Acts 10:1-2—“… a devout man, and one that feared God … gave much alms … and prayed to God alway”

There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway (Acts 10:1-2).

… And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved (Acts 11:13-14).

COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:

Many in Christendom claim that Cornelius was an unregenerate heathen man. They base this assumption upon Acts 11:14, saying that Peter’s promise to Cornelius that he will be “saved” through this wonderful message he is about to hear, implies that he was not “saved,” but lost in unbelief and sin.

Building upon that interpretation, they then argue that Cornelius, according to Acts 10, was a very virtuous man in society, in that he was “devout,” he “feared God,” “gave much alms to the people” and “prayed to God alway.”  They then argue: “In light of the truth of total depravity, how could Cornelius, an ‘unsaved man’ (Acts 11:14), be so religious, spiritual and virtuous apart from a common grace of God or a gracious influence of the Holy Spirit working upon his heart, though not having ‘saved’ him?”

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Prof. Herman C. Hanko

Cornelius was a proselyte, as the passage in Acts clearly shows. Even the angel commended him. A proselyte was a convert to the Jewish religion but did not yet know that Christ had come, and so, did not know Christ, although he had faith in God’s promise to send Christ. There were others mentioned in the gospel narratives and the book of Acts.  I mention a few: the centurion in Capernaum who asked Jesus to heal a member of his household, of whom Jesus said his faith was greater than that found among the Jews. The Syrophoenician woman whose faith Jesus also commended. The Ethiopian eunuch who came all the way from Ethiopia to worship God in Jerusalem, and who was reading Isaiah 53 when Philip met him.

Cornelius had been saved, regenerated, given faith, enjoying the fruits of both justification and sanctification. But he did not know that the promised Messiah had come and accomplished his work fully—although Scripture does not tell us how much he did know. He had not heard the gospel of the risen and exalted Lord, and the fact that Christ’s work was equally for the Gentiles and the Jews. No more was distinction to be made between a Jew and a proselyte.  And so Peter preached the gospel, including that great and glorious truth that God saves, whether Jew or Gentile, households: that is, parents and their children. This was an astounding truth, for the Jews thought that salvation was only for Jews and Jewish children.  (HH, 03/08/2020)

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(II)

More to come! (DV)