Who can be saved? That is a question Christians have sought to answer for millennia (Mark 10:26). When Cornelius and his house received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44-45), God provoked a major controversy within the church. Can uncircumcised Gentiles inherit the Kingdom of God? “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1). It’s amazing how many times preachers of the good news of Christ try to prohibit God’s outpouring of grace. For some Jewish believers, confession in Christ and baptism (water and Spirit) were not sufficient. To their way of thinking, to be saved the Greeks must become Jews. Peter witnessed the Spirit’s outpouring upon the Gentiles, and the Spirit had prepared him through a visionary experience (Acts 10:9-16). Peter declared, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him” (Acts 10:34-35).
Settling this issue required that all the leaders of the church assemble in Jerusalem to pray, consider the Scriptures, hear from the Holy Spirit, and make a decision about the salvation of the world. Yes, it was that important. My comments here are not about the process, but about their decision. The church, assembled together with the Holy Spirit, declared:
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.” (Acts 15:28-29).
The bishops and elders of the church (ancient and contemporary) must be concerned with basic three questions:
- How are we saved? Humans are saved through proper response to God’s gracious gifts of Christ and Spirit (Acts 2:38).
- Who can be saved? All who confess the resurrected Christ as Lord “will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10).
- What does it mean to be saved? This is the question with which the Jerusalem Council struggled, and with which we struggle today.
No, we’re not debating ritual circumcision or dietary laws. We are struggling with sexual ethics. This has become a very personal and emotional debate as believers gather in seminary classrooms, church board rooms, and family living rooms. There is nothing more intimate and personal than sex. Further, sexual morality affects the common good of human society.
As the apostolic church considered “Who can be saved?” they offered insight into “What does it mean to be saved?” No, Gentile believers would not have to be circumcised. Yes, Gentiles could eat pork. But the bishops and elders of the church offered essentials that all believers must embrace. One of those essentials is that believers must abstain from porneia, that is, sexual immorality. To be saved means to walk in the Spirit, not according to the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16ff).
Too often, believers are tempted to justify sinful desires. A mother justifies a daughter’s sexual immorality by suggesting, “You know, they really love each other.” A father justifies his son’s homosexual marriage by participating in the ceremony. A youth pastor justifies his pornography addiction by blaming his wife’s lack of response. The problem is that self-justification is nothing less than self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is nothing less than self-deification.
The only justification that matters is justification by faith in Jesus Christ. What does this mean? Paul declared, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
Justification is not God’s affirmation of the sinner. That is self-deception. Justification and sanctification are God’s transformation of the sinner. Like it or not, the judgment of the apostolic church stands. Abstaining from sexual immorality is an essential of the Faith.
