Concept

Jerusalem Council

Intro

Around AD 49, about twenty years after the resurrection, the young church faced a question that could have split it in two: do non-Jewish believers have to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved?

Some teachers from Judea had come to the church at Antioch saying yes. Paul and Barnabas said no. The argument was sharp enough that the Antioch church sent them, with others, to Jerusalem to put the question to the apostles and elders. Acts 15 records what happened next.

The meeting is often called the first church council. It was not called by one leader. A local church sent delegates, the Jerusalem church received them, and the apostles and elders met. There was "much questioning." Peter told how God gave the Holy Spirit to Gentiles at Cornelius's house. Paul and Barnabas reported the signs God had done among the Gentiles. James showed that the prophet Amos had foretold the Gentiles being called by God's name. Then James gave his judgment, the whole church agreed, and they sent a letter that said, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us."

The answer was no: Gentile believers were not to be made to keep the law of Moses. They were asked to keep a few necessary things that would let Jewish and Gentile believers live together.

The council matters today for three reasons. It settled that salvation comes through the grace of the Lord Jesus, not through circumcision. It shows how the early church handled serious disagreement: with testimony, Scripture, and the Spirit together. And it is the model later councils pointed back to, though it is not one of the seven councils that historic churches call ecumenical.

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In full

The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1-35; conventionally dated c. AD 48-50) was a meeting of the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church, with delegates from Antioch led by Paul and Barnabas, convened to decide whether Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the Mosaic law. Its decision, issued in a letter carried by Judas Barsabbas and Silas, freed Gentile believers from circumcision and the law of Moses while asking them to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication (Acts 15:28-29). The process ran from a local dispute, through delegation, hearing, testimony, scriptural argument and judgment, to consensus "with the whole church" (Acts 15:22) and circulation of the decrees (Acts 16:4-5). The letter's formula, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us", presents one decision owned jointly by the Spirit and the assembly. The council stands within Scripture itself and so carries, for every Christian tradition, an authority no later council shares; it is not counted among the seven ecumenical councils, the first of which is Nicaea in 325.

The process, step by step

The core process is eleven movements (steps 1 to 11 above, from dispute to judgment), followed by the consensus, letter, reception and spread that put the judgment into effect.

The key texts

The decisive testimony was the Spirit's own prior action among the Gentiles:

And God, who knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, even as he did unto us; and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:8-9, ASV)

Peter is referring to Cornelius's household, where "the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word" and the Jewish believers "heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God" (Acts 10:44-46). The same outpouring that came on Jewish believers at Pentecost (Acts 2:4) had come on uncircumcised Gentiles, which settled for Peter that God accepted them without the law.

James then checked that testimony against Scripture:

And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After these things I will return, And I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; And I will build again the ruins thereof, And I will set it up: That the residue of men may seek after the Lord, And all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, Saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old. (Acts 15:15-18, ASV)

James's quotation follows the Greek rendering of Amos 9:11-12 more closely than the Hebrew, which in the ASV reads "that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations that are called by my name." Both forms end in the same point: nations called by the Lord's name.

The letter then stated the decision:

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that ye abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, it shall be well with you. Fare ye well. (Acts 15:28-29, ASV)

Who called the council?

No single person. The text names several actors, and none of them acts alone.

• The church at Antioch initiated it. "The brethren appointed that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question" (Acts 15:2). See Church at Antioch.
• The Jerusalem church received it. The delegates were "received of the church and the apostles and the elders" (Acts 15:4). See Church at Jerusalem.
• The apostles and elders convened it. "The apostles and the elders were gathered together" (Acts 15:6).
• James gave the judgment, the whole church concurred. James speaks the decision (15:19), but the sending is done by "the apostles and the elders, with the whole church" (15:22). See James the Brother of Jesus.
• Revelation prompted it, on one reading of Galatians. Paul writes that he went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus "by revelation" (Galatians 2:1-2), and that "James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars" gave him and Barnabas "the right hands of fellowship" (Galatians 2:9).

Is Galatians 2 the same visit as Acts 15? Interpreters divide. The traditional and still common view identifies Galatians 2:1-10 with the Acts 15 council: the same people (Paul, Barnabas, James, Peter), the same city, the same issue (circumcision of Gentiles). Others identify Galatians 2 with the earlier famine-relief visit of Acts 11:29-30, noting that Galatians 2 describes a private meeting with the leaders and never mentions the council's decrees, which would have been Paul's strongest argument in Galatians had they already been issued. On either view, the pattern of human commissioning and divine prompting holds: Acts 15:2 says the brethren appointed; Galatians 2:2 says Paul went by revelation.

The Spirit and the church acting together

The council's letter does not choose between divine and human agency. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us" (Acts 15:28) uses the same verb, edoxen ("it seemed good"), already used of the human decision in 15:22 and 15:25. One decision, two agents.

This is the same pattern Luke shows two chapters earlier at Antioch:

And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. (Acts 13:2-4, ASV)

The church sent them (13:3); the Spirit sent them (13:4). Paul speaks the same way to the Ephesian elders: "the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops" (Acts 20:28), though elders were appointed by the apostles (Acts 14:23).

John Chrysostom, commenting on Acts 15:28, glosses the phrase in passing: "it is not man's doing, it says" (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, on Acts 15:28, NPNF1 11, PDF p. 144).

This matters for a common objection, that councils were merely human assemblies and the Spirit's name was attached to them afterward. Acts presents the opposite structure. See Holy Spirit Isnt Real Because Christians Disagree Objection Defeater.

Relation to the ecumenical councils

The word. Ecumenical comes from the Greek oikoumenē (Strong's G3625), "the inhabited world," used in Luke 2:1 for the Roman world under Caesar Augustus. An ecumenical council is one received as representing the whole church across the known world.

Not one of the seven. The Jerusalem Council is not counted among the seven ecumenical councils recognized by the Eastern Orthodox and, with later additions, by the Catholic Church. The first of those is Nicaea in 325. The Jerusalem Council stands in a category of its own because its record is part of Scripture.

The model later councils claimed. The Second Council of Constantinople (553) pointed explicitly to Acts 15 as the pattern for councils. Its Sentence of the Synod says the apostles, though each had the Spirit's grace, "were not willing to define on the question then raised touching the circumcision of the Gentiles, until being gathered together they had confirmed their own several sayings by the testimony of the divine Scriptures" (Second Council of Constantinople, Sentence of the Synod, NPNF2 14, PDF p. 254). The council then quoted Acts 15:28 and claimed the earlier councils followed the same example.

Who called the later councils. Unlike Acts 15, which arose from a local church, the ecumenical councils were summoned by emperors, and later Western councils by popes.

The first seven are the councils the Orthodox count as ecumenical. The Catholic Church counts twenty-one, including Trent and the two Vatican councils. Protestant churches generally receive the doctrinal decisions of the first four (some of the first six or seven) insofar as they agree with Scripture.

How traditions weigh council authority

• Roman Catholic. An ecumenical council in union with the pope teaches infallibly when it defines doctrine on faith and morals. The Jerusalem Council is read as the prototype, with Peter's role often highlighted. See Roman Catholicism and Papacy.
• Eastern Orthodox. The seven ecumenical councils are authoritative, and a council's authority is confirmed by its reception in the life of the whole church rather than by any single bishop. Acts 15:22, "with the whole church", is often cited for this conciliar and consensual model. See Eastern Orthodox.
• Protestant (Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, most evangelicals). Councils are valuable and their creeds often received, but they can err, and they are binding only as far as they agree with Scripture. Acts 15 carries unique authority because it is Scripture. See Sola Scriptura.
• Oneness Pentecostal. Scripture alone is the final authority, and post-apostolic councils have no binding authority of their own. Oneness Pentecostals receive Acts 15 as inspired apostolic precedent because it is in Scripture, and reject the Trinitarian definitions of Nicaea, Constantinople and Chalcedon as departures from apostolic teaching. Acts is read as the normative pattern for the church, including the Spirit's coming with tongues, which Peter cites at the council (Acts 15:8; compare 10:44-46). See Oneness Pentecostalism.

All four positions agree that the Jerusalem Council's decision is authoritative, because all four accept Acts as Scripture. They disagree about whether any later gathering shares that authority.

A note on bishops and elders

In the New Testament, episkopos ("overseer," "bishop," Strong's G1985), presbyteros ("elder," G4245) and the shepherding role of the pastor describe the same office, not three ranks.

• Paul calls "the elders of the church" of Ephesus to him (Acts 20:17) and tells those same men "the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church" (Acts 20:28).
• Titus is to "appoint elders in every city" (Titus 1:5), and two verses later Paul explains the qualifications with "For the bishop must be blameless" (Titus 1:7).
• Peter writes to "the elders among you" as "a fellow-elder" and tells them to "tend the flock of God... exercising the oversight" (1 Peter 5:1-2).

At the Jerusalem Council the decision-makers are "the apostles and the elders", with "the whole church." There is no separate order of bishops above the elders.

Within a few decades the picture changes. Ignatius of Antioch, writing around AD 110, distinguishes a single bishop from the presbytery:

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. (Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, ch. VIII, ANF 1, PDF p. 62)

Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican traditions read this single-bishop structure as a legitimate apostolic development, tied to Apostolic Succession. Most Protestant traditions, including Oneness Pentecostals, read it as a post-apostolic development that should be measured against the New Testament pattern of elder-overseers. See Ignatius of Antioch and Apostolic Succession by Tradition.

Tensions

• Are the decrees still binding? The four abstentions (Acts 15:20, 15:29) are read by most as a pastoral accommodation for table fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers, with the prohibition of fornication as permanent moral law. Some traditions, notably the Orthodox in their canons, kept the prohibition of blood longer; a few groups still treat it as binding.
• Peter or James? Catholic readers emphasize Peter's speech; others note that James gives the judgment ("my judgment is", 15:19). The text gives each a distinct role: Peter testifies, James judges, the whole church concurs.
• The Galatians chronology. Whether Galatians 2 records this council or an earlier visit affects how Galatians is dated and how Paul's relationship to Jerusalem is reconstructed. It does not affect the council's decision.

See also

• Church at Antioch, the church that raised the question and sent the delegates
• Church at Jerusalem, the host church and its elders
• Apostolic Age, the setting
• Peter the Apostle, Paul the Apostle, James the Brother of Jesus, the principal speakers
• Christians Not Under Mosaic Law, the theological outcome developed as an argument
• Gentiles Cannot Be Saved Objection Defeater, where Acts 15 answers a modern restatement of the Judean position
• Council of Nicaea, Council of Constantinople I, Council of Ephesus, Council of Chalcedon, Council of Trent, the later councils
• Oneness Pentecostalism, Scripture as final authority over all post-apostolic councils
• Sola Scriptura, the Protestant frame for council authority
• Holy Spirit Isnt Real Because Christians Disagree Objection Defeater, how Acts 15 answers the claim that councils are merely human