The Ministry of Paul and Barnabas Results in the Counter-attack of Satan and the Gathering at Jerusalem (13:1-15:35).
Leaving Antioch under the direct commissioning of the Holy Spirit, in a parallel commissioning to that of Jesus to His Apostles in Acts 1:8, Paul and Barnabas go first to Cyprus and then to Asia Minor with the Good News, and after rejection by the Jews enjoy a successful ministry among the Gentiles, returning to Antioch with rejoicing over what God has done.
However, as in the case of Peter earlier in Chapter s 10-11, Antioch then discovered that they also were not to be left alone by the Judaisers. It was one thing for Christ to have made a way of cleansing available for the Gentiles through His cross which rendered them clean without resort to Jewish ordinances, it was another for Jews to be able to accept the fact. It went against all their preconceptions. Man has always loved to think that he can contribute to his own redemption. Jerusalem has now become a drag on the Good News.
The last successful outreaches to Gentiles that we looked at, those to Cornelius and to Antioch in Chapter s 10-11, had resulted in the debacle and persecution of chapter 12, possibly partly as a result of the offence caused by Peter going in to Gentiles. This coming successful outreach will now result in another attack by Jews, but this time by so-called Jewish Christians. For on their arrival back from their successful outreach, Paul and Barnabas will find that Judaising Christians will arrive from Jerusalem and demand the imposing on all converts of the whole Jewish Law and of all Jewish ordinances. The failure to impose the Law in this way was what had previously angered the Jews themselves. (They would not have objected to the making of true proselytes). Now it was also angering these extreme Jewish Christians. For although they had remained silent when Peter had first stated his position in Acts 11:1-18, they had in their hearts refused to accept Peter's words and vision. So rejected Law-bound Jerusalem would now seek to interfere with Spirit-guided Antioch.
‘Paul and Barnabas' (note the altered order) will resist their claims with the result that the Antiochenes will determine that the matter must be brought before ‘the Apostles and elders' in Jerusalem. But in the light of Peter's previous vision and subsequent experience this could only have one result. The final decision will be reached that all that will be required of Gentiles is to consider Jewish sensitivities by abstaining from strangled meat and blood, so that they can still have fellowship meals together, while at the same time all will be called on to avoid idolatry and sexual misbehaviour. This having been decided the news will be taken to all the churches which have been set up, and the church will continue to expand.
This pattern of continual set backs following the proclamation of the word, resulting in the further moving forward of God's plan, is found throughout Acts, as we saw in the introduction to chapter 1, and it is no different here. But once again God prevails over their difficulty and triumph results.
That Luke sees all this as due to the underlying work of Satan is latent in most of Acts. It comes out openly in the cases of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:3), Elymas (Acts 13:10), and more indirectly with the woman diviner (Acts 16:16-18). But above all it comes out in the general statement in Acts 26:18 where all are seen to be under the power of Satan. The individual cases, which are like windows letting in the first glimpses of what is happening, lead up to the description of the whole. For in Acts 26:18, ‘from the power of Satan to God', gives a clear indication of the major source of Apostolic problems.
Jerusalem Has Ceased To Be The Evangelistic Centre For the Good News.
Luke has gone to great pains in Acts 11:19-30 to stress the unity and love between the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch. This is as a counteracting pattern to the failure of religious Jerusalem and its final rejection in chapter 12. This love was being revealed even while the persecution was going on. As Jerusalem is dying, the church which has sprung from Jerusalem is springing up into more abundant life. But it will no longer be centred in Jerusalem. From now on it will proceed from Jerusalem's offshoot, Syrian Antioch. Jerusalem has missed its opportunity.
It will have been noted that the incidents mentioned in chapter 12 were not in any way seen as directly connected with the visit of Barnabas and Saul. Luke's point seems merely to have been in order to stress the oneness of the two churches at the same time as the persecution is going on. He wants us to know that in the background behind the actions of Jerusalem against the church of Christ, in Jerusalem, the Gentiles were continually thinking of the good of the Jerusalem church. His statement ‘about that time' (Acts 12:1) confirms this suggestion, for it avoids a direct chronological link. The idea is that in the midst of their persecution the Jerusalem church were cocooned in the love of the church at Antioch, and could be sure that God had not forgotten them. While God's movement will go forth from the new, He does not totally desert the old. For His ‘new nation' is a combination of the churches both old and new, as from now on centred in Antioch, although with the reminder in chapter 15 of its source in Jerusalem.
Agrippa's death in fact took place in 44 AD. We do not know when the visit of Barnabas and Saul took place, but in his letter to the Galatians Paul tells us that it was fourteen years after his conversion (Galatians 2:1). This suggests that it was probably at least a year or so after Agrippa's death. However, the warm thoughts and the collecting of goods and money to assist them would have taken place earlier. Thus the dark days of the church in Jerusalem are cocooned in the love of the church in Antioch. (The problem for us, of course, is that we do not know with any certainty the year in which Paul's conversion took place).
We have seen how in chapter 11 Barnabas and the prophets all previously went from Jerusalem to Antioch to minister to them. Jerusalem had ‘fed' Antioch. This was then followed by the description of the collection of goods or money, which were then brought to Jerusalem by Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:22-30). Antioch would now feed Jerusalem.
All this activity would take some time and much of it had probably preceded the happenings in Jerusalem. But the actual visit probably occurred after those happenings. The point of Acts 11:30 would therefore seem to be in order to contrast the love of the Gentile church for the Jerusalem church with the hatred of the Jews for them, even prior to the latter being revealed. Now following that chapter Barnabas and Saul, having visited Jerusalem, and having had their private talks with the Apostles, that is with Peter and John (Galatians 2:2; Galatians 2:7-9) are portrayed as returning to Antioch for the next stage forward. From this it would appear that for a short while at least Peter and John were back in Jerusalem. But Luke ignores this in view of the point that he is getting over the point that Jerusalem's influence on evangelism is over. His concentration is now on Antioch. They have become the new place where the voice of the Spirit speaks, and from which He sends forth His witnesses.
In Acts 11:30 we read, ‘sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul', although it does not tell us whether these elders were the elders of the Jerusalem church, or the elders of the Judaean churches. And now here in Acts 12:25 he picks up with the fact that Barnabas and Saul ‘returned (to Antioch) from Jerusalem'. ‘From Jerusselm' may suggest that the gifts had been presented to the elders of Jerusalem for distribution, although elders from Judaean churches may also have been called together for the occasion and have been present (but note the other possible translation below which would signify that it was the Judaean elders).
There is an importance to this that we must not overlook. It emphasises that while Jewish Jerusalem itself has turned away from its Lord, and has been rejected, having turned down its ‘second chance' (the second chance that Stephen had emphasised), the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch are still as one, and go on together. The passing of the evangelistic commission to Antioch in the narrative takes place in such a way as carefully to avoid the suggestion of any division between the churches. Rather it continues to demonstrate their oneness. Indeed, some of the prophets in Antioch were sent by the Jerusalem church. So even though Jerusalem can no longer be the evangelising centre, and is replaced by Antioch in that regard, the churches in Jerusalem and Antioch are still seen as having ‘all things in common'. They are still seen as one, and the Jerusalem church is still seen as the foundation of that unity, remaining in the closest of relationships with the church at Antioch. It is simply circumstances under God that have brought about the change. We certainly cannot avoid the impression, however, that evangelistically speaking the church in Jerusalem has been sidelined. No longer does evangelistic activity flow from Jerusalem. Peter has thrown it off. Barnabas and Saul have bid it farewell. While it will be allowed one last fling in chapter 15, that will only be in order to proclaim its own slow demise. Its own decrees will in fact render contact with Jerusalem unnecessary. It will not only no longer be the hub of the outreach of the Good News, the mantle having passed on to Antioch (and no doubt also to wherever the apostles were ministering away from Jerusalem), it will no longer even count in the purposes of God.
We may further add that in the light of Luke's clear indication of Jerusalem's rejection by God in the person of its king in chapter 12, it is difficult to conceive why, if the destruction of Jerusalem had take place by the time that Luke was writing, it was not hinted at in some way. It would have been the final proof of the rejection of the people of Jerusalem along with their king. This can only lead us to think that that event had therefore not taken place when this was written.
But that the church in Jerusalem is not itself to be seen a part of this rejection comes out in the fact that this next section will lead up to another visit by ‘the Apostles' (as represented by those who would be present, which certainly included Peter) to Jerusalem, together with Barnabas and Saul and ‘certain other', where again all will come together as one in order finally to establish the requirement that will be made of Gentiles in the worldwide church (chapter 15). The Jerusalem church is still therefore, in its last fling, the central pivot around which the churches are united. It is not Jerusalem itself which is now central, it is the church in Jerusalem, still seen as the centre around which all the other churches unite. The attempt to reconnect with the Temple in Acts 21:17-36 is in fact seen as doomed to failure. There is thus a separation between the ideas of the city and the church. The city is rejected. The church lives on. But, although it does not yet realise it, it too will within a generation sink into insignificance. But by then it will not matter. Christianity will have no further need for Jerusalem.
Luke in fact intended us to see from the beginning that in the end the Good News would go to the Gentiles, for in Luke 4 when Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, having rejected Satan's offer of kingship, and having offered Himself as the Spirit anointed prophet of Isaiah 61, is caused by the cavalier treatment of his fellow-townsfolk to point out to them how often God sent His prophets to Gentiles because the Jews were not worthy (Luke 4:22-28). Now that idea is coming to its full fruition. Christ has completed His work, the Holy Spirit anointed ‘prophets' have come, Jerusalem has rather accepted Satan's offer of an alternative kingship, and therefore the word goes out to those Gentiles who are open to the true King and the Kingly Rule of God. Acts 12 is in a sense the fulfilment of Luke 4:6-7. Acts 10-11, Acts 10:13 the fulfilment of Luke 4:23-27. But this latter is only after Jerusalem has had its opportunity to be God's evangel to the world and has rejected it. Furthermore this theme of ‘to the Jew first' will continue to be the theme in Acts although it regularly results in Paul's turning to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46; Acts 18:6; Acts 28:17-28).
Thus Jesus teaching in Luke 4 has presented the whole scope of the future that is coming. Christ coming in the fullness of the Spirit (Acts 4:1), His rejection of an earthly kingdom (Acts 4:5-7), His revelation of Himself as the Anointed Prophet (Acts 4:18-21), His offering of the Good News to Israel (Acts 4:21), His warning that, if they do not heed it, it will go to the Gentiles (Acts 4:25-27). This was then followed by His manifestation of Himself as the Prophet by His actions and words (Acts 4:31-37), and His concentration on ‘the Jew first' as He steadfastly trod the path towards Jerusalem (Luke generally ignores Gentile connections like the Syro-phoenician woman and the ministry in Decapolis). And even when he opens Acts he cites Jesus' words ‘to Jerusalem first'. But this time it is declared that the witness must finally reach the ‘uttermost part of the earth'. And once the message of the Messiah has been rejected first by the leaders, and then in chapter 12 by the people, Jerusalem and its ways will itself be rejected, and the Good News will go out freely to the Gentiles, although even then with the Jews always receiving the first opportunity.