Acts 15:28

Acts 15:28. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us. To us inspired by the Holy Ghost, to us His ministers and organs for declaring the truth a mode of expression not uncommon in the Old Testament, where we read: ‘The people believed the Lord and His servant Moses,' Exodus 14:31; ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon,' Judges 7:18-20; ‘The people feared the Lord and Samuel,' 1 Samuel 12:18. This expression, ‘It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,' is ‘an apostolic statement of the true doctrine of inspiration. The apostles were inspired by God, but they did not lose their personal identity. The human element was not absorbed into the Divine, but it was spiritualized and transfigured by it' (Wordsworth).

‘The decrees of the Council of Jerusalem were not, as the canons of other ecclesiastical assemblies, human, but very divine ordinances; for which cause the churches were far and wide commanded everywhere to see them kept no otherwise than if Christ Himself had personally on earth been the author of them.

‘The cause why that Council was of so great authority and credit above all others which have been held since then, is expressed in those words, “ Unto the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good. ”... Wherefore, inasmuch as the Council of Jerusalem did chance to consist of men so enlightened, it had authority greater than were meet for any other council besides to challenge, wherein no such persons are' (Hooker, Ecc. Polity, Book viii. chap. vi.).