Who were the Judaizers?

This was perhaps the most dangerous crisis of all. Though Gentiles were admitted into the fellowship and privileges of the church, yet there were many Jewish believers who wished to maintain a Judaized or legalized form of Christianity, and therefore to Judaize the Gentile converts. This was stoutly resisted by Paul and those with him.

Here then we see God working among the Gentiles, and gathering out of them a people for His Name. Then the adversary gets busy. There were those, we sometimes speak of them as Judaising teachers, who wished to make all things, especially the Gentiles, conform to a certain Jewish pattern. That is why I turned on to chapter fifteen. Some of these teachers came down to Antioch and said, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). Circumcision was something that, “after the manner of Moses”, or according to the law, attached the circumcised person to Judaism. In proposing this these teachers were seeking to bring in the middle wall of partition which God had broken down. There is no such partition in the church, and we who form part of it are on a new basis altogether, because whether Jew or Gentile we're made one new man. We are brought together, and the adversary, of course, is out to mar the work of God. So these men came down and they said in effect, “You will have to make these people kind of second rate Jews. You'll have to incorporate them into our legal system, or they'll never be saved.” If you read chapter fifteen carefully you will notice that there was a good deal of disputation. It doesn't mean that they were all flying at each other's throats and arguing in a very noisy way, but the whole matter was being thrashed out in discussion. Peter rose up and said: “Ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe”. When was that? When he went to the house of Cornelius. Three times God gave him a special vision, to deliver him from preconceived notions that would only hinder him, and at last Peter went. It is a remarkable thing that not only do we have the divinely inspired account of it by Luke the historian, in Acts 10, but in the next chapter it is repeated again, though from a somewhat different angle. When Peter returned to Jerusalem he was challenged about what had happened, and we have an account of it from the lips of Peter in Acts 11, though recorded of course by Luke, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. Now for the third time, here in Acts 15, Cornelius is referred to. It was an epoch-making event. The Pharisees were very particular about the washing of this and the washing of that, but they didn't bother much about their hearts. Peter said as it were: “My dear brethren, look what happened when God made choice among us that by my mouth the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles. Why, the Holy Spirit decided the question. You say they are unclean Gentiles, but their hearts were purified by faith. God has purified their hearts, and He who knows the heart gave them the Holy Spirit, even as He did to us.” If you read the tenth chapter of Acts you may be struck by the fact that no word was said as to their being baptised until they had received the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2, in answer to the question “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”, Peter said: “Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. Baptism has a very special place in connection with the Jew. If I was asked to give in one word its great significance I should give the word disconnection, though it has a new association in view. In the context of Acts chapter two it is cutting the link with the Nation that had rejected the Messiah. Peter says as it were: “Cut your links with the Nation that has killed the Messiah; stand out from it. Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” And they were baptised; they cut their links with, there was disconnection from, the apostate nation of that time. But when you read Acts chapter ten you find that while Peter was preaching the word that pointed them to the risen Christ, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard. Has there ever been again an occasion like that? Many of them were doubtless God-fearing, pious persons, but not really converted. You start with all that were there unconverted, apart from Peter and those who went with him, and one hundred per cent they're converted. The Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the Word. Cornelius, soldiers, friends and family. And Peter had to say: “How can we refuse to baptise these people? Let them cut the links with the old life, and come amongst us as Christians.” God had settled it. That's what they say later in chapter fifteen: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us … ”. The Holy Spirit decided the question of the reception of the Gentiles by falling on them just as they were, as the light of the gospel dawned in their hearts. On the day of Pentecost there were three thousand, but here there was only a room full, but they were “by one Spirit … all baptized into one body”.

But the Jews - those at least who made a profession of Christianity with Satan as their instrument - sought to place the Gentiles under the yoke of Judaism, and destroy the work of God within, if they could not hinder it without the church. They went down from Judaea to Antioch, teaching the brethren that they must be circumcised, and observe the law of Moses, in order to be saved. The moment was a critical one. It was necessary, according to them, that the Gentiles should submit to the law of Moses, and become Jews, or that two separate assemblies should be formed. Paul and Barnabas, however, oppose themselves to these exactions. But God did not permit the question to be settled at Antioch.

These who said they were Jews were claiming to be the real people of God, the inheritors of the spiritual privileges of ancient Israel . They were insisting on Jewish principles and sought to put the Gentile believers under the law and on the same ground as Israel of old under the covenant of the law of Sinai. They were active already in the days of the apostles who had to contend with these Judaizing teachers.

In Acts 15 we read about men who came down from Judæa and taught the Gentile believers at Antioch that except they were circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not be saved (v.1). Paul and Barnabas dissented and disputed with them over this. At Jerusalem some spoke up in the Church and said that it was needful to circumcise the Gentile converts and command them to keep the law of Moses. Peter replied that this was putting a yoke upon the disciples "which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear, but we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they" (v.5,9,10).

In the epistle to the Galatians the apostle Paul contended strongly against those who were preaching another Gospel than that of the grace of God which he had received from Christ and preached. "There be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Gal.1:7-8). It was these Judaizing teachers of the law who were likewise troubling the Galatian saints and perverting the Gospel. To add one single thing to the Gospel of Christ's death for our sins, His burial and resurrection for our justification, as that which is necessary for salvation, is to pervert the Gospel.

(V. 1.) Fourteen years later, the Apostle again visited Jerusalem, accompanied by Barnabas and Titus. This visit, of which we have further details in Acts. 15, was precisely on account of this judaising teaching introduced by "false brethren unawares brought in" who were troubling the assemblies in Galatia.

After fourteen years he went up again to Jerusalem, precisely on account of the Judaising Christians; false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out the liberty, which the Gentiles had in Christ Jesus, that they might bring them into bondage. It is probably this to which Acts 15 refers. Barnabas accompanied him and he also took Titus with him. Paul and Barnabas had greatly withstood these false brethren, who had come down from Jerusalem; but God had not allowed them to succeed, in order no doubt, that it might be Jerusalem and the apostles as linked with the assembly at Jerusalem, who should recognise the liberty of the Gentiles. There would otherwise have been two churches; a church bound by the law at Jerusalem, and a church free from the law at Antioch. Thus, by the wisdom of God, it was Jerusalem itself who declared Christians from among the nations, to be not subject to the law, and thus all remained united.

For a brief moment at the beginning of the Church's history there was perfect agreement between the membership of Christ's body and the fellowship of the Apostles. The truth that was of a spiritual nature and only to be apprehended as revealed to faith, found an accurate representation whereby it was displayed before men. We do not, however, travel far into the Acts of the Apostles before we find discrepancies between the two appearing, and soon there are to be found a number within the circle of the Apostles' fellowship, whose membership of Christ's body was open to question. We refer to the Judaizing teachers of Acts 15:1. In Galatians 2:4, Paul alludes to these as "false brethren unawares brought in". Notice they were "brought in", and hence he calls them "brethren" , but he stigmatizes them as "false" .

It was not long before the evil teaching cropped up. Certain believers, who had been Pharisees before conversion, and who evidently were not free of the bondage of the law in their spirits, rose up, and pressed that it was needful to circumcise the believers, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. This brought the apostles and elders to consider the matter.

Our rejoicing however must be "in the Lord." There are those who would divert us from Him, as is indicated in verse 2. In saying "dogs" the Apostle probably alludes to men of quite evil life, akin to the unclean Gentiles. By "evil workers," to those who while professedly Christian were introducing what was evil. By "the concision" he refers to the Judaizing faction, in contrast with whom are the true "circumcision" of which verse 3 speaks. The word translated "concision" means a mere lopping off, in contrast to the complete cutting off of death, which was figured in circumcision. The Judaizers believed in lopping off the uglier excrescences of the flesh but would not have that bringing in of death, "by the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11), which is the truth of Christianity. The object before the Judaizers was "that they may glory in your flesh" (Gal. 6:13). Men cannot exactly boast in the grosser manifestations of the flesh, so they aim at lopping them off in order to encourage more amiable and aesthetic manifestations in which to make their boast. But it is boasting in the flesh nevertheless.

It was nothing but pride that activated the Galatian judaizers to demand the circumcision of Gentile believers. The judaizers desired recognition from the world, something to make a good show in the flesh (v.12), and they drew back from suffering and persecution for the sake of the cross of Christ. They knew that a forthright, simple confession of their sins having been borne on Calvary's cross, would be displeasing to the world. They therefore took refuge in formalism, and sought formalistic followers.