Our thanks to ZDenny for his comment and who knows? Maybe that will happen on the future. Unfortunately, I’m not that skilled in the area, but I’m sure I can figure out how it’s done. Tonight, we will be continuing our look through the New Testament and the book of Acts as we seek to come to a deeper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. We’ll be looking in the tenth chapter tonight at the conversion of the first Gentile to Christianity, Cornelius, and how Peter describes Jesus in this passage. The passage is Acts 10:36
You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
Up until now, the message of Christianity had by and large been going to the Jews. Now there is a report of it being shared with the Gentiles in Acts 9, but the first account we have of a Gentile being personally converted is right here in Acts 10.
Simon had been staying at the home of a tanner, which shows how quickly some of his beliefs were fading in the Law of Moses as a tanner would be considered unclean since they were dealing with the skin of dead animals. This was in the city of Joppa. Does the name sound familiar? It should. This is where Jonah fled to to book a ship to go to Tarshish so he could escape the message of going to the Gentiles in Nineveh.
Peter is about to get a similar message. He is on the roof praying when a cloth comes down from Heaven and there are unclean animals on it and Peter is told to rise and kill and eat. Peter replies three times that he has never eaten anything unclean and is told to not call clean what God has made clean.
It is after this that he receives word to go to the home of Cornelius who has been told by an angel to send for him.
Peter now sees the truth. God is opening up the blessings of Christ to the Gentiles. It is in this context that Peter says that he now sees that God makes no distinction. He accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.
We are then told Jesus is Lord of all.
Well, the text simply says “all.” From the context, we could at least gather that Jesus is the Lord of both Israelites and Gentiles, and even then I believe we have sufficient case for seeing who Peter thought Jesus was. After all, who is the Lord of Israel? It is YHWH. Let’s look at it this way.
The Lord of Israel is YHWH.
Jesus is the Lord of Israel.
Jesus is YHWH.
Peter has added in Gentiles to this as well which means that Jesus is the Lord of everyone. Everyone bows down to him, which would fit what Peter said in Acts 2 that this same Jesus is Lord and Christ.
Yes. Jesus is Lord of all.
The question for the reader is, do you realize that? If so, what do you plan to do about it?
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