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."

O, How Man Goes Wrong: Let Me Count the Ways!

I often think about the two greatest commandments in the law: love God with all of your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Each of these two commandments encompass an entire list of commandments. Most notably, the first 4 of the Ten Commandments instruct us on how to have love for God, and the last 6 of the Ten Commandments instruct us on how to have love for each other. Furthermore, there are two ways that you can fail to keep any commandment:

1. You can practice it outwardly, but not be sincere in your heart.
2. You can fail to practice it.

Mercy, Not Sacrifice (Part 2)

The second time that Christ quotes Hosea 6:6 (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”) is found in Matthew 12:1-8 (a contextual discussion of this verse can be found in What Does God Want?, and also see Part 1 of this snack). Here we have the disciples picking grain from a field on the Sabbath. This prompts the Pharisees to point out to Jesus that they are breaking the Sabbath.

Matthew 12:3-7

He answered, “[David] entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread – which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.” 

Some people look at these circumstances and say that Christ was changing how the Sabbath was to be observed. While he did take issues with how the Pharisees observed the Sabbath, he was not changing how God originally commanded us to keep the Sabbath. The Pharisees had built a strict system of traditions in addition to God’s law in order to make sure that people wouldn’t be breaking the law. For example, the Pharisees had rules about how much you were allowed to carry on the Sabbath, thinking “if you can’t carry anything, then you can’t do any work that might involve carrying something.” Strict rules such as these were not given by God, and that’s why Jesus refers to them as “commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9) – and that’s exactly what Jesus took issue with here.

In His response, Jesus first cites the time when David and his men were fed with bread from the temple, found in 1 Samuel 21. The point that He is making with this reference is that God’s law of love can, in special circumstances, supersede the physical observances required by the law, such as if a person or animal falls into a hole on the Sabbath, you're allowed to pull them out (Luke 14:5). What David and his men did was worse than what the disciples were doing because God specifically made a law that only the priests could eat that bread, and yet David is not condemned for it. On the other hand, what the priests did in the temple was required by the law, and their Sabbath day duties easily violated the Pharisees so-called “law” (i.e. the “commandments of men”). Jesus then pulls out Hosea 6:6 to drive home the point that God’s law is not just about physical observances, but about love. God didn’t mind if we gather food to eat on the Sabbath (as long as we are doing it to feed ourselves and not for profit); therefore, the Pharisees “condemned the innocent.” Finally, Jesus asserts His authority, telling them “the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.” Jesus owns the Sabbath – It’s His! Therefore, He knows what’s allowed and what’s not.

It should be clear then that Jesus was in no way trying to change the Sabbath (or any of God’s law, for that matter) in justifying what His disciples did. Instead, He rebuked the Pharisees for unrightfully making the Sabbath a burden with extraneous requirements rather than observing it with their hearts, and it’s all about the heart.

Mercy, Not Sacrifice (Part 1)

In my recent post What Does God Want?, I explained the contextual meaning of Hosea 6:6, a verse which Christ quoted in response to the Pharisees on two separate occasions. The first instance in which Jesus’ quotes Hosea 6:6 (which says “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,”) is found in Matthew 9:9-13. This story begins with Christ calling Matthew, who was a tax collector, to follow Him. The Pharisees wouldn’t have even touched a person like Matthew, and yet Jesus ate at Matthew’s house, along with other “tax collectors and ‘sinners.’” Considering their way of thinking, it’s no wonder that the Pharisees were taunting the disciples over this! When this got back around to Jesus, he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

How was Christ using this verse? I believe that His meaning was two-fold. The primary purpose of His response was to justify the fact that He was eating with people who were generally regarded as unrighteous men. His claim is that He is there to help them as a doctor helps a sick person. Their sickness was their sin, which He desired them to repent of through His teaching and guidance. That’s always why He preached: so that people would repent and turn to God. When He quotes Hosea 6:6, He is mostly accentuating His love and compassion for these people (mercy), not simply following the letter of God’s law as the Pharisees did (sacrifice).

The secondary implication of His response was to point out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Note that He says “go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ He was not complimenting the Pharisees here by distinguishing them as the “righteous” - it sounds more like a challenge! He was pointing out their pride for thinking that they were righteous. In reality, they were not doing what God wanted! God desired "mercy" from them through love and compassion towards these people that they were calling sinners, but they gave God only "sacrifice" through physical adherence to the law, disregarding unconditional love for others. After all, the commandment has always been "love your neighbor as yourself" - it has never been required that your neighbor be righteous by your own standards.

Jesus and the Snakes

Numbers 21:4-8 gives a seemingly odd episode from the Israelites' wanderings. The Israelites, as they often did, complained that God was just leading them around "to die in the desert," grumbling that they had no food or water. As an unusual form of punishment, God sends poisonous snakes that begin biting and killing them. After this goes on for a bit, the Israelites quickly ask Moses to pray to God to take the snakes away. Interestingly, God didn't take the snakes away; rather, He told Moses to make a "bronze snake" and put it up on a pole, and that if anyone is bitten by a snake, they could look at the bronze snake and live.

Flash forward several centuries. In John 3:1-15, Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus, a certain Pharisee who believed that Jesus had come from God, that men must be born again to enter God's Kingdom. Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" to which Jesus tells him that since he has not understood earthly things, then neither does Jesus expect him to understand heavenly things. And then, he says something interesting in verses 14-15: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life."

I am continually amazed by how intimately everything in the bible is connected. After some consideration, I came to the following conclusions as to the meaning of what Jesus is revealing here. Notice that in the Numbers account, God sent the snakes. Jesus prophesied that there would be many false teachers; and, given what we know about snakes in the bible, my best analysis is that these snakes are false teachers whose false instruction, their "bite," causes death. God is preparing a time of great distress to come on the earth, which will cause everyone to cry out to be saved as the Israelites did. God has lifted up Christ, so that all who will look to Him rather than to the false teachers will live, though they have been bitten by false doctrines. At that time, people will be given understanding that Nicodemus lacked, both of earthly and heavenly things.