{"id":70,"date":"2018-03-05T11:03:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T17:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?p=70"},"modified":"2018-03-05T11:03:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T17:03:32","slug":"acts-15-law-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Acts 15, which presents the proceedings of what has become known as the Council of Jerusalem, that apostolic gathering which became the paradigm for future church councils, is considered to be the central passage in the New Testament to an understanding of how the apostles viewed the continued relevance, or irrelevance, of the Law to the life of the church.\u00a0 A group of pharisees who had become embraced Jesus as the Messiah were putting forth the argument that the Gentiles who were by that time entering into the nascent Christian church should be subject to not just the Old Testament Law, but to their pharisaic interpretation thereof.\u00a0 The gathered apostles, prominently Ss. Paul, Peter, and James, found against this party, and issued a letter in which only four broad commandments were to be applied to the new Gentile believers.\u00a0 \u00a0This event, and the passage which described it, has become a rhetorical tool for arguments of all kind that wish to marginalize Old Testament texts of all kinds, in particular, in recent times, regarding human sexuality.\u00a0 We are told that the Council of Jerusalem decided that ‘the Law doesn’t apply any more’ for Christians.<\/p>\n

First of all, context is necessary.\u00a0 The apostles were in agreement that Gentiles coming to worship the God of Israel was the result of an act of God in the Holy Spirit, they affirm as much in their statements in this chapter, and that that act was prophesied in the Old Testament scriptures.\u00a0 St. James quotes here from Amos, but the inclusion of the Gentiles is prophesied throughout the Old Testament prophetic books, beginning with the prophecy regarding Noah’s sons Shem and Japheth in Genesis.\u00a0 It is, for example, a major theme in Isaiah, as in 56:3-7, 58:6-12, 60:1-3, and 66:18-23.\u00a0 In addition to all that they had already seen fulfilled in Christ, the apostles were now seeing these prophecies fulfilled in their time as well.\u00a0 So the question facing the apostles, given that these events were described in scripture, was to determine how scripture had characterized these events.\u00a0 Specifically, did the Gentiles coming to worship Israel’s God mean that all of these people would become Israelites.\u00a0 That idea is not without precedent in the Old Testament scriptures, as prominent figures like Caleb, Rahab, and Ruth all came from outside the people of Israel but ended their lives as Israelites.<\/p>\n

In order to understand the apostles understanding of the Law in this case, it is perhaps best to begin with the four commandments issued by this council as applying to the entire Christian community, whether Jew or Gentile.\u00a0 Often when Acts 15 and the Council of Jerusalem are referenced rhetorically, these commandments are ignored, considered quaint, or otherwise not seriously considered.\u00a0 After all, it is said, two of them, concerning blood and meat with blood in it, are ignored by contemporary Christians, and they argue that St. Paul waffled on food offered to idols (he didn’t, but that is a topic for another time).\u00a0 This leaves for them only the fourth of the commands, sexual immorality, which they then see as suitably vague and malleable.\u00a0 These four commandments, however, are not arbitrary, cultural, or selected without particular reason.<\/p>\n

Leviticus 17-26 is often referred to as the “Holiness Code”.\u00a0 It represents a series of commandments, directed to the forming nation of Israel, that if kept will allow the people of Israel to continue to dwell in their new land rather than being vomited out of it like the Canaanites before them.\u00a0 These sections of commandments are, for the most part, prefaced with the Lord telling Moses to ‘Speak to the sons of Israel, saying…’\u00a0 These are commandments for the people of Israel, the keeping of which will separate and distinguish them from every other nation on earth.\u00a0 The Israelites are never commanded to enforce these commandments on the other nations of the world.\u00a0 Rather, by keeping them, they are to serve as a light to the other nations, which will draw them to also worship Israel’s God.\u00a0 And so, the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 are never applied to those who are not Israelites, nor the laws concerning childbirth in Leviticus 12.<\/p>\n

There are, however, a few passages within the Holiness Code which reflect something different.\u00a0 The eating of blood is discussed within the context of sacrificial regulations, and therefore within a context of pagan worship in Leviticus 17.\u00a0 When the eating of blood, or meat with blood in it, is discussed in verses 10-14, the commandment is given to the house of Israel, and to the foreigners who dwell among them.\u00a0 Anyone from either group who violates the commandment will be cut off.\u00a0 There is no prohibition in Leviticus 11 of foreigners eating unclean animals, but there is here a strict command against those foreigners eating blood.\u00a0 Likewise, Leviticus 18 gives a variety of commandments regarding human sexuality.\u00a0 At its culmination, these commandments are again applied to everyone of the Israelite nation, and to foreigners who dwell among them.\u00a0 Further, the reason for this extension of the commandment is given that sexual immorality defiles the land itself, and therefore the land will vomit them out if this sin is tolerated within it (v. 26-28).\u00a0 Again in chapter 20, regarding idolatry in general and Molech in particular, the commandment is given to the sons of Israel, and the foreigners who dwell with them (v.2-5).\u00a0 Within Leviticus, these four commandments are singled out as applying not only to Israelites, but also to anyone who is going to dwell among them.<\/p>\n

After reading Leviticus closely, we can see that the apostles were doing the exact opposite of saying that the Law doesn’t apply to Christians.\u00a0 Rather, they were proclaiming that a very close reading of the Law will be the basis for the formation of the church community just as it was the basis for the formation of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 The Gentiles who come to worship Christ do not become a part of the Jewish nation.\u00a0 They remain Greeks or Romans or Egyptians or Syrians.\u00a0 But in order to dwell with God’s people and not draw the wrath of God down upon the community, they must refrain from all idolatry and sexual immorality.\u00a0 Further, the close reading here means that what is meant by sexual immorality in this apostolic proclamation is not vague or subject to interpretation, but is laid out in some detail in the book of Leviticus.\u00a0 St. James does not feel the need to elaborate further because, as he says after listing these commands, the Law has been proclaimed in every city of the world, and so the Gentiles who receive his letter will know and understand what this entails (Acts 15:21).<\/p>\n

The core of this understanding, that idolatry and sexual immorality in particular cannot be tolerated within the Christian community, can be seen in the practice of the Christian communities throughout the history of the Orthodox Church.\u00a0 It lies behind the emphasis on virginity and the withdrawal from pagan public life in the early persecuted church.\u00a0 It lies behind St. Constantine’s dismantling of the public sacrificial system as one of his first acts after his conversion.\u00a0 It lies behind the de-paganization of the empire begun under Theodosius.\u00a0 It lies behind the prohibitions of sexual immorality in St. Justinian’s Nomocanon<\/em>, which explicitly uses the language of the land vomiting out the people if it is defiled by these sins.<\/p>\n

Far from proclaiming that the Law no longer applies to Christians, the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 directly, strictly, and literally applies the Law to the life of the Christian church.\u00a0 The Law is not here rejected, but here established.\u00a0 The dispute which was here ended was not between a pro-Law and an anti-Law party, but a dispute over how the Law should be rightly interpreted, understood, and applied in light of the revelation of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 15, which presents the proceedings of what has become known as the Council of Jerusalem, that apostolic gathering which became the paradigm for future church councils, is considered to be the central passage in the New Testament to an understanding of how the apostles viewed the continued relevance, or irrelevance, of the Law to the life of the church.\u00a0 A group of pharisees who had become embraced Jesus as the Messiah were putting forth the argument that the Gentiles who were by that time entering into the nascent Christian church should be subject to not just the Old Testament Law, but to their pharisaic interpretation thereof.\u00a0 The gathered apostles, prominently Ss. Paul, Peter, and James, found against this party,\u2026 <\/i> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church - The Whole Counsel Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church - The Whole Counsel Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Acts 15, which presents the proceedings of what has become known as the Council of Jerusalem, that apostolic gathering which became the paradigm for future church councils, is considered to be the central passage in the New Testament to an understanding of how the apostles viewed the continued relevance, or irrelevance, of the Law to the life of the church.\u00a0 A group of pharisees who had become embraced Jesus as the Messiah were putting forth the argument that the Gentiles who were by that time entering into the nascent Christian church should be subject to not just the Old Testament Law, but to their pharisaic interpretation thereof.\u00a0 The gathered apostles, prominently Ss. Paul, Peter, and James, found against this party,\u2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Whole Counsel Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-05T17:03:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1-360x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Stephen De Young\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Stephen De Young\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/\",\"name\":\"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church - The Whole Counsel Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1-360x200.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-05T17:03:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-05T17:03:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":778},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/\",\"name\":\"The Whole Counsel Blog\",\"description\":\"The Scriptures in the Orthodox Church\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90\",\"name\":\"Fr. Stephen De Young\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Stephen De Young\"},\"description\":\"The V. Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds Master's degrees in theology, philosophy, humanities, and social sciences, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Fr. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of four books, the Religion of the Apostles, God is a Man of War, the Whole Counsel of God, Apocrypha, and Saint Paul the Pharisee. He co-hosts the live call-in show and podcast Lord of Spirits with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/stgabriellafayette.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/author\/frstevedeyoung\/\"}]}<\/script>","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church - The Whole Counsel Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church - The Whole Counsel Blog","og_description":"Acts 15, which presents the proceedings of what has become known as the Council of Jerusalem, that apostolic gathering which became the paradigm for future church councils, is considered to be the central passage in the New Testament to an understanding of how the apostles viewed the continued relevance, or irrelevance, of the Law to the life of the church.\u00a0 A group of pharisees who had become embraced Jesus as the Messiah were putting forth the argument that the Gentiles who were by that time entering into the nascent Christian church should be subject to not just the Old Testament Law, but to their pharisaic interpretation thereof.\u00a0 The gathered apostles, prominently Ss. Paul, Peter, and James, found against this party,\u2026","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/","og_site_name":"The Whole Counsel Blog","article_published_time":"2018-03-05T17:03:32+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1-360x200.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Fr. Stephen De Young","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Stephen De Young","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/","name":"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church - The Whole Counsel Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1-360x200.jpg","datePublished":"2018-03-05T17:03:32+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-05T17:03:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2018\/03\/week8_large1.jpg","width":1000,"height":778},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/2018\/03\/05\/acts-15-law-church\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Acts 15 and the Law in the Church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/","name":"The Whole Counsel Blog","description":"The Scriptures in the Orthodox Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/247da0ea47cc50719afc0ec2a8ee5e90","name":"Fr. Stephen De Young","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/54dc899af5499978d3770526996cf817d0a8e3c9e776a06507dd686f6923d420?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Fr. Stephen De Young"},"description":"The V. Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds Master's degrees in theology, philosophy, humanities, and social sciences, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Fr. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of four books, the Religion of the Apostles, God is a Man of War, the Whole Counsel of God, Apocrypha, and Saint Paul the Pharisee. He co-hosts the live call-in show and podcast Lord of Spirits with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.","sameAs":["http:\/\/stgabriellafayette.org"],"url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/author\/frstevedeyoung\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/wholecounsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}