Note 1 at Acts 15:1: Although this same question had arisen earlier in the church (Acts 11:1-18), this is the first time the debate had actually caused a division among the disciples. This was the first doctrinal controversy in Christ's church. The same basic principals of law verses grace raged throughout Paul's lifetime and are still at the bottom of the divisions we see in the church today.

Note 2 at Acts 15:1: To understand the Jews contention over circumcision, you must understand a little about Old Testament circumcision and how the Jews had misinterpreted it.

The covenant of circumcision was given to Abram in Gen. 17:9-14. In v. 14, the Lord said that any man who did not carry this sign of the covenant in his flesh was to be killed. This placed a great importance on the act of circumcision, but as Paul explains in Rom. 4:3-13, Abraham had already been justified by faith before he was circumcised. It was Abram's faith that saved him (Gen. 15:6) at least 13 years before the Lord commanded Abram to be circumcised (Gen. 17:24-26).

The Jews had focused on the outward act of obedience instead of the inward act of faith that caused Abraham to be obedient. This was the source of the contention between Jesus and the religious leaders too. They were emphasizing all the outward acts that the Lord had commanded to do and totally disregarding the motives of the heart (Mt. 23:27-28), while Jesus was saying that if an individual would cleanse his heart, then his actions would inevitably change too (see note 21 at Mt. 23:26, p. 450).

The truth of salvation by faith had been lost in Judaism, and even though many of the Jews had come to put faith in Jesus as their Savior, they were trying to mix faith and the keeping of the commandments together as both being necessary for salvation.

Paul became God's champion of the doctrine of salvation by grace. Even Peter and Barnabas were struggling with this issue (Gal. 2:11-21). Towards the end of his life, Peter wrote of Paul and said that his teachings were hard to understand however, only those who were unlearned and unstable resisted them (2 Pet. 3:15-16).

This first church council, considering the issue of whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised, was really a matter of whether or not faith was to be the basis of salvation or faith plus the keeping of the commandments. The Lord convinced the elders through Paul's testimony that circumcision (or the keeping of any other commandment) was not essential for salvation if faith in Jesus was present (Rom. 3:28). This is the foundation truth of the New Testament and is the main doctrinal point of the New Testament books of Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and Hebrews.