I'd disagree, a better understanding of the Jewish cultural context gives a different interpretation. To start with, the Torah never instructs all Gentiles to become circumcised or to become Jewish proselytes, or even how to become Jewish proselytes, so by rejecting what the circumcision group was asking in Acts 15:1, they were ruling against man-made traditions and upholding the Torah. As I said before, if the Torah had instructed all Gentiles to become circumcised, then the Jerusalem Council had no authority to countermand God. They couldn't add to or subtract from God's law (Deuteronomy 4:2), but only had the authority to make interpretations about how it was intended to be obeyed, and they upheld the Torah by correctly ruling that it did not intend for all Gentiles to become circumcised.
Any Gentiles. I agree that the Judaizers were in disagreement with Judaism--as Judaism quite explicitly teaches that Torah is for the Jews and only for the Jews. What he council does, however, is make clear that Torah observance doesn't apply to Gentile converts; why? because Torah observance was--indeed--never intended for Gentiles.
The Jews had an oral law or traditions of the elders (Mark 7:3-4), which consisted of traditions and rulings for how to keep the written law of the Torah and fences around it to protect it from being accidentally broken. For instance, when God commanded them not to do their work on the Sabbath, they had many rulings for what did and did not count as work, such as how far someone could walk. They traced the command for this back to Moses and they reasoned that you couldn't keep the Sabbath if you didn't have their traditions for how to keep the Sabbath, so they gave a greater importance to their own traditions than to the commands of God, which Jesus criticized them for (Mark 7:6-9). They would never have considered teaching someone how to keep the Sabbath without teaching their traditions for how to keep it, so all of this was wrapped up in their concept of what it meant to live according the custom of Moses (Acts 15:1). If you think about it, the Israelites would certainly have asked Moses for clarification for how to obey many of the laws out of the desire to obey in the right way, so Moses would have to had made rulings and started traditions for how to obey it. Whether the traditions that they had are the same ones that Moses started is a separate issue, but the point is that the Jews thought their traditions traced back to Moses.
But what is happening in Acts 15 has nothing to do with the Oral Torah/Mishna. It has to do with Christians who, falsely, believe Gentiles should become Torah-observant in order to be full fledged members of the Church; by insisting that Gentiles receive circumcision and abide by the mitzvot of Torah: that is, that Gentiles become Jews. The Judaizers went further by insisting that Torah-observance, including circumcision, was necessary for salvation, a topic St. Paul tackles directly in his epistle to the Galatians.
So Paul was rejecting both that Gentiles had to follow their traditions and that they had follow the law in order to be saved, but he was not rejecting God's holy, righteous, and good law. He said our faith does not abolish the law, but rather that it upholds it (Romans 3:31). The heavy burden was their mountain of traditions for how to follow God's laws, not God's laws themselves. Jesus said his yoke or interpretation for how to follow the law easy and his burden was light and God said in Deuteronomy 30:11 that His commands were not too difficult for them. You can't find anywhere in the OT where anyone thought that God's laws were a heavy burden, but just the opposite. The Psalms are full of high praise for the law, especially 119, and considered the law to be a delight. The Jews frequently gave thanks to God for giving them the Torah as instructions for life, so they would never have considered it to be a heavy burden
Read what Peter says in Acts 15:6-11. The "yoke" Peter refers to is not Oral Torah, but Torah. At no point is Oral Torah part of what is going on, it is specifically what the Judaizers are expecting of Gentile Christians: That they receive circumcision and observe Torah, that they observe kashrut, the feasts, sabbath, etc. Peter stands up and says that, no, the Gentiles should not be expected to observe these things, saying that even "our ancestors" had trouble with all these things. Again, the things spoken about aren't what would eventually be written down in the Mishna, but what is written in the Pentateuch.
God gave the Torah to His chosen people, Israel, but Ephesians 2:12 and 2:19 say that Gentiles were once alienated from Israel, but are now fellow citizens. In 1 Peter 2:8-9, it says that Gentiles are no counted among God's chosen people, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood, so they should conduct themselves accordingly in compliance with God's instructions. In 1 Peter 1:13-16, it says that Gentiles should have a holy conduct, so how can Gentiles be a holy nation and have a holy conduct if they aren't supposed to follow any of God's instructions in the law for how to do that?
Because there are things God expects of all people, not just Jewish people. Murder isn't wrong only for the Jews, it's wrong for everyone. Murder isn't wrong because of the mitzvah that says "Do not murder", but because murder is wrong. Abraham was not lawless, though he lived without the Torah, lived before the Torah, and lived outside of the Torah. In fact Paul makes a big deal about Abraham's faith being reckoned to him as righteousness and addressing Abraham's
righteousness apart from the Law, that is, the Torah. Did God make commandments that applied to Abraham and the Patriarchs? Yes, and yet Torah was not given until Moses. There is, therefore, much more to God's Law than simply Torah. Torah is God's specific instructions to the Jewish people as part of the covenant He established with them at Mt. Sinai; but God's Law--that is, His righteous commandments, are far bigger and larger than Torah itself. For example Torah never says, "I tell you love your enemy" and also "A new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you" but these commandments, given by Jesus Christ, are indeed
Law. By which we will be judged and held accountable on the Day of Judgment (Matthew 25).
Jesus did not come to start a new religion, but rather he was born a Jew, became a Jewish rabbi, had Jewish disciples, and was the Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Jesus brought fullness to Judaism by teaching how to obey the Torah, by demonstrating through perfect sinlessness how it should be obeyed, by providing a means for salvation, and by including the Gentiles.
The Christian conviction is not that Jesus came to improve Judaism or to add Himself to Judaism. The Christian conviction is that the very uncreated Logos, the Word that brought the universe into being, has come down to encounter a world of sin and, take hold of that world, and renew, redeem, and restore it. Christianity is the religion that proclaims the God-Man. For early Christians the reality that the Christ had come, and that He was Jesus, was profoundly bigger than the kinds of expectations most had for the Christ. There would be no warrior Messiah who, militantly, drives the occupation from the land and sit on a throne in Jerusalem as the Son of David; instead the Messiah--the Christians came to understand--was the One who would be crucified and then be raised up after three days. The Messiah did not ascend to an earthly throne, but to the Throne that is above all thrones, taking up His seat as the Son of David as King of kings and Lord of lords at the right hand the Father, with all things subject to Himself. Having overcome and defeated every power, every principality, and every dominion. And, as Lord of All, He sits enthroned until the Day He comes, to judge the quick and the dead, and bringing the everlasting kingdom, world without end. We're talking something profoundly bigger than just Judaism 2.0.
-CryptoLutheran