The great apostle of the Gentiles now made Antioch his home, and
resided there for many years, during which the church grew prosperously.
But at last some persons came down from Jerusalem, to observe the
progress which the new Gentile converts were making in the faith; and
found, to their great horror, that all were going on their Christian
course, in utter disregard of the ancient ordinances of the holy Mosaic
covenant, neglecting altogether even that grand seal of salvation,
which had been enjoined on Abraham and all the faithful who should
share in the blessings of the promise made to him; they therefore took
these backsliders and loose converts, to task, for their irregularities
in this matter, and said to them, “Unless you be circumcised ♦according
to the Mosaic usage, you can not be saved.” This denunciation of
eternal ruin on the Gentile non-conformists, of course made a great
commotion among the Antiochians, who had been so hopefully progressing
in the pure, spiritual faith of Christ,――and were not prepared by
any of the instructions which they had received from their apostolic
teachers, for any such stiff subjection to tedious rituals. Nor were
Paul and Barnabas slow in resisting this vile imposition upon those who
were just rejoicing in the glorious light and freedom of the gospel;
and they at once therefore, resolutely opposed the attempts of the
bigoted Judaizers to bring them under the servitude of the yoke which
not even the Jews themselves were able to bear. After much wrangling on
this knotty point, it was determined to make a united reference of the
whole question to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, and that Paul
and Barnabas should be the messengers of the Antiochian church, in this
consultation. They accordingly set out, escorted beyond the city by
the church; and passing first directly southward, along the Phoenician
coast, they next turned inland through Samaria, everywhere visiting
the churches on the route, and making known to them the joyful story
of the conversions among the Gentiles of Asia Minor, which was news
to the Christians of Palestine, and caused great congratulations among
them, at these unexpected triumphs of their common faith. Arriving at
Jerusalem, they there, for the first time, gave to the twelve apostles,
a detailed account of their long Asian mission; and then brought
forward the grand question under debate. As soon as this point was
presented, all the obstinate Jewish prejudices of that portion of
the church who were of the order of the Pharisees, were instantly
aroused,――and with great earnestness they insisted “that it was
necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of
Moses.” This first meeting however, adjourned without coming to any
conclusion; and the apostles and elders were called together again to
consider upon the matter. As soon as they were assembled they all fell
to disputing with great violence, and, of course, with no decisive or
profitable result; but at last the great apostolic chief rising up,
ended the debate with a very clear statement of the results of his own
personal experience of the divine guidance in this matter, and with
brief but decisive eloquence hushed their clamors, that they might give
Barnabas and Paul a chance to declare in what manner God had sanctioned
their similar course. The two apostles of the Gentiles then narrated
what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the heathen by them.
Such was the decisive effect of their exposition of these matters of
fact, that all debate was checked at once; and James himself, the great
leader of the Judaical order, rose to express his perfect acquiescence
in the decision of the apostolic chief and the Hellenists. His opinion
was, that only so much conformity to the Mosaic institutions should be
required of the Gentile converts, as they might without inconvenience
submit to, out of respect to the old covenant, and such observances as
were necessary for the moral purity of a professing Christian of any
nation. The whole assembly concurred; and it was resolved to dispatch
two select persons out of their own company, to accompany Paul and
Barnabas to Antioch, and thus by their special commission, enforce the
decision of the apostolic and presbyterial council. The decision of the
council was therefore committed to writing, in a letter which bore high
testimony to the zeal and courage of Barnabas and Paul, as “men who had
hazarded their lives for the sake of the gospel,”――and it was announced
as the inspired decision of the apostles, elders and brethren, that the
Gentile converts should not be troubled with any greater burden than
these necessary things:――“That you abstain from things offered to idols,
and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication;” and
if they should only keep themselves from these, they would do well.
Jude and Silas were the envoys commissioned with the charge of this
epistle, and accordingly accompanied Paul and Barnabas back to Antioch.
♦ “acccording” replaced with “according”
“Those who maintained this position were Jews, of the sect of
the Pharisees, Acts, xv. 5, converted to Christianity, but still
too zealous for the observance of the law; and their coming
immediately from Judea might make it rather believed, that the
necessity of circumcision, in order to salvation, was a tenet
of the apostles. The Jews themselves indeed were of different
opinions in this matter, even as to the admission of a man into
_their_ religion. For some of them would allow those of other
nations who owned the true God, and practised moral duties,
to live quietly among them, and even without circumcision, to
be admitted into their religion; whilst others were decidedly
opposed to any such thing. Thus Josephus tells us that when
Izates, the son of Helen, queen of Adiabene, embraced the Jews’
religion, Ananias, who converted him, declared that he might
do it without circumcision; but Eleazer, another eminent Jew,
maintained, that it was a great impiety in such circumstances,
to remain uncircumcised; and this difference of opinion
continued among the Jewish Christian converts, some allowing
Gentiles to become converts to Christianity, without submitting
to circumcision and the Jewish law: whilst others contended
that without circumcision, and the observance of the law,
their profession of the Christian faith would not save them.”
(_Stackhouse_ from Whitby and Beausobre.)
“It is very evident, that this is the same journey to which
the apostle alludes in Galatians ii. First, from the agreement
of the history here and the apostle’s relation in the epistle,
as that ‘he communicated to them the gospel, which he preached
among the Gentiles,’ Galatians ii. 2. which he now did, Acts
xv. 4. That circumcision was not then judged necessary to the
Gentiles, verse 3, as we find, Acts xv. 24, ‘that, when they saw
the gospel of uncircumcision was committed to him, they gave to
him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship,’ Galatians ii. 9,
as they did here, sending their very decree with one consent to
the Gentiles, ‘_by the hands of Paul and Barnabas_,’ Acts xv. 22,
25, who were received by the ‘_whole church_,’ verse 4. and
styled _beloved_,’ verse 25.
“Secondly, it appears unlikely that the apostle, writing this
epistle about nine years after this council, should make no
mention of a thing so advantageous to a cause he is pleading
here, and so proper to confute the pretenses of the adversaries
he disputes against. And,
“Thirdly, James, Peter, and John, being all the apostles now
present at the council, the mention of their consent to his
doctrine and practice was all that was necessary to his purpose
to be mentioned concerning that council, It is no objection to
this opinion, that we find no mention, in Acts xv. of Titus’s
being with him; for he is not mentioned in the whole of the Acts,
during which interval the journey must have happened.” (Whitby.)
“_The Council of Jerusalem_ was assembled in the fourteenth year
after St. Paul’s conversion. For the apostle adverts to this
same journey, and determinately specifies the time in Galatians
ii. 1, 2. Grotius is of opinion that four years should be here
written instead of fourteen; who, nevertheless, allows, that the
one mentioned in Galatians, is this journey to the Council. But
the reason is evident why the apostle should date these years
from the epoch of his conversion, from the scope of the first
and second chapters. He styles himself an apostle, not of men,
neither by man, chap. i. 1: he declared that his gospel was not
according to men, and that he neither received nor learned it
from men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, verses 11, 12.
And this he proves to the Galatians by his conversion, which
was not unknown to them. He begins with his strict profession of
the Jewish religion, according to the tenets of the Pharisees,
which ended in a most violent persecution of the Christians.
Then he goes on to show how God revealed his Son to him, and
that immediately he conferred not with flesh and blood, he
neither held communion with any man, neither did he go up to
Jerusalem to them that were apostles before him, by whom he
could have been taught more fully the mind of God, ‘but went
into Arabia,’ where he received the gospel by revelation; and
he returned to Damascus, and preached the word of God to the
confounding of the Jews: ‘Then after three years he went up to
Jerusalem to see Peter.’ From all this it appears evident, that
the epoch of these _three years_ should commence at the time of
his conversion. The same is to be said of the other epoch of the
_fourteen years_. ‘Then, after fourteen years, I went up again
to Jerusalem,’ chap. ii. 1, because the scope of both is the
same,――and they both date from the same period of time. The word
επειτα does not connect this sentence with that of the three
years, as if the beginning of these should be dated from the
close of those, because there is another επειτα which comes
between these two texts, viz. in verse 21, of chap. i. where
he begins to relate his travels in Syria and Cilicia, but does
not specify the period of time he remained in those regions;
therefore no chronological connexion can have been intended by
him. The apostle still following up his design, says επειτα and
παλιν, but neither does επειτα refer to his stay in Syria and
Cilicia,――nor παλιν to his second coming to Jerusalem: for he
had been with a second collection to Jerusalem, then suffering
from famine, accompanied by Barnabas, but not by Titus; and
because he then saw none of the apostles, he omitted mentioning
that journey, considering it quite foreign to his present
purpose.” (Pearson, Annales, 49.)