In Acts 10, God speaks to Peter with a crazy vision of a sheet and
every kind of animal, clean and unclean, acceptable and unacceptable, according
to Jewish law. God tells Peter to eat. Peter says “no”; I won’t go against my
traditions to obey you. “No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish
laws have declared impure and unclean.”But the voice spoke again: “Do not call
something unclean if God has made it clean.” (Acts 10:14-15)
God was preparing Peter to take a big step out of his religious comfort
zone and take the Jesus story to non-Jews, Gentiles. So Peter goes to Cornelius’s
house. Cornelius was a Roman centurion, a Gentile, who loved God, but didn’t know
Jesus. Here’s the big step, Peter enters his home, and says, “You all realize that it is
forbidden for a Jew to associate or visit with outsiders. However, God has
shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.” (Acts 10:28)
Peter
realizes the barriers must be removed; the walls of religious traditions,
manmade barriers of pride and personal prejudice must come down. The gospel is
for everyone. “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism
but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” (Acts
10:34)This is a radical reversal of all Peter had been taught, believed and
practiced as an orthodox Jew. This opens up the gospel to everyone. Peter
affirms the universality of the gospel- all nations, all people groups,
everyone and anyone, can receive forgiveness of sins and have a forever
relationship with God.
Don’t
miss this, the giant leap is not simply that outsiders are in, but that there
are no outsiders in God’s Kingdom- no religious laws or hoops to jump
through to earn God’s forgiveness. No one is outside God’s love and grace. We
must not set up manmade rules, traditions, or prejudices that keep people from
God and His gospel. “God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation
the one who fears him and does what is right.” (Acts 10:34-35) God is inclusive
not exclusive. He did everything necessary to include anyone who would believe
in Him.
His
church must tear down any barriers between people and the cross, and we dare
not construct barriers that would exclude others from God or His Truth. God’s
love and grace are available to everyone. We must break down any human or
religious distinctions that separate people from God, His truth and His church.
“In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew,
slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are
all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 3:28) In
God’s Kingdom we are not to divide people into categories and treat them like
outsiders.
