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CORNELIUS
100
shall be holy unto Me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine'
(Lev. 20:24-26).
It was in this atmosphere that the Jew was born, lived, moved and had his being. Practically from cradle to
grave, from morning till night, waking or sleeping, marrying or giving in marriage, buying or selling, he was
continually reminded that all the Gentiles were unclean, and that his own nation alone was holy unto the Lord. This
separation to the Lord was seriously enforced upon his conscience by the scrupulous observances of the Levitical
law. The bearing of all this upon the words and attitude of Peter in Acts 10 is most evident by the following
references:
`Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean' (Acts 10:14).
`What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common' (Acts 10:15).
`Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another
nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean' (Acts 10:28).
Here are the words of Peter himself. If we accept the chronology of the A.V., this incident occurred eight years
after Pentecost, and Peter is still by his own confession, `A man that is a Jew'. He, at least, did not believe that `the
Church began at Pentecost'. Not only was he still a Jew, though a believer, but he was still under the Law. `It is an
unlawful thing', said he. How then can we tolerate the tradition that the Church began at Pentecost? He told
Cornelius to his face that he would have treated him as `common and unclean', for all his piety and prayers, had he
not received the extraordinary vision of the great sheet. Yet at Pentecost
`All that believed were together, and had ALL THINGS COMMON' (Acts 2:44).
When taken with Acts 10 this is absolute proof that no Gentile could have been there. Yet the tradition that the
Church began at Pentecost persists!
Peter moreover makes manifest his state of mind by adding: `Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as
soon as I was sent for' (Acts 10:29). Can we imagine the apostle Paul speaking like this even to the most abject of
pagans? No, the two ministries of these two apostles are poles apart. Further, Peter continued: `I ask therefore for
what intent ye have sent for me?' (Acts 10:29). Can we believe our eyes? Do we read aright? Is this the man who
opened the Church to the Gentile on equal footing with the Jewish believer? He asks in all simplicity, `What is your
object in sending for me?' Again, we are conscious that such words from the lips of Paul would be not only
impossible but ridiculous. He was `debtor' to wise and unwise, to Jew and Gentile, to Barbarian and to Greek. Not
so Peter. He was the apostle of the Circumcision (Gal. 2:8), and therefore the call of Cornelius seemed to him
inexplicable.
`For what intent have ye sent for me?'- Can we imagine a missionary in China, India or anywhere else on the
broad earth, asking such a question, or asking this question in similar circumstances? Any Mission Board would
request such a missionary to resign his post, and rightly so. No! every item in this tenth chapter is eloquent of the
fact that Peter had no commission to the Gentiles.
At last Peter `began to speak' (Acts 11:15). Let us listen to the message he gives to this Gentile audience:
`Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons (first admission): but in every nation he that feareth
Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him (second admission). The word which God sent unto the
children of Israel (note, not as Paul in Acts 13:26), preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord of all:) (third
admission) ... published throughout all Jud -a ... in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem ... preach unto the
people (i.e. the people of Israel) ... whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins' (Acts 10:34-43).
One cannot but be struck with the attitude of Peter. He does not preach directly to the Gentile audience, he
rehearses in their hearing the word which God sent to Israel, saying nothing of a purely gospel character until the
very end.
But for the further intervention of God we cannot tell how long Peter would have continued in this way. It is
doubtful whether he would have got so far as inviting Cornelius and his fellows to be baptized, as his own words
indicate: