2 As a man who “feared God with all his household” (NRSV) Cornelius was the head of a family who saw to it that the norms of his faith were observed by all members of his family: wife, children and household slaves. We see this pattern reflected in several other places in Acts: in Acts 16 the Philippian jailer is told that the gospel message of Paul, if believed will bring salvation to his whole household. This does not mean a kind of magic by which one person’s faith can be used as a “Get-out-of-Jail card” to ensure salvation to his or her whole family. Rather Paul has in mind that the jailer will instruct all members of his household in the new faith in Jesus. Only then, when each member has personally trusted Christ, will salvation extend to his entire house. In the case of Cornelius the faith whose norms he enforced were those of Judaism.
Cornelius' alms were given to “the people”, i.e., to Jews living in the vicinity of Caesarea. Cornelius prayed at the set times for Jewish prayer, four times a day. He therefore prayed “regularly”, as the NIV correctly renders διὰ παντός, which other modern translations incorrectly render with either “constantly”, “continually” or “always”.
3 There is some similarity here with the verbal exchange between the exalted Jesus and Saul/Paul on the Damascus Road. The appearance is a “vision” (ὁράμα), which as noted in our comments on ch. 9 does not imply any element of unreality. Pelikan (Acts 128) aptly remarks: “These visions seem to have been self-authenticating …, for Peter's ‘doubts’ (Acts 10:17) pertained to the meaning of the vision, not to its genuineness.” Secondly, the angel addressed him by name, although not twice, as was the case, when Jesus addressed Saul/Paul.
4 Interestingly, a basis for the visit by the angel is laid in the prior acts of piety of Cornelius. His prayers and alms-giving have “ascended as a memorial sacrifice (i.e., the Hebrew אַזְכָּרָה, LXX τὸ μνημόσυνον) before God”. (For this sacrifice see Lev 2:2,9,16; 5:12; 6:8; 24:7; Num 5:26.) As has been so often observed, these acts of piety did not in themselves save Cornelius: they only provided him with an opportunity to hear a gospel which—once believed—would save him. But it is even interesting that his good works instead of God’s sovereign grace are cited here as the reason for being given the opportunity to hear the Good News! It was clearly just the opposite with Saul/Paul! It was his evil works which came to the attention of Jesus ("Why do you persecute me?"), and in spite of them served as a basis for his extending to Saul/Paul the chance to believe and a call to apostolic mission among the Gentiles. As in so many aspects of biblical theology, the tension between “grace alone” (sola gratia) and human endeavor must be maintained, lest Scripture (sola scriptura!) be violated in one or another of its statements.
Like Saul, Cornelius addresses the angel as “Lord” (Greek kyrie). But in this case we are dealing with someone who grew up in paganism and to whom any apparition might be divine. He even venerates Peter, when they meet.
5-6 Nothing is given to Cornelius “on a silver platter”: a task is given to him, and a human agent, a believer in Jesus, must convey to him that which he must believe in order to be saved. This is the way God works today as well. You and I are indispensable: we are the necessary agents to bring to our loved ones and friends the Good News of Jesus.
7 Here we see what was meant in v. 2 about the “household” of Cornelius. He had domestic slaves and military subordinates who shared his “devoutness” in Judaism, perhaps through his wholesome influence upon them. Godliness can be “catching”!
9 Luke shows literary craft in interweaving the two scenes of the traveling embassy from Cornelius and Peter’s prayer on the rooftop.
We mustn’t be misled by our modern American image of a rooftop with a pitch. The roofs of Palestine in ancient times were flat and Jewish ones had to be provided with parapets (Hebr. מַעֲקֶה, Greek στεφάνη) to guard persons on the roof from accidental falls (Deut 22:8). In the evening it was cooler and more comfortable on the roof than in the interior of the house. This would not be so, of course, at noon and especially not in summer. But we may assume that, if this event took place in summer, residents who used the roof for private times of prayer would have awnings either of cloth or leafy branches to provide shade. The fact that it was a seaside house guarantees a refreshing breeze from off the Mediterranean. And since it was the home of a tanner, who in his workshop used urine and animal feces as tanning agents, the roof provided an escape from the stench!
10 It was noon and time for the mid-day repast. Peter would have felt hunger (v. 10), which prepared him for the vision he received.
11-16 The vision itself and the voice that accompanied it are described in vv. 11-16. What appeared to be a sheet containing all sorts of animals forbidden as food by the law of Moses was lowered from heaven to Peter. Unlike Cornelius, Peter saw no angelic form; he merely heard a voice from the sky. The fact that he replied to the speaker as “Lord” means something different here than in the case of Cornelius. As a well-taught Jew and a strict monotheist, he could only regard the voice from heaven as God's. Yet, since he may have shared Luke’s and Paul’s custom of reserving the term “Lord” (Greek kyrios) for Jesus, we may (with Pelikan, Acts 128) assume that as one who had heard Jesus speak on many occasions, he immediately recognized the voice as his.
The voice said: “Rise, Peter. Kill and eat” (קוּם, כֵּיפָא , שְׁחַט וֶאֱכֹל ἀναστάς, Πέτρε, θῦσον καὶ φάγε Acts 10:13). A modern paraphrase might be: “Here you go, Peter. Dig in!” But Peter had observed kosher since childhood. For such persons there is a natural aversion, almost the disgust that an American city-dweller would have at being asked to eat rattlesnake. Therefore, as he did on occasion while Jesus was with him on earth (see Matt 16:21-23), Peter objected: “Certainly not, Lord!” Did he view this as a test of his faithfulness to the law of God? Perhaps. In any event, he may have recalled how long before the crucifixion and resurrection Jesus had taught (Mark 7:18-23) that it was not what was consumed as food that defiled a person, but the evil desires and plans that proceeded from within them. But this was a lesson in parallels: the “profane” or “unclean” food represented the “unclean” Gentile, into whose home Peter was about to be invited, and whom he must not refuse, since God had declared him “clean” (καθαρίζω means "declare clean" in v. 15, not "make clean", see BDAG καθαρίζω mng. 3a). The parallel could not have been more apt, since the whole purpose for the Old Testament dietary laws was not to ensure robust health through healthy eating for the Israelites, but to ensure that they could not invite a Canaanite to lunch. It was to guard them from the baleful influences of pagan worship in the Promised Land. But now the time had come to break down that barrier, so that the Good News of Jesus could be promulgated through the Gentile world. The demolition of the dietary laws was the necessary first step, as Paul would have to remind Peter later on, when he relapsed into a hypocritical observance of those laws (Galatians 2:11-14).
The threefold repetition of the exchange (Acts 10:16) was intended to remind Peter of his threefold denial of his Master in the courtyard of the High Priest, and also the threefold profession of his love for the resurrected Jesus on the shore of the Lake of Galilee (John 21). It may also allude to the three men who appeared at the gate (Acts 10:19; 11:11), asking for him.
10:17-18 The threefold repetition also convinced Peter that this was related to something urgent that he was expected to do, not just enoy a BLT for lunch! But what could it possibly be? The answer was knocking at the door downstairs.
10:19-23 Now it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to Peter: “Go with these men, for I have sent them”. The rest of the information would have to be secured from the awaiting messengers of Cornelius (vv. 21-22). In Peter’s rehearsal of the story in Acts 11:12 he claims that at this point the Spirit told him to accompany the messengers and “not make a distinction between them and us”.
10:23 Peter set out with Jewish believers from Joppa (Acts 11: 12 tells us there were six of them).
10:24 Realizing the vital importance of what God was going to communicate to him by Simon Peter, Cornelius had gathered quite a crowd of his relatives and intimate friends. This too shows how deeply felt was his commitment to the God of Israel.
10:25-26 Thinking that Peter might be in fact another angel, Cornelius fell at his feet and started to worship him. But Peter, as Paul would later do also in Acts 14:11-18, emphatically rejected any attempt to venerate him, and insisted that he was only a mortal messenger of God.
10:28-29 Peter’s words of introduction acknowledged what Cornelius himself as a “God-fearer” would know from his Jewish mentors, namely, that no truly observant Jew could safely enter the home of a Gentile without risking defilement, which would make it necessary for him to undergo ritual immersion and offer sacrifices for his purification before he could again enter the Jerusalem temple to pray or offer sacrifice.
This was not because any physical contact with a Gentile defiled a Jew. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for Jews to walk through the Court of the Genitles on their way to the Court of the Israelites for Temple worship.
No, the danger was in actually entering the home of a Gentile as a guest, where it could not be assured that a rug sat upon had not been sat on earlier by a menstruating woman, or that a plate offered with meat on it had not been stored in the same cabinet with cups that had contained milk or other dairy products. And the host might have bought his meat at a market which obtained meat butchered in a non-kosher manner, without draining the blood thoroughly. All of this put the observant Jew at risk. And since for him prayer and worship in the temple were extremely important, to deny him this by defiling him was a serious matter. But Peter would take that risk now, because his Lord had commanded him to and had assured him that what God now pronounced “clean” was in truth clean.
There was no way that temple officials could ever know if a Jewish worshiper was entering the temple defiled. Rather what was believed was that God would not accept the prayer or sacrifice of a worshiper who offered it in the temple in an unclean state. For an example of God's rejecting someone's sacrifice on moral grounds see Gen 4:3-7. But with the assurances of Jesus (Mark 7:18-23) and the Holy Spirit, Peter could now be assured that his prayers would not be rejected on this account. On the contrary, they might well be rejected, if he disobeyed a direct order from God!
10:30-33 In these verses Cornelius rehearsed to Peter what we readers already know had happened.
10:34-35 Peter now confesses to the assembly what he has learned from all this. God now relates to Jew and Gentile on the same basis. There is no partiality: all have sinned; all must be forgiven and saved by faith in Jesus whose death paid for our sins. Peter’s conclusion is exactly the same as was reached by the Apostle Paul, as expressed in Romans 3:21-25. Again, as stated above in v. 4, the fearing God and doing what is right do not save anyone, but they bring that person to the “attention” of God (“as a memorial”) and bring him or her into contact with an agent bearing the gospel that saves.
10:36-43 Peter first assumed the audience’s knowledge of Jewish law: that it was unlawful for him to enter their home. Now he assumes that they have heard much about the ministry of Jesus and what happened to him. Nonetheless, Peter repeats it just to be sure. It is a synopsis of what Jesus did and what God did through him. Mention of the “anointing” of Jesus with the Holy Spirit in v. 38 may be Peter’s way of explaining that Jesus was the Messiah, which in Aramaic means “the Anointed One”, and is so translated into Greek as “Christ”. Peter affirmed that God was with Jesus, and that God raised him from the dead, and that God appointed him as “judge of the living and the dead” (v. 42). At first glance it may seem to you that the issue of the deity of Jesus is not specifically raised by Peter. But it most certainly was. For in the mind of every variety of Jew in those days the rendering of the Final Judgment was a task that God could never delegate to another. It was an unmistakable "marker" of Deity that He—and He only—would be the Judge in the Last Day. On this issue see the discussion in the short paperback book by Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1998). Cornelius and his close friends, if they knew Judaism at all, would know what this statement implied about Jesus: he was God and was worthy of worship and obedience. In v. 43 the offer of complete forgiveness “through his name” (rendering unnecessary sacrifice in the temple) is made.
10:44-46 It is here that the Holy Spirit gives dramatic testimony to what Peter could otherwise not know: that the message had been met with sincere faith in the minds and hearts of his hearers. God made it clear to him by bestowing upon these Gentiles the same gift that had been displayed among the first Jewish believers in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in languages unknown to them. Recognizing that this was what had happened at Pentecost and again before his very eyes in the city of the Samaritans (Acts 8), Peter ordered that they all receive Christian baptism. What this implies is that in the earliest Church baptism could not be received without some clear evidence of an internal transformation through faith, which Jesus meant when he said: "For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5 ). Baptism as a rite had no special efficacy: it was merely the external sign of acceptance into the community of believers.
Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Acts 8:12 But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Acts 18:8 Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.
Peter Reports in Jerusalem What Has Happened by God’s Command (Acts 11:1-18)
11:1 The apostles and the brothers in Judea “heard” that the Gentiles had accepted the word of God. This is a remarkable statement. First of all, to say that they “heard” makes it deliberately vague how they received this news. Who reported it? Luke does not say. Secondly, “the Gentiles” seems far too global to be based upon this one incident that Luke has just narrated in chapter 10. One household, and that of a “God-fearer” has accepted the gospel. One would expect the text to say “some Gentiles” (τινες), not “the Gentiles” (τα εθνη). And finally, to our ears it seems strange that “the word of God” (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ) should have the specialized meaning “the gospel of Jesus”. Yet in Acts that seems more or less to be the way that phrase is used: Acts 4:31; 6:2, 7; 8:14; 11:1; 12:24; 13:5, 7, 46; 17:13; 18:11. In his gospel Luke seems to use “the word of God” for Scripture (Luke 3:2; 5:1; 8:11, 21; 11:28; 22:61), and “the word of the Lord” for utterances of Jesus (Luke 22:61), whereas in Acts he uses only the former phrase and uses it apparently exclusively for the gospel. St. Paul, on the other hand, uses the two variants interchangeably, in spite of the fact that in general he uses “Lord” for Jesus and “God” for the other members of the Trinity. Yet he too uses both of these expressions freely for the gospel he preaches (1Cor 14:36; 1Th 1:8; 2:13; 4:15), not just for the Scriptures.
11:2-3 The Jewish believers in Jerusalem had a “bone to pick” with Peter. It was not just that he had accidentally became defiled by entering the house of a Gentile; rather it was that he did so deliberately with full knowledge that he was violating the Jewish laws of purity. Had the issue been merely the former, a ritual ablution followed by days of quarantine would have rectified the situation. Ironically, in the Gentile “pagan” religions of the time a worshiper could become defiled (although not through contact with a Jew!), and would need to bathe and undergo a quarantine (see Ferguson, Backgrounds 187-188). So Cornelius would have been aware of what becoming defiled would cost Peter.
But as I said, the issue between the Judean believers and Peter was of a different order. Peter’s deliberate act indicated that he no longer respected the laws which God had given through Moses to keep the holy people separate from the surrounding pagan world. But, you may think, Cornelius was certainly not a pagan. He was a moral man who had ceased to offer sacrifice to the “gods”. All that differentiated him from the Jewish believers in Judea was circumcision and the keeping of the dietary laws (kosher). Yet a principle was at stake, and this principle needed to be addressed and settled, if the Church was to continue to fulfill the commission the resurrected Jesus gave to his servants in Acts 1:8.
As earlier in Acts Peter had taken a firm stand before the Sanhedrin, saying “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), so the issue is framed here: God Himself in the vision commanded Peter to go with these Gentiles “without hesitation”, and the vision of the unclean animals had very obvious overtones, recalling the earlier teachings of Jesus about what really defiles: food going in or evil thoughts going out (Mat 15:16-20). The purity laws, much of which were later elaborations on the law of Moses, were in contradiction to what Jesus taught and what God Himself commanded in the vision. Peter had no choice at all!
Luke ends this pericope with a summary statement (v. 18):
The stage is now set for the story of the Gentile missions in Antioch (ch. 11:19-30), which inexorably leads to that church's sending Paul and Barnabbas on the First Missionary Journey(chs. 13-14).
Cornelius' alms were given to “the people”, i.e., to Jews living in the vicinity of Caesarea. Cornelius prayed at the set times for Jewish prayer, four times a day. He therefore prayed “regularly”, as the NIV correctly renders διὰ παντός, which other modern translations incorrectly render with either “constantly”, “continually” or “always”.
3 There is some similarity here with the verbal exchange between the exalted Jesus and Saul/Paul on the Damascus Road. The appearance is a “vision” (ὁράμα), which as noted in our comments on ch. 9 does not imply any element of unreality. Pelikan (Acts 128) aptly remarks: “These visions seem to have been self-authenticating …, for Peter's ‘doubts’ (Acts 10:17) pertained to the meaning of the vision, not to its genuineness.” Secondly, the angel addressed him by name, although not twice, as was the case, when Jesus addressed Saul/Paul.
4 Interestingly, a basis for the visit by the angel is laid in the prior acts of piety of Cornelius. His prayers and alms-giving have “ascended as a memorial sacrifice (i.e., the Hebrew אַזְכָּרָה, LXX τὸ μνημόσυνον) before God”. (For this sacrifice see Lev 2:2,9,16; 5:12; 6:8; 24:7; Num 5:26.) As has been so often observed, these acts of piety did not in themselves save Cornelius: they only provided him with an opportunity to hear a gospel which—once believed—would save him. But it is even interesting that his good works instead of God’s sovereign grace are cited here as the reason for being given the opportunity to hear the Good News! It was clearly just the opposite with Saul/Paul! It was his evil works which came to the attention of Jesus ("Why do you persecute me?"), and in spite of them served as a basis for his extending to Saul/Paul the chance to believe and a call to apostolic mission among the Gentiles. As in so many aspects of biblical theology, the tension between “grace alone” (sola gratia) and human endeavor must be maintained, lest Scripture (sola scriptura!) be violated in one or another of its statements.
Like Saul, Cornelius addresses the angel as “Lord” (Greek kyrie). But in this case we are dealing with someone who grew up in paganism and to whom any apparition might be divine. He even venerates Peter, when they meet.
5-6 Nothing is given to Cornelius “on a silver platter”: a task is given to him, and a human agent, a believer in Jesus, must convey to him that which he must believe in order to be saved. This is the way God works today as well. You and I are indispensable: we are the necessary agents to bring to our loved ones and friends the Good News of Jesus.
7 Here we see what was meant in v. 2 about the “household” of Cornelius. He had domestic slaves and military subordinates who shared his “devoutness” in Judaism, perhaps through his wholesome influence upon them. Godliness can be “catching”!
9 Luke shows literary craft in interweaving the two scenes of the traveling embassy from Cornelius and Peter’s prayer on the rooftop.
We mustn’t be misled by our modern American image of a rooftop with a pitch. The roofs of Palestine in ancient times were flat and Jewish ones had to be provided with parapets (Hebr. מַעֲקֶה, Greek στεφάνη) to guard persons on the roof from accidental falls (Deut 22:8). In the evening it was cooler and more comfortable on the roof than in the interior of the house. This would not be so, of course, at noon and especially not in summer. But we may assume that, if this event took place in summer, residents who used the roof for private times of prayer would have awnings either of cloth or leafy branches to provide shade. The fact that it was a seaside house guarantees a refreshing breeze from off the Mediterranean. And since it was the home of a tanner, who in his workshop used urine and animal feces as tanning agents, the roof provided an escape from the stench!
10 It was noon and time for the mid-day repast. Peter would have felt hunger (v. 10), which prepared him for the vision he received.
11-16 The vision itself and the voice that accompanied it are described in vv. 11-16. What appeared to be a sheet containing all sorts of animals forbidden as food by the law of Moses was lowered from heaven to Peter. Unlike Cornelius, Peter saw no angelic form; he merely heard a voice from the sky. The fact that he replied to the speaker as “Lord” means something different here than in the case of Cornelius. As a well-taught Jew and a strict monotheist, he could only regard the voice from heaven as God's. Yet, since he may have shared Luke’s and Paul’s custom of reserving the term “Lord” (Greek kyrios) for Jesus, we may (with Pelikan, Acts 128) assume that as one who had heard Jesus speak on many occasions, he immediately recognized the voice as his.
The voice said: “Rise, Peter. Kill and eat” (קוּם, כֵּיפָא , שְׁחַט וֶאֱכֹל ἀναστάς, Πέτρε, θῦσον καὶ φάγε Acts 10:13). A modern paraphrase might be: “Here you go, Peter. Dig in!” But Peter had observed kosher since childhood. For such persons there is a natural aversion, almost the disgust that an American city-dweller would have at being asked to eat rattlesnake. Therefore, as he did on occasion while Jesus was with him on earth (see Matt 16:21-23), Peter objected: “Certainly not, Lord!” Did he view this as a test of his faithfulness to the law of God? Perhaps. In any event, he may have recalled how long before the crucifixion and resurrection Jesus had taught (Mark 7:18-23) that it was not what was consumed as food that defiled a person, but the evil desires and plans that proceeded from within them. But this was a lesson in parallels: the “profane” or “unclean” food represented the “unclean” Gentile, into whose home Peter was about to be invited, and whom he must not refuse, since God had declared him “clean” (καθαρίζω means "declare clean" in v. 15, not "make clean", see BDAG καθαρίζω mng. 3a). The parallel could not have been more apt, since the whole purpose for the Old Testament dietary laws was not to ensure robust health through healthy eating for the Israelites, but to ensure that they could not invite a Canaanite to lunch. It was to guard them from the baleful influences of pagan worship in the Promised Land. But now the time had come to break down that barrier, so that the Good News of Jesus could be promulgated through the Gentile world. The demolition of the dietary laws was the necessary first step, as Paul would have to remind Peter later on, when he relapsed into a hypocritical observance of those laws (Galatians 2:11-14).
The threefold repetition of the exchange (Acts 10:16) was intended to remind Peter of his threefold denial of his Master in the courtyard of the High Priest, and also the threefold profession of his love for the resurrected Jesus on the shore of the Lake of Galilee (John 21). It may also allude to the three men who appeared at the gate (Acts 10:19; 11:11), asking for him.
10:17-18 The threefold repetition also convinced Peter that this was related to something urgent that he was expected to do, not just enoy a BLT for lunch! But what could it possibly be? The answer was knocking at the door downstairs.
10:19-23 Now it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to Peter: “Go with these men, for I have sent them”. The rest of the information would have to be secured from the awaiting messengers of Cornelius (vv. 21-22). In Peter’s rehearsal of the story in Acts 11:12 he claims that at this point the Spirit told him to accompany the messengers and “not make a distinction between them and us”.
10:23 Peter set out with Jewish believers from Joppa (Acts 11: 12 tells us there were six of them).
10:24 Realizing the vital importance of what God was going to communicate to him by Simon Peter, Cornelius had gathered quite a crowd of his relatives and intimate friends. This too shows how deeply felt was his commitment to the God of Israel.
10:25-26 Thinking that Peter might be in fact another angel, Cornelius fell at his feet and started to worship him. But Peter, as Paul would later do also in Acts 14:11-18, emphatically rejected any attempt to venerate him, and insisted that he was only a mortal messenger of God.
10:28-29 Peter’s words of introduction acknowledged what Cornelius himself as a “God-fearer” would know from his Jewish mentors, namely, that no truly observant Jew could safely enter the home of a Gentile without risking defilement, which would make it necessary for him to undergo ritual immersion and offer sacrifices for his purification before he could again enter the Jerusalem temple to pray or offer sacrifice.
This was not because any physical contact with a Gentile defiled a Jew. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for Jews to walk through the Court of the Genitles on their way to the Court of the Israelites for Temple worship.
No, the danger was in actually entering the home of a Gentile as a guest, where it could not be assured that a rug sat upon had not been sat on earlier by a menstruating woman, or that a plate offered with meat on it had not been stored in the same cabinet with cups that had contained milk or other dairy products. And the host might have bought his meat at a market which obtained meat butchered in a non-kosher manner, without draining the blood thoroughly. All of this put the observant Jew at risk. And since for him prayer and worship in the temple were extremely important, to deny him this by defiling him was a serious matter. But Peter would take that risk now, because his Lord had commanded him to and had assured him that what God now pronounced “clean” was in truth clean.
There was no way that temple officials could ever know if a Jewish worshiper was entering the temple defiled. Rather what was believed was that God would not accept the prayer or sacrifice of a worshiper who offered it in the temple in an unclean state. For an example of God's rejecting someone's sacrifice on moral grounds see Gen 4:3-7. But with the assurances of Jesus (Mark 7:18-23) and the Holy Spirit, Peter could now be assured that his prayers would not be rejected on this account. On the contrary, they might well be rejected, if he disobeyed a direct order from God!
10:30-33 In these verses Cornelius rehearsed to Peter what we readers already know had happened.
10:34-35 Peter now confesses to the assembly what he has learned from all this. God now relates to Jew and Gentile on the same basis. There is no partiality: all have sinned; all must be forgiven and saved by faith in Jesus whose death paid for our sins. Peter’s conclusion is exactly the same as was reached by the Apostle Paul, as expressed in Romans 3:21-25. Again, as stated above in v. 4, the fearing God and doing what is right do not save anyone, but they bring that person to the “attention” of God (“as a memorial”) and bring him or her into contact with an agent bearing the gospel that saves.
10:36-43 Peter first assumed the audience’s knowledge of Jewish law: that it was unlawful for him to enter their home. Now he assumes that they have heard much about the ministry of Jesus and what happened to him. Nonetheless, Peter repeats it just to be sure. It is a synopsis of what Jesus did and what God did through him. Mention of the “anointing” of Jesus with the Holy Spirit in v. 38 may be Peter’s way of explaining that Jesus was the Messiah, which in Aramaic means “the Anointed One”, and is so translated into Greek as “Christ”. Peter affirmed that God was with Jesus, and that God raised him from the dead, and that God appointed him as “judge of the living and the dead” (v. 42). At first glance it may seem to you that the issue of the deity of Jesus is not specifically raised by Peter. But it most certainly was. For in the mind of every variety of Jew in those days the rendering of the Final Judgment was a task that God could never delegate to another. It was an unmistakable "marker" of Deity that He—and He only—would be the Judge in the Last Day. On this issue see the discussion in the short paperback book by Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1998). Cornelius and his close friends, if they knew Judaism at all, would know what this statement implied about Jesus: he was God and was worthy of worship and obedience. In v. 43 the offer of complete forgiveness “through his name” (rendering unnecessary sacrifice in the temple) is made.
10:44-46 It is here that the Holy Spirit gives dramatic testimony to what Peter could otherwise not know: that the message had been met with sincere faith in the minds and hearts of his hearers. God made it clear to him by bestowing upon these Gentiles the same gift that had been displayed among the first Jewish believers in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in languages unknown to them. Recognizing that this was what had happened at Pentecost and again before his very eyes in the city of the Samaritans (Acts 8), Peter ordered that they all receive Christian baptism. What this implies is that in the earliest Church baptism could not be received without some clear evidence of an internal transformation through faith, which Jesus meant when he said: "For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5 ). Baptism as a rite had no special efficacy: it was merely the external sign of acceptance into the community of believers.
Acts 2:38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Acts 8:12 But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Acts 18:8 Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.
Peter Reports in Jerusalem What Has Happened by God’s Command (Acts 11:1-18)
11:1 The apostles and the brothers in Judea “heard” that the Gentiles had accepted the word of God. This is a remarkable statement. First of all, to say that they “heard” makes it deliberately vague how they received this news. Who reported it? Luke does not say. Secondly, “the Gentiles” seems far too global to be based upon this one incident that Luke has just narrated in chapter 10. One household, and that of a “God-fearer” has accepted the gospel. One would expect the text to say “some Gentiles” (τινες), not “the Gentiles” (τα εθνη). And finally, to our ears it seems strange that “the word of God” (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ) should have the specialized meaning “the gospel of Jesus”. Yet in Acts that seems more or less to be the way that phrase is used: Acts 4:31; 6:2, 7; 8:14; 11:1; 12:24; 13:5, 7, 46; 17:13; 18:11. In his gospel Luke seems to use “the word of God” for Scripture (Luke 3:2; 5:1; 8:11, 21; 11:28; 22:61), and “the word of the Lord” for utterances of Jesus (Luke 22:61), whereas in Acts he uses only the former phrase and uses it apparently exclusively for the gospel. St. Paul, on the other hand, uses the two variants interchangeably, in spite of the fact that in general he uses “Lord” for Jesus and “God” for the other members of the Trinity. Yet he too uses both of these expressions freely for the gospel he preaches (1Cor 14:36; 1Th 1:8; 2:13; 4:15), not just for the Scriptures.
11:2-3 The Jewish believers in Jerusalem had a “bone to pick” with Peter. It was not just that he had accidentally became defiled by entering the house of a Gentile; rather it was that he did so deliberately with full knowledge that he was violating the Jewish laws of purity. Had the issue been merely the former, a ritual ablution followed by days of quarantine would have rectified the situation. Ironically, in the Gentile “pagan” religions of the time a worshiper could become defiled (although not through contact with a Jew!), and would need to bathe and undergo a quarantine (see Ferguson, Backgrounds 187-188). So Cornelius would have been aware of what becoming defiled would cost Peter.
But as I said, the issue between the Judean believers and Peter was of a different order. Peter’s deliberate act indicated that he no longer respected the laws which God had given through Moses to keep the holy people separate from the surrounding pagan world. But, you may think, Cornelius was certainly not a pagan. He was a moral man who had ceased to offer sacrifice to the “gods”. All that differentiated him from the Jewish believers in Judea was circumcision and the keeping of the dietary laws (kosher). Yet a principle was at stake, and this principle needed to be addressed and settled, if the Church was to continue to fulfill the commission the resurrected Jesus gave to his servants in Acts 1:8.
As earlier in Acts Peter had taken a firm stand before the Sanhedrin, saying “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), so the issue is framed here: God Himself in the vision commanded Peter to go with these Gentiles “without hesitation”, and the vision of the unclean animals had very obvious overtones, recalling the earlier teachings of Jesus about what really defiles: food going in or evil thoughts going out (Mat 15:16-20). The purity laws, much of which were later elaborations on the law of Moses, were in contradiction to what Jesus taught and what God Himself commanded in the vision. Peter had no choice at all!
Luke ends this pericope with a summary statement (v. 18):
When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life".
The stage is now set for the story of the Gentile missions in Antioch (ch. 11:19-30), which inexorably leads to that church's sending Paul and Barnabbas on the First Missionary Journey(chs. 13-14).
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