NOTES for Act 10:44-48; Act 11:1-10

This verse marks a turning point in the history of the Church. Before that, Peter and the other apostles preached, witnessed about Christ - and people responded, got baptized and were filled with Holy Ghost, while this always happened to people believing to the Unique God - with Jews (by faith). We see for the first time here a full conversion of the heathen – more again they are already filled with the Holy Spirit even before baptism, before the expressed confession. Therefore, from God was testified their membership to His people, and Peter not expecting such a thing, only remain to accomplish baptism. So the doors of the Church are opened for converted heathens. Let’s emphasize one more time that it is not by human decision that this came true, but by an evident Divine action.

Both in the history of the Church, and in our personal histories, we discover similar turning point. It sometimes seems to us that these changes are made by human beings hands, but this most probably means that we looked wrongly...

Peter’s encounter with Cornelius was a momentous event. It was momentous first of all from the standpoint of Church history: this was the first experience of the Kingdom by a person who had no connection with the Jewish people. One might, of course, also recall the Ethiopian eunuch, but nothing is said about his experience at the moment of baptism. Here, however, the sacred writer essentially describes a new Pentecost on a local scale, connected with the household of Cornelius. It would be more accurate, though, to call this event a continuation of Pentecost, which this time touched people who were faithful to the God of Israel but had no connection with the Jewish people. Peter sees in this the fulfillment of what the ancient prophets had spoken about.

Even before the Babylonian exile, it had been revealed to them that with the Messiah’s coming God would become the God not only of the Jews, but also of Gentiles seeking truth, whatever nation they belonged to. Now that time had come, although not quite in the way many believing Jews had expected. At the time, most Jews, including Jewish Christians, were convinced that anyone seeking the Messiah and the Kingdom must first become a Jew by embracing Judaism. Jewish identity in those days was an ethnoreligious phenomenon, and anyone who embraced Judaism in its fullness was considered a Jew. Only afterward, having become a Jew, could a person hope for something greater. In reality, however, things proved otherwise.

God clearly showed Peter that for Him there is no insurmountable barrier between a Jew and a member of any other nation, provided that the person is seeking the Kingdom. Judaism is only a means, not an end. It is needed as the form in which Revelation is clothed. But this form is not absolute, and it may well happen that recent Gentiles find the Messiah and enter the Kingdom without identifying themselves with it in any way.

That is what happened with Cornelius. He did not embrace Judaism or become a Jew, but the breath of the Kingdom descended upon him, and he entered the Kingdom. Only baptism remained, for to become an inhabitant of the Kingdom one must part with one’s former life, and without baptism this is impossible. But God required nothing more from Cornelius or his household. Faithfulness to God and to Christ proved sufficient. This is understandable: the Kingdom is founded not on religion, but on this faithfulness.

The Lord revealed to Peter, and through him to the other apostles and brothers, that Gentiles should no longer be regarded as unclean people with whom association was impossible. This means that the rules of ritual impurity which Jews had observed for centuries were no longer binding in Christ. They had been necessary to separate the people called by God from the Gentiles; now, however, the Lord Himself was calling the Gentiles to Him, and it was time for the children of Israel to go to them and preach the Gospel. Thus the Lord removes the barriers between peoples. But there is more to it. Apparently, Christ's sacrifice on Golgotha mysteriously affected the whole world, including those who had never heard of it. Such people remain dependent on pagan ideas and demonic powers, but the dominion of darkness over them has already been weakened.

Cornelius was baptized with his whole household, but the Holy Spirit descended upon those who believed even before their baptism. This had evidently happened for the first time. It not only signified God's mercy toward believers from among the Gentiles, but was also a sign to believers from among the circumcised, showing that the Spirit blows where He wills and can therefore act among those who do not fit customary ideas of ritual purity or spiritual stature. Perhaps people initially distant from faith come to it precisely because the call of the Holy Spirit has touched their hearts...

Today's reading describes an event that becomes another, very important, testimony to the Kingdom's entry into the world. It concerns the conversion to Christ of a Roman centurion, a “commander of a hundred,” named Cornelius. He evidently belonged to the proselytes sometimes called “God-fearers” in the New Testament books (vv. 1–2). According to the evangelist's account, he received a revelation from God that, for his salvation, it was absolutely necessary to meet Peter, who would tell him something of fundamental importance (vv. 3–6). From the outset, this undoubtedly meant that Cornelius needed to hear the news of Christ. What made the situation unusual, however, was that Cornelius and his family were to become the first Christians who did not belong to the Jewish people. Until then, it seems, all who accepted Christ had been Jews. In that context, the messianic movement was seen as an exclusively Jewish phenomenon, and the Church as part of the Synagogue, open only to Jews. Apparently, even Peter found the expansion of the Church's boundaries to include Gentiles utterly incredible, even Gentiles who had turned to the God of Abraham and, in essence, already ceased to be pagans. Yet the ancient prophets had said more than once that the way into the messianic Kingdom would open not only to the remnant of God's people, but also to people of other nations who would turn to the God of Israel at the end of time. In the Gospel era, however, all such prophecies were usually understood to mean that the Gentiles would first have to embrace Judaism in its entirety, be purified, and enter the Synagogue. Only then could they share in the Kingdom together with God's people. But God reveals something entirely different to Peter: He shows His servant that in the Kingdom, where everything has been cleansed, the former boundaries and rules of ritual purity cease to apply (vv. 10–16). The vision's practical meaning becomes clear to the apostle when Cornelius's messengers come to tell him of the centurion's revelation (vv. 17–20). Then the meaning of the vision becomes clear to him: he understands that the time has come for the ancient prophecies to be fulfilled, when the Gentiles will enter the Church, but not in the way the rabbinic tradition of that time had described (vv. 25–43). The Spirit of God's descent upon Cornelius and his whole household became proof of the truth of Peter's testimony (vv. 44–48). Of course, this expansion of the Church's boundaries was an event in its own right. But it was also practical proof of a very important truth: the possibility of entering the Kingdom is not tied to the religion a person professes, nor is it determined by their religiosity at all. Only a living relationship with God matters (vv. 34–35). And where it exists, the way into the Kingdom is open.

This is the story of how, once and for all, God separated His Church from every kind of nationalism. For God there are no "unclean peoples," no "rogue states." He is equally merciful to all, the righteous and the unrighteous, and anyone in any nation who acts according to truth is pleasing to Him.

That is in theory. In practice, we Christians have too often become bearers of all sorts of "anti-isms": anti-Semitism, anti-Islamism, anti-Americanism, and so on. The apostle Peter's hesitation can still be explained by the fact that he had been raised in the concepts of the separateness and election of his people. But how can our behavior be justified?

Fortunately, God acts actively to overcome these sinful prejudices: as soon as Cornelius's relatives and friends hear from Peter the first words of the Good News, He pours out His Spirit on them, thereby showing that His Church is for everyone.

The apostle Peter tells about the vision that became the beginning of a tremendous upheaval in the consciousness of the first Christians. Until very recently it had seemed obvious to them that only Jews were called by God to salvation. And now the Lord tells Peter that he is to consider nothing and no one unclean...

At the Lord's word the Gentiles received baptism with the Holy Spirit. And everything becomes simple and clear: if the Lord Himself is acting in people who until recently had been pagans, which of His disciples can hinder the Teacher? We do not know how the Lord turns to those He has chosen, and therefore we cannot know whom He chooses. One thing is obvious for us: we have no right to reject any person by saying that he is "not like us." For God nothing is impossible; He cleanses every person.

When Jewish Christians learned of the events in Cornelius's house, they were puzzled and even displeased. This is hardly surprising: it was not at all how they had imagined the Gentiles' entry into the Church. They had all, of course, read the prophetic books and knew what Peter knew: with the coming of the Messiah, the way to God, the way into the Kingdom, would open to everyone, including Gentiles who turned to the God of Israel and desired the Kingdom.

But they were certain that the way into the Kingdom, and therefore into the Church, passed through Judaism. Through tradition. Or rather, through Tradition with a capital T, for that was how they understood Judaism. How right were they? The question is not a simple one. Both Yahwism and the Judaism that grew out of it were dual in nature from the outset, and this duality is reflected in how they are described: both are often called religions of Revelation, in contrast to pagan religions in all their variety. Yet “religion of Revelation” is a definition dual in its very foundations.

Religion is always a human undertaking; Revelation is possible only as an act of God. Of course, human beings are always involved in the process of Revelation too, otherwise it has no meaning. But Revelation is not bound to religion as such. It merely uses religion's forms as necessary, filling them with new content. This new content, clothed in familiar forms, becomes Tradition. If only the forms remain and are made absolute, the capital letter disappears and Tradition becomes tradition. Religion now predominates, for it can exist on its own, without any Revelation at all.

Christianity as such has never been a religion, but Christians of the first two or three generations actively used the traditional forms of the Jewish religion. For them this was, of course, Tradition with a capital T: they borrowed from Judaism precisely as much as was needed to give form to the new Christian Revelation. But now the breath of the Kingdom touched those to whom these forms, even if known, were essentially foreign—those for whom Judaism was not their native tradition.

What was to be done? They could have taken the simplest route and required everyone entering the Church to become acquainted with Judaism and accept Jewish tradition as their own. But God evidently decided otherwise. He did not require Cornelius to convert to Judaism. And the Christians of Jerusalem made their choice: they accepted God's decision. They gave up the priority of their Tradition in favor of the freedom of the Kingdom, without which there is no Christianity. In doing so, they allowed God to act freely, as inhabitants of the Kingdom should.

The first reaction of the apostles and the other brothers to Peter's fellowship with the Gentiles was negative; they still set Jews and Gentiles in opposition to one another. Even the apostles did not immediately grasp that what was familiar had passed away. But difficult does not mean impossible, and after Peter told them how everything had happened, the brothers' reaction proved approving. Their attachment to familiar ideas is free of the Pharisaic formalism in which confidence in one's own rightness blocks the possibility of seeing the truth.

Quite often, when something is revealed to us that seems incompatible with our established ideas, we risk rejecting it. In that case, we mistake the degree of our capacity to receive the truth for the fullness of the truth itself. But the Lord raises us above our habitual level, and when we see new horizons, we do not abandon our former experience but begin to understand it better thanks to the new perspective.

Today's reading describes the Christians' reaction to the conversion of Cornelius and his family. For the Church, such a conversion was, without question, an extraordinary event. The first reaction to the news of it was, as we can see, hostile bewilderment (vv. 1-3).

There is nothing surprising here: even after entering the Kingdom, a person does not lose his individual characteristics, unless, of course, they contain sin. And until now the Christians had been only Jews who strictly observed the norms of ritual purity, as well as the other rules of the Jewish religion. Such devotion to their religion in itself, as we can see, did not keep them either from entering the Kingdom or from remaining in it; otherwise they could not have remained members of the Church. But now, when God had opened the way into the Church for proselytes who did not belong to the Jewish community, the question arose before them of how to respond to this fact.

It is interesting to note that Peter, while telling everything that had happened, does not even try to justify his actions with any religious arguments, evidently understanding no worse than his listeners that there are no such arguments. He simply tells them about the action of the Spirit of God, of which he had become both witness and participant (vv. 4-16). The only argument he gives lies outside the bounds of religion: Peter can appeal only to God and His will (v. 17). Then those who listened to him faced a choice: to accept Peter's testimony or to reject it as inconsistent with traditional religious norms.

The choice was serious enough, because religiosity, if one does not treat it lightly, permeates a person's whole life, shaping him in many ways and determining his system of values. It is very hard for a spiritually serious person to give up religion. This is why God does not prevent religious people from taking their religion with them into the Kingdom. But only insofar as it does not destroy the Kingdom itself or violate its laws. If religion forces a person to stand in the way of someone who seeks the Kingdom and whom God wants to bring into this Kingdom, then such religion must be parted with; otherwise the one clinging to his religion will part with the Kingdom. And the Christians, after listening to Peter, made their choice (v. 18): they chose the Kingdom.

The Book of Acts is not so much the history of the early Church as the history of the Holy Spirit acting in the Church. The apostles and all the disciples are guided, directed, and instructed by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit decides whether an uncircumcised Roman officer may be baptized; He indicates where and why the apostles are to go; He gives prophecies that shape the life of Christians. Yet in most episodes this action of the Spirit is mentioned almost in passing, as something self-evident, as though it could not be otherwise. But you and I know how very different things can be in our own lives. Which of us can boldly say that our actions are guided exclusively by the Holy Spirit? What has changed? The Spirit of God has remained Himself, and human nature has remained the same... Perhaps the issue is our faith? Or our boldness? Or our love?

Did the Cypriots and Cyrenians who came to Antioch know of Cornelius' conversion and Peter's vision? They probably did, but even if they did not, this only confirms that it was God's will for the hour to come when preaching should be addressed not only to Hellenistic Jews but also to Greeks. This is stated briefly: the hand of the Lord was with them. Yet that is enough to understand that preaching to the Gentiles was blessed by Him.