17 While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. 18 They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.
19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three[a] men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
21 Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?”
22 The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” 23 Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.
Dig Deeper
Not all that many years ago a young woman that I know was born into a family many miles away from where I was born. She was, it goes without saying I guess, born into a different family than mine. Once that happened that was it. Once you’re born into family, of course, you cannot go back and be born into another family. And so there it was. She and I were part of a different family and would remain that way all while growing up. We never met while growing up, but we finally did meet almost 17 years ago now. It didn’t take too long for that beautiful young lady and I to decide that we wanted to get married and be together for the remainder of our lives. We did so and we got married and something rather interesting happened during that wedding. Based on nothing more than being married to me, my wife became a member of the Burns family. She had not been born into but she was now as much a Burns as I was. Yet, in many ways she was very different than any of the other Burns family members. She is not related by blood to any of the Burns’ and she couldn’t really change that. All of the Burns ancestors are white and my wife is black but she could not change that. She doesn’t have the same sort of characteristics and attitude that seem to be something of a hallmark of Burns women and she did not need to change that. She is a member of the family.
My wife was accepted into the family despite all of that because she was my wife and for that reason alone. Can you imagine, though, if my family had reluctantly accepted that she had become my wife but did not really accept her as part of the family? Oh, she could marry me, and that was all fine and good, but what if they still didn’t view her as part of the family? What if they began to tell her that it was nice that she had married me but to truly be part of the Burns family there were a few things that would have to be taken care of? First, she would need to go through a series of treatments to whiten her skin because Burns women have lighter skin than her and that’s just how things are. Then, they told her that she would need to change certain things about her character and personality to fit into the model of Burns women. She would have to cook like a Burns woman, keep house like a Burns woman, and follow many of the patterns and typical behaviors that Burns women had always done. Only then, could she really be part of the family. Not only would that be discouraging and unrealistic in many ways, it would certainly make her feel inferior. It would also indicate that marrying me did not accomplish all that much as far as making her a Burns. In fact, it meant virtually nothing as far as that was concerned.
For hundreds of years the family of God belonged to the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people. The family had been promised to descendants of Abraham and they believed that membership into this family was quite literally their birthright. Sure, there were promises to Abraham and through subsequent promises that the whole world would be blessed through this family, but they assumed that that would all somehow happen when God had exalted the nation of Israel, dealt with and judged the pagan nations, and cleared the world of evil and oppression. Only then, in the age to come, would God somehow bring about blessing to the Gentiles. And there were a handful of Jewish converts over the centuries who became Jews but in order to join the family of God, they had to literally become Jews. They had to get circumcised and follow all of the Law of the Hebrew Scriptures. It was only in circumcision, following the food restrictions, and the other laws that people would show themselves to be part of God’s family. There just was no other way that the people of Israel could conceive of being part of God’s people.
This whole issue can be difficult for us, two thousand years later, to connect with and understand but the analogy above (although it’s not a perfect analogy) starts to give us a bit of insight. It seems outrageous for us to see how the followers of Jesus could not grasp that Gentiles could not be saved but that really wasn’t the issue. They knew that God had not promised individual salvation the way we tend to view things nowadays. God had promised a family and had promised that blessing, forgiveness of sin, and salvation would come to those in that family. Jews believed that they would always be that family and failed to understand Old Testament passages that hinted at the fact that they would one day not automatically be so but that it would be passed on to others. They grew furious when Jesus asserted that he was the fulfillment of that promised family and that only those who came to him would be part of it rather than physical descendants of Abraham (see John 8:31-41). So when Jesus told his disciples that Gentiles would come streaming into God’s family as well, they naturally assumed that God’s family was synonymous with being Jewish, with being circumcised and holding to the Law. So they assumed that to be part of God’s family one must do all of those things.
The problem with that, as Paul argues so ably in Romans is that “For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless. . . Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations’” (Rom. 4:14-17). In other words, if one is shown to be in the family of God by following the law, then there is no point in faith. It must be faith in the life of Christ alone that places someone in God’s family or it is nothing at all.
This is the issue at hand that Peter and the other disciples had failed to grasp. This is what God would show Peter as he made his way to the house of Cornelius. This was a big moment in the history of God’s people which is why Luke gives so much attention to it and why the circumstances surrounding it were so non-normative. This was nearly as big a moment as the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost (and in actuality was something of a completion of that event) because this was the time when God’s people finally began to fully grasp what God was doing and that this truly would be one family of all nations, all peoples, all language, and all tribes.
When Peter arrived at Cornelius’ house it became quickly apparent that Cornelius had not known exactly what would happen but he must have sensed that God was going to do something big as he had invited a large number of his family and friends. He was so excited that we can easily understand his slight breech in getting carried away and going overboard by dropping to the feet of Peter in reverence. Peter quickly corrected him, reminding him that in God’s kingdom, there was no hierarchy, just a brotherhood of believers.
As Peter began to address the large gathering of Gentiles at Cornelius’ house, he put the primary issue on the table, so to speak. Normally it would be against common practice for a Jew (and up to that point, a Jewish Christian) to eat with or associate with those outside of God’s family, the Gentiles. But God had shown Peter in his vision that the time for the food laws and dietary restrictions were over and he quickly realized that this meant that God would not be excluding Gentiles from his people any longer. It wasn’t that the law was bad, but the Messiah had come and the law was no longer necessary (Gal. 3:19) as it separated Jews and Gentiles in its very purpose. Now God had made the two into one and destroyed the barrier between the two (Eph. 2:14-15). Just as you might tell a child at a busy street to stop and not walk, but then tell them to go quickly once the crossing light comes on because the situation has changed, so the time to follow the Law as a necessary aspect of being God’s family had passed. The Messiah had come and that was all anyone needed to join into his family.
Thus, Cornelius recounts his encounter with the angel to Peter. The reasons for Cornelius’ re-telling of his encounter and eagerness to hear what God has to say through Peter are obvious, but the only reason that Luke would basically repeat the very details that he has already given is to stress to his readers the importance of what was going on.
Peter had already stressed that his coming into their home was in and of itself a sign that something big had happened to change his worldview and he quickly began his address to his riveted audience by getting to the heart of the matter. God had promised to Abraham that one day God would create one family of all nations and that time had truly come. There would be no special hoops to jump through to be part of God’s family. It was not required that one be physically born into this family or become like those that viewed themselves as already part of it in order to fit. Entrance into this family was based on faith in the life of Christ alone and nothing else. One could not be born into it but one could be born again into this family through Christ (Jn. 3:5) Peter had finally come to realize that “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” This message is as true today as it was when Peter first uttered those words nearly two thousand years ago.
Devotional Thought
In Galatains 2:20, Paul described the moment that he died to his own life and will as being crucified so that he no longer lived for himself but for Christ alone. Have you ever had a clear moment like that in your life when you died to self and was baptized into the life of Christ alone? If you have, have you truly been living a crucified life?
No comments:
Post a Comment