Gift of Repentance to Life

Acts 11:1-18

Peter Defends God's Grace

1 Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. 2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him, 3 saying, "You went in to uncircumcised men and ate with them!"

4 But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning, saying: 5 "I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came to me. 6 When I observed it intently and considered, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. 7 And I heard a voice saying to me, 'Rise, Peter; kill and eat.' 8 But I said, 'Not so, Lord! For nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.' 9 But the voice answered me again from heaven, 'What God has cleansed you must not call common.' 10 Now this was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven. 11 At that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent to me from Caesarea. 12 Then the Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing. Moreover these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. 13 And he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, 'Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon whose surname is Peter, 14 who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.' 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, 'John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' 17 If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?"

18 When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life."

Peter gave an answer, an apology in the true sense of the word, of God’s grace of eternal life in Christ which is the gift granted to people from every nation for repentance leading to life.  Both the faith and repentance are gifts given by the Lord as we receive His word in written and bodily forms shown to us in the scriptures and in Jesus (John 1:1, 12, 14) Himself as the gift of such marvelous grace leading to peace with God in and through His righteousness.  When Peter was confronted by the Jewish believers about the law of circumcision being a religious requirement and for the Jews only to be of God, the apostle set them straight with his apologetic response to explain from scripture the call of God to His own out of all nations and not just Israel.  He spoke of how these Gentiles (ἔθνος - ethnos, heathens, nations) had heard and received the word of God when preached and taught to them.  The religious ones tried to hold to their traditions in contradiction to God’s word and work as they scolded Peter for not only associating with them, but also eating with them contrary to their parasitical laws while ignoring God’s work (Acts 10:28) and call!  They confused the Old Testament prohibitions against taking on the false gods and practices of the nations with the foods and associations alone, missing the fact that it was the immorality and idolatry that God was concerned about.  The LORD had promised to draw people from all nations to salvation from His wrath brought on by the inherited sin of Adam and of themselves and never meant to keep those He called out of the offer of salvation in Christ from them (Romans 4:16-17).  Therefore, Peter had to explain God’s work in them as a testimony or apology of the reasons and results of His work among the non-Jewish believers.  He told the story of God’s vision as a waking dream given him to teach how we all should not call those unclean whom God had made clean by the forgiveness and grace of the work of Christ to deliverance from sin’s penalty given to as many as the Lord Jesus calls (Acts 2:39, Ephesians 2:12-13) out of every tribe and people and nation.  Just as God told Peter, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat” from what were considered unclean animals according to ceremonial law, so he was told to not call common or unclean what He has made clean.  This applied to the food as an analogy to explain the cleansing power of the blood of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to cover all sin and bring all whom He calls to Himself and calls righteous in the righteousness of Christ and not of themselves; not in what they eat or what nation they hail from.  Their identity and acceptance in Christ makes them citizens of heaven (Ephesians 2:19-20, Philippians 3:20) as a new nation in Christ to themselves also being able to go beyond the ceremonial law as an unnecessary fetter in the freedom of faith in their identity in Him by grace.  The proof was settled in the testimony of God sealing the Gentiles with the Holy Spirit of God promised to His people in Isaiah 59:21 and Ezekiel 36:26-27 to prove they are His people (Ezekiel 36:28).  Only those who have His Spirit are of God (Romans 8:9) and so these outside of Israel were grafted in by faith and sealed with the Spirit of promise (Acts 1:4, Galatians 3:14, Ephesians 1:13-14) as His own.  Then the doubts of these legalists were silenced in light of God’s work to demonstrate that the grace of God to salvation had been granted to the other nations as well as their own as promised to and through their father Abraham.  This gift of repentance to life by God-given faith is the heart of the gospel we testify of to the world with a good apologetic defense (Psalm 119:46, 1 Peter 3:15) of the truth.