Acts: Verse by Verse by Osborne Grant R

Author:Osborne, Grant R.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bible. N.T. Acts--Commentaries.
Publisher: Bellingham, WA
Published: 2019-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

PETER GIVES A SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL (15:6–11)

The two sides, Paul and the Judaizers, apparently argued back and forth on the issue for some time, with the leaders of the church as a whole, the apostles and elders, adjudicating as they “consider this question.” The goal was clearly to come to a final position that would become the policy of the church as a whole. The result would not just be the status of Gentile converts but the look of Christianity as a whole. Will the movement continue as a Jewish sect alongside the Pharisees and Sadducees, or will it become a separate religion entirely? Will Christians keep the legal regulations of the Torah or be free to work out their own set of moral and ethical norms? A great deal was at stake in the decision to be made here.

Three speeches (Peter [vv. 7–11], Paul and Barnabas [v. 12], and James [vv. 13–21]) sum up the daylong deliberations. Note they come after a lengthy amount of discussion in which undoubtedly the arguments were given lengthy presentations. Finally, Peter stood up, the first of the major respondents because his time with Cornelius initiated and at the same time finalized the position of free Gentile inclusion in the church.

Again, Peter stresses, it was not he but God who chose that the Gentiles hear the gospel directly from Peter’s lips, not mediated by the law, so that they can hear and believe directly. As God’s choice, there is no debate (divine election). He of course is especially thinking of his vision (10:9–16), which proved to him that God has declared the Gentiles clean and able to come to Christ without converting to Judaism first. “The message of the gospel” is the good news that Gentiles too can simply repent and believe in Christ as Messiah and Savior in order to be saved and have their sins forgiven.

Then Peter adds a further point (15:8), that God not only chose Cornelius to be saved but also demonstrated his acceptance of Gentiles “by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.” This, of course, is the Gentile Pentecost of 10:44–46, accompanied by the speaking in tongues and possibly the other phenomena of 2:4, the wind and the fire. He explains that this was not a mistake, for God “knows the heart” and knew that Cornelius and the others in his party had been genuinely saved and cleansed from sin. So both God and the Spirit ratified Cornelius’ true conversion and with the Pentecost event gave their imprimatur that Gentiles stand alongside Jews as equals in his kingdom.

His conclusion is also clear: in doing so God “did not discriminate between us and them” (15:9). Both come to Christ on the same basis, repentance and belief and not via the law. There is a complete absence of any distinction between the two people groups, for both the means of salvation and the results of salvation are the same—repentance, belief, and cleansing from sin.

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