Acts 10:46b-48 Then Peter replied, 47“Is anyone able to withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit like we also?” 48And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.
Verse 47 assumes Peter asked the question to the other Jewish believers who came from Joppa with him. They all may have been in the same mindset as Peter before this event, focused only on the “lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). Peter could have simply been asking a rhetorical question, like Philip in 8:36. However, verse 48 is a strong assertion with the word commanded or ordered (prosetaxen). Some of the Jewish believers may have been reluctant at first to accept Cornelius and his household, so Peter had to assert his apostlic authority. No genuine believer can or should dispute the power and work of the Holy Spirit.
The evidence was clear to everyone gathered that God was at work in the lives of these Gentiles. The question becomes the purpose of the baptizing. Baptism would mark these Gentiles as believers in the Messiah and also incorporate them into the group of believers. Essentially, they would become part of Christ’s church by being baptized. Their baptism would mark a departure in thinking for many Jewish believers. The power of the Holy Spirit was needed to convince the Jewish believers that the Gentiles should be included in the church. Peter’s sermon may have been interrupted by the coming of the Holy Spirit as Peter said, “everyone who believes.” God’s will was clear to everyone that his kingdom was for the world.
The power of the name of Jesus Christ changed three groups in this story. First, Peter’s narrow thinking began to be challenged with his vision of the sheet and unclean animals. Every event after that helped him understand more deeply what God wanted from him. His sermon and response indicate that he had changed his thinking and grown in understanding God’s grace in Jesus Christ more deeply and expansively. Second, Cornelius, his household, and any friends who had gathered to listen to Peter accepted Peter’s claims and believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their search for truth and God was completed in Jesus. Their lives became powerful testimonies of the transforming grace of God. Third, it can be assumed that the Jewish believers from Joppa who went with Peter to Caesarea also experienced a change in their thinking because of what they saw and experienced. There is no hint that they resisted the movement of the Holy Spirit, even though Peter commanded the baptism, but they accepted God’s new work along with Peter. They followed through with the baptism, which would have been quite the celebration. God’s grace draws people like Cornelius to an ecounter with a believer who can share the good news of hope and salvation through Jesus.
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