NAU Acts 10:34 Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”These are a wonderful couple of verse that express the accepting heart of God (Yahweh) to every individual in all nations. God’s heart is not selective in the sense as to whom He wants to give eternal life too. His desire is for all to know Him not just some or a select few. To understand this better we must understand that all mankind is spiritually dead because of sin. This happened in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden tree by choice after being convinced by the serpent that it would not hurt them to eat of it. From this point forward every individual that would be born, except Jesus The Messiah, with a nature that was corrupted by sin and therefore spiritually dead.
God already knew before they sinned what would need to take place to give an opportunity to bring spiritual life back to the people of the world. This would involve God The Father sending God The Son, Jesus The Messiah, in the form of man to die for the sins of the world. He chose to send Jesus through the people of Israel, but didn’t limit salvation to only them. The nation of Israel would be the agent in which The Messiah would come. He would bring the opportunity for salvation to the whole world. Those who would receive by faith His forgiveness of sins by His sacrificial offering of Himself on the cross in the world’s place would be forgiven and the consequences of sin which is spiritual death would be erased. Those who receive or believe in Him would become alive spiritually and would be in a personal relationship with God.
This is the heart of God for all of mankind, to be in a living relationship with Him. He desires this of every person of all nations. This desire is not limited to a certain group of people but to every individual that has ever lived. It is up to every individual to accept His sacrifice for them or refuse His offer of eternal life. Let us look at the following verses that revealed God’s heart to Peter and to us.
The context of the story begins with an angel of God appearing to Cornelius, a Gentile, who was a centurion of the Italian cohort. The angel of God tells him to send for Peter in Joppa, so he did. Peter was in Joppa praying when he fell into a trance. He saw a great sheet coming to the ground with all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures and birds. A voice told him to “kill and eat!”. Peter refused because according to the Jewish Law a person would become unclean if they ate unclean animals like this. The sheet was taken up into the sky. It came down again and the voice said, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” This happened three times. Peter was perplexed in his mind about the vision. Around the same time Cornelius’ men came looking for Peter and The Spirit of The Lord told Peter to go down, meet them, and go with them for He had sent them to him.
The next day Peter met Cornelius at his home which was filled with his close friends and relatives. He told them that it was unlawful for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him, but God had shown him that no man is to be considered unholy or unclean. Peter said this is why he came to meet them and asked why was he summoned. Cornelius began to tell Peter of his vision and that they were waiting to hear what The Lord will command through him. This leads us to our verses for today.
The verse begins with “Opening his mouth” or “Begins to speak”. It has the idea of one’s eyes being opened or one understanding with the mind. “epo” or “said” is in the Indicative Aorist Active 3rd person singular form in the Greek. This tells us that the subject, who is Peter in the sentence, did the action in the past and the action was real. “I most certainly” or “ep’ aletheias” is better translated to mean “on the basis of truth”. “understand” or “katalambano” in the Greek is in the Indicative Present Mid 1st person singular form. This tells us the subject is doing the action, in the present, and it is a real event. The verb has the idea of intellectually comprehending something. What Peter is about to say is not said based upon feeling or good intentions. What he is about to say is based on truth that he has understood with his mind because of the evidences God has revealed in this situation to him.
The word “that” or “hoti” in the Greek is used here as declaratively. What Peter has understood he is now about to declare to everyone. “God is not one to show partiality,” is better translated “God is not One Who shows partiality”. Since the “to be” verb “is” in the sentence is accompanied by the negative “ouk” or “not” in the Greek, it tells what the state of being the subject is not. The word “prosopoleptes” in the Greek means “one who shows partiality”. In this sentence it is used as a Predicate Nomitive which takes the roll of telling us something about the subject. Therefore, the sentence is telling us that God does not favor one person over another.
Verse 35 continues with the conjunction “but” or “alla” in the Greek. This is an adversative conjunction that indicates contrast, difference, or limitation. In this context it indicates the idea of limitation. It is followed by the inclusive prepositional phrase “in every nation”. There are two Present Adjective Participles that modify the subject noun in the sentence. They are “who fears” or “phobeo” in the Greek and “”does what is” or ergazomai” in the Greek. They are telling something about the noun they are modifying. In this sentence they are modifying the word “o” in Greek which is translated “the man” which is in a general sense meaning “any person”. The participles are occurring in the present tense indicating the continual aspect of the action of the participle. The participle “who fears” could be translated “reveres”. It has the idea of being fearful with a reverent respect. The direct object “Him” accompanies this participle and represents God. In this case, anyone who is living in a present state of revering or fearing God and their life is reflecting that by making morally acceptable choices, God will not turn away but welcome them to Himself.
This was a tremendous understanding to Peter and the rest of the Jewish nation at the time. The Jews thought that The Messiah was only going to save Israel not the world. They misunderstood or were confused as to why Jesus would reach out to the Gentiles during His earthly ministry. God all along desired to give salvation to all mankind. Anyone who acknowledges Him, He accepts. Those who do not acknowledge Him as God Almighty, He does not accept. He desires for all to acknowledge Him but people choose not to want anything to do with Him. The following verses show that God (Yahweh) will somehow share the gospel salvation through of Jesus Christ to those who revere Him. It is then they will accept or reject His forgiveness of sins through Jesus or not.
God intervened to show the people that His gospel of salvation for the world for those who trust in Jesus for eternal life was for all people of all nations. Anyone who wants Him will receive Him. This is the heart of Yahweh.
Praise be to Yahweh for His accepting, forgiving, compassionate, and loving heart for all mankind to those He created to be in relationship with Him as it was to be in the beginning in the Garden of Eden.
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Posted on June 30th, 2008 by Daniel
Filed under: Truth To Live By