Acts 15:8–9

There was much "disputing," or "discussion," and then Peter made a decisive pronouncement, by referring to the case of Cornelius, in which he had himself been involved. He pointed out that the heart-knowing God had borne witness to these Gentile converts by giving them the Holy Spirit — the same gift He had given to the Jewish believers on the Day of Pentecost. God had cleansed these Gentiles, as Peter's vision of the great sheet showed. He purified their hearts by faith, not by any ceremonial washing. In fact God had already settled the point in principle by what He did with Cornelius. We can now see why Acts gives so much space to that case; this is the third time it comes before us.

Ordinarily the Spirit came after faith. It was God who knew the faith of their hearts, bearing witness to them as His by the outward sign. They occupied the same level with the apostles and the saints of Judea.

Our apostle claimed the same grace for the believing Gentiles when he pleaded the cause of their liberty against those who sought to put them under law: "And the heart-knowing God bore them witness, giving the Holy Spirit just as to us also, and made no difference between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith."

Here again the gift of the Holy Spirit is quoted as the voucher upon which the Jewish Christians acted in their first reception of their Gentile brothers to a recognised position in the new community.

He needed to hear the word of truth, the gospel of his salvation; and that gospel went out once Christ had finished His work. Without this, as the fruit of Christ's work, the Holy Spirit could not be given. But as Cornelius and the rest listened, the heart-knowing God bore them witness; and they received the Holy Spirit as the Jewish saints did at Pentecost.

Peter's vision and the admission of Cornelius only showed that in every nation the one who feared God was acceptable to Him. In a word, the favour of God was not limited to the Jews. There was no need to become a Jew to share the salvation that is in Christ… The Holy Spirit — the seal of Christian blessing among the Jews, the fruit of redemption accomplished by Jesus — was given to Gentiles as to Jews. The Jews might be astonished at it; but there was no resisting God.

It might seem a small matter for Peter to treat the Jewish believers as Jews and the Gentile believers as Gentiles. That was the practice of his nation in past centuries. But in doing so, Peter was actually denying what he himself had established in preaching the gospel — that God now put no difference between Jews and Gentiles.

Peter reminds the assembly how God had chosen him first to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. God had given the Spirit to Cornelius, though he was not circumcised. God Himself had testified to them by the Holy Spirit, just as He had to the believing Jews. He had made no difference between them, purifying their hearts by faith. ... For did not they themselves believe that they had been saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, and not by ordinances?

Peter receives a threefold testimony of God's purifying the Gentiles by faith, instead of separating Israel by circumcision. The cross had changed everything, and put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile. The Jew had lost his old superiority according to the flesh. Both alike were now open to far better blessings in Christ by faith.

Would the objectors argue that purification by legal ceremonies was necessary? Such things could really only serve to sanctify the flesh. But God looks at the heart. Now He had purified the hearts of those Gentiles by faith... So the ground was being cut away from under their feet — and by the apostle to the Jews.

Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as made known in the gospel produces a moral cleansing in the heart, the seat of the affections, cleansing it from the defilement that belonged to it as inherited from Adam.

Now when God's word enters the soul by faith, it deals with the conscience in a purifying way; it awakens a sense of sin, and produces repentance toward God. That is why Peter speaks of cleansing our hearts by faith (Acts 15:9)... It was God's word which worked in His grace. It was received not as men's word, but as what it truly is — God's word, which also works effectively in those who believe (1 Thess. 2:13).

God Himself had worked to remove the difference between Jewish and Gentile believers. He purified their hearts by faith, not by ordinances. Could they dare to ignore the immense significance of this? If so, they were tempting God. They were opposing what He Himself had done, and putting a yoke on the neck of Gentile believers which Israel had never been able to bear.

Peter thus formally abandoned all special claims for himself and others of his nation. He was from then on content to be numbered with those of foreign race as together sinners saved by grace.