Jerusalem, by the congregation there.