One day a student approached me after class with an urgent question. The course was on the doctrine of the church, and we’d spent a few weeks on Abraham, Israel, and the law of Moses. Some years back, my student’s family left a mainstream congregation to found a house church which sought to be more like the Christian communities in the Book of Acts. Though Gentiles, they began observing Jewish customs and celebrating the festivals commanded by Moses, including Passover.
My student asked me earnestly, “Were we wrong?” This small church was trying to heed the admonition of James to “be doers of the word,” following “the perfect law, the law of liberty” (1:22–25, RSV throughout). And their logic was impeccable: The Torah (the Hebrew word for the law of Moses) is God’s Word for God’s people. Baptized Gentiles are members of God’s people; therefore, they ought to obey these commands.
The question is not a trivial one, nor is it obscure in American Christian life. You’re likely familiar with shofars blown in public, Seder meals for Passover, and circumcision for baby boys. But as common and well-intended as these may be, I want to explain why I told my student that, yes, his house church was wrong—or at least, misguided. The New Testament is not silent on the question of Gentile observance of the law of Moses. And its answer is a firm no.
The apostles are clear that Gentiles—that is, non-Jews, people who do not descend biologically from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—need not become Jewish to follow Christ. Indeed, Paul goes further, particularly in his letter to the Galatians, where a young church had been convinced that God required circumcision and law following for Gentile salvation. He writes there that if Gentiles are circumcised, “Christ will be of no advantage to you” (5:2–4). Any who say otherwise, he charges, are preaching “another gospel,” one that is “accursed” (1:7–9).
Yet for all that clarity, I understand why the question is perennial. It certainly mattered to the early church—arguably it prompted the first theological crisis the apostles faced, and every document of the New Testament bears the impression of this debate. The question could be phrased from two different perspectives. Jewish believers asked, On what basis may Gentiles join us? Once included, Gentile believers asked, On what basis is the Torah authoritative for us?
The question didn’t stand alone but drew together a host of others: the oneness and justice of God, the sacrifice of Christ, the authority of Scripture, the election of Abraham, the vocation of the Jews, the scope of salvation, the gift of the Spirit, the purpose of faith, and the efficacy of baptism. Given its implications, everything hung on getting the answer to this question right.
The New Testament is written more or less entirely from the first perspective. This presents a conundrum for a church that has long been majority Gentile: How should we interpret texts written by Jews to Gentiles joining a religiously and mostly ethnically Jewish movement? The questions they were answering are subtly different from the questions we face today.
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Nevertheless, we should start with their debates. Very early the apostles realized that Gentiles were eager to join the faith. It took the intervention of the Spirit to help them see that this was God’s will (Acts 10:1–11:18; Gal. 2:11–21). But eventually they couldn’t deny that Gentiles were receiving faith, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Christ himself was welcoming Gentiles into his family, the family of Abraham.
What does it mean to become a child of Abraham? For Jewish believers, the answer in Genesis 17 came from God in no uncertain terms: “This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised,” and any male not circumcised “has broken my covenant” (vv. 10–14). You couldn’t ask for a clearer command.
This is the biblical case pious Jewish believers brought forward for the apostles to consider. These believers were neither xenophobic nor racist, as they are sometimes labeled. They simply wanted Gentiles to join the family on the terms God had set. As they understood the Scriptures, that meant circumcision. And circumcision in turn stood for following the whole law, because it is the sign of the covenant and the doorway into all its obligations. On this, Paul agreed: “Every man who receives circumcision … is bound to keep the whole law” (Gal. 5:3).
It was hardly unreasonable for faithful Jewish Christians to suppose this long-standing command would remain the same for Gentile converts. After all, God’s command to Abraham even included circumcising foreigners joined to his house (Gen. 17:12–13)! So Jewish believers applied Scripture to the newfound situation of baptized Gentiles: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. … It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:1, 5).
It seems to me that many believers today are like early Gentile Christians ready to go “all the way” as new members of Abraham’s household. This was the exact attitude that animated my student’s house church. They read the opening chapters of Acts and wanted to imitate the early church. A worthy impulse! But what they failed to do—and what I believe too many Gentile believers fail to do—is follow this thread of debate through the rest of the book.
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The apostles approached the question of Gentiles and the law with the utmost seriousness. In Acts 15, we see them meet in Jerusalem with the church’s elders to consider the matter (v. 6). Peter bore witness to the work of the Spirit in Gentiles like the God-fearer Cornelius, whose story is recounted five chapters prior (vv. 7–11). Barnabas and Paul bore witness to the “signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (v. 12). And finally, James arose to deliver the verdict (vv. 13–21).
The council’s answer was unambiguous: No, Gentiles need not be circumcised to follow Jesus; no, Gentiles need not be law observant to join the church; no, salvation is not impossible apart from the Torah. The grace of God is sufficient for all, and faith in Christ is available to all.
As Paul would later write, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:27–29).
If James announced the ruling, Paul provided the reasons. Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. As the seed or descendant of Abraham, he is the one in whom all the promises of God are fulfilled (Gal. 3:14–18; 2 Cor. 1:20). The love of God comes to a head in him; grace and truth are flesh and blood in Mary’s son (John 1:17). To have Jesus, then, is to have everything: God as heavenly Father, Abraham as human father, and every promise God made to Abraham—blessing, family, election, covenant, inheritance, and posterity. In a word, life.
Take note that Peter, James, and Paul retain the background assumptions of the pro-Torah party in the Judean church. Redemption is not found apart from Abraham, or the covenant God established with him, or the people of God as a whole. As Jesus affirmed, “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22).
Yet through Jesus, Gentiles are adopted as children of Abraham just as Jews and Gentiles alike are adopted as children of God (Rom 3:9–8:25; Gal. 3:6–5:1; Eph. 2:11–22). It was always God’s intention to bless the families of the earth (the Gentiles) through the one family of Abraham (the Jews). Christ “is our peace, who has made us both one,” reconciling Jews and Gentiles “to God in one body through the cross” so that “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph. 2:14, 16, 18).
In this sense, the pro-Torah party was right: Jesus is not a way to avoid either Abraham or his family. Jesus is a way—the way—to join them. He doesn’t “abolish the law and the prophets” but fulfills them (Matt 5:17–18). As Paul outlines in exacting detail in the Book of Romans, God is faithful simultaneously to Abraham, to his biological descendants, and to his adopted children.
Still, the apostles’ verdict at the Jerusalem council opens further questions for present-day interpretation. Neither circumcision nor Torah observance is a condition for receiving salvation in Christ—granted. But what then of Moses’ law? What is its status for faith, discipleship, and the church? How should Christians read it as the Word of the Lord to and for his people?
The place to start is where the New Testament is clearest: Gentiles are not meant to keep the law of Moses. They are not supposed to keep kosher, celebrate Jewish festivals, or circumcise their boys as a ritual sign of Torah observance. To do so is spiritually risky, suggesting—just as Paul warned the Galatians—that Christ alone is insufficient for salvation or implying that God is unable or unwilling to bring Gentiles into the fold as Gentiles.
This is the insecurity of the younger brother or, better said, the adopted sibling. Yet Paul reiterates time and again to Gentile Christians that Christ is enough. Torah observance is not the “next level” for spiritual maturity or devotion.
Confessing faith in Christ, we receive him in baptism, where his Spirit writes his law on our hearts, and we rise from the waters as children of God and Abraham both. Circumcision adds nothing to this, nor can anything else: “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal. 6:15). “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:16–17).
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To be sure, Gentile Christians who use shofars or host Seders do not claim God requires these things for salvation. Yet many believe that Torah observance, if not mandatory for Gentile Christians, is nonetheless spiritually wise and edifying. This strikes me as difficult to square with the plain teaching of Galatians about Gentiles and the law.
Others simply want to get in touch with the Jewish roots of Christian faith. At the risk of raining on a well-meaning parade, allow me to place a question mark next to this practice. Seder meals, for instance, are not an ancient ritual long extinct; living Jewish families hold them every year. Gentile Christians trying on a Jewish rite that their own faith doesn’t instruct them to observe may not be “another gospel.” But it is in danger of slipping into a kind of ethnoreligious cosplay.
It should go without saying that I do not mean that churches should not teach or learn about Passover, whether in Scripture or in contemporary Jewish practice, perhaps in friendship with Jewish neighbors. But Gentile Christians curious about Passover need to remember that they have a Passover meal of their own: the Lord’s Supper. This is the church’s memorial meal of the new covenant wrought by the blood of Christ. As Paul wrote to the Gentiles in Corinth, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor 5:7–8, KJV).
As to the authority of the Torah for Christians today, it remains God’s Word for his people. For Gentiles, it is a narrative that reveals God’s creation of the world, his calling of a people, and his deliverance of them from bondage in Egypt. It further unveils his will for this people as a nation distinct from other nations, including guidance for royal governance, ritual sacrifices, and moral behavior.
Christian tradition has tended to say that the first two kinds of instruction were specific to the Davidic kingdom of ancient Israel and its Levitical priesthood centered on the Jerusalem temple. Now that they are fulfilled in the priest-king Jesus, they have much to teach us but are not binding the way that, for example, the Ten Commandments still are. This too stems from the verdict in Acts 15.
The tricky business is what the church should think about the status of some of these commands for Jewish Christians. Peter and James in the Book of Acts seem to presuppose the law’s continuing authority for Messianic Jews, and even Paul in Romans and Galatians appears to assume that the church will include the circumcised and the uncircumcised in perpetuity, just as it will always include both men and women. The apostles did not easily foresee a day when the super-majority of Christ’s body would be Gentiles and the Resurrection would be centuries behind us.
I am in the minority of Christian theologians who believe that parts of the ceremonial Torah remain binding on all Jews, including baptized believers. It’s not salvific for Messianic Jews any more than the moral law is salvific for Gentiles—yet I think it’s binding just the same.
I can’t argue the full case here, but let me show you why it matters. Paul’s driving vision was for Jews and Gentiles to be united and reconciled in Christ without Jews becoming Gentiles or Gentiles becoming Jews. He came to realize that this was God’s plan all along. By the Spirit’s power, this unity is itself a testimony to the Father’s matchless glory (Eph. 1:3–23) and a preview of the countless multitudes in Revelation, who hail from both the 12 tribes of Israel (7:1–8) and “all tribes and peoples and tongues” (v. 9). What they share is love for the Lamb of God.
Paul anticipated this final unity when, some 25 years after the Resurrection, he wrote to Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome struggling to share a common life. After much dense argument, he summarizes the Good News for them: “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (15:8–9).
This single sentence says it all, and in so doing it captures Paul’s purpose in writing to them: “that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6). The Lord, in short, wants to hear both Jews and Gentiles singing aloud with one voice. This polyphony of praise is the point of all God’s ways and works in the world. No believer need envy another’s part. When the result is harmony in difference, then we know we are on the right path. When someone’s part goes silent, then we know that something has gone wrong.
Brad East is an associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author of four books, including The Church: A Guide to the People of God and Letters to a Future Saint.
