Acts 10

Acts 10:1-11

Subdivision 5. (Acts 10:1-48; Acts 11:1-30.)The Gentile brought to God. The quiet and gradual way in which preparation has been made for the disappearance of the barrier between Jew and Gentile must be apparent to all. Israel has had full and patient trial, all possible proof given her of its being God who was appealing to her, God whom she was resisting, fully displayed in goodness ready to forget all past offences, -the very death of His Son, if only now at last, they would turn to Him. When it is manifest that they will not, then the door is opened to Samaria, a circumcised people, not without Jewish admixture, partially obedient to the law, and who are compelled to own Jerusalem in the reception of the distinct characteristic of the new faith that has gladdened them. Then God Himself leads on in a special way to the reception of the eunuch, with whom the grace of Christ goes out to lands afar off. After this it is that the apostle of the Gentiles is raised up, although only very slowly does his mission become known; he himself only slowly awaking to it; himself a “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” yearning over his kinsmen after the flesh, and but now a rigid Pharisee. But even so, he is not to lead in the admission of the Gentiles; but an unexceptionable instrument is provided for this, -no less than the foremost of the apostles of the circumcision, Peter himself. In this also now God manifests His will with unmistakable plainness in the double vision, at Joppa and Caesarea; then by the outpouring of the Spirit in view of all who came with Peter: those who are ready to oppose at Jerusalem have to own that God has granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life. After this the way is opened by which certain disciples without any prominence of gift or position can speak at Antioch to the Gentiles, and gather an assembly there; and this becomes a new point of departure from which the first direct mission to the Gentiles is sent out; but this by a special revelation of the Spirit, which sets apart Barnabas and Saul for the new work.

1. The first section here manifestly takes in the work at Caesarea, by which the principles are established which henceforth govern the Assembly. It is in effect constituted by them as now outside the Jewish fold. The exodus is really complete, though there may be an effort afterwards really to undo this, and bring all the disciples under the law of Moses. This is resisted, however, on the very ground of what has been established here. (1) All through this fresh movement, as already said, God is Himself the Mover. He begins, with the care which we see manifested all through, with an unexceptionably good example of the Gentile, a man “borne witness to by the whole nation of the Jews,” and therefore, not perplexing the matter by any extraneous question. He is moreover a devout man, a worshiper of the true God, and one that truly fears Him, all his house participating with him also in this. Although not outwardly united in any way to Israel, yet his heart necessarily united him to the people of Him he worshiped, and he manifested this by his alms-giving. He was a man of prayer; praying to God continually. But all this, true as it was, and the fruit of faith, (without which it would not have been true, nor could God, as He presently does, have owned it,) had not sufficed to set him where grace sets the believer now, in conscious salvation. God was now “preaching peace by Jesus Christ”; and to those far off, and to those that were nigh, He had to preach it (Ephesians 2:17). At the ninth hour of the day, the Jewish third hour of prayer, God owns and answers the man that seeks Him, and an angel of God visits him. The fear that falls on men so naturally in the presence of the supernatural, falls upon him, but the message is one of grace alone; and he is assured that his prayers and alms have come up for a memorial before God. He is directed therefore to send for Peter from Joppa, who shall tell him words (it is added in the account afterwards given at Jerusalem), whereby be and all his house shall be saved. In such a declaration, if we are to understand it aright, we must remember that we are here in the overlapping of two dispensations. It is as evident, on the one hand, that Cornelius was already a believer, as that, on the other, he had not yet the faith of Christ. In the midst of Christendom today, such a condition would be perfectly anomalous and unintelligible; and so for most it would he to talk of a soul having life and being still unsaved. Cornelius undoubtedly had life; he was one of those sheep not of the Jewish fold, of which the Lord had spoken, whom He would bring and unite with those of Israel, and there should be one flock, one Shepherd (John 10:16). He was in fact now causing these to hear His voice, and this accounts for what is strange apparently in the Gentile here; but which is at once intelligible when we consider his position between the dispensations. And though Cornelius was a believer of that which was passing away, yet for final salvation he needed to receive the Christ who had come; and would do so if the Shepherd’s voice fairly reached him: for His sheep hear His voice.

If it be final salvation that is spoken of here; all difficulty disappears as to the words used. Of a present salvation Judaism, as a legal system, could know nothing; much less, if possible; a Jewish proselyte, or one like the Roman centurion, converted to God, and yet outside the law. Into the precious assurance of this nothing but Christianity could bring him. Let us notice, before we pass on, the blessed announcement, “who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.” They are in fact the paschal announcement of Christianity. Of the Jewish feasts, as we have them given in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus, only those of the seventh month, in their typical significance; belong to Israel nationally, -the number seven being, as we know, the sign of completion -the complete time reached. Passover, the Sheaf of Firstfruits, Pentecost, were all offered to Israel, but rejected by them, and are become the peculiar Christian feasts, a silent gap of time intervening between these and the national seasons -the Blowing of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles -of the seventh month. Passover is not national, in the sense in which the offerings of the Day of Atonement covered all Israel. It was kept by families, and might be held a second time by those who were hindered by defilement or a journey at the first celebration: just as now it is not nations that are contemplated, but believers from among the nations; however freely the gospel is addressed to all. Yet here nevertheless God would assure us of a grace that would not forget the links of relationship by which He has bound us together. “Thou and thy house” reminds us still of the family ordinance; though unbelief, in a dispensation whose principle is, “Thou standest by faith,” may make all this void. For there is, of course; no possible reason for so wild an imagination as that the comforting promise to Cornelius’ house; or any other, is “irrespective of faith.” Rather, if faith be in any sense the gift of God, are we assured by this, and the general thread of such intimations woven into Scripture; that He is ready to bless the households of His people still, wherever the Abrahamic faith shall be accompanied with that Abrahamic diligence of heart which seeks God’s blessing in His appointed ways. However much the gospel might be preached to Cornelius’ household, such an assurance would mean very much for him. We all have the comfort of knowing that it is the same gracious God with whom we have to do today, who has given us too, as some of us have the consolation of believing, in other ways, an assurance akin to that here vouchsafed the centurion; but which only faith can have and plead with Him aright. Here is not the place further to enlarge upon it.*
The angel does not preach the gospel to Cornelius, but sends Peter to him for this; so thoroughly does the Lord cleave to His own methods and appointments. Peter moreover, as we have seen, is specially needed here; and that need is seen the more in the means taken to prepare the apostle for what is before him. The Lord goes in advance of the messengers from Caesarea to the house of Simon the tanner* by the seaside; and that house is the lowly birthplace of a wide and far-reaching movement in His ways with men.
The vision sent to Peter is founded on that distinction of clean and unclean meats which operated so largely in keeping the Jew apart from the Gentile. The Gentile was himself in fact the unclean liver with whom the one who sought conformity to the mind of God could not indeed go far without danger of pollution. The law, entirely apart from the typical significance in which so much of the interest attaching to it is found by us today, served as a useful barrier to unlimited intercourse with the idolatrous world around, which in these very things had upon it, as we know, the stamp of its idolatry. The question of meats offered to idols could in this way become a serious one for Christians themselves, though now for the uninstructed only (1 Corinthians 8:1-13). But Judaism as a rule for a people in the flesh, externally rather than spiritually set apart to God, was of necessity negative and prohibitory in its requirements, -a fold shutting in, rather than a principle of liberty: for liberty would be in their case concession, instead of victory over opposing forces. Christianity with its spiritual power alone could permit liberty.

It was a sign of weakness for Judaism that it had no missions, preached no evangel: how could the word, “No man can see My Face and live,” be this? So the Jew went beyond the law in his restrictions, built the fence higher and higher, but found none sufficient. With Christianity a new power had come; Godward and manward there was a significant change. The Jew himself was gone morally: what use of a fence to keep from contamination the crucifiers of the Son of God? It was not merely that the mind of the flesh was not subject to the law of God; it was enmity to God Himself. And what the end of this long experiment proved as to the Jew, it proved really as to man at large; there was nowhere any betterness. Jew and Gentile had been united at the Cross; they had no need to separate after this: for the believer in Christ, the world was crucified by it, and he crucified to the world. From that side the fence had gone; but from God’s side it was gone also. For those who had crucified Christ, it must be now either judgment wholly, or else pure grace. But Christ need not have died to ensure man’s condemnation; nor would He have died to increase man’s doom. Thus, if there is to be any fruit of His death whatever, it must be grace. If God then means by it to show His grace, how great will that grace be! In fact man by the murder of the Son of God has consummated his sin, and demonstrated his condition; but on the other hand Christ gave Himself for our sins, and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. Thus the fence is down from God’s side; the veil that hid His blessed face is rent from top to bottom, and to all men, guilty alike; and with no pretension to title, Jew or Gentile, God has come out, and whosoever will is welcome in. In such light as this, then, the contention of Jew with Gentile is at an end; to maintain it is mere self-righteousness. The vessel that Peter sees comes down from heaven; and as seen thus the distinctions made by Judaism are ended and over. “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life.” “He” too “that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God overcometh the world;” there is a new power, and with it a new liberty: the true Shepherd is calling His sheep out of the sheep-fold, and with Him, His hand over them, His voice in their ears, liberty is safe.*
The vessel comes down from heaven and returns again there: it is the Church, heavenly in origin, and heavenly in destination; and those within it are alike those whom God has cleansed, and who must not be called common. But Peter still doubts the meaning of the vision, until the three men sent by Cornelius are at the door, inquiring after him, and the Spirit bids him rise and go with them, for He has sent them. (2) Upon all this history the inspired writer dwells, not heeding repetition, for the heart of God is pouring itself out in this getting back to it now of those so long self banished. The Gentile is truly the prodigal here restored; and we as Gentiles may well be touched at the interest displayed in those for whom the ring and robe are waiting. Things are told out at length, and we realize the response upon the other side, as we learn of the company which without prompting, save of a heart opening to the grace that greets him, Cornelius gathers to hear what, if he know not yet, he knows, so heralded, is good news from God. Upon all these, gathered up in the stretched out Arms, the Father’s kiss is pressed in the Spirit presently outpoured, -the Spirit of adoption! What a scene to melt the last bit of legal ice out of the soul of Peter, as he realizes how impossible it is for him to withstand God! Truly it is impossible! the flood-gates are giving way, and all the fulness of divine love, long kept back by the requirements of divine righteousness, is hastening to manifest itself.

The ages to come are to bear witness of the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Nothing can keep back now what all the sin of man in its worst display has only shown in its supreme and glorious power. Arrived at Caesarea, Peter rebukes his would-be successors of today by raising up him who had fallen at his feet as the messenger of God; and having explained how God had delivered him from his Jewish prejudices, preaches Jesus as Christ and Lord to those assembled. He now fully realizes that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him. How could He indeed ignore what is but the fruit of His own work in the soul, wherever found? They were not unaware of the word which He had sent to Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. As a word to Israel they had only as yet known of it; but He is Lord of all; and as that they were also now to have to say to Him. Of His mighty works they could not indeed be ignorant, who through all Judea and Galilee went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. How plain was it that in all this God was with Him! Yet what they had done to Him was as well known also; they had slain and hung Him on a tree! There for the nation He had disappeared: they indeed had seen Him no more; but God had raised Him up the third day, and manifested Him to chosen witnesses, who (as the one who stood before them now) had eaten and drunk with Him after He was risen from among the dead. From Him had these commission to proclaim Him to the people; and that as One divinely appointed to be Judge of the living and the dead. There was a breach, then, as to the nation; Israel had rejected the Lord: God had answered it by setting Him high above all, and putting judgment into His hands; yet the testimony of it was already an intimation of grace. How far, and in what manner would that grace be shown? Here Peter brings in the witness of the prophets, by whom from the beginning God had been speaking to men. It could not be; in fact, that such things should take place without having been anticipated and announced in the ages of which they were the consummation. That which affected the whole world could not be isolated from all its previous history. Central in their relation to all human things, the Cross and the Resurrection are in reality their explanation.

With the testimony of the ages the glory of the miracle was only in harmonious correspondence. Its exceptionality was its fitness for the place it occupied. They knew (the men whom the apostle was addressing) the testimony of the prophets, which, just as being Gentiles, would have for them an attraction of a special kind. Did it not speak of nations upon whom the Lord’s name would be called? (Amos 9:11-12.) And in Abraham’s Seed were not all the families of the earth to be blessed? But Peter more definitely interprets and applies the gospel of their predictions, that through the name of Jesus whosoever believed on Him would receive remission of sins. According to such a principle; the Gentile who believed had equal assurance of this with the Jew. If even to the Jew acceptance were by faith alone; then for the Gentile who had faith there was acceptance also. (3) Thus far had the apostle reached, -and he tells us himself, that it was but the beginning of what he intended to say (Acts 11:15) -when he was arrested by a sign of precious significance: without the administration of baptism, as with the pentecostal audience, -without the imposition of apostles, hands, as at Samaria, -the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word! God again was the Mover; and in anticipation of every question that might be raised, setting aside all thought of human succession, or of sacramental endowment, -“by the hearing of faith” alone (Galatians 3:2), the Gentiles received the Spirit, and were thus gathered into the assembly. The barrier between Jew and Gentile had been removed by the hand of God Himself, and the Church had assumed the character it was hereafter to retain. In Christ there was to be now neither Jew nor Gentile. The bond was not to be that of nationality nor of legal observance, but of the One Spirit uniting into one body. Not that the body of Christ was yet known doctrinally; nor even of the House of God have we yet heard, though the indwelling of the Spirit would give rise to a growing consciousness of this which would soon find support in the Lord’s words to Peter, with the name given to him.

In his first epistle we have the development of this, to which Paul, however, gives completeness. The fact anticipated the doctrine; and that which hindered the development of this had now given way (Ephesians 2:14-15). Baptism takes here, therefore, another place from that which it had before this. It follows, instead of preceding, the reception of the Spirit. Peter makes this a manifest reason why baptism cannot be denied them: “Can any one forbid water,” he asks, “that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?” It was not necessarily the place which this was to take henceforth; for after this we find the Jewish disciples of the Baptist (Acts 19:5-6), having not only to be baptized, but to have the imposition of hands, in order that they may receive the Spirit. The Gentiles, on the other hand, having had no legal status hitherto, are dealt with in pure grace alone; the ground upon which they are met is manifestly this, and this only: hence God can give way to His love with more simplicity; and He does so, to the astonishment of “those of the circumcision,” who find all their own scruples and hesitation set aside with a decisive authority, against which they have no power to protest. To do aught but accept it would be plainly to “withstand God,” as Peter himself says. He commands, therefore; that they should be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, and, accepting frankly all the consequences of this, stays with them at their desire for some days. (4) The history is pursued further, and with the same carefulness of detail, to the recognition of this place given to the Gentiles at Jerusalem itself, notwithstanding the objections on the part of the disciples there. In fact, the eating with men uncircumcised seems to have been heard of, before the way of the grace of God. Peter gives an account of all, therefore, from the beginning; and all resistance is silenced by the simple narration. The question with which he ends it is quite unanswerable. They needs must glorify God that He has granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life. Not even a breath is heard about the need of circumcising them to keep the law of Moses; the act of God is too conspicuous; He is so completely in it from end to end. And thus the all-important transformation is effected without a dissenting voice. 2.(1) The principle being now established, the free action of the Spirit is seen in raising up at Antioch what becomes characteristically a Gentile assembly. For this there is not even the putting forth of a man like Philip. None are allowed to be conspicuous in this work, for the eye to fasten upon: God would make it manifestly His own. Scattered by the same persecution which had been already made to minister to the need of Samaria, Phenicia, Cyprus and Antioch are visited by those whose hearts, filled with the grace which they have themselves experienced, lead them out to minister to the need of others. But at first it is to Jews only that the good news is proclaimed; the effect also is not apparent, -certainly seems in marked contrast with the success among the Greeks, to whom at last they turn. The hand of the Lord is with them, and a great number of converts is the result of their evangelistic labor.

It is remarkable how officialism is discredited in all this. We do not know the name of a single person used in the work. The great apostle of the Gentiles is yet in comparative obscurity in his native city; Barnabas is not yet upon the scene: God is acting in conspicuous sovereignty by what instruments He will; and this in the case of the first Gentile assembly is surely designed to attract our notice. Antioch is to “stand over against” Jerusalem, as even its name may imply, as identified with such freer action; and it is noticeable that the disciples are first called Christians here in Antioch. In Jerusalem they were but “the sect of the Nazarenes.” (2) Still the new work is not to drift into independence of the old, but to be acknowledged and accepted at Jerusalem itself, as in the case of the reception of Cornelius and his company at Caesarea. The report, therefore, reaching the Jewish capital, Barnabas is sent forth to go as far as Antioch, -a well-chosen representative. He does not go with authority, nor seek to exercise it; nor has be in hand, as the apostles in their visit to Samaria, to supply any deficiency in the condition of these Syrian brethren, who have evidently received the Spirit, as they did at Caesarea, without need of apostles, or of imposition of hands. Barnabas sees the grace of God in them, and is glad, and simply exhorts them all, that with purpose of heart they should cleave to the Lord; -a word never uncalled for. It is his character that is dwelt upon in this connection, not his office: “he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and of faith;” and this is seen in its effect, doubtless, in the progress of the work there: “a great multitude was added to the Lord.” It is Barnabas who is the means of introducing Saul into this field of labor. We may naturally suppose that he recognized in him a special fitness for the great work now beginning; but we see how simply his connection is brought about with the field to which from the commencement of his apostleship he is destined. God is not in haste, and His purposes are worked out often in what we may call the homeliest ways. The man who had introduced him to the apostles at Jerusalem, and who there had been witness to his energy and power, now seeks him out at Tarsus, no great distance off, and Saul returns with him to Antioch. There the work still progresses; and there the Christians get what is henceforth their distinctive name. We are not told whence it came; but the argument is just that Jews who refused Jesus as the Christ could not have given it to them; and that we only find it elsewhere, either in the mouth of those outside; as king Agrippa, or where the thought is of one suffering as such from the hands of unbelievers, as Peter uses it (1 Peter 4:16).

It was therefore given by men outside, as one would infer, and in connection with the notable work accomplished at this time. The disciples were no more looked at as a mere Jewish sect. The weaning-time of Isaac was accomplished; and, while the children of the bondwoman “mocked” at the feebleness of the true heirs of grace; and cast them out, it was really they themselves who were being cast out. The Church’s unity in Christ was being proclaimed, even by the lips of unbelievers; the One Name covering alike Jew and Gentile, while it separated them from all, whether Jew or Gentile; who did not confess Him. (3) The Spirit of God gives a little glimpse, in closing this portion, of the recognition on the part of the assembly at Antioch of their relationship and obligation to those from whom they had received spiritual blessings so great. Indeed it is from a prophet from Jerusalem that they have warning of the approach of the famine which occasions this ministry, and which seems especially to have affected the province of Judea. It is the first time that Christian prophets are mentioned in the New Testament; although they seem not to have been few in number, and are placed second only to the apostles themselves in the enumeration of gifts bestowed by Christ upon the Church. Prophecy also, as we shall find elsewhere; is in a special way characteristic of Christianity. Unsuccessional, springing out of close intercourse and communion with God, the disclosure of His mind so as to bring souls into His Presence, -it should be and is, in closest relation with the rent veil of the Sanctuary and the ability to draw near to God which mark the present period. Prediction was never more than a comparatively small and variable part of it; although this is what we find in the prophesying of Agabus upon the only two occasions in which he appears in the history. Indeed he is a prophet of sorrow at both times, although of that which God overrules for good; but then, of what sorrow may not this be said? The disciples do not think little of this ministry of means, when they choose the two most prominent among them to administer it; and Barnabas and Saul, on the other hand, do not think it a matter that they should not be burdened with. Indeed, we know from the epistles of the latter what he thought upon the subject. In those fresh days, when it could be said that every one gave “according to his ability,” how much love -divine love -was there not expressed in it! How different when it would have rather to be said, as in many of the sad days of decline since then, “every one a little of his superfluity, and the richest in proportion least of all!” Everything is degraded or spiritualized by the heart that is in it, -or is not in it. We hear, too, for the first time; of “elders” in the Jewish assemblies, who, though doubtless an adoption from what was an immemorial custom in Israel (for we have no account of any distinct origin), yet seem from the epistle of Peter to be hardly officially appointed (1 Peter 5:1), but rather the natural result of wisdom and experience attaching to age, which would make the “elder” the natural leader in the counsels of a people. In the Gentile assemblies we read of their appointment afterwards, where (and perhaps because) the patriarchal custom did not have the same recognition; and there with some restrictions which were only necessary to right “oversight,” which (and not preaching) was that which was their work. The incidental notice here hardly requires the examination of the subject of eldership which it must receive when we come to the epistle to Timothy. It is well to note; however, that neither was it a gift, nor did it need one for qualification, which was almost wholly moral; while for preaching or teaching there needed no authorization from man, but the gift entailed the responsibility of using it, and manifested itself wherever there was an ear to hear. But all this must wait for its development elsewhere.