Everyone Who Believes
For fifteen weeks now, we have been tracking with one of the greatest stories in the history of the world.
It is the story of how Jesus continued his work in the world after his resurrection from the grave and ascension into heaven to sit on the throne of the universe. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” said the risen Christ, and through his pouring out of his Holy Spirit (at Pentecost, which the church remembers today on Pentecost Sunday), and through the witness of his apostles, the good news about Jesus, and the community of his people called the church, increased and advanced.
The progress of the gospel and the church is a major theme in the book of Acts. We saw it in Acts 6:7: “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly.” We saw it again in Acts 9:31:
“the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”
In the coming weeks, we’ll see it three more times:
12:24: “the word of God increased and multiplied”
16:5: “the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily”
19:20: “the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily”
The gospel and the community it creates, called the church, are on the move, beginning at Ground Zero in Jerusalem, but not staying there. In Acts 7, as we saw, Stephen supplies a key piece of the theology for moving out from Jerusalem. Jesus is the fulfillment of the temple, which frees his gospel from being tethered in Jerusalem. Then with the stoning of Stephen and the persecution that follows, the church is dispersed from Jerusalem, and “those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Then in Acts 9, as we saw last week, the lead persecutor of the church (the chief of sinners, 1 Timothy 1:15–16) is met on the road by the risen Christ himself and dramatically converted to the gospel. God is putting the pieces into place for the global mission.
As we come to Acts 10 in this unfolding of the gospel story, the missing pieces seem to be whether Jerusalem is fully on board, and what the flip side of the coin is for non-Jews, called Gentiles. Thanks to Stephen, they now are beginning to understand that they don’t have to worship at the temple, because Jesus himself is the true temple, but how do they get connected to the new people of God? Must they be circumcised? Must they live under the Jewish law? Can they eat pork?
The importance of this story of Peter and Cornelius in the history of the church is seen in the length of the narrative (the longest in Acts) and the repetition of the story twice, once in chapter 10 and then again in chapter 11. Here the last pieces are coming into place for the emerging mission to the Gentiles.
We’ll focus on chapter 10, verses 34–48, Peter’s speech and its effects. Let’s look at this in three parts.
1. The Lesson of Peter (verses 34–35)
So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
We’re jumping in at verse 34, but Peter’s opening statement is a kind of summary of what’s happened in verses 1–33. Peter opens his mouth here to speak to a house full of Gentiles, brought together by a Roman centurion named Cornelius. It’s noteworthy already that Peter has come into a Gentile house. It would have much easier for a Jew to host a non-Jew than to be the guest of a non-Jew (verse 28).
We learn earlier in the story that Cornelius was “devout man who feared God with all his household” (verse 2). He is not a Jew, but is “upright and God-fearing” (verse 22). God has prepared Peter for this very moment — and not way ahead of time, but exactly on cue. He gave Peter a vision. Peter
saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” (Acts 10:11–13)
Peter, the good Jew, answers, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” The Jewish law, under which Peter lived, declared some animals “clean” for eating and others “common” and not to be eaten. Then the voice answers Peter, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happens three times, and just as it finishes, and Peter is perplexed and considering its meaning, messengers arrive from this Cornelius.
God also had given Cornelius a vision. An angel had appeared to him and said, “Send men to Joppa [where Peter was staying at the time] and bring one Simon who is called Peter” (Acts 10:5). [Note: Jonah went to Joppa to flee God’s call to the Gentiles, but Peter answers the call from Joppa.]
So God is at work on Cornelius, but he gives not just one vision, but two. He is not finished without the preaching and reception of the gospel. God sends an angel to Cornelius to prepare the way, and God does a work in Peter’s heart to prepare him for the work he’ll do through him as the message-bearer. And so we hear in Peter’s summary of Cornelius’s vision in 11:14: “he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.” God may work through dreams and visions, but he does not replace the need for a real-live, human witness. He sends a messenger to preach the message of Jesus and seal the deal.
Acceptable?
One question to tackle here before moving on: what does Peter mean by “acceptable” in verse 35? He says, “in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Does he mean that anyone, in any nation, who fears God and does what is right is already in right-standing with God? He is already fully accepted by God?
That can’t be what it means, because God has sent Peter here to Cornelius and his family and friends to bring “a message by which you will be saved.”
“Acceptable” does not mean they already are forgiven and in right relationship with God, but that they are “acceptable” in terms of being live candidates to hear and believe Peter’s message. The gospel message is not limited to Jews. This is what Peter’s lesson about “cleanness” has been about. Cleanness is about acceptability for hearing the gospel message (verse 15, then verse 28 adds “any person”). It’s a small lesson about food (all foods are “clean,” acceptable to eat), but a big lesson about people (all people are “clean,” acceptable to offer to them the grace of Christ).
So, the beginning of Peter’s message, in verses 34–35, captures in sum the lesson Peter learned in verses 1–33. Now we learn what that all-important message is.
2. The Message of Jesus (verses 36–43)
Let’s highlight six brief parts to Peter’s message, which is the Christian gospel. This is what we Christians believe. And it is central to the Christian life — not just the door to enter the house, but the whole house.
First, Jesus is Lord of all (verse 36).
“As for the word that [God] sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all) . . .”
This Jesus whom we preach is not merely some messenger sent from God. He is not an angel. He is Lord of all. He is God himself. Fully divine.
Which means he is not just Lord of the Jews, but Lord of all nations. And the Lord of all came to offer the good news of peace to all, Jews and non-Jews. All have rebelled and are at odds with God, and all are offered, by the Lord of all, to have peace with God in Jesus. Jesus is God himself. He is Lord of all.
Second, Jesus became man and lived by the Spirit. (verses 37–39)
“You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.”
The Lord of all became Jesus of Nazareth. Man from a particular place. God become man and had a hometown and a mother and family and worked as a carpenter. Fully human.
And God put his Spirit on Jesus. And the effect was that “he went about doing good and healing.” The good he did and the healing he performed he did as man. He was fully human, but empowered by the Holy Spirit. “God was with him.” Which should give us great hope for our lives. This is this same Holy Spirit who is poured out on Christians today. We also can go about doing good and meeting the needs of others. This remarkable life of Jesus is “an ideal to which all Christians would do well to aspire” (ESVSB). May it be said of us in these Cities that we went about doing good. If we have the Holy Spirit, how can we not aspire to that? But there is more to Jesus than just that.
Third, Jesus died for our sins and rose again. (verses 39–41)
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”
This strange language of “hanging him on a tree” goes back to Deuteronomy 21:22 in the Jewish Scriptures:
If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.
Or, as Paul paraphrases it in Galatians 3:13: “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.”
Why say it this way? Why not just say that the Romans put him to death on the cross? Because Peter is pointing to the hand and plan of God. The remarkable life of Jesus wasn’t snuffed out as an accident of history, but as the Scriptures long anticipated, he was hung on a tree, cursed as a criminal, but not for his own crimes, but for the sins of others.
And that this was from God, and that Jesus was in fact not himself guilty of the sin for which he died, is demonstrated in God raising him from the dead. He died for the sins of others, and God vindicated him by raising him.
Fourth, Jesus appointed witnesses. (verses 40–42)
“God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”
Verse 41 raises a question. Peter says God “made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses.” Why have the risen Christ appear “not to all the people” but only to the witnesses? The next phrase helps: “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”
Jesus, as the preeminently good leader, planned well for his people. He would not have his church descend into spiritual anarchy, but he put in place authoritative spokesmen (men whom he had invested in for three-plus years), who would speak for him, by the direction of his Spirit, after he was gone. These men are called apostles.
As we saw in Acts 8, God waited till the apostles arrived in Samaria before sending the Spirit there, and God sends Peter to Cornelius here as his witness. The apostles spoke and wrote the authoritative words on Jesus’s behalf, and when they died they left the church their writings, which we call the New Testament, as the ongoing authority in the church.
But it’s not just the apostles in this text who are said to be witnesses. Verse 43: “all the prophets bear witness.” So there are two sets of witnesses here in Peter’s speech, and this is huge in our understanding what the Bible is, and what it is that God is saying to all humanity. There are the prophets, who came before Jesus and testify to him, and the apostles whom Jesus raised up to be his spokesmen and testify to him. The Old Testament and the New Testament, all bearing witness to him. What is the Bible? One deeply perceptive way of summing it up is that this Book witnesses to Jesus.
There is the witness of all the prophets who came before him, and now there is the witness of those men who he trained and prepared and taught and ate and drank with after his resurrection.
Fifth, Jesus is judge. (verse 42)
“He is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”
Here’s where the story of Jesus moves from past to present and future. God has appointed Jesus, as the God-man, as the one who has conquered sin and death, to be the one who is the judge of all humanity. A day is coming when we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. The question that day will not be your ethnicity or whether you were brought up in the church or what accomplishments you have. On that day, our true selves will be revealed, how we all have loved sin and done unrighteousness. We will stand before the judge of the universe and every evil thought and deed will be exposed.
So, how then is this good news? Why preach that Jesus is judge? Because the judge himself offers freedom from the sin that damns us. The one who will be our judge is the one who died for the sins of those who trust in him.
Sixth, Jesus offers forgiveness. (verse 43)
“To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Everyone who believes. Have you thought this wasn’t for you? That you were not“acceptable” to receive such grace? Have you felt too far from God?
Perhaps all your life you’ve been on the outside spiritually; others grew up in the church and seemed to follow all the religious rules and have the seemingly “clean” lives. You were more “common” in society, bringing with it all the obvious baggage of seeking satisfaction in everything but Jesus.
And now you hear “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness through his name” — not the righteous, not the clean, not the religious, not those without a past, not the usual suspects. Everyone. Your sins, past and present, cannot disqualify you from this grace. In fact, it is your sins that qualify you for forgiveness; you cannot be forgiven if you have not sinned.
Or perhaps the question for you is this: Who in your life seems like the outcast, the one farthest away, the one least likely to come to faith? Not just the Saul of Tarsus who hates the faith, but often even scarier is the apathetic one who seems to not care at all. Who seems too far away in your life right now? Whom are you tempted to call “common” or assume is unfit? Remember this: “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Everyone.
But there’s more to say that just to stress “everyone.” Not only is the breadth of this invitation good news (everyone), but also the channel of this invitation (belief, faith). It is not “everyone who achieves,” but “everyone who believes.” It is faith that is the path to get you connected to Jesus, not what you do.
This forgiveness before the judge of the universe is not by birth or what we do. It is by grace through faith. This is not first and foremost about your lifestyle; it will have lifestyle affects in due course, but that’s not where this begins, that’s not the source, that’s not the channel of power and change; that’s not what opens the door; the door swings open by faith, which is receiving what Jesus is offering.
It is a remarkable thing that the message of the Christianity — forgiveness of sins, right-standing with God, the promise of eternal life — is for “everyone who believes.”
3. The Work of the Holy Spirit (verses 44–48)
Finally, we close with the effects of Peter’s message. Verses 44–48:
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
So Peter isn’t even able to finish because the Holy Spirit falls and manifests his presence so tangibly.
Note that the Spirit falls, “while Peter was still speaking these things,” not after he spoke, but while he spoke; the Spirit comes with the message of the gospel, not apart from it. Verses 34–43 are the word of Jesus; verses 44–48 are the work of the Spirit; the Spirit comes with the word. Such an important truth for Pentecost Sunday: The Spirit works in tandem with the word about Jesus.
One last question to ask here before we close: What about the speaking in tongues? Verse 46: they were “speaking in tongues and extolling God.” What was happening there? Should it be happening among us today? The issue here in Acts 10 is the manifest gift of the Holy Spirit by Jesus to Gentiles (non-Jews). It’s not as much about what speaking in tongues is (except that it’s a very obvious and ostentatious sign), but that Christ is at work expanding his church from Jews-only to Gentiles-also. The logic is signaled by the word “for” in verse 46. The Jews saw the Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles “for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God.”
God gives the Gentiles an unmistakable sign of his Spirit, to confirm the vision he’d given Peter, and they are “extolling God” (literally, magnifying God). Why? That they are included with this blessing of forgiveness by faith in Jesus. These tongues are not for show; they are erupting in spontaneous praise. They magnify God because he has included them!
Their being so clearly affected by the Holy Spirit demonstrates that Christ has indeed poured out his Spirit on the Gentiles, and they are included in his church. And so the waters of baptism cannot be withheld. They must be received into the church.
This truly is a gospel for everyone who believes.
And so the story continues…
11:2: Peter criticized in Jerusalem by “the circumcision party”; retells the story in 11:4–17
11:20: Mention somewhere the nameless men of Cyprus and Cyrene who spoke to Hellenists at Antioch about Jesus and a great number turned to Jesus (the nameless founders of the church in Antioch, which eventually sent out Paul); Cornelius and Caesarea opens the door to Antioch: apostles send Barnabas, Barnabas goes to get Saul; taught together there for a whole year, disciples first called Christians; they send a gift to Jerusalem fulfilling Scripture about the gifts of the nations coming in
Lead into the Table: verse 41, “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead”; ESVSB: “Eating and drinking are signs of sharing close personal fellowship”
Extras:
So, you might ask, if God heard Cornelius’s prayers (v. 4) and he was “acceptable” (v. 35) to God before he heard the message and believed, what does that say about devout Jews today and Muslims and others? Does God, in fact, “hear the prayers” and acknowledge the good deeds of non-Christians? The answer is, yes, he hears everything. He doesn’t hear prayer apart from Christ in the same way that he hears prayer in and through Jesus, but he hears. It’s not saving; they still need the message. But perhaps their earnest seeking of the true God is God already at work preparing them for the message by which they will be saved.
Jesus is Lord of all.
The mentions of “peace” and Jesus being “Lord of all” hint at the same thing: wall of divide between Jews and Gentiles comes down in Jesus. This “good news of peace” is first and foremost peace between God and Jews who believe in Jesus. They would have thought that peace was lacking with the peoples around them — the Romans, the Samaritans, the other nations. But first and foremost, the good news of Jesus assumes the bad news, that we’re at odds with God. And the message of Jesus first brings peace between God and those who confess their sin, and admit their need, and trust in Jesus for peace with God.
And then peace goes outward to others. Romans and Samaritans and Jews alike are under sin, at odds with God, and Jesus is “Lord of all.” So “peace” now also means that the walls of religion, that have separated the Jews from the other peoples, can come down, because finally their Messiah has come, and he is not just King of the Jews, but he is Lord of all.