Acts 10:9-16 “Good in God’s Sight”
The text we heard read from the pulpit this morning was only a small part, the dream sequence, from the larger story of Cornelius and Peter. So, I want to fill you in on the entire story because in its entirety it has the greatest meaning for our lives today. I will start by sharing about who Cornelius was and the significance of his meeting with Peter. Next, I will discuss the vision that Peter saw in his dream. Lastly, I will look at the reaction of Cornelius and those around him to the meaning of the dream and how that changed Christianity and even all of us.
First point then: Cornelius was, as the beginning of Acts 10 tells us, a centurion of the Italian cohort. We also know that he was well respected among the Jewish nation. He had left his Italian Roman pagan beliefs and had accepted the Jewish faith—at least to a point. The Bible tells us that his prayers and alms stood as a monument before God! He had not had the years of religious instruction required of Jewish young men, however, and he had not been circumcised. Not unlike the story we had a few weeks about the Ethiopian Eunuch, here was another man who for reasons beyond his control was not able to be fully incorporated into the faith life of one who believed in the God of Abraham.
As the story goes Cornelius hears of Peter’s abilities and that he is a man of God who has followed Jesus Christ. He may have already heard about the raising of Dorcas (which we discussed last week). And, he is visited by an angel of the Lord who tells Cornelius that Peter is in Joppa staying with a man named Simon, who is a tanner. The angel tells Cornelius to send for Peter. Cornelius obliges and sends two soldiers and a steward to ask for Peter to leave Joppa and come to Caesarea to meet him.
Peter receives the men, and he is instructed by the Holy Spirit to follow them back to Caesarea to meet with Cornelius. As Cornelius receives Peter, he gets down on the ground in utter humility before Peter and reveres him as a man of God. Peter tells him to get up as he is only a mere mortal. Peter then proceeds to witness and share testimony of Jesus with Cornelius and everyone who was gathered there at that meeting. During that time, there is something like a mini Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes down and falls on all the people gathered there. Afterwards, Peter baptizes all of the people with water—in essence everyone is therewith accepted into the church.
I want all of us to consider for a moment who Cornelius really was. As a centurion of the Italian cohort, he was a gentile, that is a non-Jew. He was well respected, as we have heard, but he was also a man of means. The job of a centurion is not just to lead one hundred men, but also to make sure that they were regularly provisioned and outfitted. In other words, Cornelius was a leader, a very respected member of Roman society, and was wealthy.
I bring this up because up until we meet Cornelius in this text, we have mostly been reading about poor Galilean fisherman being called out to follow Jesus, detestable Samaritans having a revival of sorts after the resurrection, and poor widows. So far we have gotten a picture of Christianity as a religion of the downtrodden. Indeed, I do believe that Christianity is a religion of the poor and destitute, but our story for today also tells us that Christ came for all people—even the wealthy well-connected ones.
Please consider that many preachers today have accepted a theology of prosperity. They have earned the moniker of “Prosperity Preachers.” The theme of their sermons is that “God wants you to do well” and “God wants to bless your life.” Yes, I too believe that God wants to bless your life. I think God wants his children to live full wonderfully blessed lives for his name’s sake.
Look at Cornelius’s life. He is wealthy. He is respected. He is powerful. Yet, he needs something else in his life. He is already giving alms and worshipping God, yet there is still something more that he can get from Peter. He needs the witnessing to the power of salvation through Jesus Christ. He needs to accept Jesus into his heart. And, he does accept Jesus as his Lord, which we can read at the end of Chapter 10.
To my second point then: Peter has a dream of a sheet filled with animals coming down out of heaven. The Lord’s voice is heard that he should kill and eat. He responds to the Lord by saying that he knows the Jewish law about what he can and cannot eat and that he has never broken it.
The voice from heaven responds in verse 15, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Talk about blessings! This is the classic argument between “law and grace,” isn’t it? This is really important to Peter, who was raised as a good Jew. His whole life he has followed dietary laws and laws about who he can and cannot associate with in order to be ritually clean so that he can worship God in the Temple. If one is not clean, one cannot go in to worship—that is the law. In fact, technically speaking, Peter is breaking one of the cleanliness rules when he goes to meet with Cornelius, a gentile. He goes into his home. The moment he does that, he is considered ritualistically unclean.
You might recall that this was the same argument that was made by the Pharisees against Jesus that he ate with “sinners and tax collectors” and therefore should not be considered a godly man.
The Apostle Paul talks about this in his Letter to the Romans 3:21-25, “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” In other words, we have all broken the law already; we are all sinners; all we have to rely on is the singular grace of God—nothing else. Our only hope is in what God gives us as a gift, for no matter how hard we try to be perfect in obeying the religious laws, we can never make it to redemption with God except through Jesus. Jesus is the gift of grace that we rely upon.
The last point is related to this: “It’s all good.” Say this with me if you like: “It’s all good.” Go home today from this worship service knowing in your heart that “it’s all good.” When that blanket came down from the sky with all those animals on it, the message was to Peter, “It is all good because it comes from God.” When Peter is told to go Cornelius’s house to testify before a gentile, we have to know that this is all good because God has ordained it. Gentiles are not bad because religious law says they are. They are good in God’s sight!
The story of Cornelius and Peter ends with the Holy Spirit washing down over a whole household or more of gentiles. The Spirit of God through angels and visions is seeking to bring the gentiles into God’s fold. The gentiles respond by accepting that spirit! We have an interesting reversal of what has been happening thus far since the resurrection of Christ. You will recall that Philip went to Samaria and the people there welcomed him. Once they had heard the gospel in Samaria and believed in Christ, Philip baptized them with water. Later Peter and John went to them to baptize them with the Holy Spirit. First water, then Spirit!
Here in Caesarea at Cornelius’s house, we have the opposite order. The Holy Spirit comes down and baptizes the gentiles there first. After that, Peter says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (verse 47).
WE have to see that God had it planned all along to send the Holy Spirit down on these gentiles—whether Peter was there or not. God wanted Cornelius’s heart and soul! The gentiles were already good in God’s sight, especially Cornelius. Peter only came to witness to Jesus and baptize with water after the fact that the Spirit had baptized them already.
Sometimes in the church we do not count on the fact that the Holy Spirit is working in a lot of people’s hearts outside of the church right now. We tend to think that miracles only happen among the body of believers. However, there are people out there who are maybe not Christians in terms of what we deign as believers who are “good in God’s sight.” They have the Holy Spirit working in them already. They perhaps have been visited by angels just like Cornelius. Can we deny them?! No!
In fact and indeed, we see that just like Peter who was called from Joppa to Caesarea we are called to go out to them to share our faith and make witness of the gospel of salvation unto them. We cannot and should not expect them to somehow find our door on Sunday morning. WE must go where the Holy Spirit is already working to change people’s hearts to Christ. Amen to that! We have to be prepared to be called out.
Now, just like our troops are rotated from place to place around the globe, so were the troops back then during the roman occupation of Israel. One day the Italian cohort (as it was known back then) was rotated back to Italy, back to the Roman heartland. When that happened, they took their faith and the Holy Spirit back with them. When Paul in fact finally arrives in Rome, he is warmly welcomed by a community of believers who were already there (Acts 28 ) ! How did they get there? Was it through Cornelius and the other soldiers of the Italian cohort? Most likely! When Peter finally starts his ministry in Rome, and you may recall that he gets the title of “Bishop of Rome,” he comes to a situation where Christians have already established themselves strongly.
For us, we
should see how the Holy Spirit brings people together to get its work done in
this world. We should accept that miracles and visions will happen. We should
acknowledge that the Holy Spirit has a plan that we are a part of. Amen.