And Cornelius said, Four days ago I had been [fasting] unto this hour, and the ninth [I was] praying in my house, and lo, a man stood before me in bright clothing,
A Roman officer stands in his own house, explaining himself to Peter. His account goes back four days — to an hour of prayer, and a visitor in bright clothing who told him to send for a man.
Peter does not begin by preaching. He asks a question first. What comes back is a man's own account of the last four days.
Then he probes Cornelius, and tries to find out the state of his soul. He says, "I ask then why you sent for me." It is a good thing to let a soul who is anxious about divine things speak out for itself. Cornelius tells his own story... Here you have another indication of Cornelius's moral state; he was fasting as well as praying, pouring out his soul to God.
The time he names was not random. It was the fixed afternoon hour of Jewish worship — and God met a man there who had no claim on that worship.
An angel appeared to Cornelius while he was praying at the ninth hour. That hour had long been set apart for the evening sacrifice on the altar, and Jerusalem knew it as the hour of prayer. God, the centurion learned, had observed and cared for the Gentile soldier. Grace had really reached him in the giving of spiritual life, though he was neither an Israelite nor a convert to the Jewish religion... Never before had a heavenly visitor appeared in that house. So Cornelius was frightened at first, and asked, "What is it, Lord?"
Cornelius fasted as well as prayed — a detail some older translations keep in this verse. He had likely never heard Jesus teach, yet his life fell into a shape the Bible already describes.
Cornelius may not have heard of the Sermon on the Mount, but his practical righteousness quite matched what is laid down there. Verse 1 of Matthew 6 speaks of "righteousness" in general. The verses that follow give its branches: giving to the poor, praying and fasting.
The man in bright clothing spoke, but he did not tell Cornelius about Christ. He gave an address in Joppa and left.
Another point worth noticing is that angels are not mentioned as preaching the gospel. God sent the angel to Cornelius to guide him in his search for truth. The angel did not preach the gospel to him, but told him to send for a man. Not from the mouth of the mighty angel but from the lips of a sinner saved by grace did Cornelius hear of the Saviour... So we see how in service man in grace enjoys a privilege denied to angels.
Cornelius was already a generous, praying man. Yet when God opened the door to the nations, His word to Cornelius was not do more, but listen.
To be saved, he was not told to do works. He was to hear words when Peter came: "He will speak to you." Later Peter tells the story in Jerusalem. He says the angel had told Cornelius, "Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household." Mark that now! ... Many souls think that if they are to be saved, it must be by works of some kind. But when God opens the way to the Gentiles, He rules out the thought of works.
God had noticed him and cared for him. Yet he still had no assurance — and that gap is why Peter had to come.
He was an awakened man — anxious, godly, prayerful, God-fearing. But if you had gone and asked him whether his sins were forgiven, he would not have dared to say so. Up to that moment the testimony of the Gospel had not gone out, and forgiveness had not been preached to the Gentiles.
- Sought. Cornelius was praying at the set afternoon hour of Jewish worship. God met him there, though he belonged neither to Israel nor to its religion.
- Seen. His giving, praying and fasting are the branches of righteousness the Sermon on the Mount describes. God noticed that life before Peter arrived.
- Sent. The angel in bright clothing carried an address, not a gospel. Telling a sinner about the Saviour is a privilege God gives to redeemed people, not to angels.
- Spoken. God told him not to do works but to hear words — and those words would save him and his whole household.
- Saved. Prayerful, generous and awakened, he still could not say his sins were forgiven. That came only when the message reached him.
and said, Cornelius, thy prayer has been heard, and thy alms have come in remembrance before God.
In Caesarea, Cornelius repeats to Peter what an angel had told him: God had taken notice of a Gentile soldier's prayers and his gifts to the poor. Two questions follow. What was he asking for? And if God had already heard him, why send for a preacher?
The angel does not say what the prayer was about. One writer reads it from the man's situation: an outsider to Israel who wanted light.
Before he heard Peter's address, it would have been wrong for Cornelius to say that he was forgiven. It would be just as wrong for you and me now, if we believe on Jesus, to say we do not know it. Cornelius did not know this great blessing, but it is clear that he longed for it with all his heart. He tells Peter that the angel had said to him, "Cornelius, your prayer has been heard." What does that mean? That God read his heart, and knew what he desired — light. Remember that he was not a convert to the Jewish religion. He had not embraced Judaism. The Jews plainly thought well of him, but he had never put himself under the law.
Was Cornelius buying God's favour with his giving and praying? One writer argues the opposite.
What right have we to imagine that Cornelius was praying, fasting, and giving alms in order to earn salvation? None at all — at least if we let the inspired account govern us. We have no other way of knowing anything about this truly excellent and interesting man. The angel told him that his prayers and his alms had gone up as a memorial before God. Is this not clear proof? These prayers and alms were not the trappings of self-righteousness. They were the fruit of a righteousness based on the knowledge he had of God.
Another writer asks what God does with the prayers of an ungodly man.
When did the prayers and alms of an ungodly man ever "come up for a memorial before God"? Such are "dead works," as worthless, if not as offensive, as wicked works.
God accepted his prayer and still sent him for a message. His next task was not more devotion, but listening.
To be saved, he was not told to do works. He was to hear words, when Peter came. "He shall speak to you."... Many souls think that they must be saved by works of some sort. But when God opens the way to the Gentiles, He rules out the thought of works.
An angel had the man's attention and could have finished the business on the spot. Instead he gave him an address in Joppa. The prayers God accepted were never a substitute for the gospel.
The angel, you notice, did not cut a long story short by telling the message to Cornelius himself. Only a man who is himself a subject of grace can rightly tell the message of grace. So Peter must be called. God valued the prayers and alms of Cornelius, because they expressed the sincere seeking of his heart after God. Suppose that, after hearing the gospel, he had ignored its message and gone on with his prayers and alms. That would have been a different matter. Then they would not have "come up for a memorial before God."
We are not told how long Cornelius waited for an answer. The silence was not a refusal, and no honest prayer is wasted.
Exercise of heart in prayer is never fruitless, though the result may be long delayed... and we do not know how long he waited before God sent Peter to him with the answer: it may have been years (Acts 10). As with Daniel, so with Cornelius, and so with us, God chooses both the time and the way of answering, and that choice rests in His wisdom and grace.
And God has a track record of getting the message through:
God never fails an expectant heart... He sent a Philip to the eunuch in the desert of Gaza. He sent a Peter to the centurion, in the town of Caesarea. He sent a Paul to a seller of purple, in the suburbs of Philippi. And He will send a message to the reader of these lines, if he is truly earnest in seeking God's salvation.
- Heard — God read the heart behind the prayer. Cornelius wanted light; he was not claiming a forgiveness he did not yet have.
- Remembered — his prayers and gifts were not a payment to God. They were fruit growing from what he already knew of God.
- Still lacking — Being heard is not the same as being saved; he was sent for words, not more works.
- Answered by a man — An angel could name the need but not preach the remedy; grace is told by someone who has received it.
- Waited for — The delay may have been years; the timing belongs to God, and He has never failed a heart that expects Him.
Send therefore to Joppa and fetch Simon, who is surnamed Peter; he lodges in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea [who when he is come will speak to thee].
Cornelius is repeating an angel's instructions back to Peter: a town, a name, and a house by the sea. The striking thing is what the angel did not do — he gave an address instead of a message.
An angel stood in front of Cornelius and could have told him everything. Instead Cornelius had to send to another town for a man. The reason has to do with who is fit to carry this message.
The angel, you notice, did not cut a long story short by telling the message to Cornelius himself. Only a man who has himself received grace can tell the message of grace rightly. So Peter must be called.
The address is a humble one, and that detail matters. While Cornelius was sending his men, God was already at the far end of the journey, working on the man they went to fetch.
The angel does not preach the gospel to Cornelius, but sends Peter to him for this. That is how closely the Lord keeps to His own methods and appointments. The Lord goes ahead of the messengers from Caesarea to the house of Simon the tanner by the sea. That house is the lowly birthplace of a wide and far-reaching movement in His ways with men.
The address itself hinted at what was coming. A tanner made leather out of animal skins. Peter was already lodging where a strict Jew would have hesitated to stay.
The end of the previous chapter tells us that Peter stayed in Joppa in the house of Simon the tanner. Was he breaking with his Jewish law and customs? The Jews considered tanning an unclean trade.
The leading apostle lived in a working man's house, not a palace. One writer turns that against people who claim first place in the church today.
Scripture tells us that he stayed a good many days in Joppa at the house of a certain tanner who had his own name, Simon. Does this say nothing to those who easily believe that they too stand "first" in the church of God in our day? According to Scripture, no true apostle ever had, or ever sought, wealth or rank because of his office.
Cornelius was a praying, generous man. Yet the angel did not tell him to add another good deed. He was to fetch someone who would talk to him.
To be saved, he was not told to do works. He was to hear words, when Peter came. "He shall speak to you." … Many souls think that if they are to be saved, it will be by works of some sort. But when God opens the way to the Gentiles, He rules out the thought of works. He says to this anxious man: send for My messenger, who shall "tell you words."
(Wolston quotes an older translation. It ends the verse with the words "who, when he comes, shall speak to you." The ESV ends it at the tanner's house.)
The errand looked simple from Caesarea. At the other end it meant a Jew walking into a Gentile home. God had already prepared Peter for that step.
Now that the true light shines, the old distinction is gone. It was not so at the beginning; it is no longer in force. If God was entitled to set up such a difference, He was just as free to cancel it. So He had shown this to Peter, as special preparation for Cornelius, whom God had directed to send for Peter.
Cornelius had nothing but a name and an address. He acted on it at once, and one writer reads that speed as the mark of a serious man.
As soon as Cornelius hears from God what he is to do, he does it. This shows the earnestness and the fervour of the man. "So I sent for you at once," he says to Peter. He will not wait a day. He does not say, I will think about it.
- Sent, not spoken. The angel withheld the message and gave an address instead, because only a man who has received grace can tell it.
- Sent to a tanner's house. The angel named a humble place, a trade the Jews counted unclean — the unlikely starting point of a far-reaching work.
- Sent ahead. God reached the tanner's house before the messengers did. He was preparing the preacher while the hearer was still sending.
- Sent for words. The angel told Cornelius to listen, not to achieve. That rules out the idea of being saved by what we do.
- Sent at once. He obeyed at once on the strength of a name and a place. He would not wait a day.
Immediately therefore I sent to thee, and *thou* hast well done in coming. Now therefore *we* are all present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.
Peter has just walked into a Gentile home in Caesarea, and he asks Cornelius why he sent for him. The answer is this verse: a room full of people, waiting, with no plan of their own except to hear what God has to say.
Cornelius is not describing a lucky coincidence. Two visions had brought two strangers into one room.
In answer to his question, Cornelius tells him how he saw the vision of the angel in response to his prayer, and how he was told to send for Peter. The vision given to Peter fully confirmed that this was miraculous. So there was no chance of deception here, unlike the case with many who claim to have had visions. God had carefully arranged the gathering in the home of Cornelius, and they were ready to hear all that God had commanded Peter.
Cornelius had just taken a gentle rebuke from Peter: the preacher was only a man. Yet he still knew whose presence the room stood in, and he asked for the whole message, not part of it.
He had accepted Peter's gentle rebuke when Peter said, "I myself also am a man." Yet he knew that God was at work, and that the meeting was to be held in His presence. So he placed himself and everyone there "here present before God," ready to hear from the preacher "all things that God has commanded you." They were ready to hear ALL. Plenty of people do not mind hearing pleasant and comforting things, but they object to the sterner things the Gospel says.
That kind of listener is rare.
There was no holding back, and no wish to leave out any part of the counsel of God. What a contrast with this day of itching ears!
Cornelius expected words God had commanded Peter to say, not Peter's own opinions.
Now, we know that Cornelius understood very clearly what was happening. Peter was coming to speak to him. Peter was God's messenger to him, sent to deliver God's word to him. Peter would be only the channel. The word he longed for was coming through him, and it would not be the word of a mere man.
There is a small point in the wording here. Older versions end the verse "commanded of God"; one writer explains why "of the Lord" is the better reading.
Many had come together, and they were present in the sight of God to hear all that the Lord had commanded Peter — for that is how we should read it here, not "of God." To the Apostle, this scene and this company must have been of unusual interest. For the first time he had crossed the threshold of a Gentile's home.
How you listen matters as much as what you hear. A perfect message can still be lost on the wrong heart.
So a certain state of soul is needed for listening rightly — an upright condition before God. Without it, the plainest message can be misunderstood and twisted. Cornelius and his friends are an example of this. He said to Peter, "Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord." To neglect the how is as fatal as to forget the what. So the hearer must always seek to be in the right condition to receive the message. He must also remember that only God's word is without error, and that everything brought to him claiming to be from God must be tested by the perfect standard of the Scriptures.
Preachers feel the difference such a room makes.
I know nothing more cheering to someone who loves souls than an audience like this, all eager to hear. Before Peter began to preach, he knew there was not a single uninterested soul in that company, no one putting it off, no one mocking... Eager listeners make earnest preachers. Longing hearers make it easy to preach.
That readiness did not go unanswered.
Such an attitude of soul brings blessing. The whole company listened eagerly to Peter's testimony about the Lord Jesus. In less than an hour (probably) every person there received the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
- Arranged — Two visions brought Peter and Cornelius together. The meeting was God's doing, not man's.
- Before God — Cornelius put himself and the whole room in God's presence. The preacher was only a man.
- All — He asked for everything God commanded, with nothing held back. Many want the comforting parts and object to the sterner ones.
- How — How you listen matters as much as what you hear. A wrong heart ruins the plainest message, and every message must be tested by Scripture.
- Blessing — Within about an hour that whole listening company had forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.