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§27 Peter at Cornelius’ House (Acts 10:23b–48)

10:23b–29 / The setting for the third scene of this story is again Caesarea. The journey to the capital seems to have taken the best part of two days (v. 30), probably because the Christians were not mounted. Peter took with him six companions—Jewish Christians like himself (v. 45, lit., “men of the circumcision”; see disc. on 11:2)—who, according to a variant reading of 11:11, had been staying with him in Simon’s house. Their road lay along the coast, and since Apollonia was situated about halfway between Joppa and Caesarea, they very likely stayed there overnight. They arrived in Caesarea about midafternoon the next day (v. 30). Meanwhile, so certain was Cornelius that Peter would come, and knowing approximately how long it would take him, he was ready and waiting for him with his relatives and close friends (v. 24). Presumably he had told them also “everything that had happened” (v. 8) and had invited them to be present to witness its outcome.

Cornelius met Peter in the spirit of that other centurion (Luke 7:6) by humbly kneeling before him. With equal humility Peter would not accept a reverence that belonged only to God (cf. 14:14f.; Luke 4:8; 8:41; Rev. 19:10; 22:8f.). They seem to have talked for a while before entering the house. In this way, perhaps, Peter learned how much they knew of the story of Jesus, for he was able to assume a certain knowledge of the events of Jesus’ life when he addressed the whole group. Moreover, what Cornelius had to tell him, coupled with his own recent experience, must have helped Peter to see what was the last step required by his dream, namely, that he should cast aside his scruples concerning the Gentiles. His opening words, therefore, when he spoke to them all were to announce that God had shown him not to think of any person as impure or unclean (v. 28). How well Peter had learned this lesson is seen in 1 Peter 2:17. Then he asked the question that, oddly, had not been asked before, Why did you send for me? (v. 29).

10:30–33 / Cornelius replied by outlining the events of three days past that he saw as an answer to prayer (v. 31). The details differ slightly from the earlier verses, but only for the sake of variety. Essentially the two accounts are the same. He remarked on Peter’s kindness in coming (lit., “you have done well …,” an expression of thanks, cf. Phil. 4:14; 2 Pet. 1:19; 3 John 6) and ended these preliminaries by declaring that they were all ready to hear everything the Lord had commanded Peter to say (v. 33). Cornelius assumed that Peter, like himself, was a man under authority, so that what he said would come to him as God’s command. He had already been told that Peter’s words would lead to salvation (11:14). His salvation, therefore, lay in his obedience. And notice the reference to their being gathered in the presence of God (v. 33). In a sense, this is true of every situation in life, but never more so than when the gospel is being preached. Those who meet in such circumstances do well to remember the company they keep (cf. Matt. 18:20).

10:34–35 / This speech is the first recorded preaching of the Good News to the Gentile world. It must be assumed, of course, that these were almost entirely “devout” people like Cornelius himself and that they were familiar, therefore, with the Jewish Scriptures. It must also be assumed that they knew something of the story of Jesus. Thus they were more or less prepared for what they heard and to that extent hardly typical of the Gentile world as a whole. Peter was able to preach to them much as he had to the Jews; it is not until we come to Paul’s speeches in Lystra and Athens that we find a distinctive approach to the Gentiles. Nevertheless, these people were Gentiles, and that fact marks a new and important departure for the church.

In other respects also this speech holds a peculiar interest. It has often been remarked that verses 37 to 40, with their attention to the earthly life of Jesus and being unique among the speeches of this book, could well have formed the ground plan of Mark’s Gospel. In view of the traditional association of Peter with Mark, this can hardly be accidental (see also disc. on 3:7f.; 10:14; 12:1–5). There is, moreover, a clear theological development in comparison with Peter’s earlier speeches (2:14–39; 3:12–26), and this, together with the fact that it sits so well with his experience at Joppa and Caesarea, gives us every confidence that we have in these verses a fair indication of what he said on this occasion. How Luke came by the speech we can only guess, but the evidence points strongly to his use of a source. “It is one of the most ungrammatical pieces of Greek that Luke ever wrote. One cannot avoid the impression that though, as usual, Luke has fixed its final form, older elements are included in it” (Hanson, p. 124).

Peter’s sense of the occasion is expressed by Luke’s use of the formula “he opened his mouth” (v. 34, NIV began to speak), which often marked a particularly solemn occasion. He began by commenting on the change in his own thinking: I now realize … that God does not show favoritism (v. 34). The phrase “upon the truth” expresses both his surprise at this discovery and his grasp of what had now been revealed. It was not something new (cf. Deut. 10:17; 2 Chron. 19:7; Job 34:19; Mal. 2:9), but it was a truth that the Jews had largely lost sight of. And for Peter, it did come as a new discovery that God was impartial. From this it followed that a person’s acceptance with God rested, not on nationality, but on a proper disposition of the heart: he accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right (v. 35). This is not to say that nothing else is needed. The emphasis on Jesus in this speech gives the lie to that. Jesus is integral to our salvation. Rather, what Peter meant is that if the attitude is right, then given the Good News, there is no one who cannot be saved. And so, without further ado, he spoke the saving word that they had gathered to hear.

10:36–38 / The Good News started with God. It was his message, and he sent it to the people of Israel. It concerned peace through Jesus Christ (v. 36), that is, he was God’s agent in bringing about peace between God and humanity (cf. 2 Cor. 5:18ff.). Peace is here synonymous with salvation. The last phrase of verse 36 stands apart from the syntax of the sentence as a parenthesis, almost as though the speaker realized that he may have conveyed a false impression of Jesus. He was indeed God’s agent, but not as others had been. For unlike any other, he was Lord of all (cf. Rom. 14:9). For a long time now Peter had regarded Jesus as “Lord and Christ,” as in 2:36, and for all intents and purposes had ascribed to him a place in the Godhead (see disc. on 1:24). But always his horizons had been those of a Jew, and he had never thought of Jesus as any other than the Lord and Christ of the Jews (see disc. on 2:39). For these many years his God had been too small. He now saw his mistake.

This was new ground for Peter, but in verse 37 he returned to more familiar territory (and in some part familiar also to Cornelius and his friends), namely, to what had happened throughout Judea, where Judea is used in the broadest sense to include the whole Jewish homeland (cf. Luke 1:5; 7:17; 23:5). This note of the geographical extension of Jesus’ ministry may well be a Lukan touch, so too the care with which his ministry is separated from that of John the Baptist (by comparison with Mark). This ensures that Jesus should not be thought of as John’s successor. But broadly speaking, Peter’s outline of “the great event” is as we find it in Mark, with its beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached (v. 37; cf. “beginning from John’s baptism,” 1:22; cf. also Mark 1:4, 14ff.). Jesus’ ministry is spoken of chiefly in terms of his healing all who were under the power of the devil—a prominent theme in Mark’s Gospel (cf., e.g., Mark 1:23, 32, 39; for the construction with the relative clause “who went about healing,” see notes on 4:10). Peter may have regarded these as greater than other healings, so that Jesus’ ability to deal with the lesser could be assumed. He had only to say, then, that Jesus had gone about doing good (v. 38, Gk. euergetein; the corresponding noun, euergetēs, “benefactor,” was commonly applied by the ancient world to its rulers). His good works are attributed to the Holy Spirit and power with which God had anointed him (v. 38). Some interpret this of the incarnation (cf. Luke 1:35), but because it follows the reference to John the Baptist, it is better to understand it of Jesus’ baptism. Jesus himself affirmed that he had been “anointed” with the Spirit, without pin-pointing when it happened (Luke 4:18). But that he had been anointed was proof that God was with him (v. 38). This last statement might seem to draw too hard a line between Jesus the man and the divine source of his power. Certainly there was no question of Jesus’ humanity (cf. v. 38, “Jesus of Nazareth”). But neither was there any question that he was more than a man, for he received as of right the divine titles Lord of all (v. 36) and “judge of the living and the dead” (v. 42). Confirmation that he is rightly called by these names had come with the resurrection.

10:39–41 / As in the Gospel, Peter traced Jesus’ ministry from Galilee to the country of the Jews, that is, to Judea in the narrow sense of the Roman province (cf. v. 36), and finally to Jerusalem, where Jesus met his death (v. 39). The role of the apostles (the we of our text) as witnesses is mentioned especially in this connection, not because the earlier ministry had no place in their testimony, but because Jesus’ death and resurrection was the crux of the matter, without which there was no Good News (see disc. on 1:21f.; cf. 2:32; 3:15; 5:32). We find again in verse 39 the expression that we noticed earlier in 5:30: they put Jesus to death by hanging him on a tree (see disc. on that verse and also 2:23). Earlier Peter may have used the expression to drive home to Jews the horror of what they had done. This was not, of course, his intention here, but it had become his accustomed way of stating what happened (cf. 1 Pet. 2:24). One wonders, however, what these Romans, to whom crucifixion was the most shameful of deaths, made of the “Good News” that the Lord of all had been nailed to a cross by their own troops. Peter’s claims for Jesus were only believable in that God had raised him from the dead on the third day (v. 40). This is one of only two references outside the Gospels to the resurrection taking place “on the third day.” The other is found in 1 Corinthians 15:4. The phrase is especially characteristic of Luke’s Gospel, where it occurs six times. Verse 40 adds the striking comment, showing that nothing was left to accident, that God caused him to be seen—admittedly by only a handful of people, but those best qualified to be his witnesses. To this end God had already chosen them (v. 41; cf. John 17:6ff.), and they would convince others. In their own minds, there was no doubt that Jesus had risen, for they had eaten and drunk with him. This note of their drinking with Jesus adds to the information in the Gospels (Luke 24:30; 43; John 21:12, 15; but see Luke 22:18).

10:42–43 / Finally, Jesus commissioned his witnesses (the apostles). This is the occasion referred to in 1:4, and Luke repeats the verb that he used there to express again the urgency of the command to preach to the people (v. 42). The people (Gk. laos) usually means Jews (see disc. on 5:12), but it was Jesus’ intention that they should go also to Gentiles (cf., e.g., 1:8; Matt. 28:19), and in this context (cf. v. 34) the word must be given that wider meaning. The message they were to preach … and to testify (see disc. on 2:40) was in part that Jesus had now been appointed as judge (v. 42). Paul was to witness to the same truth in Athens (17:31; cf. also 24:25; for the return of Jesus, see disc. on 1:10f.). The commission to proclaim Jesus as judge is not found in the other accounts of his final charge, but given the highly condensed nature of all of these reports, this comes as no surprise. The idea certainly had a place in Jesus’ own teaching (cf. Luke 12:8f.; 19:11–27; John 5:22, 27), and we cannot doubt that it was included in his “instructions” (1:2). His description as the judge of the living and the dead (v. 42) picks up the thought of verse 36 that he is the “Lord of all” and anticipates a general resurrection when “there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked” (24:15). The criterion both of judgment and of salvation is indicated in verse 43: everyone who believes in him (“into him”—the idea is of commitment to Christ, cf. 14:23; 19:4; 24:24; 26:18) receives forgiveness of sins; those who do not—this is clearly implied—will remain in their sins and will face Christ as judge (cf. John 8:21, 24). The use of the singular, “everyone,” should be noted. To the thought of Christ’s universal lordship it adds the warning that we are individually accountable to him. The importance of faith in Christ is underlined by Luke’s placing these words at the end of the verse (in Greek, a position of emphasis). The phrase, through his name (v. 43) reminds us again of Christ’s indispensable role in our salvation—a salvation that all the prophets (spoken of collectively as in 3:18) had seen beforehand (v. 43). They, of course, had thought of God as the one who would save, but the right to have mercy and to freely pardon (Isa. 55:7) had passed to Jesus when God made him “Lord and Christ” (2:36). On this high note, though unintentionally, the speech came to an end.

10:44 / While Peter was still speaking (his “began” in 11:15 may simply mean that he had not finished), the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. A comparison of this with other passages in Acts in which the coming of the Spirit is described reveals a number of differences (2:1ff.; 8:14ff.; 9:17; 19:1ff.; see also note on 18:25). His coming was not dependent on public confession or on the lapse of time. It was not prayed for; nor did it follow baptism with water or the laying on of hands. The Spirit simply came as they listened with receptive hearts to what Peter was saying. When he spoke of the forgiveness of sins for everyone who believes in Jesus (v. 43), they must have believed. This agrees with Peter’s own account of the matter (11:17) and with the implied answer to Paul’s question in Galatians 3:2: “Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?” In short, faith in Christ is the one essential to receiving God’s Spirit. Anything mentioned in this book over and above that one requirement must be explained by reference to the particular circumstances of the people concerned (see notes on 2:4 and 38 and disc. on 8:14ff.).

10:45–46a / Peter’s Jewish-Christian companions (and perhaps even Peter himself) were amazed at what had happened (v. 45). The Jews had a dictum that the Holy Spirit never fell on a Gentile, and yet God had unquestionably poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit on these Gentiles (v. 45). The genitive (of) in the phrase “the gift of the Spirit” must be understood as a genitive of apposition—the gift was the Spirit himself, whose presence was evidenced by their speaking in tongues (v. 46), probably in the sense of ecstatic utterance, as in 1 Corinthians 12–14 and elsewhere (see disc. and notes on 2:4).

10:46b–48 / No one could now say that these Gentiles were “impure or unclean” or withhold from them the rite of admission into the church, for they had received the Spirit just as the Jewish believers had received him (at Pentecost, cf. 11:15). The words just as need not mean that the two events were identical in every respect, but only that they were like enough to suggest the comparison. So Peter put the question: Can anyone keep (Gk. kōlyein, “prevent”) these people from being baptized with water? (v. 47; see disc. on 8:36 for the possibility that the form of this question was determined by the baptismal liturgy). In the Greek text, the word water has the definite article, meaning “the water of baptism.” No objection was raised, and Peter directed that Cornelius and his friends be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (v. 48). The preposition is instrumental (Gk. en). They were to be baptized by means of the formula that employed that name (cf. epi, “upon,” in 2:38 and eis, “into,” in 8:16). We are not told who actually administered the rite, but it appears not to have been Peter himself, who may have been conscious of the same danger of partisanship that Paul sought to avoid by not himself baptizing his converts, at least as a general rule (cf. 1 Cor. 1:14–17). No mention is made of circumcision (cf. 11:3) or of anything additional to their baptism. Peter was invited to stay with Cornelius, and from 11:3 it is clear that he did (the Greek has “certain days,” not necessarily the few days of NIV). His acceptance of Gentile hospitality gave practical expression to the theological truth he had preached (vv. 34ff.).