Acts 10; Acts 11:1-11
There is a peculiar interest attaching to this section of the Acts of the Apostles, because it shows the way in which the Gentiles step into blessing. It shows the way in which you and I can get saved, and opens up the manner in which those who had no claim on God whatever get God’s salvation.
It is a very interesting occasion when the gospel comes out first to the Gentiles, and very beautiful to note the way the Lord sends to an anxious man the blessing he wants. Evidently the eye of God is on this scene — on the man who was anxious for light, and on the servant who was to carry the light to him. We find that both were praying. Cornelius was praying when a vision came to him (Acts 10:30), and Peter was also praying when a vision came to him (Acts 11:15). A very interesting lesson this for preachers and listeners! Cornelius was, I believe, a truly converted man when he got that vision. He was, however, without peace, and without the sense of pardon, but deeply desirous of getting that which he had not yet. He knew nothing about the accomplishment of redemption, and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Cornelius was a Gentile undoubtedly, and by his very connection with the famous Italian band must have been a man of noble birth. He had moral features, too, which were very lovely. He feared God “with all his house.” There are very few people of whom that can be said. “With all his house” would include his servants and children. Added to this remarkable statement we find, moreover, that he gave “much alms to the people.” He was a benevolent man, much interested in others; a man who thought of others, as well as of his own soul’s need. Regarding that, we are told he “prayed to God alway.” This Gentile centurion, then, could not have been an unconverted man, for an unconverted man has no fear of God before his eyes. Cornelius, on the contrary, was a prayerful man, a man in whom the Spirit of God had worked, and had wrought in his heart spiritual desires. He is a type of hundreds and thousands of Gentiles today. He was an awakened man — an anxious, pious, prayerful, and God-fearing man; but had you gone and asked him if his sins were forgiven, he would not have dared to say so, because the testimony of the gospel, and the preaching of forgiveness to the Gentiles, had not gone out up to that moment.
It would have been as wrong for Cornelius to say, before he heard Peter’s address, that he was forgiven, as for you and me now, if believing on Jesus, to say we do not know it. But although Cornelius knew not this great blessing, it is clear that most fervently he desired it, for he tells Peter that the angel had said unto him, “Cornelius, thy prayer is heard” (10:31). What does that mean? That God read his heart, and knew what he desired light. Bear in mind that he was not a Jewish proselyte. He had not embraced Judaism, though the Jews evidently thought well of him; but clearly he had never bowed to the yoke of the law. Christianity had just begun to be heard of, and the Jews loudly claimed to be still under the law of God, so that I can understand this pious man wondering where the truth lay.
Tidings of Jesus had gone out, tidings of His death, and of His resurrection; for some time before the scene laid in our chapter, Philip had announced the glad tidings to “all the cities, till he came to Caesarea” (Acts 8:40). Cornelius, therefore, must have heard about Jesus; but evidently he had not heard the full truth, and I believe the prayer of that man was, Lord, give me light; and wonderful light for him was then in store.
In this exceedingly interesting, awakened state, a man born of the Spirit (he could not have been acceptable to God otherwise, yet the angel said to him, “Thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God”), touched, anxious, wrought on by the Spirit of God, but not knowing the full truth of the gospel, burning for light, desiring to have it, praying to God for it, he got a vision. As he prayed, “a man stood before me,” he says, “in bright clothing, and said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one Simon a tanner by the seaside; who, when he cometh, shall speak unto thee” (10:30-32). In order to be saved, he was not told to do works, but he was to hear words, when Peter came. “He shall speak to thee.” And when Peter relates the tale in Jerusalem, he says that the angel had said to Cornelius, “Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved” (11:13, 14). Mark that now! What God bids Cornelius do, is to listen to “words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.” Many souls think that if they are to be saved, it is by some kind of works; but, when God opens the way to the Gentiles, He precludes the thought of works, as He says to this anxious man, Send for my messenger, who shall “tell thee words.” No man was ever yet saved by his own works: and no man was ever saved without believing words — the words of God.
In speaking of being saved, I am using the word as Scripture uses it. By being saved, I mean, a man not only knowing that he is set free from his sins, and that he is pardoned, but that he is brought to God, that he is united to a living triumphant Saviour, who died on the cross for him, and is ascended and accepted for him, and who has sent down the Holy Spirit to make his emancipation known to him.
No sooner has Cornelius heard from God what he is to do, than he does it. This shows the earnestness and the fervor of the man. “Immediately therefore I sent to thee,” he says to Peter. He will not wait a day. He does not say, I will think about it. Many a man has said, I will think about it, I will “hear thee again of this matter,” and, blinded by Satan, and snared by procrastination, has gone to hell for eternity. Well did Rowland Hill say, “Procrastination is the recruiting officer of hell.” Cornelius was no procrastinator.
Look at this earnest seeker! No sooner has the angel departed than he obeys the divinely given instructions (10:7-8). He feels that not a moment is to be lost; and, my reader, can you afford to wait another day to get the concerns of your soul settled? The moment this man hears God’s word he sends off his three servants, on their forty miles’ journey by the sea-coast, to Joppa. Traveling was not very rapid in those days, and they stayed no doubt somewhere for the night (vs. 9), but Cornelius was not long kept waiting. God loves to meet an anxious soul, and ofttimes does it straightway.
Now, let us see how the Lord was preparing His servant to meet this exercised and obedient Gentile. Peter went up to pray on the housetop; and he did pray, for he says in the next chapter, “I was in the city of Joppa praying.” It was the sixth hour, noonday, not the time people generally go up to pray. Once Peter had been told to watch and pray, and he did not, with the result that he fell; now wit find him praying, and the Lord speaks to him in a vision. He “saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth; wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice; and the vessel was received up again into heaven” (vss. 11-16). Some have imagined this to be the Church, but I do not believe that is the thought here. Peter was not the vessel through whom God was going to bring out the truth of the Church; that was given to Paul. I believe the vision was given to teach Peter the lesson, that the Cross had done away with all the barriers that had previously existed between Jew and Gentile, and that the grace of God was going out to each alike, and that the same cleansing power was to bring both into blessing.
But Peter could not interpret the vision; and while he was doubting what it should mean, the men sent from Cornelius stood before the gate. At this moment, while Peter thought upon the vision, God does not send an angel — a servant — to call him and tell him about the messengers who stood before the gate; but “the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them” (vss. 19-20). How beautiful this is. I believe Peter now begins to get an inkling of what the Lord means by the vision. It was to teach him that with God there was henceforth to be no distinction between Jew and Gentile. Peter had been a good Jew up till this time; but the special thought of the Church is that “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:2); and Peter was the vessel chosen of God to begin this work, and to call in the Gentiles, although Paul was distinctly the Apostle of the Gentles.
Under law, God had forbidden the Jew to mingle with the Gentile. Now the Lord taught Peter that that day had gone by, that what God had cleansed, he was not to call common; and at once he began to carry out the truth, for we read that he called the men in and lodged them (vs. 28).
We have been observing that Peter was a very impulsive, ardent, incautious man, but it is striking to see how cautious he became here. He took with him six brethren (Acts 10:23; 11:12) to be witnesses of what God was about to do; and I have no doubt these six men had a warm heart to Peter ever after, for taking them with him that day. I should be thankful to anyone who took me where the Lord was going to bless and save a whole houseful of anxious souls.
While Peter and his companions are journeying to Caesarea, Cornelius is very urgent to get others blessed as well as himself. He is anxious to get light for himself, but he is very anxious too for others, for when Peter arrives we read, “Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends” (vs. 24).
As Peter was coming in, we find that Cornelius worships him; that is, he pays him deep reverence. Peter lifts him up, and they go into the house together, and Peter finds “many that were come together.” The house was full of souls that God was going to bless. Peter then says, “Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for.” Peter has learned his lesson now, he has got the key to the difficulty that he pondered over on the roof. When he had gone down and obeyed, he saw quite clearly, that the grace of God was going out to the ends of the earth.
Then he probes Cornelius, and tries to find out his state of soul, as he says, “I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me?” It is a good thing to let a soul, anxious about divine things, speak out for itself. Cornelius tells his own story. He says, “Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house.” Here you have another indication of Cornelius’s moral state, he was fasting as well as praying; pouring out his soul to God, and fasting till the ninth hour. Then, having told of the angel’s visit, Cornelius adds, “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.” I do not know anything more cheering to one who loves souls than to get an audience like this, all anxious to hear. Peter, before he began to preach, knew there was not a listless soul among that company, not a procrastinator, nor a scoffer; he knew he had a company of downright, earnest, seeking, longing souls, only wanting to know the truth. “Now are we all here present before God to hear.” Oh, what an audience!
Anxious listeners make earnest preachers; longing hearers make it easy to preach. Ah, have you never yet been anxious about your soul? The days of your anxiety will surely come, my friend.
Then Peter begins, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him.” It is a question now of the grace of God going out world-wide; wherever there is a soul looking to God, that is the soul God will bless. “The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord of all:) that word ye know,” adds Peter. He knew full well that Jesus was Lord of the Jews, but it never seemed to have got into his soul before that He was Lord of all. But He is Lord of all, and you, my friend, will have to give an account to Him hereafter.
In the compass of one short verse (vs. 38) Peter brings out the truth which Matthew opens with, and unfolds in his gospel, “They shall call His name Emmanuel; which being interpreted is, God with us.” The preaching in the house of Cornelius brings before us three great truths: first, “God with us” (vs. 38); then “God for us” (vss. 40-43); thirdly, “God in us” (vss. 44-47). God with us was the whole life of Jesus, “who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: for God was with him, and we are witnesses of all things which he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree.” Peter does not charge his hearers with having any part in the crime of slaying Jesus, but he details the truth nevertheless.
“Him,” he next says, “God raised up, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” Here we get the second wonderful truth, namely, God for us. The One whom man refused, God raised up, and put I into glory.
There was no doubt about His resurrection; the preacher himself had seen Him, and had eaten and drunk with Him. Peter remembered the piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb, which they had given Him after His resurrection; and he remembered too the fire of coals with the fish laid thereon, and bread, when Jesus had called him and his six companions to come and dine with Him, on the shores of the Lake of Galilee; and he brings out now the truth — rich beyond all expression in its fruits — the beautiful, blessed truth of the death and resurrection of Christ. His death met the claims of God, while His resurrection displayed His absolute victory over death, and sin, and all the power of Satan.
In the moment of His death He did a work which absolutely and eternally glorified God about sin, and His resurrection is God’s answer to that work. It is the demonstration of the satisfaction and delight of God in Christ’s work, as well as the proof of the complete victory which Christ has won in the very domain of death, for it is annulled. But more than, and because of that, He it is “which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead.” It is His victory, as Man, over death, that gives Him title to judge (see John 5:21-27). But, ere the day when He will judge, comes the day in which He saves. Concerning this. “To Him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins.”
Long before man is to be judged for his sins God unfolds two things; first, that forgiveness is offered to every soul that believes in His Son, and secondly, that He sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in the believer. Is not that wide enough, broad enough, to take you and me in? Is not forgiveness of sins the very thing you need and desire? That is the very thing God proclaims to you.
Christ is risen: man slew Him, God raised Him, we have seen Him, says Peter, He is going to be the Judge of the living and the dead by-and-bye, and in the meantime “whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins.” This is what Peter proclaims to his audience, and they were anxious, truth-seeking souls. Cornelius was a man wanting light, wanting to know how to be forgiven, and how to get saved. He wanted to hear God’s words, and what were these words? “Whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins.” Do you believe on His name, my reader, do you rest your troubled soul on that blessed One? Then forgiveness of sins is yours.
Now see what follows. “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word.” They got the seal of God, the seal of the Holy Spirit. Now what does the Holy Spirit seal? Not doubts, not fears, surely; He always seals faith. He dispels my fears by telling me that the One, who is to be the Judge by-and-bye, died on the cross to save me; He dispels my doubts by turning my eye off myself on to Christ, and the moment my eye is on Him, and the work He has done, I get rest and peace.
The moment, by simple faith, my eye is on the Person of Him who is Son of God, and Son of Man, I derive blessing from the glory of His Person, and I get all the benefit of the work He has accomplished. I get the Person of Christ for my heart, and the work of Christ for my conscience. Your heart can never rest save in a Person, while your conscience can only be calmed by knowing the work that He did.
It is most important to see that the unfolding of these truths, and the coming down of the Holy Spirit are intimately connected. The Holy Spirit has come to minister these truths to the believing soul. What led to the gift of the Holy Spirit in the second of Acts? They believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. What brought in this plenitude of blessing in Acts 10? They believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. They heard of Jesus, of His death and resurrection, the power of His name, and forgiveness through His name, and, like simple souls, they believed the word, and God gave them the Holy Spirit on the spot. They did not get the Holy Spirit to help them to believe, but they got the Holy Spirit as the seal of their simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit has come down here to tell me God’s thoughts about Jesus, and the moment I believe in Him, I receive the forgiveness of my sins through faith in Him, and the Holy Spirit comes and takes up His abode in my body. The believer gets the seal of the Spirit, not merely as an influence to give him a bit of comfort for a moment, but to be the abiding, indwelling Comforter. He is the seal of faith, and the earnest of future glory. If you bought a hundred sheep, the mark you put on them does not make them yours; it only whom; to all around that they are yours. It was the money you paid for them that made them yours. Similarly, it is the blood of Jesus that redeems me, cleanses me, brings me out of darkness into light, sets me free, brings me to God, and makes me a child of His. What is the next thing? The Lord gives me the Holy Spirit, as His seal that I am redeemed and blessed, and belong to Him. The possession of the Spirit does not make me His, but it is the seal which shows that I am His.
In this sermon of Peter’s, then, you get three things: first, God with us, that is the life of Jesus; then, God for us, that is the death and resurrection of Jesus; then, God in us, that is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Then Peter says, we cannot keep these people out of their privileges. “Can any one forbid water,” he asks, “that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” No, he says, they are forgiven, they have the Holy Spirit, and they must be let into the House of God on earth. Here is the second occasion on which Peter uses the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He opens the door afresh this day as thus he brings in the Gentiles. He has no authority to let people into heaven, but into the kingdom of heaven, as a scene of profession on earth, he lets them enter, I apprehend, by the door of baptism.
I have no doubt that these people had repented before Peter went down to them, but, having received God’s testimony to the name and work of Jesus, they know they are forgiven, know they are saved, and they receive the Holy Spirit to dwell in them. That is the privilege of every simple soul today. You may know you are forgiven and saved the moment you simply believe in the work done for you by the Lord Jesus Christ, and God then gives the Holy Spirit to dwell in you, as His seal and mark that you belong to Him.
After Peter had returned to Jerusalem we find that his action at Caesarea is called in question, as might be expected. “They that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them” (Acts 11:2-3). Thus challenged, Peter rehearses the interesting account of his visit to Cornelius, winding up thus, “and as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water: but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift, as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God?” (vss. 15-17.) His argument was unanswerable, and his auditors were silenced, for “when they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”
It is important to grasp the real significance of what occurred at Caesarea. The Church of God, the assembly, already existed, but the truth or doctrine of her oneness as the body of Christ had not yet been promulgated. The reception of Cornelius and his friends by Peter into the assembly, although it may be said to pave the way, nevertheless did not announce the glorious truth of the true nature, calling, and destiny of that assembly. Paul, already called, was to unfold that in due course. The vision that Peter had did not reveal the assembly as the body of Christ, nor did the admission of Cornelius. They showed that in every nation whoever feared God was acceptable to Him, and that it was not necessary to become a Jew in order to obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The specific truth of the Church, namely, the oneness of the body united by the Holy Spirit to its Head in heaven, was not brought out by the events at Caesarea. Nevertheless they prepared the way for the unfolding in due time of that peculiarly Pauline truth — for the Gentiles were admitted to God’s spiritual house on earth without becoming Jews. The doctrine was not preached, because not yet known, but the thing itself was enacted or illustrated. The great truth of the mystery, which Paul develops so fully in the Ephesians, “that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. 3:6), received its first expression here. Repentance unto life eternal was granted unto the Gentiles, as such, and the Holy Spirit, the seal of forgiveness, and the fruit of Jesus’ work on the cross, by which God had been infinitely glorified, was given to them, as to the Jews at the beginning. The latter might marvel and cavil, but God’s purpose was not to be resisted, and, after Peter’s explanation, it is good to observe that they glorify God, that is, I take it, they praise Him for His grace to the Gentiles.
When the note of praise began, I fancy Peter must have felt much relieved, for, as we shall see later, he was evidently a man not a little affected by Jewish thoughts, which had great possession of his own mind, and ruled yet more strongly in the minds of his fellow-believers in Christ. What they, too, thought of him, and of his actions, he was not altogether indifferent to, forgetful of the scripture which says, “The fear of man bringeth a snare” (Prov. 29:25). What this snare was, we shall yet see.