The reception of the Gospel by Cornelius is one of several major turning points in the Acts of the Apostles. More than that, it’s a major turning point in the history of the Church. The events surrounding and depending upon the Spirit being poured out on that God-Fearing Centurian and his family and friends marks an indisputable change in Peter’s perception and the understanding of the Church as a whole. Peter’s entire argument – and the argument that wins the day at the great Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) – is built on the fact that God poured out his Spirit on gentiles who had not been circumcised nor were the careful followers of he Law; Cornelius wasn’t even a Proselyte, but was only a God-Fearer! And Acts 10 and 11 make a definitive contrast between the Gentiles who received the Holy Spirit and the ones “out of the Circumcision”. Luke is drawing on the events of that day to help us see the conflict that was building. Jews were OK with Gentiles (mostly) so long as they got circumcised, obeyed the Mosaic Law, and acted like Jews. But here are Gentiles who are very much not attempting to be Jewish, and yet the Holy Spirit came upon them in the same way that He came upon the Apostles in the upper room on Pentecost.
And as Luke develops this theme he uses a fun bit of wordplay that is impossible to catch in English.
Acts 10:20
“But get up, go down, and accompany them without hesitation, because I have sent them.”
ἀλλʼ ἀναστὰς κατάβηθι καὶ πορεύου σὺν αὐτοῖς μηδὲν διακρινόμενος ὅτι ἐγὼ ἀπέσταλκα αὐτούς.
Acts 11:2
So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took issue with him,
Ὅτε δὲ ἀνέβη Πέτρος εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ, διεκρίνοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν οἱ ἐκ περιτομῆς
Acts 11:12
The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.
εἶπεν δὲ τὸ πνεῦμά μοι συνελθεῖν αὐτοῖς μηδὲν διακρίναντα. ἦλθον δὲ σὺν ἐμοὶ καὶ οἱ ἓξ ἀδελφοὶ οὗτοι καὶ εἰσήλθομεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ ἀνδρός.
Acts 15:9
and he made no distinction between them and us, cleansing their hearts by faith.
καὶ οὐθὲν διέκρινεν μεταξὺ ἡμῶν τε καὶ αὐτῶν τῇ πίστει καθαρίσας τὰς καρδίας αὐτῶν.
So, a couple things out to be clear. First, the same Greek word can be translated a whole bunch of ways. The word we’re looking at specifically is διακρίνω (diakrino), which is a compound word of the preposition “δια” (dia) meaning “through” and the verb “κρίνω” (krino) meaning “I judge”. The idea is that you come to come kind of conclusion by careful discriminating thought – through judgment. And it has a lot of nuances, it can mean to: separate; arrange; make a distinction; differentiate; evaluate; judge; judge or decide in a legal sense; to disagree (in the aorist passive); and to waver; hesitate; be at odds with oneself.
As you can see, this very simple verb has a lot of possible nuances. And its wide lexical range means that nailing it down with one single English word is going to be impossible. But Luke, when he recorded the Acts of the Apostles, wasn’t thinking about English. He was thinking about how to help us understand what Christ was doing through the Holy Spirit in His Body, the Church. And so Luke gives us this cluster of uses of the verb διακρίνω (diakrino). And interestingly, these 4 are the only 4 places this verb is used in Acts, and Luke doesn’t use it in his entire Gospel, even though Matthew and Mark both did. What’s more, Matthew and Mark used this verb in the same place in the Gospel narrative, at the Cursing of the Fig Tree, during the Passion Week, which Luke omits.
Thus, the relative rarity of this verb: <20x, and the clustering of it in one book of one author, around one subject, ought to suggest to us that Luke’s making a point with this verb usage.
So, what’s the point?
The point is that Luke is trying to contrast the command of the Holy Spirit with the concerns of the Circumcision group. And we’re also not to think ill of the “Circumcision” group. They are called brothers, and possibly even some of the apostles were among those who had questions and concerns about Gentiles being given the Gospel.
Remember that this all started with Peter being told not to call anything “common” or “unclean” when God had cleansed it. And then he’s told not to διακρίνω (diakrino) about going with the men sent by Cornelius. Peter is instructed not to diakrino but the brothers of the Circumcision do, indeed, diakrino. And Peter clarifies the issue when he tells them, look guys, you’re diakrino-ing about Gentiles, but God the Holy Spirit commanded me not to diakrino. Then when the issue finally comes to a head and the whole Church needs to decide how to handle the Gentiles, Peter tells the brothers that God did not diakrino, between Jews and Gentiles.
And, what’s amazing is that the believers in Acts 11 accepted this with joy, as did the Jerusalem Council. And while there are many ways we could abuse this text and try to make the argument that the church needs to accept sinful behaviors, by accepting the people, that’s not really what this is about. This, I believe, is all leading up to the Jerusalem Council where Gentiles are given full admission into the Church and full acceptance from the Jewish Brethren based solely upon their faith in Christ and not on their adherence to the Mosaic Law or the Jewish nation. The Church is a new community – yes it is a continuation of the people of God, but it’s distinct from Israel, and it will be distinct from Tribulation saints as Revelation 20:4 makes logically necessary. The Church is a new community and entry into that community does not mean entry into national Israel, but rather entry into Christ. And the basis of that entry into Christ is faith.
After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that some time ago God chose me to preach to the Gentiles so they would hear the message of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, has testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between them and us, cleansing their hearts by faith. So now why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they are.” Acts 15:7-11 (NET)
Peter’s point is this: forcing the Gentiles to obey the Law of Moses will not add to their salvation, or secure it, or produce it, but will only become burdensome to them. Peter recognizes that none of the Jews (except Jesus) have ever been able to bear the burden of the Law, and therefore Jesus came and made salvation by faith possible. Thus, Peter reasons, if we can’t be saved or secured by the Law why would we require the Gentiles to obey it when we have demonstrable and irrefutable proof that they are saved without obeying the Law?! What will it add? And not only this, but Peter makes the way for the Jews to let go of the Law, as well, by saying that God made no diakrino between Jew and Gentile, but rather God gives His Holy Spirit to those whose hearts He has cleansed by faith!
And that word “cleansed” is the high-water mark. Because cleanness was where this whole drama began! Remember that God told Peter to get up and “sacrifice”! The Greek word we translate as “kill” in Acts 10:13, typically means “sacrifice”. Peter is commanded to sacrifice and eat unclean animals and Peter says, “No! I’ve never eaten anything common or unclean!” But God tells him not to call anything common (or unclean) that God has cleansed.
The whole theme of hesitation about accepting Gentiles without them accepting Circumcision and the Law comes full circle (pun totes intended), and brings us back to the beginning where Peter is told not to declare things unclean that God has cleansed, Peter recognizes that through faith God has cleansed the hearts of Gentiles, as well as Jews, therefore believers are declared clean. All believers. The Law, and especially the rituals and regulations about cleanness are no longer relevant because God has made total and final cleansing by faith. Christians should not hesitate about whether we’re bound by the Law of Moses because we’ve been made clean.
And while this is a complex and subtle argument to make from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul makes it abundantly clear, when he declares that we are no longer under the Law of Moses – rather we are under the Law of Christ. And in the Law of Christ, the ethic is not about purity and cleanness, but rather it is about love. Certainly, the Law of Moses and the Law of Christ lead to a lot of the same behaviors, but the motivations are inverted. Moses commands us to love God by not harming our neighbor and not becoming impure. Christ commands us to love God by doing active, self-sacrificial good for our neighbor and that we can do this because we’ve already been declared pure.