From Judaism to Jesus, Part 1
Acts 18:18-23
Coming to the 18th chapter of Acts, I've entitled this particular message, "From Judaism to Jesus." The story of the Book of Acts has proven to us to be a study in transitions. I want to belabor the point for a moment, because I think it's important for you to understand that.
The Book of Acts, written by Luke, describing the early years of the church after its beginning, is really a book of transitions. It's a book of beginnings. In a sense, it's the genesis of the New Covenant. It's all of the beginnings as the church begins to find itself and form itself and sever itself from Judaism. It was particularly a time of transition for the Jews of the early church. The old things of Judaism faded out very slowly, slowly, and the new gradually phased in.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews gives us the theology of the transition, or the theology of the change from Judaism to Jesus. He very clearly lays it out. He says, for example, that Moses and David and Joshua and Aaron and all of the priests and all of those great characters of Judaism have all been replaced, as it were, by Jesus. He goes beyond that, and he says that the laws and the ceremonies and the rituals and the patterns of the Old Testament have given way to a whole grace kind of life. No longer are you ruled by externals but you're ruled by the Spirit within.
God's people, Israel, have given way to God's people, the church. The system of multiple sacrifices has given way to the one final sacrifice. All the way through Hebrews, as we studied it some months ago, we saw the tremendous viewpoint of the New Covenant as it means the old is set aside. The writer of the Book of Hebrews even says, "The old decays and fades away."
So the writer of Hebrews gives us the theology of "From Judaism to Jesus," but the Book of Acts gives us the history of "From Judaism to Jesus." It shows us the flow and the transition of the period of years as the church emerges as an identity all its own. It was not an easy transition.
The history of the Book of Acts gives to us many insights into the depth of Judaism as we see people coming to Jesus Christ, receiving Him as Savior, being introduced to the church by the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation, becoming part of the church, identifying with the church in every way but still hanging on to features of Judaism. We see other Jews who see what the church, who see Christ, who in their minds believe it but aren't willing to leave Judaism and come all the way to Christ. As we look at Acts, we see in actuality and in history what the Book of Hebrews said was the fact that we must change from Judaism to Jesus.
The Book of Acts is a book upon which we must not base a systematic theology. In other words, you can't go to the Book of Acts and just take these things and frame them as a normal theology. It doesn't work. The reason it doesn't work is because you're in a state of flux.
For example, in chapter 19 of Acts, which we'll study next week or the week after or the week after that, it says, in verse 2, that Paul met some disciples, and he said unto them, "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?"
When you read that there, that simple statement, it leaves it a very serious implication. You say to yourself, "Paul was assuming that you could believe and not receive the Holy Spirit." If you go over the Book of Romans, Paul says, in Romans 8:9, "If any man has not the spirit of Christ, he's not a Christian." So the statement of Romans is an absolute statement that every Christian has the Holy Spirit. Here you have this statement that may indicate there's a gap between when a person is saved and when they get the Holy Spirit.
What happens, for example, in the charismatic movement, they based their theology not on Romans, which is theology, but on Acts, which is flux, which is history, which is transition, you see. If you were going to really base your theology on the Book of Acts, you'd have to do a lot of other things that were Judaistic in the past. There are many things of transition.
When you study Acts, you're studying history, and theology is sort of a limited corollary. The transition isn't easy for a Jew, because Judaism is not just a religion. People often think that Judaism is a religion. It is not a religion. It is as much a nationalism as it is a culture and a race. It's a way of life. It's a heritage. It's a lover, as it were. People are in love with Judaism, Jewish people, and rightly so.
It was ordained of God. It's a way of life, a point of pride, a divine institution, and it doesn't die easily. We see that even today. Jewish people who come to Jesus Christ, if they've been involved in any depth of Judaism, and certainly Orthodox Judaism or Conservative Judaism in some cases, they become Christians, but it's very difficult for them to break with all of those traditions. They very often hang on to those things.
Dr. Feinberg himself expressed to me that this is one of the tragedies or one of the problems the church has to deal with, and that is allowing the Jews to become a full part of the body of Christ. Very often, they themselves resist that. The statistics are staggering when you think that in LA there are multiple tens of thousands of Jewish believers and a few hundred of them are involved in local churches.
So it's very difficult for the transition from Judaism to Jesus. The church needs to do everything it can to stretch out its arms of love to incorporate them in every way and at the same time allow those old institutions to die out.
In the character of the Book of Acts, the church is born, and Judaism in God's eyes is a dead issue, but believe me, the burial took an awfully long time, an awfully long time.
Let me show you what I mean by that. Go back to Acts chapter 2. This is going to give you, I think, a general view of the Book of Acts that will help your interpretation in future studies. In Acts 2:47, the Bible says this. The early church had just been formed in chapter 2, the day of Pentecost, and Peter had preached 3,000 were saved. They were having a great time fellowshipping and meeting and preaching and teaching and eating together and having communion and all. You come to verse 47, and it says here, "They were praising God and having favor with all the people."
Now watch. "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." Notice this is "the" church. Separate identity from Israel altogether. The church is being built. But watch--"The Lord added to the church--" Look at verse 1 of chapter 3. "Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour." Isn't that interesting?
The church had already been established. If there were two primary leaders in the church, they were Peter and John, and yet with the establishment of the church, they were still going to the temple where the veil had already been rent in twain and still going there at the prescribed Jewish prayer hours. You see?
Judaism died very slowly, because it was so much a way of life for so many years. These Christians were first of all and for most of their lives Jews, Hebrews. These were patterns that were difficult to change.
Over in chapter 11 the same thing happened. We could read verses 1-18 and still find many things of interest there. Just going down to verse 15. Peter had just preached the Gospel to Cornelius, who was a Gentile. Cornelius had believed and received all the Holy Spirit, and man, it was exciting. Peter was really having a hard time with all of it, because in Peter's mind, Christianity was so much a part of Judaism that he really couldn't handle Gentiles even getting saved. You see?
Look what he says in 15. He reports to the rest of the Jews what happened there. He says, "As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them as he had come on us at the beginning," as if to say, "Could you believe that? Gentiles!"
You see, again, he hasn't quite seen that the church is an identity all its own. He sees it as an extension of Israel. He says, "Then remembered I the Word of the Lord, how He said, 'John, indeed, baptized with water, you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' For as much then as God gave them the same gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God?"
Isn't that interesting? He said, "You know, those guys were believing, and the Holy Spirit came, and I couldn't even stop Him." It's interesting that their mentality was such as Peter feels, "I've got to defend myself, because they're going to say, 'Peter, why did you let the Holy Spirit come to those Gentiles?'" He says, "What could I do? God was doing it." See?
It indicates the difficulty in his mind of seeing Christianity as a unit all its own composed of Jew and Gentile, but rather, they saw it as an extension of Judaism. It's understandable, right, because Jesus was their Messiah? He was the fulfillment of Judaism.
These things died hard. Over in chapter 15, some folks, who've become a real pain in the neck in _______, but the Judaisers who wanted everybody to be a Jew and believe in Christ--you had to do both--they came along and said, "Except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you can't be saved." You can't be saved unless you get circumcised. You see, they're still seeing believing in Christ as merely an extension of Judaism. That problem was solved, incidentally, in chapter 15 as the Jerusalem counsel came on with a strong statement that Gentiles were saved by faith.
You have to remember, then, that there was flux in the Book of Acts, and that many of these Jewish people who are coming to Christ are finding it hard to get all the way over to the features of Christianity. Not only because of the strength of Judaism but watch this-- Secondly, because all of the features of Christianity hadn't been revealed yet. They really didn't know what to substitute for it.
Another interesting thing that I think helps us to see the transition is the fact that even when the church was born, for the most part, the church was born in synagogues, right? Whenever Paul went to a town, what was the first place he went? Synagogues. Consequently, again, they saw this connected with Judaism. In fact, the Romans considered Christianity a sect of Judaism. As they stood apart and looked at it, they just figured it's a sect of Judaism. That's how tightly tied it was.
Once there was a group of people saved-- Let's say Paul went to a synagogue, and a little group of people got saved, they didn't move out of the synagogue. They stayed there. Again, this caused that kind of tie difficult to be broken.
For example, when Paul in chapter 19 right here--there's a lot of examples. That one comes to mind--verse 8, when Paul comes to Ephesus, he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months. He just slid right into the Jewish structure and ministered right within the framework.
It's interesting to me that Aquila and Priscilla were Christians when Paul came to Corinth. Very likely, they met him at the synagogue, so there were Christians still attending the synagogue. It's even more interesting that later on we shall find in 18:24 that Apollos came to Ephesus. When he came to Ephesus, verse 26 says he began to speak at the synagogue and Aquila and Priscilla heard him. When they went to another city, Ephesus, they went to that synagogue, and they were Christian.
It wasn't until later in Ephesus, chapter 16 in I Corinthians, verse 19, Paul writes back and says, "The church is now in Aquila and Priscilla's house." It was years before it moved out of the synagogue and had an identity all its own.
You see, it was a very difficult thing for the Jews to sever their relationships with Judaism even though they came to Jesus Christ. Acts portrays all of this flux. There are other things in the Book of Acts that are transitional. That's the way the Book of Acts has to be treated.
Granted, there were some times when the transition happened a little quicker. When the Jews really got angry, sometimes the church got blown out of a synagogue. For example, in