43 To him all the prophets give witness, that through his name everyone who has faith in him will have forgiveness of sins.
... made clear his righteousness before men ... had taken their sins on himself.
Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy.
Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.
In that day there will be a fountain open to the family of David and to the people of Jerusalem, for sin and for that which is unclean.
But to you who give worship to my name, the sun of righteousness will come up with new life in its wings; and you will go out, playing like young oxen full of food.
And he said, O foolish men! how slow you are to give belief to what the prophets have said. Was it not necessary for the Christ to go through these things, and to come into his glory? And he made clear to them all the things in the Writings, from Moses and from all the prophets, which had to do with himself.
And he said to them, These are the words which I said to you when I was still with you, how it was necessary for all the things which are in the writings of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms about me, to be put into effect. Then he made the holy Writings clear to their minds. And he said to them, So it is in the Writings that the Christ would undergo death, and come back to life again on the third day;
As the snake was lifted up by Moses in the waste land, even so it is necessary for the Son of man to be lifted up: So that whoever has faith may have in him eternal life. For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to be judge of the world; he sent him so that the world might have salvation through him.
Truly I say to you, The man whose ears are open to my word and who has faith in him who sent me, has eternal life; he will not be judged, but has come from death into life.
But these are recorded, so that you may have faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so that, having this faith you may have life in his name.
Take note, all of you, and all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you put to death on the cross, whom God gave back from the dead, even through him is this man now before you completely well. He is the stone which you builders had no use for, but which has been made the chief stone of the building. And in no other is there salvation: for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, through which we may have salvation.
Making no division between them and us, but making clean their hearts by faith.
Because it is said in the holy Writings, Whoever has faith in him will not be shamed.
However, the holy Writings have put all things under sin, so that that for which God gave the undertaking, based on faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who have such faith.
And no longer will they be teaching every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for they will have my forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin will go from my memory for ever.
Philip came across Nathanael and said to him, We have made a discovery! It is he of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets were writing, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
And I went on my face before his feet to give him worship. And he said to me, See you do it not: I am a brother-servant with you and with your brothers who keep the witness of Jesus: give worship to God: for the witness of Jesus is the spirit of the prophet's word.
Now may the God of peace, who made that great keeper of his flock, even our Lord Jesus, come back from the dead through the blood of the eternal agreement,
In whom we have our salvation, the forgiveness of sins:
Who will give a decision against us? It is Christ Jesus who not only was put to death, but came again from the dead, who is now at the right hand of God, taking our part.
For this cause those who are in Christ Jesus will not be judged as sinners.
For which reason, because we have righteousness through faith, let us be at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
To make their eyes open, turning them from the dark to the light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may have forgiveness of sins and a heritage among those who are made holy by faith in me.
But the things which God had made clear before, by the mouth of all the prophets, that the Christ would have to undergo, he has put into effect in this way.
And his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and have knowledge of: yes, the faith which is through him has made him well, before you all.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Acts 10
Commentary on Acts 10 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 10
It is a turn very new and remarkable which the story of this chapter gives to the Acts of the apostles; hitherto, both at Jerusalem and every where else where the ministers of Christ came, they preached the gospel only to the Jews, or those Greeks that were circumcised and proselyted to the Jews' religion; but now, "Lo, we turn to the Gentiles;' and to them the door of faith is here opened: good news indeed to us sinners of the Gentiles. The apostle Peter is the man that is first employed to admit uncircumcised Gentiles into the Christian church; and Cornelius, a Roman centurion or colonel, is the first that with his family and friends is so admitted. Now here we are told,
Act 10:1-8
The bringing of the gospel to the Gentiles, and the bringing of those who had been strangers and foreigners to be fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, were such a mystery to the apostles themselves, and such a surprise (Eph. 3:3, 6), that it concerns us carefully to observe all the circumstances of the beginning of this great work, this part of the mystery of godliness-Christ preached to the Gentiles, and believed on in this world, 1 Tim. 3:16. It is not unlikely that some Gentiles might before now have stepped into a synagogue of the Jews, and heard the gospel preached; but the gospel was never yet designedly preached to the Gentiles, nor any of them baptized-Cornelius was the first; and here we have,
Act 10:9-18
Cornelius had received positive orders from heaven to send for Peter, whom otherwise he had not heard of, or at least not heeded; but here is another difficulty that lies in the way of bringing them together-the question is whether Peter will come to Cornelius when he is sent for; not as if he thought it below him to come at a beck, or as if he were afraid to preach his doctrine to a polite man as Cornelius was: but it sticks at a point of conscience. Cornelius is a very worthy man, and has many good qualities, but he is a Gentile, he is not circumcised; and, because God in his law had forbidden his people to associate with idolatrous nations, they would not keep company with any but those of their own religion, though they were ever so deserving, and they carried the matter so far that they made even the involuntary touch of a Gentile to contract a ceremonial pollution, Jn. 18:28. Peter had not got over this stingy bigoted notion of his countrymen, and therefore will be shy of coming to Cornelius. Now, to remove this difficulty, he has a vision here, to prepare him to receive the message sent him by Cornelius, as Ananias had to prepare him to go to Paul. The scriptures of the Old Testament had spoken plainly of the bringing in of the Gentiles into the church. Christ had given plain intimations of it when he ordered them to teach all nations; and yet even Peter himself, who knew so much of his Master's mind, could not understand it, till it was here revealed by vision, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, Eph. 3:6. Now here observe,
Act 10:19-33
We have here the meeting between Peter the apostle, and Cornelius the centurion. Though Paul was designed to be the apostle of the Gentiles, and to gather in the harvest among them, and Peter to be the apostle of the circumcision, yet it is ordered that Peter shall break the ice, and reap the first-fruits of the Gentiles, that the believing Jews, who retained too much of the old leaven of ill-will to the Gentiles, might be the better reconciled to their admission into the church, when they were first brought in by their own apostle, which Peter urges against those that would have imposed circumcision upon the Gentile converts (ch. 15:7), You know that God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel. Now here,
Act 10:34-43
We have here Peter's sermon preached to Cornelius and his friends: that is, an abstract or summary of it; for we have reason to think that he did with many other words testify and exhort to this purport. It is intimated that he expressed himself with a great deal of solemnity and gravity, but with freedom and copiousness, in that phrase, he opened his mouth, and spoke, v. 34. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open to you, saith Paul, 2 Co. 6:11. "You shall find us communicative, if we but find you inquisitive.' Hitherto the mouths of the apostles had been shut to the uncircumcised Gentiles, they had nothing to say to them; but now God gave unto them, as he did to Ezekiel, the opening of the mouth. This excellent sermon of Peter's is admirably suited to the circumstances of those to whom he preached it; for it was a new sermon.
Act 10:44-48
We have here the issue and effect of Peter's sermon to Cornelius and his friends. He did not labour in vain among them, but they were all brought home to Christ. Here we have,