“ALL ONE IN CHRIST” (PART 1)
ACTS 10:1-20

I. Introduction
Jesus Christ’s personal claims of deity are among the most controversial assertions in all of Scripture. Here are just a few of those things that Jesus said about Himself. He said things like, “I and the Father are One (John 10:30),” and, “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father (John 14:9).” But it was when Jesus used God’s OT name – “I AM” – and applied it to Himself that the Jewish religious leaders came to the conclusion that He must die for the of blasphemy of equating Himself with God.
*John 8:23-24
23 And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
24 “I said therefore to you, that you shall die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins.”

In v. 24 the word “He” is not found in the Greek text. It has been placed there for clarity by the translators. A few verses later, in John 8:58, Jesus removed any doubt as to what He meant when He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” “I am” is from Exodus 3:14. When Moses asked God to tell him His name God said, “I AM WHO I AM” which translates to “Yahweh” in Hebrew. That name was so sacred to the Jews that they refused to pronounce it and only wrote it as “YHWH.” (“LORD” in OT) So Jesus’ use of the absolute phrase “I am” is a clear and direct statement of His deity.

The deity of Christ is one of the most fundamental doctrines of biblical Christianity. Every true Christian believes it. If someone does not believe in the deity of Christ – that Jesus is God in human flesh – he is not a Christian, regardless of what he may call himself.

But Jesus said something else about Himself that has become even more controversial than the issue of His deity. The world rejects it outright, and the tragedy is that many professing Christians reject it as well.
*John 14:6
6“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

I’ve attended funerals in churches that claim to be Christian, and listened to clergymen who claim to be Christians, where Jesus’ words, “…no one comes to the Father, but through Me,” have been eliminated from their vocabularies so as not to offend the delicate sensibili-ties of unbelievers. Such people say things like, “What about all those good people who never heard of Jesus?” What about them, indeed! When it comes to those who never heard of Jesus, ask yourself this: “If you truly believe that our God is perfect, righteous, holy, and just, don’t you also believe that He will do what is perfect, righteous, holy, and just?”
This morning we will meet an unbelieving Gentile by the name of Cornelius. Over the course of the next few Sundays we’re going to see played out before us a marvelous example of God in action as He sovereignly orchestrates the circumstances that will lay the gospel at the feet of those whom He has chosen for salvation. “What about all those good people who never heard of Jesus?” The elect of God will hear it. God will see to it. And not only will they hear it, they will believe it!

That’s one of the great truths we’ll be delving into. In the process we’ll also see another of the great truths of the Book of Acts. When Cornelius and his household hear the gospel, it will be the first time that it will be preached in the home of a Gentile. Saul of Tarsus will soon become Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, but it is Peter who will have the privilege of being the first to bring the gospel to an exclusively Gentile audience. In that sense Peter will lay the foundation for Paul’s ministry.
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II. Review and Scripture Reading (go to the maps at the back of your Bibles)
It is a fascinating thing to see how God prepares people and circumstances to accomplish His sovereign will. Consider what we’ve seen Him do since Stephen’s martyrdom in Acts 7.
• In Acts 8:1 Saul of Tarsus began a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.
• It was that persecution caused Philip and other Christians to flee north to Samaria where they preached the gospel. As a result many Samaritans came to saving faith.
• Such large numbers of new believers prompted the Apostle Peter to go to Samaria where he confronted the false teaching that always seems to lurk in the shadows wher-ever God’s Word is being preached.
• Then the Lord led Philip to the road that leads to Gaza where he came upon the Ethio-pian eunuch, led him to Christ, and baptized him. (Most scholars believe that the Ethiopian eunuch was the first person to bring the gospel to the African continent.)
• From there the Lord then led Philip north to Caesarea. On his way he passed through the city of Joppa on the Mediterranean coast where it is believed that a woman named Tabitha heard the truth and was saved.
• In Acts 9 Saul was on his way to Damascus to find and arrest the Christians who lived there. But along the road to Damascus he was confronted by the Lord Jesus Himself and converted. (After some time had passed Saul returned to his ancestral home in Tarsus where God would prepare him for his future ministry.)
• Meanwhile Peter went to Lydda where he healed a paralyzed man named Aeneas. The news of Aeneas’ miraculous healing quickly covered the ten miles between Lydda and Joppa where the woman Tabitha had come to saving faith and had become a great blessing to the church in Joppa. But now Tabitha had died, and knowing the Apostle Peter was nearby in Lydda, some men from Joppa went to him and brought him to Tabitha’s body. There, God, using Peter to perform the miracle, raised Tabitha from the dead and returned her to her loved ones.
In all of this we see God orchestrating the circumstances required to accomplish His purpose for the fledgling church. Jesus would use His apostles to be His witnesses and preach the gospel. Before He ascended to heaven He gave them their final instructions. He said…
*Acts 1:8
8 “…you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

So how’s it going? Are man’s persecutions or Satan’s resistance slowing the progress of the gospel? Or is everything going according to God’s plan? You know the plan – to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile (the “non-Jew”). Think about it. The gospel was preached first to the Jews in Jerusalem. Then it went north to the so-called “half-Jews,” the Samaritans. Then Philip took it to the Ethiopian, a Gentile who had apparently become a convert to Judaism. And in Lydda and in Joppa (both in Judea) many Jews were converted.

Thus the gospel had gone precisely where Jesus said it would go – Jerusalem, Samaria, and Judea. But what about “…the remotest part of the earth?” That process begins in Acts 10 as God uses the Apostle Peter to take the gospel into a Gentile’s home in Caesarea.
*Acts 10:1-20 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
1 Now there was a certain man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,
2 a devout man, and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people, and prayed to God continually.
3 About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in to him, and said to him, “Cornelius!”
4 And fixing his gaze upon him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he (the angel) said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
5 “And now dispatch some men to Joppa, and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter;
6 he is staying with a certain tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea.”
7 And when the angel who was speaking to him had departed, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were in constant attendance upon him,
8 and after he had explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
9 And on the next day, as they were on their way, and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.
10 And he became hungry, and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance;
11 and he beheld the sky opened up, and a certain object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground,
12 and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.
13 And a voice came to him, “Arise, Peter, kill and eat!”
14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.”
15 And again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”
16 And this happened three times; and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.
17 Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon’s house, appeared at the gate;
18 and calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was staying there.
19 And while Peter was reflecting on the vision, the (Holy) Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you.
20 But arise, go downstairs, and accompany them without misgivings; for I have sent them Myself.”
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III. Text
Earlier I quoted Jesus from John 14:6 where He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” I did that because it should remind us that while nice, kind, generous, and upstanding people may well be Christians, those particu-lar traits prove nothing whatsoever about their salvation.

After all, how many nice, kind, generous, and upstanding Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, agnostics, and atheists are there in this world? You may even know some of them. They may be good neighbors, good workers, good citizens, and even good friends. They may be abounding in good works in the communities and places of worship. They may be religious, pious, and devout. But if they are relying on any of that to try to get to God, they are lost. I know that because Jesus said, “…no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

The point is that people who may look, sound, and act like Christians may not be Christians at all. They still need the gospel of Jesus Christ. Such was the case with Cornelius. In Acts 10 we will see God continue to orchestrate His plan to bring the gospel to “…every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9b).”
*Acts 10:1-2
1 Now there was a certain man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,
2 a devout man, and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many
alms to the Jewish people, and prayed to God continually.
Caesarea was located on the Mediterranean coast about thirty miles north of Joppa. It was the seat of the Roman government in Judea. (Pontius Pilate lived there.) Cornelius was one of the centurions attached to the Roman garrison in Caesarea. As a centurion he had command over one hundred soldiers. (A Roman legion had 6000 soldiers, divided into ten cohorts of 600 each. Each cohort was then divided into six groups of one hundred. Each of those groups was commanded by a centurion. No man could achieve the rank of centurion unless he was strong, reliable, and responsible.)

And so we meet Cornelius, a religious man who fears God, gives to the poor, and prays. He looks like a Christian. He sounds like a Christian. He acts like a Christian. But the fact is that Cornelius is not a Christian. How can I say that? Because Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

All right, but Acts 10:38-39 will tell us that Cornelius already knew about the man Jesus. He already knew about Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, Samaria, and right there in Judea. He already knew that Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried outside of Jerusalem. Cornelius already knew all of those things. But all of those things – by themselves – do not matter. That is because believing all of those things – by themselves – can save no one. James would later say, and I paraphrase, “You believe? That’s good, but Satan and his demons also believe those things.” (James 2:19)

Intellectual belief is not saving faith. Believing all the details of Jesus birth, life, ministry, death, and burial require nothing more than a willingness to intellectually accept the facts of the historical record. Any Jew, Muslim, pagan, or atheist can do as much. But what about Jesus’ deity? What about His resurrection from the dead? Those things require more than “book-learning,” don’t they? They require faith! Now to be sure, believing about Jesus is certainly the prerequisite. But faith in Jesus is what saves a soul.
Hebrews 11:6a
6a And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is… (back to Cornelius)

By man’s standard’s Cornelius is a good man. But just as God had prepared the Ethiopian eunuch’s heart to hear the gospel and be saved, so too has God prepared Cornelius’ heart to hear the gospel and be saved. But as of this moment, in Acts 10:2, he hasn’t heard it yet. And as of this moment, in Acts 10:2, Cornelius, good man that he may be, is still totally lost.

Cornelius, who already knows about the dead Jesus, is going to have to hear about the living Jesus. He is going to have to put his faith in Jesus’ deity and His resurrection from the dead. The rest of Acts 10 is about Cornelius’ hearing of the gospel and coming to saving faith.

But there’s more. The rest of Acts 10 is also about Peter coming to the full realization that the gospel of Christ is not just for a Jewish nation looking for its promised Messiah. It’s about the salvation of the Gentiles as well. Yes, the gospel is “To the Jew first…” but it is also to “…every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Revelation 5:9b).”
It is here in Acts 10 where the gospel will begin its journey to all the nations. The two men involved are Peter, the Jewish preacher, and Cornelius, the Gentile convert. It is such an important moment in the history of the church that God will send them each a miraculous vision in order to prepare them for what is to come.

In v. 2 it is clear that Cornelius is a good man. He had already jettisoned his pagan religion and was open to the truths of God. The key point is this: While he was not a Christian he was living up to the light he had. As such, God would give him more light.

That’s the way it works. God always responds to a willing heart. That brings us back to the question that is so often asked. “What about all those good people who never heard of Jesus?” If those so-called “good people” are among the elect – those chosen from eternity past – they will hear it. God will see to it. Not only will they hear it, they will believe it! Therein lies the dual truths of divine election and human responsibility. Scripture clearly teaches both. Our finite minds cannot reconcile them, but not to worry. The mind of God is infinite. Divine election and human responsibility are about to come together in Cornelius.
*Acts 10:3-8
3 About the ninth hour of the day (3:00 p.m.) he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in to him, and said to him, “Cornelius!”
4 And fixing his gaze upon him and being much alarmed, he said, “What is it, Lord?” And he (the angel) said to him, “Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
5 “And now dispatch some men to Joppa, and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter;
6 he is staying with a certain tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea.”
7 And when the angel who was speaking to him had departed, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were in constant attendance upon him,
8 and after he had explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.

Please allow me to paraphrase these verses. “Cornelius! God has looked into your heart. He knows it is humble before Him. He intends to save your soul, but He cannot do so until you hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and believe it. So send some men to Joppa to bring the Apostle Peter to you.” (divine election and human responsibility)

God cannot? He cannot sin; He cannot lie; He cannot deny Himself; He can-not change. In short, He cannot do anything that is contrary to His own nature and holiness. He has said that salvation is found only in the Person of His Son. Therefore, He cannot save anyone who does hear and believe the gospel.

We need to remember this. No matter how humble the heart of Cornelius may be, one great truth stands for all time.
*Acts 4:12 (Peter speaking)
12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under hea-ven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved.”

In Acts 10:3-8 God has spoken to Cornelius in a vision and Cornelius has obeyed God. So the process has begun. Now the scene shifts from Cornelius in Caesarea to Peter in Joppa.
*Acts 10:9-16
9 And on the next day, as they were on their way, and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour (12:00 p.m.) to pray.
10 And he became hungry, and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance;
11 and he beheld the sky opened up, and a certain object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground,
12 and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.
13 And a voice came to him, “Arise, Peter, kill and eat!”
14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.”
15 And again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”
16 And this happened three times; and immediately the object was taken up into the sky.

The next morning the soldier and the two servants Cornelius has sent to Joppa are nearing the city. The sixth hour (noon) finds Peter on Simon the tanner’s rooftop praying. While lunch is being prepared God reveals Himself to Peter in a vision. Here once more we can see that God not only calls those he intends to save, he also calls those whom He will use (humanly speaking) to lead them to saving faith in Christ. In Caesarea God has prepared the heart of Cornelius to receive the message. Now in Joppa God will prepare the heart of Peter to deliver it. And once again we see that salvation is all of God.

Peter’s vision, described in Acts 10:11-12, is fascinating. What can it mean? As is so often the case in the NT, the OT reveals the key to our understanding. In Leviticus 11 God gave
Israel her dietary laws. The laws were given for a number of reasons. But they all had to do with the main reason – keeping the Jews separated from the world. Why? Because the Jew-ish people were to be the channel for the Redeemer.
Leviticus 20:26
26 “Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.”

The Jews’ obedience to God’s laws about their diets and their personal hygiene, made it dif-ficult to intermarry and form social relationships with pagans and idol worshippers.
But those dietary restrictions also served another purpose. They tended to keep the Jewish people healthier than the Gentiles who lived around them. This has been true throughout history. (For example, when the bubonic plague (the black death) devastated Europe in the fourteenth century, the Jews were far less affected by it than were the Gentiles. Back to Peter…) He knew and understood the dietary laws from the Book of Leviticus and he was not about to break them. So it is no surprise that the vision and God’s command in Acts 10:13 to “…kill and eat” unclean animals confused him. Therefore, his response in v. 14 seems to be a reasonable one. He says, and again I paraphrase, “No way, Lord! I don’t eat that stuff.”

But what Peter does not yet understand is that with the arrival of the New Covenant, God’s new people (the church) were no longer bound by Jewish ceremonial, dietary, civil, or judicial laws. Three times God repeats His command to kill and eat, but Peter is steadfast in his refusal. I admit I would be confused by all of this. Wouldn’t you?

And although Peter still doesn’t understand the meaning of the vision, he soon will. The key is God’s response to Peter’s refusal to eat in v. 15. “What God has cleansed, no longer con-sider unholy.” By the time he gets to the home of Cornelius in Caesarea, he will understand it. God is removing the barrier between Jew and Gentile. The Messiah, the Christ, has not come solely for the Jew; He has come for the Gentile as well. In Acts 10:34 he will “get it.” And he will say, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality…”
In that understanding, the door for the gospel to go to the nations will swing wide open. But in the meantime…
*Acts 10:17-20
17 Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon’s house, appeared at the gate;
18 and calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who was also called Peter, was staying there.
19 And while Peter was reflecting on the vision, the (Holy) Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you.
20 But arise, go downstairs, and accompany them without misgivings; for I have sent them Myself.”

We often like to say that God’s timing is perfect. Of course, it is! God has opened Peter’s eyes to the great truth that he will soon embrace. In these four verses God immediately pro-vides him with everything he needs to leave Joppa, go north to Caesarea, and enter the home of a Gentile named Cornelius. And in v. 20, God’s matchless grace comforts Peter and tells him not to fear traveling with these three men – one of whom is a Roman soldier – because they’ve really come from God. Any fears that may still have lingered would have been set aside when the three men related Cornelius’ vison to Peter.
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IV. Conclusion
So the stage is set. God has prepared both men and both men have responded in obedience.

That should be a lesson for us, shouldn’t it? When God moves in your life and tells you to do something, or to go somewhere, or to speak to someone, He is not sending you off by yourself, is He? He has orchestrated the situation and He is going with you.

Didn’t we see that truth played out when God prepared the heart of the Ethiopian eunuch? He was a Gentile whose heart had been made ready to hear the gospel. We know that because he left his own country and went all the way to Jerusalem to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We know that because, when Philip found him on the road to Gaza, the Ethiopian was reading Isaiah’s prophecy about the Jewish Messiah.

Didn’t we see that truth played out when Philip found the Ethiopian and led him to saving faith? Both were prepared and both responded.

Next time, as we continue in Acts 10, we will see that just as the Ethiopian was ready for Philip, so too will Cornelius be ready for Peter.

Listen, God is even now preparing someone’s heart to receive His Son. There are a lot of Ethiopians and Cornelius’ out there. They are just waiting for a Philip or a Peter to come alongside and tell them about Jesus. Let me urge you to ask God if you might be the one to tell someone else the truth that every person must eventually hear and believe. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” So turn with me to Romans 10 and we will close.
*Romans 10:9-14
9 …if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;
10 for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.”
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him;
13 for “Whoever will call upon the name of the LORD will be saved.”
14 How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

How indeed?

~ Pray ~