Paul pleaded the Gentile cause before the elders and apostles at
Jerusalem.[169]
After much questioning Gentile converts to Christianity were excused
from circumcision but no others were excused.[170] Jews were reminded
that Moses was preached and read to them in the Jewish Synagogue every
Sabbath day.[171]
This reminder in connection with the subject before them indicates that
Jews were expected to continue as heretofore to circumcise their
children according to the law of Moses which was preached and read to
them in the Jewish Synagogue every Sabbath day.[172]
These elders and apostles know nothing about water baptism, being the
Christian successor of Jewish circumcision or they would surely have
instructed the Gentiles to this effect when they excused them from
circumcision. Their silence upon this opportune occasion and at all
other times is decided evidence that there was no such succession.[173]
Eight years later, the same old controversy about circumcision brought
Paul again before the elders and apostles at Jerusalem.[174]
They re-affirmed their former decision that Gentiles be excused from
circumcision but reminded Paul that he (a Jew) was expected to walk
orderly and keep the law of Moses.[175] They prevailed upon him to take
a vow, shave his head, and enter into the Jewish temple until an
offering should be offered for him, because he taught Jews of the
dispersion, that they should not circumcise their children nor walk
after the customs of Moses. Paul was induced to suppress or conceal his
indifference to circumcision but not his pronounced indifference to
water baptism.
Thus closes our last recorded meeting of the elders and apostles at
Jerusalem with no apparent abatement of zeal for circumcision. To the
last they evinced much more zeal for circumcision than they had ever
shown for water baptism; and they never in any way recognized water
baptism as the successor of circumcision.
Plainly it was not by the apostles but after the apostles' time that
circumcision was discarded and water baptism exalted.[176]
Altho' Paul ostensibly yielded to the elders and apostles at Jerusalem,
yet his subsequent epistles indicate that he remained firmly indifferent
or opposed to circumcision, water baptism, and other ordinances, all of
which he called carnal, weak and beggarly elements when applied to
Gentiles. Paul said he was made all things to all men that he might win
some.[177]
To the Jews, he became a Jew, to the Gentiles a Gentile.