What God has Made CleanActs 9:32-10:23by William Klock

Back in 2012 Barack Obama, in what became something of an infamous campaign speech, told business owners, “You didn’t build that.” His point was that private business relies on public infrastructure, but most people just heard him dismissing their hard work as irrelevant to the businesses they had built. It wasn’t a good campaign move. But that line keeps coming back to my mind as I read the closing verses of Act 9. Amazing things were happening in the church. The apostles were doing amazing things. The church was growing by leaps and bounds. And in the middle of it all, Luke says, “You didn’t build that. Jesus did.” You might remember back to when we first started out look at Acts and I said that even though we call the book “the Acts of the Apostles,” what Luke really makes clear throughout is that this is really about the acts of Jesus—picking up where the Gospel left off. It’s just that now Jesus is working indirectly through his people. We—and I can say that especially pastors—need this reminder. When we look at the church, when we’re tempted to take credit for the things we see happening, Luke reminds us: “You didn’t build that. Jesus did.” Brothers and Sisters, the glory—all of it—belongs to God and this long story of God and his people, of Israel and the church that continues today has one purpose and one purpose alone: to reveal God’s glory. Now,most of Chapter 9 was about Saul of Tarsus and his encounter with Jesus. That’s going to be important. But first Luke brings us back to Peter. We’ll pick up with 9:32 [page 1091 in the pew Bibles]: “As Peter was going through various places among all the believers, he went down to God’s people who lived in Lydda. There he found a paralyzed man named Aeneas who had been confined to bed for eight years. “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus the Messiah heals you! Stand up and fold up your bed!” And at once he stood up. Everyone who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw it, and they turned to the Lord.In Joppa [today it’s Jaffa not too far from Tel Aviv] there was a disciple named Tabitha, whose name translates as Dorcas. She was full of good works and generous deeds. Around that time she fell ill and died. They washed her and laid her in an upper room. Lydda is near Joppa, and the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the urgent request that he shouldn’t delay, but come to them at once. So Peter got up and went with them. When he arrived, they took him to the upper room, where all the widows were weeping. They showed him the tunics and the other clothes that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter requested them all to leave. Then he knelt down and prayed, and turned to the body. “Tabitha,” he said, “get up!” She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. He gave her his hand and lifted her up. Then he called God’s people, including the widows, and presented her alive. This became known throughout the whole of Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Peter stayed on in Joppa for some days, at the house of Simon the tanner.” I don’t want to spend too much time on this interlude. Surely there were other wonderful things happening, but Luke focuses us on Peter and the healing of Aeneas and the raising of Dorcas and in them he gives a sense of the church’s growth through Judaea. Dorcas is interesting, because she seems to have lived in a community of widows—and we know that was one group, one demographic where the gospel spread early on—to a group of women living with poverty and grief. Jesus was good news. But I think Luke’s key point in these verses is in the words of Peter when he told Aeneas to get up: “Jesus the Messiah heals you!” Not just, “Get up.” Not, “I’ve healed you.” “Jesus the Messiah heals you.” Peter knew who was at work. Jesus—and the Spirit—are behind everything we do as the church. And we need to be reminded of this sometimes. Sometimes when we’re tempted to take the credit for things. Sometimes when we get frustrated with a lack of things happening or with what seems like too slow a pace and we wish bigger things would happen faster in the church. Brothers and Sisters, it’s Jesus’ church, not ours. He’s the one who makes things happen. If Saul’s conversion isn’t proof of that, then nothing is. Trust Jesus. Wait on Jesus. Give Jesus the credit. And then there’s one other detail here. Peter’s staying at the home of Simon the Tanner. This says something about who the first Christians were. Tanning was dirty, smelly work. It didn’t necessarily make you unclean as people used to think, but it was nasty work and it put tanners on the social fringe of society. But Peter doesn’t shrink from Simon’s hospitality. He stays at his house, even though it probably stinks to high heaven. Most people would think he was crazy, but Brothers and Sisters, this is what the gospel does. It makes people of unlikely—and even unsavoury backgrounds—family. Now, Luke goes on in 10:1. “In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion with the cohort called the Italian.” He was devout, and he and all his household revered God. He gave alms generously to the people, and constantly prayed to God.” As Twenty-first century Christians we might miss how significant these two verses are. Luke says that there’s a centurion named Cornelius at Caesara. Caesarea was the main Roman base in Judaea. It was a port city built by Herod the Great to funnel all the shipping into one place to make it easier for him to tax. But it was also the home of the Roman governor. It wasn’t a backwater. It was a significant outpost of the Roman Empire and a centurion stationed there—a centurion was the commander of a unit of one hundred soldiers—he had some status. Cornelius had the respect of his Roman superiors. But then Luke says that he was “devout”—eusebes. He was godly, pious, and reverent, not in a vague religious sense, but towards the God of Israel. He was generous with his money so far as the local Jewish community was concerned, and he was constant in his prayer, again, to the God of Israel. That wasn’t unheard of, but it was unusual. I’ve said before, there was this group of people, gentiles, pagan in their background, whom the Jews called “God-fearers”. They were attracted to the God of Israel, to the purity of Jewish life, and to the community they saw there. Remember, pagan life in the pre-Christian world was mean and brutal and merciless. The gods were mean and brutal and merciless too—along with being unknowable and fickle. Sexual immorality was everywhere. Women and slaves existed to satisfy the desires of men. In the upper classes, boys were initiated into adulthood through sex with older men. Marriage was pragmatic and divorce was common. So were abortion and infanticide. When you look around the world today and you see the darkness and the brokenness around you and know in your bones that this is not how God meant for things to be, the pre-Christian pagan world was much, much worse. And for all of Israel’s failings, she still stood out as a light in the darkness. And a lot of the pagans, seeing that, mocked Israel. But some were drawn to it. They didn’t go all the way. They had their reasons. A centurion like Cornelius, for example, would probably have to give up his career—or would be forced out of it—if he was circumcised and chose to live by torah.So it’s interesting—because the progression of the story in Acts will eventually lead us with Paul to Rome. And it sort of starts here, although it starts with Peter. And the first Roman we meet breaks all the stereotypes. He wasn’t one of those soldiers who took pleasure in abusing the local Jewish people. He wasn’t one of those Romans doing unspeakable things at the bathhouse. Caesarea had a huge temple—built by Herod!—a huge temple to the goddess Roma and to Caesar Augustus. And I can imagine Cornelius going there and going through the motions for his job, but he wasn’t the sort to otherwise frequent the pagan temples. He’s a little like Jesus’ good Samaritan. He’s supposed to be the enemy. Everyone wants him to be the enemy. Everyone wants to hate him. But he’s actually a good guy and even the Jews in his community grow to respect him. So, Luke goes on in verse 3: Cornelius ‘had a vision. Around three o’clock in the afternoon he saw, quite clearly, one of God’s angels coming to him. “Cornelius!” said the angel. He looked hard at him, terrified. “What is it, Lord?” he said. “Your prayers and your alms have come to God’s notice,” said the angel. “What you must do is this. Send men to Joppa, and ask for someone called Simon, surnamed Peter. He is staying with a man called Simon, a tanner, whose house is beside the sea.” When the angel who had spoken with him went away, he called two of his household and a devout soldier from among his retinue. He explained everything to them, and sent them off to Joppa.” So God’s obviously been working in Cornelius for a while now and he’s been doing it through his people and their witness. This why God created a special people. And Cornelius has been hearing the scriptures—probably in the local synagogue. But that’s not enough. I mean, even as far at the old covenant went, that wasn’t enough. He wasn’t circumcised. He didn’t live according to torah—except maybe in a few ways easy for a gentile to do. He’d never taken part in Passover. He couldn’t enter the temple. He was drawn to God, but he was still far away. He could see the hope that Israel embodied, but it wasn’t his hope. But even life on the fringe of Israel, even life looking towards a God he couldn’t actually approach, was better than pagan life. And this sets things up for where the gospel is going to go and how it’s going to challenge the church. Because up until this point, the gospel, Jesus were still very much a Jewish thing. To be a Christians was to continue to be a Jew, but to be a Jew living in the fulfilment of the covenant and of God’s promises to you and to your people. But—this is key to the book of Acts—for those promises to be fulfilled also meant that Israel’s calling to be a light to the nations, to make God known amongst them, to set them to rights had to be fulfilled. And bringing gentiles to fringes of the people of God, to make them attracted to the family, but to leave them still outside—that wasn’t fulfilment of God’s promises. It anticipated the fulfilment, but somehow the new people of God and the Spirit had to fully incorporate the nations. But up to this point, it seems like those first Christians—pretty much all Jews except for the Samaritans—who were like quasi-Jews—and the Ethiopian eunuch, whom at this point they may not have even known about yet—the idea of Jesus bringing the nations under his rule through the gospel, it doesn’t really seem to have been on the radar. That was the part of the promises that Israel had kind of forgotten—and when they did remember it, they thought of it mostly in terms of God coming on the gentiles and their kings in judgement to rain down his wrath—not his mercy and grace. And, well, those first Jewish Christians also had plenty on their plate already just proclaiming the gospel in Jerusalem and Judaea. So, again, it’s God who moves things forward—just as he’d done with the Samaritans. And angel appears to Cornelius. Send for Peter in Joffa. And so Cornelius chooses two of his servants and one of his soldiers who is also a God-fearer to fetch Peter. I had to pause there for a bit, because it sounds like Cornelius is devout enough that he’s been sort of an evangelist for Judaism even though he isn’t even a Jew. That’s pretty remarkable. Now, verse 9, Luke takes us about fifty kilometres down the coast, to Joppa and to Peter: “The next day, as they were on their journey and getting near the town, Peter went up onto the roof of the house to pray. It was around midday; he was hungry, and asked for something to eat. While they were preparing it, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened, and a vessel like a great sail coming down toward the earth, suspended by its four corners. In the sail there was every kind of four-footed creature, reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.’ So it starts out pretty ordinary: Peter’s hungry and while he’s waiting for his lunch he falls asleep and dreams about a banquet coming down from heaven. But then he looks at what’s on this great linen picnic cloth and there’s everything. Clean animals good for food, but also forbidden unclean animals. He’s perplexed. Why would he dream about eating unclean things. That’s gross. ‘Then he heard a voice: “Get up, Peter!” said the voice. “Kill and eat!” “Certainly not, Lord!” said Peter. “I’ve never eaten anything common or unclean!” Peter was a good Jew. He lived by torah. Diet—along with circumcision and keeping the sabbath—were the big things that marked out the Jews from everyone else. God had chosen Israel, he’d rescued them from Egypt, he’d set them apart, he’d come to live in their midst, and he’d given them his law to set them apart from the nations—to be a holy people. And out of gratitude for the Lord’s grace—not to earn anything, but out of gratitude—they did their best to be obedient. It was their way of being faithful in response to the Lord’s faithfulness. For the Lord to tell Peter to eat, say, a pig, well, he might just as well have told him to break the Sabbath or to go worship at a pagan temple. To break the law was to break faith with the God of Israel. Peter was shocked. He was confused. Was this really the Lord speaking? Verse 15: “What God has made clean,” said the voice, coming now for a second time, “you must not regard as common.” And just to make a point, verse 16: ‘This all happened three times, and then suddenly the sail was whisked back up to heaven.’ Luke writes, ‘When Peter came to himself, he was puzzled as to what the vision he had seen was all about.’ No kidding. I bet he was confused. Why would the Lord tell him that something clearly unclean isn’t actually unclean. Had God changed his mind? I don’t think Peter would go in that direction. He knew as well as anyone that God doesn’t change his mind like that. We’ll get back to that in a bit. I expect Peter started thinking about all those times he was with Jesus and Jesus did something that seemed like it was against torah, but then showed how God was doing something new, how God was fulfilling what torah had always been pointing toward. But before he had time to work it all through, Luke says, ‘Suddenly, the men sent by Cornelius appeared, standing by the gate. They had been asking for Simon’s house, inquiring if someone by the name of Simon called Peter was staying there. Peter was still pondering the vision when the Spirit spoke to him.“Look,” said the spirit. “There are three men searching for you. It’s all right; get up, go down, and go with them. Don’t be prejudiced; I have sent them.” So Peter went down to the men.“Here I am,” he said. “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?” “There is a man called Cornelius,” they replied. “He is a centurion, and he’s a righteous and God-fearing man. The whole people of the Jews will testify to him. A holy angel told him in a vision to send for you to come to his house, so that he can hear any words you may have to say.” So he invited them in and put them up for the night.” When he met the soldiers at the door everything started to make sense. It wasn’t about the food. The Lord didn’t care what Peter ate. Peter could never eat a nice bacon-wrapped shrimp—and the Lord would be sad for him missing out on the wonder of a bacon-wrapped shrimp—but it was no moral failure on Peter’s part. It wasn’t about food; it was about people. If we put ourselves in Peter’s shoes, a first century Jewish fisherman, it makes sense. Because for someone like him, it wasn’t just what you ate, it was just as much who you ate with. Jews didn’t eat with gentiles. They didn’t even go into their houses. Because even if a gentile wasn’t serving you obviously unclean food, like a shrimp or a porkchop, you never knew where that food might have come from. It might be meat that was offered to an idol and bought from the butcher shop behind the temple. In the Jewish mind, gentile homes always ran the risk of corpse defilement. The gentiles didn’t take the same care with their dead that the Jews did, plus they aborted their infants and threw them in the privy. Who knows how you might find yourself defiled if you consorted with gentiles or ate their food. And to let yourself be defiled that way, well, it was to dishonour God. Even a God-fearer like Cornelius. A soldier? He was probably regularly defiled by corpses. He ate bacon. Even if he didn’t really worship them, he spent time around idols. If you were a Roman soldier there was no escaping it. And I can easily picture Peter, meeting Cornelius’ God-fearing men at the door and, even though he hasn’t had a chance to work it all through, something clicks. Again, it wasn’t actually about the food. It was about people. In the Jewish mind, these men were pigs: unclean, idolaters. But God had told him: “Don’t be prejudiced against these men. I’ve sent them.” And so he let them into the house. I expect there was more to it than Luke tells us. Peter hadn’t had a chance to tell any of this to his hosts. It’s not hard to image their, “But…um…Peter…uh…what are you doing…not in my house.” And in those days, to welcome someone into your house was to offer them hospitality. His host had just made Peter lunch and now Peter’s going to invite these unclean Romans to sit and share it with him. This went against everything. But the Lord had been clear: “Don’t be prejudiced against them. Do not call common what I have made clean.” It’ll take a bit for Peter to work the implications of this all the way through, but he knew what to do and I’m sure he was already starting to wrap his head around what the Lord was doing. You see, our problem is this. Because of the secular thinking that’s been ingrained into us, when we hear the Lord say not to be prejudiced and not to call common what he has made clean, our first thought is something like “God changed his mind” or maybe we’re thinking something like, “Good, it was about time God set those prejudiced Jews straight”—as if their keeping apart from gentiles was wrong. In our culture, the default view is that all religion are the same. We rankle at the idea that a person’s religious views might be wrong. I’ve pointed out before that, first, this modern idea of “religion” didn’t exist in the First Century. But the bigger mistake we make is to think that there was something wrong with the law, with torah, with the way Jews kept themselves apart. And that’s not it at all. If that’s what we’re thinking, then we’re the ones with a prejudice that needs to be removed. Brothers and Sisters, the law was good. The law was God’s gift to his people—and through them to the nations. When God tells Peter not to call common what he has made clean, it’s really important that we hear this properly, because I think we’re prone to misreading this as God saying, “You’ve mistakenly called common what I’ve called clean”—as if Leviticus and the rest of torah were a mistake. No. Cornelius, Romans, gentiles, pagan idolaters were unclean. They are still unclean today. The law hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that Jesus has shed his blood to purify, to wash clean—not just his own people, Israel, but every last one of us, Jew and gentiles alike. If we will hear the good news that he has died, that he has risen, and that he is Lord; if we have heard the good news that his blood washes away our sin and our idolatry and the stain of death; if we have heard the good news that he is setting this broken world to rights; if we have heard the good news that in his Spirit, God is fulfilling his promise to build a new temple and to dwell with is people; if we have heard this good news and believed, we are no longer unclean. Jesus washes away our sin, he washes away our idolatry, he fills us with God’s Spirit. Jew and gentile alike, and he makes us holy. God didn’t change his mind. He didn’t retract his previous word. I can remember once as a young kid in a parking lot, getting distracted, dawdling, and getting left behind when my mom crossed a busy thoroughfare. Being a kid, blind to traffic, I was just going to run across to catch up with my mom. But she noticed what had happened and she yelled at me to stay put. It sticks in my mind, because a complete stranger, seeing what was happening, grabbed my shoulder and held me there when I was about to run. A moment later Mom told me to come to her, to run across that busy thoroughfare. And it wasn’t that she changed her mind. Something else changed. She told me to stay put the first time, because there was a car coming and she didn’t want me to run into its path. But then the car was gone. It was safe to run to her. And just so with the law and the gospel. The law kept Isreal holy so that she could live in God’s presence. The law kept gentiles away, because it’s not safe for what is impure, what is sinful, what is unclean to be in the presence of holiness. Brothers and Sisters, that hasn’t changed. Not one bit. What has changed is that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has made a way for us to be washed from the stain of sin and death, to be purified from our idolatry, and to be made holy. So holy, in fact, that God fills us with his own Spirit and makes us his temple. And that’s what God was communicating to Peter that day. Peter already understood all of that. He knew that the church, that Jesus’ people, filled with the Spirit were the fulfilment of God’s promise to return to his people, to rebuild his temple, and to live with them. But this was the day that God started to show his people: the blood of Jesus and the life of the Spirit weren’t just for Jews. In fact, to fulfil his promises, this new life was also for the gentiles. Jesus’ blood can wash them—can wash us—just as clean. And in that God reveals his faithfulness and his glory. And it is his glory, above all, that draws men and women to him in faith. Just like Cornelius. This is only half the story here in Acts. I’m already going long. We’ll finish it next week. But this is the takeaway. Not so much something you can do, but something you need to know, to understand, so that you can see the glory of God better. He doesn’t change his mind. In the law, he didn’t give Israel something bad that he later had to revoke. It’s all part of the story of God and his people and his redemption of humanity and all of creation. It’s a progressive revelation of himself through promise and fulfilment and at each step of the way, as we see God’s goodness, his love, his faithfulness, his glory is ever more revealed. That’s is, I think, how we should think of “law and gospel”. There’s been a lot in the history of the church that has mucked that up, but think on Peter and Cornelius this week—maybe go home and at some point read the rest of the story in preparation for next week—and see the goodness and faithfulness of God—and give him glory. And as you do, do so in joyful anticipation, knowing that one day, through our witness, through our proclamation of Jesus, the knowledge of that glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Let’s pray: Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.