Acts 15: What is the church?

Acts 15 and Christian doctrine

What exactly is the church? 

The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 threw a wrench in my Protestant understanding of the local church, making its own decisions on Christian doctrine based on a congregationalist model and also cast significant doubt on the doctrine of sola scriptura where I just read the Bible for myself and came to my own conclusions. Let me explain.

In Acts 15:1-2, we see that some Judaizers were teaching other Christians that to be Christians, they had to follow the Mosaic Laws of Judaism. The question being the following: do already baptized Gentile Christians need to first become Jews and follow the Law of Moses before they can be Christians?

Acts 15 begins with:

"Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1, NASB)

Luke's text goes on to explain in the following verse (Acts 15:2) that Paul and Barnabas argued about this, and it was agreed that they would go to Jerusalem to take this up with the apostles and the elders. (Note: elders = πρεσβυτέρους- presbyteros, from which we get the word "presbyter" or "priest")

Why take this matter to the apostles and priests of the church? Wouldn't they just split off and create their own church based on their own interpretation of scripture?

Moving into verses 5-6, we see that the Pharisees challenged them and the apostles and elders decided to answer this question. Do Christians need to be Jewish first and follow the Mosaic Laws? 

"But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.” The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter." (Acts 15:5-6, NASB)


Peter is the first to speak at the Council of Jerusalem in verse 7:


"After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe." (Acts 15:7, NASB)

Then, James speaks up and delivers the verdict of the council in verses 19-20:

"Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood." (Acts 15:19-20, NASB)

Some scholars think that what is mentioned here is a reference to the Noahide Laws (the seven laws of Noah), which applied to all of humanity, including all non-Jews.

The apostles and elders then sent out a letter that was binding on all Christians (and is still in effect to this day) 

 
"and they sent this letter by them,

“The apostles and the brethren who are elders, to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles, greetings.

Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls, it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.” (Acts 15:23-29, NASB)

Wait...here we have a binding decision upon all Christians being handed down NOT from scripture alone but from the apostles and elders (priests) of the Church guided by the Holy Spirit. We have Christian doctrine being enumerated outside of scripture as there was no precedent in the Old Testament for this question of whether or not Gentile converts to Christ had to first become Jews. Not only that, but this decision was Catholic in the sense of "universal," and it was binding and authoritative, and their decision was not even part the Bible at this point. There was no official canon of Scripture in the 1st century.

So...how could they make a decision by the Bible alone if they didn't have the Bible to go by?

What if one's personal interpretation disagreed with the Council? That wasn't seen as authoritative. If one disagreed with the decision of the apostles, that disagreement was not binding on the Christian believer or any other group of Christian believers. Still, the findings of the apostles and the elders were binding. They had the authority to make these calls. In other words, I could ignore someone's opinion, but I could not ignore the decisions of the apostles who were given by Christ the power to bind and loose. (see Matthew 16:19, Matthew 18:18)


This leaves one with a few questions...


What exactly is the church? Is it a collection of believers where the church is in only the heart of the believer in a spiritual/pietist sense but not in a concrete, authoritative sense?


Paul, writing to Timothy, calls the Church the "pillar and ground of the truth."

"But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
(1 Timothy 3:15, Douay-Rheims)


Based on Acts 15, I think we've seen that the church was a concrete, visible thing that had the authority to establish Christian doctrine. Christ left us a church, not an opinion or personal interpretations.  Where is that church now? I would recommend checking out the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church which have a documented line of succession of bishops, priests, and deacons going all the way back to the Apostles and to Christ. 

Ignatius of Antioch in 107 A.D., a direct disciple of the Apostle John, who wrote one of the four gospels and three letters of the New Testament, said in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, 

"Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptize or give communion without the consent of the bishop." (Ignatius of Antioch, 107 A.D.)