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Scripture Reading: Acts 10:34-48
In this message we shall cover three matters: Peter’s message to those gathered together in the house of Cornelius (vv. 34-43); the falling of the Holy Spirit on the house of Cornelius — the Gentile believers’ baptism in the Holy Spirit (vv. 44-46); and the water baptism of the house of Cornelius (vv. 47-48).
Acts 10:34-36 says, “And opening his mouth, Peter said, I surely perceive that God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation he who fears Him and works righteousness is acceptable to Him. The word which He sent to the sons of Israel, bringing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ (this One is Lord of all).” First, Peter says that God is not a respecter of persons. Then he goes on to say that in every nation those who fear God and work righteousness are acceptable to Him. Those who fear God and work righteousness in every nation are still a part of fallen mankind. God accepts them in view of the redemption of Christ. Without Christ, no fallen man is justified by his works (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16).
In Acts 10:36 Peter declares that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Some readers of Acts may understand the word “all” in this verse to mean both all things and all persons. However, strictly speaking the word “all” here denotes only persons, not things. This “all” refers to men (1 Tim. 2:4), not only Jews but also Gentiles. Peter’s word here indicates that he now realizes that God has made Christ the Lord of both the Jews and the Gentiles. With Him there is no respect of persons.
In his message Peter also spoke concerning the living and ministry of the Lord Jesus when He was on earth. He said to those in the house of Cornelius that they knew the word which God “sent to the sons of Israel, bringing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ...the word which came throughout the whole of Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John proclaimed: Jesus, the One from Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and power, who went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with Him” (vv. 36-38). The Greek word rendered “word” in verse 37 is rhema. In these verses Peter points out that the Lord Jesus performed miracles to rescue and set free those who were under the oppression of the Devil.
In verses 39 through 41 Peter speaks concerning Christ’s resurrection: “And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem; whom also they did away with, hanging Him on a tree. This One God raised on the third day and made Him manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses appointed beforehand by God, to us, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from among the dead.” The Greek word rendered “manifest” in verse 40 literally means “to become visible.” In verse 40 Peter says that God raised this One, but in verse 41 he says that the Lord rose from among the dead. Regarding the Lord as a man, the New Testament tells us that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 8:11). But considering Him as God, the New Testament tells us that He Himself rose from the dead (Rom. 14:9).
In Acts 10:42 Peter goes on to say, “And He charged us to proclaim to the people and solemnly testify that this is the One who was designated by God to be the Judge of the living and the dead.” Here we see that Christ has been designated the Judge of all mankind. He will judge both the living and the dead. The resurrected Christ at His coming back will be the Judge of the living before the millennium on His throne of glory (Matt. 25:31-46). This is related to His second coming (2 Tim. 4:1). He will also be the Judge of the dead after the millennium on the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15).
In 10:43 Peter continues, “To this One all the prophets testify that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” This proves that even though Cornelius feared God and worked righteousness and his prayers and alms had been accepted by God, he still needed God’s forgiveness of his sins through believing in Christ the Redeemer. Cornelius was a devout man, but he still needed the forgiveness of sins. Although he was devout, he could not say that he had not sinned. Hence, he was devout yet still sinful. Therefore, he needed redemption and forgiveness.
Acts 10:44 says, “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those hearing the word.” In this verse hearing includes believing in the Lord (v. 43; John 5:24; Rom. 10:14; Eph. 1:13).
While Peter was speaking the Spirit fell upon those in the house of Cornelius. No doubt, the Spirit here is the all-inclusive Spirit. After the all-inclusive Spirit fell upon the house of Cornelius, they began to speak in tongues and magnify God (v. 46). Here to magnify God is to praise Him. When Peter and those with him saw what happened, they knew that those in the house of Cornelius should not be prohibited from being baptized in water (v. 47).
The Holy Spirit fell upon those who heard the word in the house of Cornelius outwardly and economically. In the case of the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit’s entering into the believers essentially for life and falling upon them economically for power took place simultaneously when they believed in the Lord. However, only His falling upon them economically is noted in verse 44, because it was outward and could be realized by others by their speaking in tongues and praising God, whereas His entering into them took place silently and invisibly. They received both aspects of the Holy Spirit directly from Christ the Head of the Body, without any mediatorial channel, before they were baptized in water by other members of the Body of Christ. This indicates emphatically that the spreading of the gospel of the kingdom of God to the Gentiles was of the Lord, and that the Head of the Body baptized the Gentile believers into His Body directly, without the laying on of hands of any member of His Body, as in the cases of the Samaritan believers and Saul of Tarsus (8:17; 9:17).
Acts 10:45 says, “And the believers of the circumcision, as many as accompanied Peter, were amazed, because on the Gentiles also the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out.” Here the gift of the Holy Spirit refers to the Holy Spirit Himself, not something of the Holy Spirit given to the believers as a gift. They did not receive any gift distributed by the Spirit, as mentioned in Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:4; and 1 Peter 4:10. Rather, they received the gift which is the Holy Spirit Himself, given by God to the believers in Christ as the unique gift that produces all the gifts mentioned in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and 1 Peter 4.
Acts 10:45 speaks of the outpouring of the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift was poured out by God from the all-inclusive, resurrected, and ascended Christ. The pouring out of the Spirit after Christ’s ascension was the descending of the resurrected and ascended Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit to carry out His heavenly ministry on the earth to build up His church (Matt. 16:18) as His Body (Eph. 1:23) for God’s New Testament economy.
Acts 10:46 continues, “For they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God.” Speaking in tongues was not the unique issue of receiving the Holy Spirit economically, because the magnifying, that is, the praising of God, was also one of its issues in this case, as prophesying was also one of its issues in the case of the twelve believers in Ephesus (19:6). Hence, speaking in tongues is not the only evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit economically; neither is it the necessary evidence, because there is at least one case of the receiving of the Holy Spirit economically, the case of the Samaritan believers (8:15-17), which does not mention speaking in tongues. In the case of Saul of Tarsus (9:17) concerning this matter, there is also no mention of speaking in tongues, although he told us later in 1 Corinthians 14:18 that he spoke in tongues.
The Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius received the Holy Spirit economically, as the early apostles and the Jewish believers did on the day of Pentecost (2:4), directly from the ascended Head. Only these two instances are considered in the New Testament as the baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:5; 11:15-16). By these two steps the Head of the Body baptized all His believers once for all, both Jewish and Gentile, into His one Body (1 Cor. 12:13). Hence, the baptism in the Spirit was an accomplished fact carried out by Christ in His ascension both on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius. All the other cases — the Samaritan believers in chapter eight, Saul of Tarsus in chapter nine, and the twelve Ephesian believers in chapter nineteen — are not considered the baptism in the Holy Spirit according to the revelation of the New Testament. These cases were only the believers’ experiences of the once-for-all accomplished baptism in the Holy Spirit.
In Acts, concerning the believers’ receiving the Holy Spirit economically, that is, the Holy Spirit’s falling upon them, only five cases are referred to. Two of them are for the accomplishment of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. These are the instances which took place on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius. The other three, the cases of the Samaritan believers, Saul of Tarsus, and the twelve believers in Ephesus, are all considered extraordinary, needing some members of the Body of Christ to identify them with the Body by the laying on of hands. Besides these five cases, in many cases of conversion, such as the three thousand (2:41), the five thousand (4:4), the Ethiopian eunuch (8:36, 38-39a), the many who believed in Antioch (11:20-21, 24), the many cases in chapters thirteen and fourteen under Paul’s preaching ministry, Lydia in Philippi (16:14-15), the jailer in Philippi (16:33), the believers in Thessalonica (17:4), the believers in Berea (17:10-12), the believers in Athens (17:34), the ruler of the synagogue and many other believers in Corinth (18:8), and the believers in Ephesus (19:18-19), there is no mention of the believers’ receiving the Holy Spirit economically — the Holy Spirit’s falling upon the believers — because in all these cases the believers were brought into the Body of Christ through their believing in a normal way, and they had no particular reason for some member of the Body of Christ to bring them into the identification with the Body by the laying on of hands. According to the principle of God’s New Testament economy, they all should have received the Holy Spirit essentially for life and economically for power in a normal way through their believing into Christ.
In verse 47 Peter answered, “Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit even as we?”
Then in the next verse Peter charged those in the house of Cornelius “to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” This indicates that we should pay attention to water baptism, signifying the believers’ identification with Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12), as well as to Spirit baptism. Spirit baptism signifies the reality of the believers’ union with Christ in life essentially and in power economically, whereas water baptism is the believers’ affirmation of the Spirit’s reality. Both are needed, and neither can replace the other. All believers in Christ should properly have both.
Cornelius and his household were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ is to be baptized in the sphere of the name of Jesus Christ, within which is the reality of baptism.
The “name” in verse 48 denotes the person. To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ is to be baptized into the Person of Christ (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27) to have an organic union with Him through faith.
In this message we have covered a number of matters, but the main thing we need to see is the Head of the Body completing the baptism of His Body into the all-inclusive Spirit, who is actually He Himself. We have pointed out that on the day of Pentecost, Christ, the Head of the Body, baptized the Jewish believers into the Spirit. That was the first step, the first instance of Christ baptizing the Body into the Spirit. Then in the house of Cornelius He, as the Head of the Body, baptized all the Gentile believers into the Spirit. This was the second step, the second instance. By these two steps, these two instances, Christ, the Head of the Body, baptized His entire Body into the Spirit.
For more than fifty years we have been studying this matter of the baptism into the Holy Spirit. In 1933 Brother Nee and I had a thorough talk regarding this. We came to see that of the five cases of the Holy Spirit falling upon the saints in the book of Acts, only two are called the baptism of the Spirit. As we have seen, the first is the case of the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost, and the second is the case of the Gentile believers in the house of Cornelius. These two cases were the two instances of the accomplishment of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The three other cases of the Holy Spirit coming upon the believers — the case of the Samaritan believers, the case of Saul of Tarsus, and the case of the believers in Ephesus — are not called the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, in the great many cases of conversion recorded in Acts, there is no mention of the Holy Spirit falling upon the believers economically. May we all see that in Acts only two cases are called the baptism in the Holy Spirit and that through these two cases Christ as the Head of the Body accomplished the baptism of His Body in the Holy Spirit once for all.
