“The Circumcision Controversy”

BIBLE READING: Acts 15

                The church is facing its first real controversy in Acts 15.  Now that salvation has been made available to the Gentiles, the question has been brought to the Apostles, “should the new Gentile Christians be circumcised?”.  Circumcision has been a part of God’s covenant relationship with man ever since Genesis 17 and the Promise of Abraham.  However, since the vision that Peter had before he went to visit Cornelius, God has now made the Gentiles clean (clean in the sense of the Law of Moses and not clean in the sense of being saved), and made salvation available to them by the blood of Jesus.  To settle this dispute between the Apostles and the Jewish Christians who were of the Pharisee sect, Paul and Barnabas head to Jerusalem.  The decision was made by the Apostles (who were inspired with the Holy Spirt) that since God did not reveal anything to Peter about requiring Cornelius and his family to be circumcised, neither would they require it, since God had now made them clean by the Law standards.  While with the Apostles, Jesus never once spoke to them about circumcision in the sense of it being a requirement for them, only that it was made a law by Moses (John 7.22).  Knowing that this was given by God to the Patriarchs as a sign of their faith and covenant with God, Moses made it a Law to be followed. When Jesus came, they also understood that Jesus came not to “abolish”, but to “fulfill” the Law (Matthew 5.17), thus making it a requirement of the Law that was now fulfilled.  Later in the New Testament, Paul said that circumcision is not a matter of the flesh, but a matter of the heart (Romans 2.28-29).  The decision was made that they would send a letter with Paul and Barnabas as they went on their missionary journey declaring that the Gentile converts to Christianity did not have to fulfill any aspects of the Law of Moses to be considered saved.  The letter did however, reveal that there were now some things that they were not allowed to do, for example, the following things that they might have considered acceptable before:  eating food sacrificed to idols, eating flesh with its blood and sexual immorality.  What does that have to do with us today as Christians? 

1) It teaches us that traditions, although they may be important and beneficial, are still traditions.  We have no right to hold people to a specific tradition that we might have as binding from the Word of God.

2)It also teaches us that circumcision is still a requirement for salvation, but it is a spiritual one rather than a physical one.  We are to be so convicted that we are cut to the heart to obey, not necessarily cut to the flesh.  Even those who obeyed on the day of Pentecost were “pricked in the heart” (Acts 2.37)