The story of Cornelius as recorded by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, provides several formative statements by Peter for the foundational teaching of the church on acceptance and the Holy Spirit. The lesson that Peter learned, recorded in Acts 10:34-35, is that God shows no partiality, but anyone anywhere who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to God. As this story unfolds some Jewish believers of the party of the Pharisees believe this means all Christians must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved (Acts 15). Yet as a Gentile God fearer, Cornelius had already been honored by God, because his prayers and alms went up as a memorial to God (Acts 10). Now through Peter’s preaching of the gospel Cornelius would receive a new and different understanding of what it means to fear God and do what is right, according to the revelation of the Messiah (Christ). Even as Peter preached Christ, God worked within Cornelius what was acceptable to Him; and so God poured out His Holy Spirit. What did God see that explains God’s exceptional act? What would this mean for His church?
I am choosing to discuss Acts 15:8-9, the last of the four statements, as Peter’s second formative statement, because this statement sheds light on what God saw; and therefore, upon what He wants His church to discern. Once we see the full reasoning for why God poured out the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius in this exceptional manner, we can better understand Peter’s other two formative statements in Acts 10:34-35 and Acts 10:47. Peter made this last statement at the Jerusalem council, many years after the baptism of Cornelius. The apostles and elders convened this council in order to address a serious dissension throughout the church. Among Jewish Christians, the party of the circumcision taught: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1, ESV). Peter understood that the solution to this dissension was the great foundational truth confirmed by God himself. This lesson was for the church which would be prone to suffer many kinds of dissensions due to doctrines fostering sectarian partiality.
At the Jerusalem council Peter told the story and the lesson afresh: “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:7-11, ESV). Verses 8-9 is Peter’s second statement of the formative act of God is in Acts 15:8-9 (ESV): “And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.”
God knows the heart. God makes no distinction. God cleanses the heart by faith. Peter recognized what God sees and verifies, and what we must accept as verification of God’s acceptance: faith in Christ. This is the most non-sectarian, impartial basis of all. The exceptional outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles “just as on us” [the 120 disciples on Pentecost] at the beginning, was God’s sovereign act in order to highlight what he saw and what he wanted His church to see: that the Gentiles believed in Jesus as the Lord. When Peter saw what God verified by the gift of the Holy Spirit, then who was he or anyone else to stand in God’s way (Acts 10:47, a third formative statement).
In the Apostle Paul’s defense of the gospel way of salvation in his letter to the Galatians, Paul recounted what was at stake at the Jerusalem council. “Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in – who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery – to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (Galatians 2:4-5, ESV). Paul showed how it was God’s plan to justify the human race on the basis of faith in His Son, and not on the basis of the works of the law. “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Galatians 3:8-9, ESV). According to God’s plan, salvation is His work, first by Christ, then by the way of faith in Christ (Also think on Galatians 2:15-21, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-31, and 10:5-13, Matthew 16:13-17, 1 Corinthians 12:3, and Colossians 2:11-12). Therefore, recognizing God’s work which verified God’s way of acceptance, Peter commanded that the household of Cornelius be baptized (Acts 10:34-35, a fourth formative statement).
