The Way
How Are We Saved?
Do not add a burden on top of grace
Story
Some men came down from Judea to the church in Antioch and taught, “Unless you are circumcised as the law of Moses says, you cannot be saved.” Paul and Barnabas argued sharply with them. The churches of Galatia, founded on the first journey, were being shaken by the same teaching. Paul wrote to those churches: “I am amazed that you are so quickly leaving the one who called you by the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel.”
Someone else wrote that letter down for him, but at the end Paul added large letters in his own hand. Around that time the church in Antioch sent the two to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. After a long debate, Peter said, “God gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles just as he did to us. He made their hearts clean by faith and made no difference between us and them. We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.”
The whole assembly fell silent as Barnabas and Paul told of the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles. James, the Lord's brother, who led the church, said, “Let us not make it hard for the Gentiles who are turning to God.” The apostles and elders sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, two leaders, with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch to deliver a letter. When the church read the letter, which said they would not lay the burden of circumcision on them, they were filled with joy.
Walk this scene on the map →Words of the Lord and of Paul
A person is made right with God not by doing what the law says but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus.
We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.
So my judgment is that we should not make it hard for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
The sayings are fresh renderings of the original meaning in today's language. Text: Acts 15:1–35 · Gal 2:1–16
Background
If Galatians was written in Antioch just before this council, it is the earliest of Paul's letters. Some scholars think it was written after the council, in Ephesus or Macedonia. Circumcision was a Jewish rite performed on the male body as a sign of belonging to God's people.
Pause and Reflect
Do I say I am saved by grace, yet still boast about what I do?