Day 250: Acts 15:1–21

“Why, then, are you now testing God by putting on the disciples’ necks a yoke that neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear?” (v. 10).

Legalism. This one little word—more than any other—is probably responsible for causing more churches to die, more servants to quit, and more denominations to split. Like a leech, legalism saps the lifeblood out of its victim. It enters the door in the name of righteousness to vacuum out all the dirt and ends up vacuuming out all the spirit. Don’t confuse legalism with recognition and pursuit of godly standards.

Two sets of legalists emerge in this portion of Scripture: 1) Judean visitors to Antioch who told Gentile Christians they must be circumcised to be saved, and 2) the believers in Jerusalem from the party of the Pharisees who told them they must also obey the law of Moses. The statement of the Pharisees became the basis of the Jerusalem Council.

Let’s offer the legalists more grace than they offered Gentile believers. I’ll assume they weren’t acting out of pure meanness. But even in giving them the benefit of the doubt, I see at least three mistakes they made in behalf of the new Gentile converts.

1. They drew a universal standard from their personal experience. Since they had been circumcised prior to salvation, they decided everyone else should be as well. Through the ages people have struggled with the same wrong assumption based on their own personal experience. If God worked one way in their lives, any other way must be invalid. Let me illustrate with the story of two men.

The first man lives a godless, depraved life. The Spirit of God convicts him. He falls on his face, surrenders to Christ as Lord of his life. He serves faithfully and never goes back into the old patterns of sin. He becomes a preacher and boldly proclaims the message that people are not saved unless they instantly surrender their entire lives to the lordship of Christ. If they have ever fallen back, they were never saved at all.

The second man received Christ at a very early age and then fell away in rebellion for years. He returns to Christ as the penitent prodigal, slips into his old ways several times, and finally reaches freedom in Christ. In his opinion a person’s state of salvation cannot in any way be judged by his actions. He believes a man can live like the devil for a season of his life and still be saved.

Both men are born again, but both men are mistakenly applying their experience to every other believer. Each of these men could find some degree of scriptural support, so who is right? God is. He is right and justified in saving whomever He pleases. There is only one way to be saved: by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (see Eph. 2:8–9). God uses many methods to draw people to Himself. He is far more creative than we want to think. Only He can judge the heart.

2. They tried to make salvation harder than it is. James delivered a strong exhortation to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:19: “We should not cause difficulties for those who turn to God from among the Gentiles” (hcsb). What a frightening thought! We must ask ourselves a very serious question: Do we make it difficult for people around us to turn to God? Do we have a list of rules and requirements that turns people away?

Part of the exquisite beauty of salvation is its simplicity. Any man, woman, or child can come to Christ with absolutely nothing to offer Him but simple faith—just as they are. Salvation requires nothing more than childlike faith—believing that Jesus Christ died for my sins and accepting His gift of salvation. The heart and the life sometimes turn instantaneously like the first example. Other times the heart turns instantaneously but the life adjusts a little more slowly like the second example. Let’s not make salvation more difficult than it has to be.

3. They expected of others what they could not deliver themselves. In Acts 15:10, Peter was asking in essence, “Why are you expecting of someone else what you know you can’t deliver yourself?” The question is one every believer should occasionally ask him or herself. Do we have almost impossible expectations of other people? Do we expect things of our mates we wouldn’t want to have to deliver ourselves? Do we expect near perfection in our children and tireless commitment from our coworkers? Are we yoke brokers just looking for an unsuspecting neck?

Yoke brokers are miserable people because they are never satisfied with less than perfection. Their obsession with everyone else’s lack of perfection helps them keep their minds off their own. Yoke brokers are selling a yoke no one wants to buy—their own. If anyone has ever expected of you something you knew he or she couldn’t do, then you have an idea how it feels to be the hapless victim of a yoke.

Let’s return to the simplicity of salvation. Not adding to. Not taking away. When we paint the picture of our salvation for others to see, we may use different colors, textures, and shapes on the edges of the parchment. But in the center can only be a cross. Anything else cheapens grace and cheats the believer. Paul wasn’t about to let that happen to his beloved flock.