What did the first Christians in Antioch believe that the Jerusalem believers did not?
The first Christians at Antioch believed the fuller gospel: that Christ had died for them, that His blood was shed for their sin, and that He had been raised from the dead. The Jerusalem believers, by contrast, had only believed Jesus was Israel’s Messiah under the Judaistic umbrella.
Les explains that Barnabas brought Saul to Antioch, and for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught much people. There the disciples—primarily Gentiles—were first called Christians. Jerusalem had been holding forth for 12 years, yet the Bible never calls the Jewish believers at Jerusalem and Judea Christians because they were under the Judaistic umbrella. They had only believed Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. The Antioch believers, however, believed He had died for them, His blood had been shed for their sin, and He had been raised from the dead. Antioch was being presented with Paul’s Gospel, which was different from everything before. It was a secret held in the mind of God until it was revealed that God would now do something totally different.