Word of Salvation – Vol. 20 No.49 – September 1974

 

The Gentile Pentecost

 

Sermon by Rev. J. de Kievit, Th.Grad. on Acts 11:2,3,17,18

Scripture Reading: Acts 10:44 – 11:18

Psalter Hymnal: 187:1,2,4,6; 430:1,3 (Conf. of sin); 260 (After rule of gratitude);
            194:1,2,3; 400:1,2,3,4; 400:5 (Doxology)

 

Every year again, ESPECIALLY around the time of Pentecost, we hear a fair bit of talk about the baptism with the Holy Spirit after Pentecostalist fashion.  There is the stress on the speaking in tongues and all that goes with it.  And we are assured by people who are caught up in this that these are all things which flow from the Spirit of God.

Now, most likely we can accept that – to some extent at least – from people who firmly believe in Jesus Christ as the only Saviour through His atoning work.  We may not agree with the stress they put on these things; nor with the importance they attach to them – and yet we should all recognise that the Spirit of God can indeed give exceptional gifts TO WHOMEVER HE CHOOSES!  There is no point in us being negative about this – UNLESS we have a more Biblical view of all the unusual events we meet – in the book of Acts particularly.

And isn’t this the trouble so often?  We may condemn, but we become confused and embarrassed when we are pointed to the many miracles which occurred among believers in the early church.  We don’t know what to do with them.

Yet, we become rather uneasy – and rightly so – when we hear of Pentecostalist claims even from people among whom there is little left of the Gospel.  It is even claimed at times that Pentecostal miracles can happen in some Buddhist sects, or in voodoo groups in South America.

ARE Pentecostalists claiming too much for themselves therefore?

ARE they basing their faith too much on strange and spectacular things rather than on the Person and work of our Saviour?

Of course, we cannot answer these questions for all Pentecostalists.  But in our text we find the signs of Pentecost become the cause of rejoicing within the Jewish church in Jerusalem.  And we find these same signs become a proof to US that we as Christians really belong to God’s People.

Yes, that may sound a bit strange.  It may seem strange that the things which happened there in the home of Cornelius assure us that we are real Christians!

But when you think about it, it is not only Pentecostalists who claim a lot for themselves.

Aren’t we also claiming a TREMENDOUS LOT when we say that we are people of God (through the Lord Jesus Christ, of course)?  And when we claim that we as a church belong to the true Israel of God?

Where do we get our authority from in order to claim ANY of these things?  How DARE we?

After all, the people of God in Old Testament times were the Jews and the Jews only.  And perhaps some fellow-travellers who submitted to all the Jewish.  rules and regulations such as circumcision and the food-laws.

The covenant-privileges were restricted to them and no-body else!  And what is more, God HIMSELF had restricted His people within these boundaries.  God Himself had laid down the conditions for covenant-membership.

And who are WE then, to claim that we also belong to God’s people?  We are not even Jews!  We have not been circumcised.  We don’t keep any Old Testament ritual laws.  We hardly even KNOW them.

Have we ever thought about the tremendous privileges we claim?  Or do we just take them for granted?  Do we think that we have the right within ourselves to be included in the household of God?

Well, even if we hardly think about this, these questions were certainly uppermost in the minds of the Jerusalem Christians.  Because the news had filtered through that Peter – one of Jesus’ own apostles – had not only eaten with Gentiles which meant taking in unclean food.  No, he had actually BAPTIZED them.  He had admitted them into the company of those who believed in the Name of Jesus the Messiah of God.

But how DARE he?  THAT was the question.

Now, we must understand well that the Church, up to this time, consisted only of Jews.  Even Pentecost and Peter’s famous sermon of that day had been addressed to Jews only.

And that was quite natural, because that very earliest church in Jerusalem was the true continuation of God’s Old Testament people.  Wasn’t Jesus a Jew?  And wasn’t He the fulfilment of all God’s Old Testament promises?  It would have been most UNNATURAL, in fact, if that church had consisted of anyone else BUT Jews!

But now Peter, by his actions, had opened the flood-gates!  With this as precedent there would be no stopping the invasion which would come into the Church.  The invasion of Gentiles – of the uncircumcised – of those who were strangers to all God’s promises and requirements!

But how dare he?  Peter had been bending God’s own rules, according to them.  Or at least he was claiming that God had changed His rules.  THAT’S why they criticized him.

Do we see the tremendous importance of their opinion, brothers and sisters?  Do we notice the seriousness of the charges they brought against Peter?

If it had been up to them, no Gentile would ever have set foot within the Church of Jesus Christ!  If they had had their say we today would never be able to make the claims we do make, without AT LEAST being circumcised and sub- mitting ourselves to the Jewish way of life.

And for this reason it is so comforting for us to find Peter’s report here of God’s dealings.  It is so assuring to read of His acceptance, also of Gentiles.  Because these happenings in Caesarea are not just a nice story of the happiness which came to a Roman centurion.  Nor do they merely form an illustration of the fact that every Christian should be able to speak in tongues.

No; what Peter reports here is of vital concern to us today.  Because, through the outpouring of the Spirit on Cornelius and his family, God HIMSELF took the initiative.  He Himself bent His own rules, so to speak.  So that we Gentiles of the 20th century might belong to God’s people just as much as Old Testament saints, and just as much as those Christians in Jerusalem.

And it was for this reason that the Lord acted here in such a spectacular way.  He never acts for mere show, or to make Christians feel happy or powerful or important.

No, He HAD to do it this way!  Because He was dealing with people who were typically stubborn and slow to understand!

For, as Peter explains, he too had been of exactly the same mind as these people who now criticized him.

The Lord Jesus may have said that His witness would go out to the ends of the world.  And even in the Old Testament there had been indications that in Abraham ALL families of the earth would be blessed.

But the implications of these statements had been too staggering, also for Peter.  He and the rest of the Church had simply not been able to grasp them.

And if it had been up to him too, there would have been no Gentiles within the walls of the church — or certainly very few!  As far as he had been concerned the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile was still up.

But the Lord Himself had knocked away his prejudices.  He had come to Peter in a vision, telling him to eat of clean and unclean animals alike.  And when Peter recoiled in horror the Lord had pressed him.  “What God has cleansed you shall not call common.”

THAT had been Peter’s lesson.  The Lord has cleansed ALL food through the cross of Christ.  And by implication He has opened up the whole Gentile world to the Gospel of salvation in His Son.

And it is important for us to realise that this was not just a PRIVATE lesson, for Peter alone, in a vision which nobody could check.  For then he might have had a rather thin defence before his critics.  And we too might have had a rather slender basis for our confidence in being children of God in Christ Jesus.

But no, IN PUBLIC, the Lord Himself testified with mighty signs and wonders: “While Peter was still preaching,” we read, “the Holy Spirit fell on them and they spoke in tongues, extolling God.”

And look how Peter explains these signs to the Church.  “God gave THE SAME GIFT to them as He gave to US when WE believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.”  THE SAME GIFT…!!!

You see, brothers and sisters?  This is THE most important thing about this whole episode!  This gift of the Holy Spirit to these Gentiles is “THE SAME” as the gift to the JEWS on the day of Pentecost!  In other words, this event at Cornelius’ home was really the Gentile Pentecost.  If we had to decide between them – which we don’t – then we could even say that this was OUR Pentecost rather than Pentecost in Jerusalem.

And Peter, therefore, confronted by the questions of a doubtful church, ASSURES these people.  “It’s alright!  I HAVEN’T gone against God’s will.  GONE are the differences between Jew and Gentile.  And circumcision, together with food- laws and all other ritual laws – they have all been done away in Christ!”

And therefore it is not nationality which counts anymore.  Nor culture; nor colour of skin, but faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God!  Because He is the Saviour of Gentiles, also of 20th century Gentiles just as much as He is the Saviour of all Jews who believe in Him.

THAT was the purpose the Lord had with His private lesson to Peter.  And that was the purpose He had also with the spectacular outpouring of His Spirit.  It had been necessary to convince the Gentiles as well as His Church that in Christ the New Age had REALLY BEGUN!  The New Age in which God’s grace would embrace not only Israel but the whole world and all its people.

And here therefore, at the home of Cornelius, was proclaimed what the Lord had foreshadowed to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the WORLD that He gave His only Son, that WHOEVER believes in Him should not perish but have ever- lasting life.”

And therefore to explain the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his family as an illustration of what can or should happen among believers is NOT to do justice to these events at all.  It means rather to degrade and distort them.  Because then we fail to see this unique moment in history when the Lord began publicly to accept also Gentiles into His Church.

And that would largely rob us of our certainty and confidence of our place among God’s people.

But there IS no difference anymore.  The Lord Himself has sealed that with His Spirit THAT is our confidence as we claim great privileges.

And, brothers and sisters, this is an assurance we need not only ourselves.  It is also something WE must remember over against others – that there is no difference in God’s eyes between people who are in Christ.  That the wall of partition HAS BEEN taken down, as Paul says, not only between Jew and Gentile but between all cultures, all races, all language-groups.

But isn’t this something, we still tend to forget so often?  From within the walls of our own comfort and security we so often impose our own standards and culture on OTHERS.

In the past, for example, and perhaps it still occurs today, many missionaries gave the impression that you could become a Christian only if you took up WESTERN patterns of behaviour, WESTERN standards of dress or WESTERN church- life!  Only if you left behind your own culture and style of life.  As if other cultures could not be used in the service of God!

This has been so bad at times that in many countries of the “Third World” God has been and is known as the “white man’s God.”  And Christianity as the “white man’s religion.”

And that can still persist today, even in Reformed circles.  After the last meeting of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod, held in Sydney, some delegates from the “3rd world” reportedly complained that too much time had been taken up, or wasted even, in dealing with often trivial problems of Western Churches, while many major problem of growing missionary churches were not even touched on.

This was most likely unintentional.  But what is really the difference between “western superiority” underlying these facts and the Jewish “superiority” underlying the criticism of Peter in Acts 11?

And don’t we run the same danger if we will accept Australian-born people into our churches only after trying to make Dutch church-men or women out of them?

But we must remember at all times, that God is NOT the white man’s God only.  Nor the God of any particular national group.  Just as little as He is the God of Jews only!

If we think that, then we forget the lesson Peter had to learn, and the Church had to learn – that God is the God for ALL men in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And therefore, the only way for us to react to this wonderful news is the way the Jerusalem church reacted in rejoicing and glorifying God!  And not only because WE have been accepted into the Saviour’s sheepfold.  But also because we are now privileged as Peter was to extend His invitation to all around us, far and near.

The Lord Jesus told His Church to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.  And here in Australia we ARE just about at the end of the earth.  We certainly are almost as far away from the land of Palestine as it is possible to get.

But even here – right at the end – there are many who are yet to hear the words of grace and acceptance in the Beloved.  And their number is increasing all the time.

And it is only if we see our task here as heralds of His grace, it’s only then we know the responsibilities which come with membership of God’s family.  It’s only then that we, like the church in Jerusalem, really glorify the Lord in a response of gratitude.

Amen.