On Pentecost, Peter told the Jews who wanted to be saved, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The case of Cornelius was no different except that God gave some validation in the form of a manifestation of the Spirit so that Peter would know it was OK to speak those words.

That prayer comes from little book called Bless This Mess and Other Prayers, by Jo Carr and Imogene Sorely.

The difficulty of change is a big part of what is behind the Biblical story of Cornelius. This man, you may already know, was the first Gentile convert to Christianity and no, the difficulty of change wasn't his problem. The problem came when Jewish Christians were faced with accepting the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God. I realize that may sound rather strange to us but it was a huge obstacle in the church of the first century.

Perhaps the magnitude of the difficulty is why Luke, the writer of the New Testament book of Acts took a chapter and a half to tell the story.

Acts 10 is where we'll begin our lesson this morning. Please join me there in your Bibles. As we go through this passage I want you to understand the context. Immediately before the events described in the tenth chapter of Acts are 1500 years of Jewish exclusivity. God's people were the Israelites, the physical descendants of Abraham. While there was provision made for non-Jews to come to God, there was always a separation based upon race that kept Jew and Gentile apart. For now, due to the limits of our time, I'll have to assume you understand at least some of the reasons for that. I've explained it before.

To help us move fairly rapidly through Acts 10, I have broken down Luke's account into four "scenes" that should be fairly easy to track. We begin now with:

Cornelius was an officer in the Roman military, a centurion, which meant that he commanded 100 men - a group called a "century." His century was part of a larger division, a cohort, made up of six centuries. A Roman legion consisted of six cohorts. The Italian nationality of the men who made up Cornelius' cohort may indicate that they were troops especially loyal to Rome and perhaps part of some kind of elite force. Cornelius' name is Latin, not Jewish, one of several indicators in this passage that he was a Gentile and not a Jew.

Luke tells us four things about this man's religion. He was devout. He was God-fearing. He was a giving man. And he was a praying man.

Later in this chapter, in verse 22, it says that Cornelius was "a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews."

With a description like you might get the mistaken idea that Cornelius was in right standing with God because he was so religious. But he wasn't. When Peter retold this story in Acts 11, he indicated in verse 14 that Cornelius was told to send for Peter who would "…speak words to you by which you will be saved…." Cornelius was religious, but unsaved - a condition similar to some modern people. It is entirely possible to be religious yet not right with God.

I used to believe that Cornelius was a proselyte to the Jewish faith. This glowing description of him certainly makes it seem that way. However, in Acts 11:3, in the recounting of this story, the Jews accused Peter of going into the home of "uncircumcised men." So while Cornelius was certainly religious and sympathetic to the Jewish religion, apparently he had not yet fully submitted to the Law of Moses. He had not been circumcised. It is probably best to view Cornelius simply as a devout seeker of God who knew about, and was attracted to, the Jewish faith.

Because of the devout nature of his faith, God had some very good things in store for him.

What a tribute to this man's desire to please God! "Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God." Perhaps there could not have been a more appropriate person to have the honor of being the first Gentile convert.

Jesus had promised, "Seek and you shall find," and indeed, that is what we see happening here, even though the seeking Centurion and the mandatory messenger of God were in different cities.

So Cornelius, honored by the vision but probably rattled by the appearance of an angel, obeyed what he was told to do.

Scene one now ends. Scene two begins:.

As the men sent by Cornelius approach the city of Joppa, Peter fell into a trance while he was praying and waiting for his noontime lunch.

The key to understanding what is going on here is found in the meaning of those words, "all kinds of...animals and crawling creatures...and birds." Under the Law of Moses, the Jews could only consume certain animals for food. Everything else was off limits. God's Old Testament list of clean and unclean animals can be found in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Apparently this lowered sheet contained both clean and unclean animals and God's command to "arise…, kill and eat" was inconsistent with the regulations under the Law of Moses. Peter's immediate hesitation to obey was neither improper nor unpredictable. But the vision certainly left the Apostle scratching his head and wondering what was going on.

So the Spirit gave Peter three more commands that seemed really strange to him. "Arise… go downstairs, and accompany these men without misgivings." But wait! Peter couldn't go with these men! Jews weren't supposed to have anything to do with Gentiles. What is going on?

Things were changing (actually, they had already changed) and Peter was experiencing some of the difficulty involved. In fact, he was having a hard time keeping up.

Stop there momentarily and notice two things in that last phrase in verse 22.

First, the angel specified that Peter was to visit the home of Cornelius, not the other way around. Verse 28 of this chapter makes it clear that Peter believed it was unlawful for him to visit a Gentile. So here is another big challenge for Peter - to visit a Gentile.

Second, the angel told these Gentile servants of Cornelius that they were to hear "a message" from Peter. Literally, they were to hear "words." Hang onto that. You might even want to put a little check mark beside it in your Bible. It will have some significance later in this passage.

You have to wonder where Peter had those Gentiles sleep that night. Did he invite them in to where he was staying or offer them some kind of outbuilding? This was all very new to him.

The curtain closes on Scene Two now and reopens on Scene Three.

Notice that Peter refused to receive worship from Cornelius. While the Apostles were great men and filled a critical role in the church (indeed, the church is built upon the foundation of their teaching - see Ephesians 2:20) they were still just men and no man is supposed to be worshipped, not even an important one. Only God is to be worshipped. Perhaps this is further reason to believe that Cornelius wasn't a proselyte. Surely had he been more versed in the Law he would have understood that it is wrong to bow down in worship to any man.

That was the message of the clean and unclean animals on the sheet! Peter is beginning to understand the change going on.

He still hasn't figured it out completely, though.

And Peter says, "So I ask for what reason you have sent me."

It seems so clear to us, but I guess it was harder for Peter.

It might seem at first that God was only now revealing His acceptance of the Gentiles to Peter, but that really wasn't the case. The words of Jesus before his ascension, as recorded in Mark 16:15, had been, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." In Acts 1:8 Jesus told the apostles, "You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." Peter himself had said on Pentecost to the assembled Jews, "For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off…." The taking of the gospel to the Gentiles had been adequately revealed. It just hadn't sunk in yet.

They were ready to hear that message we noted earlier. Remember what I asked you to hang onto back in verse 22? "Cornelius… was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and hear a message (literally, to hear "words") from you." What message? What words? The message, the words that were to be taken into all creation! Jesus made them clear in Mark 16:15-16: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned."

The message is the gospel and the gospel is the truth that, "he who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned." This is what Cornelius needed to hear. And, as we shall see, this is what Peter delivered to him. The sermon begins in the next verse.

Wow. This is a good sermon! But apparently both the hearers and the preacher needed a little bit more motivation.

If Peter needed any further proof after the two visions that the Gentiles were to be included in receiving the gospel message, he surely had it now.

Several important doctrinal issues arise from the account of this passage. I don't have time to deal with all of them so I'll focus primarily on just one. It can be phrased in the form of a question: When was Cornelius saved? Was he saved before or after he was baptized in water?

Those who believe we are saved by faith only with no action or obedience on our part say that Cornelius was saved before he was baptized, the moment he believed Peter's message. After all, didn't the Holy Spirit fall upon them before they were baptized? Isn't that proof that they were saved before they were baptized?

To begin, let me point out that the passage does not say directly when salvation and forgiveness of sins was given or when Cornelius moved from a lost condition to a saved one. We are left to deduce the answer and before we do that, perhaps we should be sure we have the entire story, because it doesn't stop here. There is one more scene.

After Peter stayed on for a few days with Cornelius and his household, he went up to Jerusalem. It seems that word of what had happened in Caesarea traveled quickly and arrived there before him. Not surprisingly, a delegation of Jews met him to find out why in the world he had been preaching to uncircumcised Gentiles.

What follows is a recounting of the things we just read in chapter 10.

Note Peter's stress on re-telling the story in orderly sequence. That sequential order is important, as we shall soon see.

Peter goes on to tell of the vision of clean and unclean animals, the appearance of the servants of Cornelius at the gate of the residence where he was staying, the words of the Holy Spirit telling him to go with them without misgivings. I won't read it now because it is nearly identical to what we read in chapter 10. Then he comes to the vision that Cornelius had. We'll pick it up there because Peter clarifies a couple of things that are important to the question I asked earlier about the timing of Cornelius' salvation.

Peter was to speak words by which Cornelius and those in his house would be saved. The words would be important. You might recall verse 22 of chapter 10 that I asked you to mark and hang onto. That verse said, "Cornelius… was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you [Peter] to come to his house and hear a message [literally, hear "words"] from you."

From these two verses we learn that for Cornelius to be saved he had to hear certain words Peter was to bring him.

Now look at the next verse:

Question: When did the Holy Spirit fall upon these Gentiles? What does it say here? It says that the event happened as Peter began to speak. So was it at the beginning, the middle, or the end of Peter's sermon that the Holy Spirit fell upon them? It was at the beginning. Before he had a chance to speak all of the words by which they would be saved, the Holy Spirit fell upon them. In other words, the Holy Spirit fell upon them before they heard the words that were necessary for them to be saved. They had not yet heard those words.

What we have here, folks, is a case of the Holy Spirit falling upon unsaved people. Why? To convince Peter to go ahead and preach to them the words by which they would be saved.

Wait a minute? Can the Holy Spirit operate upon a person not saved by the blood of Jesus? More specifically, did the Holy Spirit ever come upon a person not saved by the blood of Jesus? Yes, He did. Here are a couple of examples. There are others.

In Luke 2:25 we read these words about a Jewish man in the Temple named Simeon who met Joseph and Mary not long after Jesus' birth: "And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him." This man was not a Christian because Jesus was still a baby. Yet the Holy Spirit was upon him.

When Samuel revealed to Saul that he would be the first King of Israel, we read in 1 Samuel 10:10: "When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them." Surely no one would suggest that because the Holy Spirit came upon Saul, he was a Christian. Jesus wouldn't be born for another 1000 years.

The Holy Spirit most certainly operated on various people for various reasons throughout the Bible and it wasn't necessarily an indicator that they were saved by the blood of Jesus. Further, I suggest to you that there is a difference between the Holy Spirit coming upon a person (as in this passage) and the Holy Spirit being in a person (as in passages like Romans 8:11).

Since the Spirit fell upon Cornelius and his household at the beginning of Peter's sermon, before he had a chance to speak all the words the Centurion needed to hear in order to be saved, I don't believe it is right to conclude that Cornelius was saved before he heard those words. This account is not an exception or a contradiction to what Peter and the other Apostles had preached earlier in Acts. (I've heard people claim that God had one plan of salvation for the Jews, put forth in Acts 2:38 - and a different plan for gentiles - put forth in this passage. I believe such a conclusion is wrong.) When Peter finally got around to speaking those words that needed to be heard so that Cornelius could be saved, they were the same as they had been to the Jews. Why then don't we read a command to repent and be baptized in this passage? Because Luke didn't' always record the entire text of the sermons he noted in Acts. (See Acts 2:40 and Acts 16:30-33 as examples.)

On Pentecost, Peter told the Jews who wanted to be saved, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The case of Cornelius was no different except that God gave some validation in the form of a manifestation of the Spirit so that Peter would know it was OK to speak those words. The Holy Spirit came upon them to prove that the Gentiles could be saved - not that they were saved. Presumably, Peter finished his sermon, including those words they needed to hear in order to be saved, which aren't necessarily recorded here, then he called on these Gentiles to repent and be baptized just as he called on the Jews to do in Acts 2:37-39.

"Wait a minute!" someone says. "I see baptism in verse 47 but repentance isn't mentioned in Peter's sermon."

No it isn't. But apparently he taught it, even though it isn't recorded in chapter 10. Look at the next verses:

We know Peter preached repentance because the Jews grilling him acknowledged it there in verse 18: "God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life." We know that he preached baptism because he ordered their immediate baptism in water. (Surely he didn't just baptize these people without some instruction.)

Cornelius wasn't saved before he repented and was baptized. He was saved when he did these things, just like the Jews on Pentecost and everybody else described in the book of Acts.

In 1905, football was a low-scoring game of running and kicking. Guys in leather helmets and a smattering of padding plodded down the field toward the goal line. The offense consisted of formations like the "flying wedge," in which several players ran together into the middle of the opposition in the hope of gaining three or four yards at a time. It was a tough, gritty game.

Then, in 1906, the forward pass was legalized, making it possible to gain 40 yards with the flick of a wrist. During the first season, however, most teams stayed almost entirely with their conventional, tried-and-true running game.

Recognizing that they were entering a new era in which the old strategy of "three yards and a cloud of dust" would fast become obsolete, St. Louis University's coaches adapted quickly, switching to an offense that used the forward pass extensively. That season they outscored their opponents 402-11.

Change is hard but sometimes it is necessary. When it comes to the things of God, whenever we find ourselves on the wrong side of what His word teaches, it's time for us to change, no matter how hard it may be. Do you need to make any changes?

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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