Can any one forbid water that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Spirit as we also [did]?
Peter is still speaking when the Holy Spirit falls on a room full of non-Jews. His question about water asks something larger: can anyone stand in God's way? Three questions that shaped the early church meet here — whom God receives, on what evidence, and what baptism is for.
No apostle laid a hand on anyone. The gift came first, and that timing was the whole argument.
Peter says to them, "Can anyone withhold water?" He had every right to grant this public privilege to the Gentiles whom the Spirit had baptized. Water baptism is not brushed aside here, and it is not made a command or condition. God had given the Spirit first, and no human hand had any part in it. That shut the mouths of the Jewish believers, who were always quick to object. They would have forbidden water if God had not so plainly given these Gentiles the unspeakable gift of the Spirit.
The same gift settled a second question: whether these Gentiles must first become Jews.
God then gives the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles, without their becoming Jews or being circumcised. From then on the Christian assembly could not refuse them. God had received them, and had put His seal on them. Peter commands them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
At Pentecost the Jews were baptized first and received the Spirit after. Here the order flips, and one writer finds God's wisdom in the change, not a whim.
Where is the blessed wisdom and consistency in God's ways here? The Jew is baptized and then receives the Holy Spirit. The Gentile receives the Holy Spirit and then is baptized. The reason was this. To a Jew it was a most painful thing. In becoming a Christian he had crossed a frightening gap that cut him off from Judaism. He had to step out of everything he had belonged to before and stand under the banner of the crucified One. Therefore he must be baptized... They must bow to Him whom they had crucified — bow to Him who was the nation's shame.
The same order also tests a claim made about baptism itself.
When the Gentiles receive the Spirit, the insistence on baptism as a condition drops. God takes things into His own hands, as one may say. The Spirit falls on Cornelius and those with him while they are still listening to Peter. No hint of baptism has yet been given... Some teach that baptism is the "sacrament of regeneration." On that view Cornelius received the Spirit while still unregenerate — before any new birth — because he had not yet been baptized.
Peter's words tie these Gentiles to what the first believers received. So what is it to receive the Holy Spirit?
Does "receiving the Holy Spirit" mean only divine power coming on people? Old Testament believers had known that power, yet we never read that any of them received the Holy Spirit. Does it mean a gift of spiritual abilities, such as tongues or miracles? Some who had received the Spirit did share in those at times. But in truth it was far more. What they received was the Holy Spirit Himself. And nothing less than this is the common privilege of believers since the day of Pentecost.
The shape of Peter's question is itself an argument. He asks whether anyone may hold water back. Nobody asks that about a duty.
There was a command to baptize, but no command to be baptized... When we read how they gave it, we find the clearest evidence of this. It was not a matter of obedience but of granting a privilege — entrance into the outward, professing assembly of God on earth. "What hinders me from being baptized?" says the officer of Candace. His question rules out any thought of obedience. He speaks of being let in, and he counted that a privilege. So with Cornelius: "Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"
Peter holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and this is the second time he turns one.
Then Peter says, we cannot keep these people out of their privileges... No, he says, they are forgiven, they have the Holy Spirit, and the House of God on earth must open to them. Here Peter uses the keys of the kingdom of heaven a second time. He opens the door again as he brings in the Gentiles. He has no authority to let people into heaven. But he does let them into the kingdom of heaven on earth, where people profess Christ, and he does it, I understand, by the door of baptism.
- God moves. The Spirit fell with no apostle's hand involved. God settled the case before any man could rule on it.
- God gives. Cornelius did not just receive power. He received the Holy Spirit Himself, the shared privilege of believers since Pentecost.
- God seals. He put His seal on uncircumcised people, and the church could no longer refuse them.
- God grants. Baptism here is a privilege given, not a duty demanded. Peter asks who could hold it back — not who must obey.
- God opens. Peter uses the keys a second time, and the door into the visible house of God on earth swings open to the nations.
And he commanded them to be baptised in the name of the Lord. Then they begged him to stay some days.
Peter was still preaching in the house of Cornelius when the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles listening to him. Only then came the order to baptize — which raises three questions: who is commanded, who does the baptizing, and what "in the name of Jesus Christ" means here.
God has not always worked in this order.
At Pentecost the believing Jews had to be baptized before they received the gift of the Spirit. In a solemn way they had to take the place of death with Christ toward everything they had trusted before... But the believing Gentiles, as we see, received the Holy Spirit while hearing the word, as most of us — perhaps all — have done. Baptism then follows. Who could refuse the outward sign to those who had clearly received that divine seal?
The difference turned on what each group had done with Christ.
They did not have to be baptized first, as the Jews had (Acts 2:38). Instead God showed here His full acceptance of Gentiles in a public way that could not be mistaken. Gentiles had not been guilty of rejecting the Messiah in public, as Israel had. So Israel had to reverse that earlier stand against Christ in public, by baptism, before God could accept them in public.
The word "commanded" is easily misread as an order aimed at Cornelius. Look at who is being told to act.
Baptism is the act of the person baptising, not of the person being baptised. The one being baptised cannot do it for himself. He is outside, and cannot receive himself in. So it is written, "He commanded them to be baptised in the name of the Lord." ... It is not obedience... he cannot baptise himself. But there is more. Peter asks, "Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptised, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?" Then he commanded them to be baptised. It was a privilege given to them.
Another writer shows where the New Testament places the command.
There was a command to make disciples of all nations, and to baptize them, but no command to people to be baptized. Acts 10:48 is no exception. It says instead that he "commanded that they should be baptized in the name of the Lord." Privilege and blessing are not matters of command. They come from divine grace.
The apostle who had just preached is not the one who went down to the water.
It seems they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ not by Peter, but at his direction. One or more of the brothers with him did it (v. 48). There was neither vanity nor superstition in getting it done by Peter. Still, in obedience to the Lord, he took care that it was done properly... It already mattered that everyone should know this: an ordinary believer has the right to baptize even in a great apostle's presence, and the act took no value from office or gift.
Some have taken the wording here as replacing the fuller formula given to the apostles. Commentators answer that baptism is always to someone, and the two are not rivals.
Baptism is always to some person or thing. The disciples found at Ephesus had been baptised to the baptism of John (Acts 19:3). The Israelites had been baptised to Moses. Those baptised in Acts were baptised to the name of the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Lord. There is no reason why this cannot be joined with the words found in Matthew. A person may be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
So what does the water stand for? It is not the thing that gives life.
Scripture never treats baptism as the sign even of the giving of life. It is the sign of death with Christ to sin, and of sins washed away for those who are already made alive.
The closing invitation looks like ordinary hospitality. For Peter, staying in a Gentile home was far more.
The vision on the housetop at Joppa had taught Peter to call no man common or unclean just because of his nationality. So, for the first time in his life, he stayed with people who had been Gentiles, and stayed for some days. For him the wall of separation had come down.
- Seal first. God gave the Spirit before any water touched them, so no one could argue about who belonged.
- Seal decides. Peter's question settles it: no one may refuse the sign to people God has already sealed.
- Seal, then privilege. Baptism is given, not demanded. The command falls on those who baptize.
- Seal outranks office. Ordinary believers did the baptizing in an apostle's presence; the act drew no value from rank or gift.
- Seal breaks the wall. Peter stayed on under a Gentile roof — the separation he had kept all his life was gone.