WHY ACTS 15 DOES NOT PUT CHRISTIANS BACK UNDER MOSES
One of the most common arguments from modern Torah advocates is this: “If Christians are not under the Law of Moses, then why did the apostles give Gentiles commandments in Acts 15?” It is presented as though the Jerusalem conference proved that the church remained under Sinai. Yet the exact opposite is true. Acts 15 was not a reaffirmation of Moses over the church. It was the Spirit-guided declaration that salvation is in Christ alone and not in the covenant given at Mount Sinai (Acts 15:1-11; Galatians 5:1-4).
The controversy arose because certain men were teaching that Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved. That was the issue. The apostles gathered to answer it plainly. Peter stood and reminded the assembly that God had already accepted Gentiles by faith, giving them the Holy Spirit apart from the Law. He then warned against placing upon disciples “a yoke” that neither Israel nor their fathers had been able to bear (Acts 15:7-10). Those words are devastating to the modern legalist position. Peter did not describe the Mosaic covenant as the abiding rule of Christian justification or even obedience. He described it as a yoke from which Christ delivers men through grace.
Then comes the objection. “But the apostles still gave Gentiles four commandments.” Indeed they did. Gentile believers were instructed to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood (Acts 15:19-20). Yet these were not presented as a re-imposition of the Mosaic covenant. Rather, they were practical and moral instructions designed to separate Gentile converts from pagan worship and preserve fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers during that transitional period of history. Idolatry and sexual immorality saturated the Gentile temple world. The apostles were not placing Christians beneath Sinai again. They were calling believers to holiness and peace within the body of Christ (Romans 14:13-21; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13).
If Acts 15 were truly teaching that Christians remain under Moses, then the entire chapter would collapse into contradiction. The very debate concerned whether Gentiles must keep the Law of Moses. The apostles answered no. James did not conclude, “Therefore let them keep Torah.” Instead he said, “We should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19). The burden imposed by the Judaizers was rejected. Salvation was grounded in grace, not in the covenant at Sinai (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).
The New Testament consistently teaches that the Mosaic covenant has fulfilled its purpose in Christ. Paul declared that believers have become dead to the Law through the body of Christ (Romans 7:4). He taught that Jesus abolished the law of commandments contained in ordinances, creating one new man in place of Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14-15). The Hebrew writer said the old covenant had become obsolete and was vanishing away (Hebrews 8:13). To the Galatians, Paul warned that those seeking justification through the Law had fallen from grace (Galatians 5:2-4). Such language cannot be reconciled with the theory that Christians remain under the Mosaic system.
This does not mean moral truth disappeared. Murder was sinful before Moses, during Moses, and after Moses. Sexual immorality was condemned long before Sinai existed (Genesis 39:7-9). God’s holiness does not change, though covenants do. Therefore, when the apostles condemned fornication in Acts 15, they were not reinstating the Mosaic covenant any more than condemning idolatry reinstates the covenant made with Noah. Christians obey God today, not because they stand beneath Moses, but because they belong to Christ and are governed by His revealed will in the gospel (Galatians 6:2).
The tragedy of modern Torah movements is that they blur the glory of the finished work of Christ. They speak often of Moses, feast days, dietary regulations, and old covenant shadows, while the apostles continually directed believers to the sufficiency of Christ Himself (Colossians 2:16-17; Hebrews 10:1). The cross did not merely improve the old covenant. It fulfilled it and brought in a better covenant established upon better promises (Hebrews 8:6).
The church must not return to the shadows when the substance has come. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our covenant. Christ is our peace. And the believer who walks in the liberty of the gospel stands upon far firmer ground than the man who seeks to rebuild the walls Christ tore down by His blood (Galatians 2:18-21).
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Father, keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, who fulfilled the Law and brought us into a better covenant through His blood. Teach us to walk in holiness, truth, and love under the lordship of Christ alone. In Jesus’ name, amen.
BDD
