The events in Acts 15:1-11 and Galatians 2:1-16 (The Jerusalem Council) occurred around 49-51 AD, and they highlight a major debate in the early Christian church regarding how a person was to be saved. This event centers around two key issues: how a person was to be saved and the actions of men from the Jerusalem church, led by Peter, James, and John, who came into the apostle Paul’s Gentile congregations as spies commanding Paul’s congregants to get circumcised and keep the Mosaic law or they could not be saved (Acts 15:1,5).

The Jerusalem church believed in the gospel of the kingdom, as stated in Matthew 9:35 and Matthew 16:16, and believed that Jesus was indeed Israel’s promised Messiah, the Son of God. They believed that keeping the law and circumcision was necessary for salvation. On the other hand, the apostle Paul preached the gospel of the grace of God, as stated in Acts 20:24 and 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 3:21. Paul preached that salvation was by faith alone in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, apart from the law. This message of faith alone was being undermined by the actions of the men from the Jerusalem church.

The gospel of the grace of God that Paul preached was a secret or mystery kept hidden in the mind of God since before creation (Romans 16:25; Colossians 1:26; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 3:1-11). The Lord Jesus Himself revealed this message to Paul (around 37-40 AD), putting him on higher ground than Peter and the Jerusalem Church. The actions of the men from the Jerusalem church were undermining Paul’s message, and it was important for Paul to address this issue and set the record straight.

In Galatians 2:2, the ascended Lord Himself told Paul to go to the Jerusalem church and tell Peter, James, and John and all at the Jerusalem church how mankind was to be saved moving forward. The Lord revealed to Paul that salvation would be by faith alone in the finished work of the cross alone apart from keeping the law, temple worship, and circumcision. This message was acknowledged by Peter in Acts 15:11, where he states, “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

This statement by Peter alone proves that the Jerusalem church was preaching a different gospel than Paul. The apostle Paul was on higher ground than Peter, James, and John, as he had received new revelations directly from the ascended Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11,12). This is evident in Galatians 2:3-9, where Paul states that those at the Jerusalem Church had nothing to offer him because he was given new revelations directly from the ascended Lord Jesus Himself, and not from anyone else, making him the higher authority on the matter. And the text in Acts 15 and Galatians 2 make it crystal clear.

To add even more Scripture support to Biblical truth that Paul was given new revelations from the Lord Jesus and Peter knew it is the apostle Peter’s very own words in 2 Peter 3:15-16. These are the very last words the mighty apostle would write and he tells his kinsman not to go back to the sermon on the mount for questions about salvation, not to go to the Lord’s earthly ministry for salvation, not to go to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2 for salvation. Instead, he admonishes his readers to go to Paul’s epistles for things pertaining to salvation!

‘and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.’

II Peter 3:15-16

Takeaways

It was Paul who told Peter and the Jerusalem Church leadership how mankind was to be saved going forward, not the other way around.

In conclusion, the events in Acts 15:1-11 and Galatians 2:1-16 are significant in the early Christian church as they reveal the fundamental differences in the gospels of the Jerusalem church and the apostle Paul. The Jerusalem church believed in salvation by believing that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God (by faith of course) that would bring in Israel’s promised kingdom and keep the law, while Paul preached salvation by faith alone in the finished work of the cross apart from the law and works. The actions of the men from the Jerusalem church, led by Peter, James, and John, were undermining Paul’s message and it was important for Paul to address this issue and set the record straight.

These events in Acts 15:1-11 and Galatians 2:1-16 are crucial for understanding the progression from the gospel of the kingdom to the gospel of the grace of God. Those who deny the Biblical truth that there were two gospels for a short time have a disagreement with God and no one else. A sixth grader can read Acts 15 and Galatians chapters 1 and 2 and come to the conclusion that there were two gospels. The language is explicitly clear and easy to understand. The gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of the grace of God.

Today, and for the last 2000 years there has been only one gospel that can save the individual. And it is the gospel that the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus gave to the apostle Paul found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

‘Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, ‘

I Corinthians 15:1-4