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‘He shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.’
Act_11:13-14
I. A heathen.—‘A centurion of the band called the Italian’ (Act_10:1). Whilst the sacred record gives no account of the history of Cornelius previous to his arrival on Jewish soil, yet it is clearly enough implied that by birth and education he was a Roman citizen and a Gentile idolater. His name, it has been remarked, seems to connect him with the noble and illustrious Roman family of the Cornelii. Religiously, then, his first standpoint was that of pagan ignorance and superstition; ‘an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenants of promise.’ A trace of his heathen training is seen in his Gentile-like prostration at the feet of the Apostle Peter (Act_10:25). Is his counterpart not to be found in this twentieth century of grace? Are there no ‘dark places of the earth’ yet unblessed with the light of revelation? Multitudes still ‘worship they know not what’; bowing down to ‘stocks and stones.’ And in our civilised and Christianised lands, are there not myriads ‘having no hope, and without God in the world,’ as literally as Cornelius ever was? Besides, in the spiritual history of every believer, has there not been a period, of longer or shorter duration, corresponding to this first stage in the religious experience of Cornelius—a state of being ‘far off’ ere being ‘made nigh by the blood of Christ’?
II. Yet an earnest seeker after the true God.—Through contact at Cæsarea with the Jewish religion, Cornelius, like not a few other Gentiles in the Apostolic age, had become dissatisfied with his ancestral worship, and attached himself to the purer faith and morality of Judaism. Like the centurion mentioned in the Gospels (Luk_8:4-5), he was noted for his charitable deeds towards the Jews amongst whom he had been located. He shared in the Messianic hopes of the ‘chosen people,’ and may not have been entirely ignorant of the history and claims of Jesus of Nazareth. That he was acquainted with, at least, some of the facts of the life of Christ is apparent from St. Peter’s address (Act_10:37). And yet, he lacked ‘joy and peace in believing.’ In him came to be fulfilled, in the marvellous way recorded in these chapters, the gracious promises: ‘Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord.’ To all earnest and sincere seekers after truth, this second stage in the religious history of Cornelius is full of instruction and encouragement. Let there be in the ‘anxious inquirer’ of these days the devout heart, the guileless life, the unquenchable spiritual longings after truth, light, and peace that were so manifest in the centurion of Cæsarea, and the issue cannot fail to be the same, however different may be the Divine method. Finally, Cornelius was—
III. A Christian convert.—As Philip had done in the case of the Ethiopian chamberlain (Act_8:26-40), so St. Peter, in the case of Cornelius and his friends, ‘preached unto them Jesus.’ On the devout centurion, and the company of Gentiles assembled in his house, the Holy Spirit descended, as it had done in the case of believers of another race, ‘at the beginning’ (Act_2:2; Act_11:15). Having thus visibly received ‘the thing signified’ in baptism, the outward rite was administered, by which they were admitted into the Church of Christ. Thus the ‘first-fruits of the Gentiles’ were gathered in. The door of mercy thrown open so providentially by the ‘Apostle of the Circumcision’ to sinners ‘of the Gentiles’ stands open until this day.