Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 10:23-48
**Pastor Dennis Tuuri**

The book of Acts, chapter 10, verses 23 and following. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Acts 10:23-48.

And then called he them in and lodged them. And on the morrow Peter went away with them, and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And the morrow after they entered into Caesarea, and Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him.

But Peter took him up, saying, “Stand up. I myself also am a man.” And as he talked with him, he went in and found many that were come together. And he said unto them, “You know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or enter into or come unto one of another nation. But God hath shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying as soon as I was sent for.

I asked therefore for what intent he has sent for me. And Cornelius said, “Four days ago I was fasting until this hour. And at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing, and said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter. He is lodged in the house of one Simon a tanner by the seaside, who when he cometh, shall speak unto thee.

Immediately, therefore, I sent to thee, and thou hast done well, that thou art come. Now, therefore, are we all here present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God. Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, “Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respector of persons, but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.” The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all that word I say ye know which was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached.

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. For God was with him. And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day and showed him openly not to all the people but to witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.

And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.

For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter, “Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word, Lord God. We pray that your spirit would illuminate our hearts with it, make it real to us, Lord God. May it smite us in our sin and then may it resurrect and heal us, Lord God, in the power of the Holy Spirit. All this for the sake of your kingdom that we may glorify you in all that we do all the days of our lives and enjoy you forever. To that end, we pray your blessing upon this sermon, Lord God. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. And the younger children may be dismissed to go to the Sabbath schools, if their parents desire that for them.

—

Peter wanted to taste something. Peter was so hungry—the expression used in the scriptures is that he was as if he was starving to death. He was that hungry. He was hungry enough to eat a pig. Well, maybe not. For Peter was one who was glad to have his diet regulated by the word of God. But he was hungry enough to eat a horse. Probably he, in that hungry state, he was up on the rooftop.

They were preparing food down in the house below him. It was an hour of prayer. He was praying with the food wafted up—very hungry. And in that state, God put him into a state of ecstasy in which he received a vision. That great hunger, God showed Peter a sheet lowering down. And we find in chapter 11 that this sheet came down to him. Peter was not some sort of isolated observer of something happening far away. The sheet came down to Peter personally from God.

And this sheet was filled with food, filled with beasts, crawling things and running beasts, beasts that are low to the ground, beasts that are high to the ground, beasts that fly in the air, birds that fly in the air. And a voice came out of heaven telling Peter to eat. “You’re hungry. Eat.” And Peter said, “No way. No, Lord.” In typical Peter fashion. “I’m not going to eat ’cause I don’t eat anything that is unclean or that is common.

I don’t eat anything that your law tells me I shouldn’t eat. And there are some things like that in that sheet. And I don’t eat anything that those unclean things have been in association with because they are now common. And so I can’t eat anything in this sheet in spite of his great hunger.” And the voice returns and says, “Don’t call or don’t make common what I have cleansed. This happens three times to Peter. Eat. I’m not going to eat. Don’t call. Don’t make common what I have cleansed. Three times. And whoosh, the sheet goes back up to heaven.

Now, couple of days before this, Cornelius was hungry. Cornelius had a different kind of hunger. Cornelius was not a Jew. He was a gentile. He was a soldier, wore armor, commanded Caesar’s troops, lodged in Caesar’s town, Caesarea, where the loyal Italian troops were lodged, and he was head of a group of these troops.

Cornelius wasn’t like Peter in that respect. But he was like Peter in the respect that he was hungry. And the hunger that Cornelius had a couple of days before this was a hunger for righteousness, a hunger for spiritual truth, a hunger for salvation. Cornelius was a god-fearer. God’s spirit had worked upon Cornelius to cause him to repent of his sins. He feared God. He was a god-fearer—a term used in the scriptures to designate those Gentiles who were not circumcised and yet had been brought by God near to the temple, although not within the gate of the inner sanctum of the temple, but brought near to the temple through faith.

And Peter, as Peter was able to come in, Cornelius was excluded and could only worship at the court of the Gentiles. Cornelius was excluded and felt this exclusion. But Cornelius knew his Old Testament undoubtedly—it’s how he’d come to faith through the word. That’s how God works in his secondary means. And Cornelius hungered and thirsted after the time that would come in which the Gentiles would be brought into full covenant participation with the people of God.

When the wall of partition between two elements of the church, the circumcised and uncircumcised elements of the church, when that wall of partition would be brought down and the Gentiles would be ushered in into fullness, Cornelius was hungry for those times to come. He was hungry for full participation with God in the inner courts so to speak of the temple of his presence. And he was hungry for full participation in the fellowship of the covenant community when the restriction between circumcised and uncircumcised elements of the church should be done away with.

And most of all, Cornelius hungered and thirsted after Messiah, God come to earth to save man by dying for his sins. All the sacrificial system pointing clearly toward that truth, preaching Jesus Christ. That’s what the prophets did. Cornelius was hungry for these things. And in that state of hunger, number of prayers being made over a long period of time in which Cornelius hungered in that way, he receives a vision from God.

An angel, a man in bright clothing, according to our text—an angel in the earlier recitation of this story, the first half of Acts chapter 10—an angel comes to him and says, “Cornelius, your prayers and your alms are a remembrance before God. He sees what you’ve done. He calls it to his memory, so to speak. He acts on the basis of those things. Prayers and alms. Prayers to God, the hunger and thirsting for God. Alms, righteousness toward God’s people, gifts to God’s people. God sees your love for God. He sees your love for your neighbor, your fellow member of the church, and he holds these things in remembrance that he’s going to answer your prayer, and he’s going to feed you the way that he fed Peter in that vision provided for food.

He provides for the spiritual hunger of Cornelius now. And he says, “Cornelius, your prayers are going to be answered. Send away for Peter. He’s lodged not too far from here. Go send for him and listen to what he tells you to do.”

So Peter, back on his hungry day—the vision goes away and immediately emissaries from Cornelius come. Gentile uncircumcised men come to Peter and they are part of the secondary means that God uses to bring Peter to an understanding of what this vision, this fulfilling of his hunger was all about because Peter at the center of his soul hungered and thirsted after righteousness as well.

Yes, he was hungry that day, but he understood his diet and everything about him was regulated by God’s word. And God’s word drove him to hunger and thirst after righteousness as well and a fulfillment of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And he hungered after the fulfilling of the commandment of the Savior to take the gospel into all parts of the earth, to evangelize the entire globe. And so Peter was prepared for the spirit directing him through the coming of these emissaries from the uncircumcised gentile.

They come at just the moment when his vision ceases and the Holy Spirit tells Peter, “Go down with these men. Go with them. Gainsaying nothing. Don’t doubt anymore. Three-fold witness that two things have happened to you. Understand these things in the context of the events in which I bring your life right now.” And so, we have a marvelous interaction here pictured for us between God’s word, his acts of revealing himself and his truth to Peter through words, through visions combining with God’s secondary means of men and the circumstances of our lives.

These marvelous interactions happen and Peter gets it. Peter understands the importance of what he has been told. And this is recounted for us three times here in Acts chapter 10 and chapter 11. That’s why I’m stressing it again, retelling the story. God wants it retold. And it’s important the lesson that Peter finally gets as a result of this interaction, applying the word of God in the context of God’s people.

What does he get? He gets two lessons. He remembers that God has cleansed something. “Don’t call common what I have cleansed.” What did he cleanse? He cleansed the earth. The sheet had four corners to it. It was a picture of the whole world. All the beasts were mentioned except the ones in the water. The beasts on land and in air are mentioned there. It’s a picture of the world. And the world has been cleansed definitively through the priestly work of Jesus Christ.

That sheet is linen. The priestly garments are made out of linen. So Peter understands that God has now cleansed those who were unclean before. He’s cleansed the gentile god-fearers definitively. And he’s changed now the picture of the separation that he had built in for a thousand to two thousand years had been pictured in this separation of diet between clean foods and unclean foods. Foods that were ultimately found their cleanness or uncleanliness not in relationship to health but in relationship to the altar of God.

Picturing that there is only one clean thing that could be offered on that altar. The Lord Jesus Christ ultimately—he was the one that was pictured through all these things. Now that Christ has come, all those things that have provided a wall, a partition between elements of the church, is now broken down and the food laws have been changed definitively. That the three-fold witness from God to Peter and to us to say now you’ll go into all the world—the wall has been broken down and eating these things which were formerly unclean are now the picture of world evangelism and conquest of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Peter got it that these men that came to him had been cleansed definitively. But there was a second thing that Peter got as well. God said, “Don’t make unclean or common rather. Don’t create commonness out of what I have cleansed. Peter, when you go to the uncircumcised Gentiles who believe in me, do not rebuild what I have torn down. Do not cause them to doubt. Don’t be a stumbling block to them. And don’t you create commonness in them by causing them to doubt what I have accomplished through the finished work of Jesus Christ.”

So Peter got it—this second message as well—that he was not to gainsay, not to doubt. He was not to defile the people of God through his extra-biblical regulations. This whole idea that somehow he couldn’t eat the clean food because of its contact with the unclean was a Pharisaic addition to the law of God, the law of the king, the law of Jesus Christ ultimately. And Peter through those Pharisaic additions was in danger of defiling the gentile converts. And God warned him, “Don’t do that.”

So Peter finally gets it.

—

That’s where we’re at. That’s the where we’re going to pick up the story now. God has gone through this process of these hungry men and he’s brought these groups together now in Acts chapter 10, the last half of it. We’ll repeat this story again in Acts chapter 11.

We’re going to return now to the text we talked on last week. Did not finish it. My apologies to Elder Meyer for again shifting these sermon topics here. We won’t get to chapter 11 until next week. My apologies to all of you for being negligent in my responsibilities of bringing order to worship. But God will bless us here if we attend to his word with hearts of contrition and repentance and hearts desiring as Cornelius’s heart was to do what God had commanded us to do.

So we pick back up in Acts chapter 10, the verses we just read, the last half of the verses. And we talked last week, and I’m sorry as well—my apologies for not bringing an outline. I prepared an outline this week and just didn’t get it here. No rush. We had plenty of time this morning. I just sin by way of omission by failing to bring those outlines as well.

But if you have the outline in front of you, you’d see the first point as usual is an overview of the text. The text begins with this trip, you know, that Peter makes to Cornelius’s house in Caesarea.

We talked then about he makes this trip with other people and the necessity of us to see that as a good role model for us. We then have a meeting between Peter and Cornelius. We have these two men who were hungry and who have been answered by God’s visions bringing them together. Now these men meet in the next couple of verses of Acts chapter 10, these last half the verses we just read—they meet and their entourages meet as well.

You can look at this as a literary description of what actually happened, of course, but God has crafted it in such a way to make us very aware of what is going on. These are good men who have come together. There is an antagonist in this, however, in this account that we’ve just read. Do you note where the antagonist was in this account? Do you note where the note of discord in terms of a personality is in this account?

It’s when Peter in his sermon recites the events of our Lord in terms of him going about in the power of the Holy Spirit being anointed and the baptism of John, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon him with power to go about doing good and of healing those who are oppressed by who? By the devil. He’s the antagonist. And the devil—that term means slanderer. And so Jesus Christ is pictured rolling back the effects of the slander.

Well, the slander is the antagonist here. And Peter has been warned in a sense here not to slander or not to accuse these Gentiles and somehow not having full participation in the gospel of the kingdom. He’s been warned by that by God. And so if you want to look for an antagonist in this story, it is the devil himself as it always is.

But these entourages meet—Peter and his people, Cornelius and his people come together and they’re gathered together to hear what God has instructed for them to hear just as we are gathered together here on the Lord’s day in the sight of God, his eye upon us in a special sense, in a special intensity on the Lord’s day to evaluate us, to try us, to sift us, to smite us with his word and to heal us and to give us marching orders—the assurance of forgiveness certainly but then marching orders to take into the week.

We’ve gathered together in the same way that they were gathered together. We do things together here as a group and we have not Peter and Cornelius only here—we have groups around them and we are—I’m going to stress this later in the talk—we are in the context of the church of Jesus Christ. We’re in the context of community at all times. Our faith is not somehow extracted from community. It’s a vital part of it. And so we practice that on the Lord’s day. We come together and we don’t do things individualistically. We all sing the same song and we all pray at the same time.

Now you may pray, you know, during the sermon or other times—that’s fine. But we have these acts of which we do corporately together on the Lord’s day to teach us, to train us as an army and to think in terms of the community of Jesus Christ, not just in terms of our individual walk with Jesus. We do things together. We hold up our hands together at a particular point in the service—a liturgical action we go through where we involve not just our minds as we’re wont to do in our society today in terms of an intellectual appreciation of the faith. We lift up hands. We involve our bodies. We stand up at points in time. We do it together. We don’t do it autonomously or on our own. We do it together as a group. We do these things. We clap at a particular portion of some of our songs together because the people of God were instructed in the Old Testament, lifted hands at particular points in the book of Nehemiah for instance at one time praise God and they would clap their hands in particular point and make a loud noise before God to picture the significance of his presence with them.

And so we come together in these kinds of group actions as well today. And in the context of this meeting then that we’ve seen described for us in Acts chapter 10, the last half of the chapter, Peter begins the conversation. He repeats the lesson of his vision. He knows that God is no respector of persons. He’s not to call common what God has cleansed. He repeats what God has instructed him. God using his word and using men to relate this to Peter, to help him to get it, to come to the right point.

And then he asks Cornelius, “Why am I here? Why do you guys call me? I understand what God has instructed me to do—to be here with you. Why am I here?” Cornelius responds to Peter by reciting his vision, by repeating the lesson that God had told him. And that lesson essentially was to call for the one and he was to listen to whatever Peter is commanded by God to tell him. And he is to listen attentively and he is to listen obediently.

And so when we come together to hear the word of God through the preaching, through the responsive readings, through the communion talk, seeing the word, partaken in the elements, when we meet for worship on the Lord’s day, we should be here with a mind to hear whatever God has commanded our leaders to instruct us in and we should receive whatever God’s word says by way of command to us as well. And that should be our attitude as we gather on the Lord’s day.

We should be here to hear commands of God and particularly through the preaching of the word. And so we stressed last week that you know there are distractions here—things we can get distracted with. You can get distracted in your seat. You can get distracted and get out of your seat and move away from the preaching of the word. It’s not a good thing. Attend to the word. We’re here to hear what God commands us to do.

Now that’s a model for the rest of our lives. Our lives should be filled with this idea that we want to hear what God commands us to do. When we meet in the gym after the service, for instance, and we recreate together or some of us sit around and discuss things of the interaction of God’s word to the world, hopefully the attitude we do in all those things is certainly to enjoy him, to recreate in his presence, but also to do what he commands us to do, to have his word command how we play basketball, yes, and how we interact with each other and how we evaluate the word around us.

So no matter what we’re doing, we should have this same question in our hearts that Cornelius had in his: “What does God command us to do?” Because we know that as we fulfill what we have been made for—we have been created by God to walk in the works that he has prepared before him before the foundations of the earth we may walk in.

When we do that, when we discern God’s will and act on the basis of God’s will, we are happy people. That’s like Doug H. said last couple weeks ago from the Doug Wilson group: “Obedience is super easy in one aspect. It’s the path of blessing. It’s the path of joy. It’s the path of great happiness before God to do what he commands us to do.” And on the other hand, it’s often very difficult for us as well because frequently what God commands us to do is to tough it out in the context of difficult circumstances.

But we should meet in the same way that Cornelius’s people met to hear the commands of God now and as a pattern for our lives as well.

—

And Peter then says, “Okay, here’s what God has commanded me to speak to you.” And he begins then and he gives a sermon. He begins by saying that God is no respector of persons in his judgment, in his justice, the way he evaluates people. He’s not going to look at Christians, for instance, and give you more grace somehow when it comes to dealing judicially with you than he would somebody else who’s not a Christian.

He’s not going to wink the eye at your sin. Now, he forgives your sin in Jesus Christ, but he never winks the eye. He doesn’t play favorites in terms of the judgments that he brings into the earth. And in fact, you could say that if he plays favorites at all, it’s toward the ones outside of the church because judgment begins with—where?—with the house of God. Greater responsibility, greater judgment from God.

God is no respector of persons. He doesn’t like whites better than he likes blacks. He doesn’t like Jews better than he likes Gentiles. What he does in terms of his judicial actions is show his grace to those who do what Peter said—who fear him and do righteousness—connected to God and his people vertically, relationship with God, and horizontally, the doing of justice or righteousness in the context of our vertical relation—horizontal relationships rather—with other people and in every nation Peter says God has people that he has elected and called to salvation.

So all racism and all divisions apart from the division between the faithful and the unfaithful, the saved and those not saved, the elect and the non-elect—all of the divisions are not what God has in mind. God is no respector of persons. He begins with saying that he’s talking to an audience that needs to hear that, that needs to be reassured. Peter’s been warned not to cause these people to stumble over unbelief. So, he goes out of his way to assure them of their acceptance with God as if he needed to.

And then secondly, he moves on then to talk about the word—the word which is Lord of all. Remember we said that in the Greek there—that word really where it says that Christ is Lord of all—really is probably more accurately the word is Lord of all. Now it doesn’t make any difference because the word is the expression of the king and Jesus Christ is Lord of all. We know that but it’s very important that we connect that to Christ’s word and the commandments of the king. That is what is Lord of all.

The king administrates that through his word that word is Lord of all and he speaks into that word that it is reached to you to the extent of the preaching of God’s word. And then he talks of the content of God’s word and the content of the word of the gospel particularly—that nugget of the rest of the scriptures that forms the door into relationship with God.

That word is a word that is factual. Remember we talked about this last week. Six facts related by Peter—specific historical realities. Our faith is not built upon some sort of philosophy ultimately, upon some sort of sense of intellectual attainment. It’s built—talked about this repeatedly in these opening chapters of Acts—it’s built on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The historical reality that God’s son became incarnate and came to this earth and was born and lived a life of obedience to God’s law and the facts that Peter recites.

He was anointed. He was baptized. He was anointed of the Holy Spirit. We saw the dove descending and he was filled with power from God. And he went about doing historical realities, doing good to people and healing those who were tyrannized by the slanderer, the devil. And this Jesus they rejected. They hung him on a tree. They killed him. And this Jesus was raised up by God. And we’re witnesses to this fact. Witnesses to the historical reality of Jesus’s life, death, burial, and resurrection. That’s the center of the gospel—these historical facts.

And in relationship to that, these facts are witnessed to by eyewitnesses. The apostles are the foundation of the church. Why? Because they give witness or testimony to the resurrection, the historical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. These witnesses are elect by God. God’s sovereignty is pictured for us here. And what do they witness to? They witness that Jesus Christ is the judge of the quick and the dead.

Not “shall be the judge of the quick and the dead.” We know that all historical confessions that are orthodox talk about the coming of Jesus Christ to judge the quick and the dead. It is extremely important that we see the scriptures teach that Christ will return. You know, the ultimate position of some people who have gone astray in their eschatology is that Christ will never return. It’s not true. They explain away all references to Christ’s return as references of coming in judgment to Jerusalem AD 70 or whatever it is. Well, some of those things are explained that way, but others are not. Christ will definitely come to return and will judge with a final judgment to quicken the dead.

But the verse—as Greg pointed out last week in the question and answer time, Greg S.—this verse says that he is the judge of the living and the dead. In the book of Revelation, the message from the angels in the book of Revelation is, “Fear God, give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all the world.” Fear God. That’s what we’re commanded to do. Why are we to fear God according to the book of Revelation? Because his time of judgment has come.

There is a sense in which Christ is judging right now in the context of our affairs. Jesus Christ, the witness of Jesus Christ is the witness to him being judge and it is secondly the witness that he is savior—that all who believe in him will have their sins remitted and the testimony that is born by the prophets concurs exactly with the testimony of the prophets from the Old Testament. The witnesses of the New Testament all combined together to preach two things about Jesus Christ: that he is judge, he is Christ the anointed one, and he is savior, he is Jesus Christ, savior, king, remitter of sins, judge, Christ Jesus.

He is the judge. That’s the one Peter places first here. And secondarily, those who put their faith in him, receive remission of sins through his work.

—

Now, it’s important that we talk about this remission of sins a little bit. And what I’m going to do here is essentially just read the Heidelberg Catechism, but it’s so important in the context of understanding our faith. You know, at the heart of our sin against God is pride against him. And pride is something that will rear its ugly head up and think that somehow we have done something to merit this salvation from God.

But Peter says no. Those who believe in him, who rely and trust not upon themselves but upon the Lord Jesus Christ, their sins will be remitted.

Now the Heidelberg Catechism, question number 60, says: “How art thou righteous before God? How are you righteous, just, accepted before God?” The answer is: “Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. That is, although my conscience accused me that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God and have never kept any of them—that is, perfectly you have never kept a commandment perfectly with purity of heart and soul—but in spite of this and still prone always to all evil. That is a confession that we make. We are prone to all evil. Though indeed we come here before we worship God, we confess sins.”

The catechism goes on to say: “Yet God without any merit of mine, without any merit of mine, of mere grace grants, imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ as if I have never committed nor had any sin and had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me. If only I accept such benefits with a believing heart.”

It’s justification. You know, you probably heard “justification—just as if I never sinned.” That’s only half the story. The rest of the story is told by the catechism here: “as if I had never committed any sin. But also had myself accomplished all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me. If only I accept such benefit with a believing heart.”

Justification is just as if we’d never sinned. Christ has paid the price. He has atoned for our sins with his precious blood on the cross. With his suffering, the pains of hell. But secondarily, justification is the positive imputation legal declaration to our account of Christ’s righteousness.

Faith acknowledges there is nothing in us to merit any of this. And indeed, when we come to Christ, we are dragged. Jesus said, “Unless I call them, we are dragged, kicking and screaming to the throne of grace.” We are in utter rebellion before coming to salvation in Christ. Yet it is totally the work of grace.

Now, this doctrine is one of the hallmarks of Protestant or evangelical Christianity. And yet, so many people think that somehow the basis of their acceptance with God—if it can’t be these works, then we know it can’t be works—that it must be my faith. It must be the fact that I prayed the prayer. And so when I want assurance before God, I’m going to drive a stake in my backyard on the day that I prayed the prayer. And that’s going to be my reliance now upon for peace with God and having my sins remitted is the fact that I prayed this prayer back then.

And we get all turned around and immediately the sin of pride comes in. And somehow it’s because we chose God. And Jesus said, “You didn’t choose me. I chose you.” Somehow it’s because we exercised this faith. Somehow it’s because we said this prayer and we’ve got the evidence written down someplace in our home or nailed in a fence in our backyard or something.

And the catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism anticipated this sinfulness of man. And they say here: “Why sayest thou that thou art righteous by faith only? Not…and the answer is this: “Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God, and I can receive the same and make it my own in no other way than by faith alone.”

So, the catechism makes a distinction. It says, “It is not our faith.” And it goes out of its way to include this question to repeat to us, “It is not our faith that merits us salvation with the Lord Jesus Christ or with God.” No. Faith is the vehicle that God chooses to bring us to salvation.

Trick question. On what basis is your acceptance with God? Is it on the basis of a life lived in perfect obedience to the law of God or is it on the basis of faith? What is the basis, the grounds of your acceptance with God? A life lived in perfect obedience to the law or faith.

And you know it’s a trick question in a way, but if you understand what reformed people have been memorizing in catechisms here for three or four hundred years, you’ll know that it is the first thing. It is the life of perfect obedience to the law of God that is the basis of right standing with God. Not our life, not our perfect obedience, but the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.

And it is not our faith that is the ground and basis for our righteousness with God. No, it is the work of Jesus Christ and that work alone.

Legalism has many forms. Works righteousness has many forms. And in evangelicalism today, the doctrine of justification by faith is poorly understood at best and it is denied in many churches repeatedly at worst. Well, not so in this church. Hopefully, I hope you understand that your basis of acceptance with God is the finished work of Jesus Christ.

These historical facts—and that faith is simply a mechanism whereby God brings us to rely and trust upon that. But even that faith is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God.

Why cannot any of our good works, the catechism goes on to say, “by whole or part be the whole or part of our righteousness before God?” The answer is: “Because the righteousness which can stand before the judgment seat of God must be perfect throughout and wholly conformable to the divine law. But even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.”

And they quote from different scriptures—Deuteronomy 27: “Cursed be he that continueth not in all the words of the law to do them. And his people shall say, Amen.” In other words, fine, you start good, but as soon as you sin, you’re cursed.

Isaiah 64: “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.”

James chapter 2: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

Our works cannot save us. Only the work of Jesus Christ.

—

And so, Peter at the conclusion, at the climax of his sermon, talks about Christ as judge—which brings terror to our hearts—and he talks about Christ as savior, which brings comfort to them as well and puts Christ’s present judgment in a place of blessing and being comfort to us as well, knowing that all our enemies, the enemies of Christ, are judged by him in time and in eternity as well.

So Peter concludes his sermon and as he’s doing this sermon the next thing that happens in the text—you would see it on your outline if it was here—is we have then the spirit baptism of the uncircumcised Gentiles.

Verse 44: “And Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.”

So the context of this sermon apparently wasn’t done yet, but the text certainly wraps it up nicely for us, brings it to the climactic point of Christ as judge and savior, Christ Jesus.

And at this climactic point, the Holy Spirit in a very visible and manifest way comes upon the uncircumcised god-fearers demonstrating that God they have found acceptance with God and he has brought them to this faith, this remission of sins that Peter has just spoken of.

Now it’s interesting to me that this text is frequently a text of much controversy. It has to do with the issue of tongues again, which we spoke of in Acts chapter 2. We really—I don’t think this is the primary purpose of this text to teach us something about tongues. This text is to show us in a very visible demonstrable way—to show Peter and those who were with him of the inclusion of the Gentiles without going through the ritual of circumcision.

That’s what Peter’s vision was all about. And now we have the second half of that vision, so to speak. We have the Holy Spirit again directing a supernatural event, the speaking in tongues by these uncircumcised believers—they’re baptism, so to speak. They’re filling with the Holy Spirit. I use the word baptism because that’s the word Peter will use in Acts 11.

Peter, in his account of this to the men back at Jerusalem, says that he had—when this occurs—that the saying of our savior, that Christ that John would baptize with water but that he would baptize with the Holy Spirit—this saying comes to Peter’s mind and so that’s what we’re speaking of here.

Additionally, in Acts 11 Peter draws a specific correlation between this event and what happened on the day of Pentecost. He draws that very clearly. He says that they spoke with tongues just as we did on the day of Pentecost. This is what God has done with them just as he did with us. So Peter draws a very direct correlation between the visible manifestation of the baptism, the filling of the spirit for ministry and power here to these gentile uncircumcised believers, between that and what happened to the circumcised believers on the day of Pentecost.

Let me just read a few commentaries here. “The similarities between Cornelius’s experience and the outpouring of the spirit at Pentecost are striking. First, the response is similar in both accounts: Speaking in tongues and exalting God—those are the two correlating things. They say ‘magnify’ here, earlier in chapter 2 ‘exalting God.’ Second, when the Jerusalem church questioned Peter about visiting Cornelius, he declared in verse 15 of chapter 11 that the Holy Spirit fell on them just as he did upon us at the beginning.

Later, Peter testifies before the Jerusalem council that God gave the Holy Spirit to Cornelius, quote, ‘just as he also did to us,’ end quote. That’s Acts 15:8. Moreover, as on the day of Pentecost, Cornelius and his friends spoke in tongues as visible audible evidence of the coming of the spirit. The phenomena of tongues was not mere gibberish or incoherent nonsense. Rather, the manifestation indicated the overwhelming power and presence of the spirit in the lives of the Gentiles.

J. Alexander says this: ‘They did not merely hear them say that they had received the Holy Spirit. They heard them actually now quoting speaking with tongues. Alexander says this means in foreign languages, not unintelligably or at random, but like the disciples on the day of Pentecost. and praise of God. What is there called speaking the wonderful or mighty works of God is here more concisely expressed magnifying God. In other words, sending forth his greatness. Hence, this occasion has not unjustly been entitled the gentile Pentecost.’

So, what we have here is a recitation of what had occurred—a repetition rather, essentially of what had occurred on the day of Pentecost. And what’s going on? Well, what’s clearly going on is this is a demonstration to Peter and to the other observers who had come with him, the other circumcised believers that were with Peter. It is a demonstration that these Gentiles have been ushered into the church through the gift of the Holy Spirit apart from going through the ritual of circumcision.

And I think that you know, more importantly than the speaking of tongues here—that is certainly important for the manifestation of the spirit—but the second half of that phrase in verse 46, “magnifying God,” that is essential to the demonstration of the spirit as well. With these tongues that were somehow understood by the apostles—whether it was foreign languages and they understood those languages, maybe they were speaking Hebrew I don’t know—but we do know that somehow it was understood that with these tongues that God had given to them, it was not gibberish. It was understood by the circumcised believers that they heard them with these tongues magnifying, exalting God.

And so that’s what goes on then. The spirit baptism of the uncircumcised Gentiles turns.

Let me just mention in terms of tongues that uh that we may well be seeing in the manifestation of tongues the witness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ spoken by those who were originally outside the camp of Israel. There is a sense in which the tongue in scripture—if you do a study of the term in the Old Testament for tongue or the New Testament—there’s a relationship between tongue or lip or speech and doctrine, belief system.

When God changes a person, when he converts a person as he did Cornelius and these men, they are ushered into a new worldview, a new confession and a new profession with their tongues and so this alteration in the speaking organ of the ones whom the Holy Spirit descends on really is a picture probably of a deeper change in their whole confession of who they are, their doctrinal position, etc.

Their whole worldview—our worldview is demonstrated through our language. Language—and this is a big topic and I don’t want to dwell on it here—but language is an expression of who we are. And if you look at languages, for instance, it appears that all languages have their root in the Hebrew tongue. All languages that have been sustained through history find their root in the Hebrew tongue in the Old Testament worldview with the speech that God gives man.

All speech which is to magnify God. And so why tongues? Well, you know, one, we have a covenantal witness against unbelieving Jews for the speaking in foreign languages, tongues. Paul will talk about this later in the book of Corinthians, that it’s a sign to them that do not believe of their judgment from God—probably a covenantal witness.

Secondly, the deeper manifestation is this change in worldview, doctrine or confession that happens. All of us—even though most of us do not have this extraordinary manifestation of the spirit—it was required as it was in Samaria and the manifestation of the spirit and as it was at the day of Pentecost.

These are the three occurrences of this great manifestation of the spirit: Pentecost—the reorganization of the church, gifting of power for ministry as Jesus had predicted. Samaria—the halfway house so to speak between Jerusalem and Judea and the uttermost parts of the earth. The gentile converts who are to be brought in. The Samaritans—they were syncretistic. They had taken the Old Testament faith, mingled it with idolatry. They were halfway there. So we have the manifestation of the spirit with them. And then finally the manifestation of the spirit here with the inclusion of gentile believers.

Now the big picture here is inclusion. It’s getting rid of this—as I said before—the middle wall of partition—to make the people of God one people, fully one people as they had not been allowed to be fully one people in a visible demonstrable sense in the Old Testament. But the middle wall partition standing. And so the big story here is inclusion and it is inclusion around the confession or profession of one’s lips through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

—

Well, Peter recognizes this and he says, well, in verse 47, Peter says, “Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as us?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

So, so we now have the water baptism. That’d be the last point of this overview of the text. The water baptism of the uncircumcised Gentiles who are yet uncircumcised.

Now you know you say, well, okay, he baptized them. So what? Baptism doesn’t mean much to us today. It is seen as an individualistic sort of a thing, but to Peter and to the scriptures, baptism is a mark of entrance into the visible covenant community of God.

It replaces circumcision, the special mark of the priestly church in the context of the world. And so when Peter goes ahead and baptizes Cornelius here, this is a very controversial thing for him to do. And this is really in a way the focal point of what God had done with this entire account—in the preparation of Peter to accepting the gentile converts, to not call them common, what God had cleansed, did not make them common through the failure to apply the covenant sign of baptism to these believers who were obviously baptized in the spirit and ushered by the spirit into the church of Jesus Christ.

How could he not? How could he not in his actions mirror God’s actions in heaven by inviting the Gentiles into the church? And that’s what it is here. Baptism is a sign of entrance into the visible church, the visible covenant community of God. Peter ushered them in then because he saw himself acting and in responsive fashion antiphonally to God’s actions. And this is a model for us.

If Peter exercises the keys of the kingdom here, he does it solely in response to what God has done. Matthew 18—if you do these things according to God’s commandments, then your actions mirror what has gone on in heaven already. They don’t force heaven. We respond to heaven. God initiates, we respond. And that’s pictured for us clearly here.

And so, ministers of the gospel today are also to command people to be baptized. To command them to have their children baptized as a sign of the covenant if those children indeed meet the criteria of God’s word, which is being born into a family where at least one of the parents, a covenantal one of their covenantal heads is in the visible covenant community of Christ.

And so it’s the same thing here. And it’s a very significant act for Peter. This is what he’s been trained to do by these visions, by the interaction with God’s people. And this is what he obediently does. And this is the climax of the text for us.

And of course, as we said last week, those who are brought to this position by God wish to continue to hear things of God’s word. Peter carries their certain days. Undoubtedly, undoubtedly organizing the church of which they had just been entered into now.

Points of application from the text. Three very quickly. Well, one very quickly, one long and then two more quickly. But first of all, very quickly, three points of application. First of all, the universal sovereign…