Acts 15: Did They Abolish the Law?

Acts 15 tells the story of how the early church resolved a doctrinal dispute concerning whether or not the Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. The misunderstanding of this account has contributed to the modern day confusion about the question of whether Christians should observe the law or not. I'd like to examine the account and give a clear answer for why this chapter does not free Christians from keeping God's law.

Let's begin by looking at the statements made by the Pharisees that caused the dispute to begin with:

Acts 15:1
And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."

Acts 15:5
But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." 

We don't have any more detailed record of what these people were saying than this. There is no indication that the emphasis was on any point other than circumcision or that the Gentiles were complaining about any point other than circumcision, and Paul makes it clear that this was the main issue when he spoke of it to the Galatians:

Galatians 2:3
Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

As we'll see from the conclusion of the meeting in Jerusalem, the final decision did not absolve Gentiles from keeping the law as a whole.

This controversy over circumcision caused such an uproar that many went to Jerusalem to contribute to the debate, including Paul and Barnabas. They argued for a long time, after which Peter said:

Acts 15:7-9
"Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith."

You can read the entire account for yourself and see that this had been the sticking point in the argument from the beginning: God had already given them the Holy Spirit, and, in doing so, had accepted them without physical circumcision. He put emphasis on the fact that God "made no distinction between us and them." Peter continued:

Acts 15:10-11
"Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on 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 in the same manner as they."

This is where most people conclude that the "yoke" was God's law. As a contrast, 1 John 5:3 states plainly that "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." In fact, the "yoke" was not anything that God had put on anyone - it was something the Pharisees had put on people! I'm going to postpone going into detail about this, but the "yoke" spoken of is salvation by works. Salvation is not by works, but works are nonetheless required for a Christian, and this subtlety was explained over and over again throughout the New Testament. Christ rebuked the Pharisees for the burdens that they had placed on the people (Matthew 23:2-4), not for making people keep the law that God had placed on the people.

After Peter spoke, the final decision was rendered by James and then formally taken to all of the churches by witnesses. James concluded with the following:

Acts 15:18-21
"Known to God from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath."

It should be clear that these commands for the Gentiles are NOT an exhaustive list of the laws the Gentiles had to keep - it mentions nothing concerning murder, for example. So what exactly was this list? What do "things polluted by idols," "sexual immorality," "things strangled, and blood" have in common?

The answer is that these were particular problems that were both prevalent and widely accepted in Gentile cultures that were not so in Jewish culture. It was not typical or acceptable in Jewish communities (at that time, at least) for there to be idols, but Acts 17:6 says that Athens was "full" of idols. Sexual immorality would have been heavily subdued and negatively viewed in Jewish communities, as opposed to the infamous Roman and Greek orgies which were even associated with worship (i.e. temple prostitutes.) The problem with strangling animals is that the blood doesn't get drained out; thus, "things strangled" and "blood" go hand-in-hand. Since the law clearly says not to eat blood, Jewish communities would have known not to strangle animals and to also drain the blood from the meat that they were going to eat or sell in the market. On the other hand, Gentiles would have used the blood in all kinds of dishes, such as soup or various sauces. They would have had no problem with killing animals by strangulation, and may have done so intentionally to retain the flavor of the blood.

If anything, the conclusion of the Acts 15 conference acted as a reinforcement of the law, specifically calling attention to the things that might be the easiest for Gentiles to overlook because of the societies that they lived in. If the intent of the decision had been to proclaim to everyone that the Gentiles didn't have to keep the law, then this response would have been extremely unclear and self-defeating. Moreover, the statement at the end doesn't take a negative tone toward Moses being preached in the synagogues - which one would expect if the intent were to abolish the law.

If you believe that the Jerusalem conference of Acts 15 did away with the law completely, then James's conclusion should raise several questions. Clearly they ruled against circumcision of newly converted Gentiles, but what was their logic in doing so? In particular, does that same logic extend to any other laws of God? If so, why would it not apply to eating blood? There is a simpler explanation: it's not an abolition of the law. In fact, it's not really even an abolition of circumcision. I'm planning to devote an entire article to circumcision, but in short what I mean is that circumcision of the heart is what God has always required from His people for salvation (Deuteronomy 30:6, Jeremiah 4:4, Romans 2:25-29).

To answer the question posed in the title, the answer is "no" - not only did the Acts 15 conference not abolish the law, but they never had the authority to do so to begin with! As I frequently point out, Christ made this clear:

Matthew 5:18
For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.