Peter and Cornelius - Part 2
Only a Man
Acts 10v24-26
19th March 2011
We saw last week how God showed Peter a sheet full of animals that the Law of Moses had forbidden Jews to eat, and had told Peter to eat them. When Peter protested, God said "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean". Then some Gentiles knocked at his door and Peter realised that the vision had a broader meaning; it applied to people as well as to food. He welcomed them to his home, and agreed to go with them to the house of the Gentile who had sent them, who was called Cornelius.
The story continues:
Acts 10v24-26
The following day he [Peter] arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his
relatives and close friends.
As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence.
But Peter made him get up. "Stand up," he said, "I am only a man myself."
Already Peter had had his mind re-engineered; he was prepared to eat food contrary to what he'd been taught all his life. He understood that if God called it clean, then it was clean. He also understood that he could no longer consider Gentiles to be unclean, so he had invited Cornelius's messengers into his house. But it's one thing to understand the word of God, and another to do it, and yet another to keep doing it. Having entertained Gentiles, Peter now obeyed the word of God and visited Gentiles. This was another step forward in faith; it was hard for him to welcome Gentiles to his home, now he had the harder challenge of visiting them in theirs. But, again, he lived according to what God had shown him.
Since Cornelius was "devout and God-faring" (verse 2) I don't think he could have worshipped Peter as if he were divine. When he fell at Peter's feet then, it must have been just a show of human respect for a person he considered to be a great man. But Peter refused to receive such a welcome, "Stand up," he said, "I am only a man myself." Peter knew indeed that he was just a man, a sinner saved by grace. He knew he'd got many things wrong, and had betrayed Jesus in the past. He knew that:
- A Jew is no better than a Gentile
- A Christian is no better than an atheist
- A church leader is no better than another Christian
As his colleague, Paul, later wrote to the churches at Corinth and Ephesus:
1 Corinthians 15v10a
But by the grace of God I am what I am
Ephesians 2v8-10a
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -
not by works, so that no-one can boast.
For we are God's workmanship
Sure, we're not what we were. Certainly, God is working in us to gradually conform us to the likeness of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 3v18). But whatever this process has achieved so far is attributable to God's grace, mercy and power, and not to ourselves.