1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’
8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.
11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’
15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with[a] water, but you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”
18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Dig Deeper
Last year I was out of town on a ministry trip and my wife was at work at her hospital overnight. We had a friend staying with our boys and taking care of them for the night. While I was still out of town, my son called and asked if he could have our friend take him to a football game up at his high school. I told him that he could and that either our friend would pick him up after the game or I would be back in town by then and could get him. On the way home, my phone had died as I had forgotten to charge the battery but I soon got back into town and went to pick him up. I waited for quite awhile but he didn’t come out. I returned back to our house to find out from our friend that he had called and gone from the football field back to his high school building which was a bout a mile away for a post-game bonfire and dance. I was rather upset and went up to the school to find him and bring him home. When I finally found him I demanded an explanation of why he would have done such a thing. He calmly responded by telling me the narrative of events that night, including that he had tried to call me but my phone was dead. The game had gotten out earlier than he thought and everyone was leaving. He felt that either had to walk up to his school with a large group of friends and try to reach me from there or stay at the field alone. After hearing his explanation I realized that given the situation he had made the right choice and my initial objections were answered. All that was necessary was for me to hear the story and get the details.
This incident between Peter and Cornelius was no small thing and just hearing some of the details clearly made the believers in Judea, specifically in Jerusalem rather nervous. They wanted to know what exactly what went on while Peter was in Caesarea with Cornelius and the household of Gentiles. They clearly felt that Peter had some serious explaining to do. What they had heard seemed to be a massive breach of normal practices, one that would have blown a rather large hole in the worldview of the Jewish Christians concerning what it meant to be part of God’s family.
As Peter returned to Jerusalem, no doubt excited about all that had happened and that God was doing, he was immediately confronted by a concerned group of “circumcised believers.” It is doubtful that this was a formalized faction or group yet but the people that were the most concerned about this issue probably formed the nucleus of those who would continue to battle the issue of Gentiles being allowed into the family of God. By the time Paul wrote the letter of Galatians, he had a very dim view of these people as he believed that by that time they had no excuse for their continuing desire to bind the Gentiles with the law (see Gal. 2:12; 5:12). At that time they had apparently become a somewhat specific faction but the group that confronted Peter was probably little more than the roots of that group.
It is interesting, though, that their first question had to do with Peter eating with the Gentiles. It demonstrates that their concern seemed to have been more with following the Law than with truly inquiring about what God was doing through Peter with the Gentiles, but it also shows that acceptance of the Gentiles into God’s family on the part of the existing Christian community absolutely hinged on the removal of the necessity of the food laws (which explains the reason that God’s vision to Peter removed the food laws and only later did Peter make the connection that this was paving the way for Gentiles to be accepted into God’s family). You could not have full acceptance of the Gentiles into the family of God without the removal of the necessity of the food laws.
At the heart of the concern of the Jerusalem believers was whether or not Peter had accepted these Gentile pagans in the family of the Messiah without making sure that they had become full family members by following the Law and being circumcised, the very things that in their mind were necessary for family status. There may have been a mixture of concern about zeal for God’s Law as well as fear that they would receive harsh criticism and even further persecution from the Jews if it was thought that they were indiscriminately fellowshipping with Gentiles. To do so would have rendered the new Christian community to the status of complete pagans and blasphemers in the eyes of the Jews rather than just an inerrant sect of Judaism. Peter’s response was to simply tell them the story and explain to them everything that had happened.
Luke again takes the time, for the third time now, to recount Peter’s story as he was given a vision concerning the food laws, Cornelius, and the Gentiles. Peter initially protested at the thought of doing anything that violated the Law but it was the divine voice that ordered him to do so. Up until that point, he had been blameless in his observation of the food laws. It took three times, a number that signified completeness to the Jewish people, to fully make clear to Peter that this was God’s will. Immediately on the heels of the heavenly vision, the men from Caesarea came, demonstrating in Peter’s mind that their visit was directly connected to his vision. The Spirit told Peter to have no hesitation about entering into the house of this Gentile, and peter now mentions that he brought six brothers with him as witnesses to all that happened. Peter found Cornelius eagerly waiting for him and mentions for the first time the angel had specifically told Cornelius that the message that Peter brought would bring salvation, or in other words, would finally bring them into God’s family.
Peter then recounted to the brothers how the Holy Spirit came upon them just as he had come upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It is significant that Peter did not relate the coming on of the Spirit here with the baptism salvation event later in Acts 2. The reason is simple. The pouring out of the Spirit in the upper room on Pentecost was an event that signified that the door to the kingdom was truly swinging wide open and that people could be baptized into Christ and enter into God’s kingdom. It was not a salvation event. The Spirit coming upon Cornelius and the others was a completion of that once-for-all baptism of the Spirit. The Spirit had been made available and salvation had come first to the Jew then to the Gentile (Rom. 1:16; 2:10). The baptism with the Spirit was not some separate event that continues today to be an experience for certain believers who attain a higher spiritual plane than others, but it was door that opened up and poured out on the Jews (Acts 2), then the Samaritans (Acts 8), and finally the Gentiles (Acts 10-11) that made baptism into Christ available for all time and once that door had been opened it cannot be closed.
So what was Peter to do? He asked them quite clearly, “if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way.” Who was Peter to reject what God had accepted? The Gentiles had been given the same gift that had been given to the Jews. They had every bit as much right, just as they were, to enter into God’s family based on their baptism into Christ alone. That was definitive. They were members of God’s family without having to first become Jews. The baptism of the Holy Spirit had come and opened God’s family for all time to all people of all nations.
So Peter had given the best defense for and explanation of his activities that he could possibly imagine in the form of a rather straightforward narrative of events. At every turn, this was not an expression of Peter’s will or explanations but it was the expression of God’s will. The only choice that Peter had was to accept what God was doing and that would seem to have been the only choice that the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem had. Their initial reaction was to accept Peter’s words and to praise God that he was so gracious so as to even give the repentance that leads to life to the Gentiles.
But as we well know, human nature is not always that simple either. This issue would pop its head up again and again during the first generation of the church. It is one thing to hear that God has opened his family up to all people and rejoice over that. But the hard work of putting it into practice, dealing with it, and forging unity when dearly cherished practices and beliefs run headlong into differing beliefs and practices of those that were also in God’s family is an entirely different thing. It’s easy to say that the family of believers is your true family but the hard work of actually embracing that through the difficult times and living it out is a much more difficult and ongoing task.
Devotional Thought
Do you truly embrace your church family and the family of believers as your family or do they still fulfill a rather secondary role in your life? What would it look like to truly embrace the family of believers as your primary family of identity and loyalty as the Scriptures call for?
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