Pastor John,
Your thoughts are something to consider. Here are some things that they had me thinking about recently. All this is bouncing around in me.
I wonder now how much Peter really understood of anything. How would he have explained being born again, or the forgiveness of sins, for example?
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Exactly, Damien. After Pentecost, what would he have thought animal sacrifices were accomplishing, as far as atonement for sin was concerned? And what did Peter consider the standard someone had to meet in order to belong to God?
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When Peter said in Acts 10:43, “All the prophets bear witness to him, that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins,” what did Peter think that meant? It is so easy to read that and unwittingly insert your own understanding! His doctrine on the day of Pentecost was, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit!” I assume that was still how he was thinking. Did he even understand the connection between the spirit baptism and the forgiveness of sins or was there a certain separation produced by an absolute need, in his mind, to repent and be water baptized first? (The same might be asked of Ananias when he said to Saul of Tarsus, “Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling upon the name of the Lord!” ) Did Peter understand what God did when he gave the Gentiles the spirit? Did he realize that they were cleansed by that experience alone and then connect it to what was said to him about God cleansing someone (Acts 10:15)? Peter could easily call to mind that twice Jesus had said that he and the other apostles were clean “through the word that I’ve spoken to you.” Peter’s thoughts about being cleansed could have been very different from ours. So, when the voice said to him “What God has made clean, don’t you call common!” I wonder what, if anything, he comprehended about God making something clean.
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There had to be much confusion in Peter’s mind, Damien, if he actually got still and tried to sort it all out. He knew that God still required the Jews to obey the law, which was true at that time, but even if the Jews obeyed the law, according to what Peter himself said, they could not be saved except through faith in the name of Jesus. And when God by-passed the law and began pouring out His Spirit on gentiles – well, there are no words to describe the bewilderment that Peter and the other believers at that time must have felt.
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Perhaps we ought to consider something else in that interesting exchange which Peter recounted exactly in Jerusalem. Peter says he had eaten nothing unclean or common. “Common” may well have to do with Jewish tradition as the use of the same word (in Greek) in Mark 7:2 suggests. I doubt unclean and common are intended as synonyms but rather that they betray Jewish thinking. The Lord’s response might then be seen as addressing Peter’s Jewishness and directing him away from Jewish tradition. But I don’t think Peter got it then, nor could he. By the time of Acts 15 he seemed to have a better understanding.
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Yes, and that is an important point. “Common and unclean” would mean to a Jew that something, or somebody, was ritually impure. The Jews knew that certain rites of the law could make a defiled person clean, and until that person underwent that ritual, he was unclean. What God was telling Peter on the rooftop was that he could make a ritually unclean person clean without the use of the law’s cleansing ritual.
The theological implications of what God told Peter were enormous, but obviously, Peter could not at that time take them in. And no one living at that time could have. That amazing truth had to be revealed in order for us to believe it, and it had not yet been revealed.
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Whatever the case, all in all, God put Peter in a situation that was beyond him. Actually impossible. How would Peter’s heart have felt if he didn’t water baptize Cornelius and the other gentiles if he thought forgiveness of sins depended on it, in some way? As Paul later taught, Peter had a gospel, but it didn’t really fit with the Gentiles. Yet it was the only gospel on earth before Paul came preaching his. Peter would not have thought of himself as having the “gospel of the circumcision” committed to himself. He had THE gospel (in Acts 15 he still said “by my mouth the Gentiles were to hear the word of the gospel, and believe.”) And there he was, in a house with Gentiles, with a gospel that was not really even for them, but still, God sent him there. God really knows how to set things up.
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That is true, Damien. Peter would not have thought of himself as having the gospel for the Jews only. In fact, in the beginning of this covenant, it actually was the gospel for everybody on earth because if a Gentile wanted to participate in it, he first had to submit to the law and become a Jew. Peter had no idea that such would not always be the case, as long as the world stood.
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The day Jesus died, no man could do right, and on this day at Cornelius’ house it was somewhat similar. No one could yet answer Peter’s question, “Can anyone refuse them the water, that these should not be baptized who received the holy spirit just as we did?” There was no answer until Paul received his gospel, and his answer to the question was perfectly reasonable. I can’t help but feel Peter’s question came out complete confusion and bewilderment at what God had done. Maybe desperation as well. But it was a very good question. Peter may have thought it was rhetorical, but God did have an answer.
What a time in history! What an incredible moment. I never saw before how events were swelling to the point of an eruption, when the spirit came down in Cornelius’ house. After this, God had to send another man (not sure about needed :)) The Gentiles needed that man. Peter’s gospel had reached its extremity. It could not accommodate what God had in store for the Gentiles. And we have been blessed in this time to have been granted understanding of what that man, Paul, taught, and to see and understand Peter’s place in the foundation.
You have to love Peter. For God to be able to use him in this way says something for him. God could really knock that rock around! Can you imagine being Peter?!
Damien