Then Came the Spirit

The Gospel of Jesus Christ had come to reconcile the sinful and rebellious man to the Holy and Righteous God

With the Gospel, we’ve seen the Holy Spirit come to the Jews at Pentecost; then to the Samaritans…now...

That coming collision of worlds had occured; the Gospel had been brought to the Gentiles

Reconciliation between the Gentiles—not the people of God—and the God who had promised to bless all people through Abraham, had come

Pastor Sean hinted at this last week with a brief comment on the thought of reconciliation…unknowingly setting me up for this piece of Scripture

Ephesians 2:11–16 “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

No more Jews and Gentiles, merely one people—believers in the true God through His Son Jesus Christ

Now we unpack our morning’s text

The Arrival of the Spirit

This bears many similarity to the day of Pentecost—interestingly, today is celebrated as Pentecost Sunday in the calendar of the historic church—I did NOT plan it this way

In a way it’s the third similar event: the original, the falling of the Spirit on the Samaritans, now upon the Gentiles

We will note that these are exceptional events…not to be considered the norm as the young church continues to develop

The first critical note from the text: it happened “…while Peter was still saying these things...”

He had made no call for repentance, he hadn’t given an invitation, he hadn’t called for them to pray the sinner’s prayer—it was the simple power of the Word of God that provoked belief—saving faith

We also note, “all who heard;” entirely possible that should be taken that all those who heard the message truly believed

With faith came this outpouring of the Spirit

This is where we can get into some trouble—the matter of tongues

Underlying word is glossa also translated as languages…

There is no need to understand this as ecstatic languages—merely other languages which they did not know, and not naturally acquired (Wuest); could have been Aramaic, Hebrew or other regional languages

Assuming the men from Joppa to be now-believing Jews, to hear them speaking in Hebrew would have been a major source of amazement

Imagine if they had been extolling God by reciting the Psalms in Hebrew, maybe the words of the Shema, other commonly used statements from among the Jewish culture—just a bit of sanctified speculation

The Amazement of the Believers

Since the previous displays of the Spirit had been to Jews and Samaritan—who at least had a marginal keeping of the Law, the men would have been astonished that the Spirit would come to people without the law—uncircumcised--

This would be a major lesson—an eye-opening moment for them

It would be those men from Joppa whom Peter would direct to...

The Administration of the Ordinance

Peter’s question, “…can anyone withhold water...” was largely rhetorical—it didn’t require a verbal response; the answer should have been obvious

Let’s get this done…NOW

Then, there’s that matter of baptism into the name of Jesus Christ…things that make you go “hmmmmm”

5th century bishop, Chrysostom: By giving the Spirit to Cornelius and his household before their baptism, God gave Peter a mighty reason or justification for giving them water-baptism. Yet in a sense their baptism ‘was completed already, for God had done it. Peter was clear that ‘in no one point was he the author, but in every point God’. It was as if Peter said: ‘God baptized them, not I”

We may be curious about the lack of the formula “…Father, Son and Holy Ghost” understand that this command was the authority of Jesus Christ, the formula was not at issue;

They were God-seekers, they were brought to a knowledge of the Son and the Spirit showed up in power

The Additional Training

The group wanted some additional teaching…NOW

Though they had the Holy Spirit, they wanted, and arguably needed, the presence of believers who had been living the Christian life for some time to teach them in a more personal way

We’re not told how long Peter and his entourage stayed, nor exactly what they said

If the offshoot of the time spent there was indeed the origin of the Palestinian Christian traditions, we can see they did their jobs well

We see here that reconciliation was now complete…Jewish believers teaching Gentiles believers; brothers teaching brothers

Our Takeaways

Give the Gospel

Romans 10:14 ESV

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

It need not be complex—Peter’s message here was pretty simple

He put it into the context of those men in that time

Let’s learn to do the same

Let the Spirit Do His Work

The Spirit proves the validity of the one who has faith—it may not look like it did there and then, but should be obvious when we see the fruit of the Spirit in the believers

Urge Participation in the Ordinances

We have two: baptism by immersion, the Lord’s Supper

Participation in Additional Teaching

As a student, and as a teacher…as may be appropriate

We may never…probably will never find ourselves in a saga such as Peter here in chapt. 10

Remember Pastor Sean’s bit of “sanctified speculation” could the Palestinian Christians be the spiritual descendents of this group?

What if…Peter had been stubborn—even more than we’ve seen

We must know the Gospel

We must be able to contextualize the Gospel

Some may be most concerned about eternity…some not

Some may be most concerned about peace in life today…seeing their world spinning out of control

We must be able to present the Gospel