E24
What God has Cleansed
Acts 11:1-18
Acts 11:1 ¶ Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
News travels fast sometimes. We would like to say, Good news travels fast. Bad news seems to travel faster.
Back in Peter’s time, social media consisted of all news traveling from person to person. In our parent’s day this would have been called a ‘rumor mill’.
Peter had been asked to stay with Cornelius for a few days. Six friends from Joppa had accompanied Peter to Cornelius' house. They may have returned without Peter. They certainly would have a story to tell.
By the time Peter got back to Jerusalem, everyone in the church had already heard the story. Or, at least one version of the story.
As Peter enters the room where some Christians were gathered, he should have heard, “Peter! You're back. What wonderful news! Gentiles can now be part of God’s kingdom!” But no. This is how it went. 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!"
Accusations! Why? And who are the accusers? From verse 2 we notice that the accusers are referred to as ‘those of the circumcision’. That is another way of saying, The Christian Jews. So why refer to them this way?
The answer is, those of the circumcision, means something other than merely a Christian Jew. What we discover here, as the early church developed and grew, discussions were taking place about the difference between the church created and established by Jesus, and regular Judaism as taught in all of the synagogues.
The Jerusalem believers all believed in Jesus. Many would see that if Judaism would simply come to see that Jesus truly was God’s Son, then Judaism would be reformed and on track once again. But others, the apostles in particular, knew that for Judaism to simply admit their error and begin preaching Jesus as the Saviour, would not make them ‘the church’ that Jesus founded and commissioned. Jesus had taught that ‘the kingdom’ would be forcefully taken from the Jews and given to someone else.
So polarization took place. A ‘party’ formed within the church. It became known as the ‘circumcision’ party. This division in the early church would become very damaging to gospel outreach among the gentiles.
I might add, we have a similar division in the church today. There are well meaning gentile believers who try to convince the rest of us that the Jews of today are actually worshiping Jesus. They remind us that all of the holidays and feast days that the Jews constantly observe, are symbolic shadows that point toward Christ. Their conclusion is, the Jews really are worshiping Jesus without knowing it, (but at least they are worshiping Him!).
Nothing could be further from the truth. They most definitely are not worshiping Jesus in ignorance. They are rejecting Jesus just like the ones who crucified Him. They commemorate holidays that most certainly are symbolic of Jesus … but Jesus is, in many cases, consciously rejected. The Jews see something totally different in their holidays. Paul says that they have been blinded to the truth and that the blindness would continue until the end times.
For example, when Christians read about the Passover, they see the blood on the doorposts symbolic of the blood of Jesus, which when spiritually applied to the ‘doorposts’ of our hearts, the death angel passes us by. We have eternal life. The Jews, on the other hand, celebrate the day that their ancestors were delivered from Egyptian bondage. They are not ‘inadvertently’ worshiping Jesus.
Jesus came to, not destroy the ‘law of Moses’, but to fulfill it. Here are His own words, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Mt 5:17 ¶
Fulfilled means finished. Jesus ‘finished’ and put an end to all of the ‘shadows’.
Col 2:16 ¶ So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,
Col 2:17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Christ is the ‘substance’. Shadows no longer serve a purpose. For a Christian to celebrate one of the old ‘shadows’ presents a confusing message. It gives off a message which in some way leaves the impression that the Jews are OK in their worship. And we should support them by also observing their feast days.
Paul said that this constitutes another gospel.
Ga 1:6 ¶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
The ‘circumcision party’ in the church were guilty of distorting the gospel.
Paul made the gospel very clear in I Corinthians 15. 1 ¶ Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
Paul wishes to make the gospel crystal clear. The scriptures pointed forward to the coming Lamb of God. Paul emphasizes, It happened! It is complete! It is finished! No more ‘pictures’.
The circumcision party, on the other hand, wanted to stay with all of the pictures, symbolism and celebrations. Their comfortable ‘religion’ was about to be shared with gentiles. To them, the gentiles had no appreciation for their beloved Judaism. They will be forced into doing one thing or the other …. Either they re-look at what it means for the shadows to be fulfilled and finished … or they insist that the gentiles learn all the shadows and feasts of the Jews.
Peter is put on the spot by some church leaders in Jerusalem. He begins to share the details of how it all came about. It is almost exactly the same story we read in the previous chapter, with only a couple of minor differences.
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.’ Here the story adds something that was not in the original account. Peter is telling these men what Cornelius had told him. He recalls that Cornelius had said, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ But when we look back at what the angel actually said to Cornelius, we find this.
About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!”
4 And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, “What is it, lord?” So he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.
5 “Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter.
6 “He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do.”
Notice that the angel does not say, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ He left it undefined by saying, …Tell you what you must do.
And then Peter arrived at Cornelius' house and he repeated to Peter the angel’s words, 32 ‘Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea. When he comes, he will speak to you.’ Notice the non-specific statement, … he will speak to you.
As Peter recites this event to the Jerusalem Christians, especially to the circumcision party, Peter remembers Cornelius’ words like this, “ ‘who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ (14)
OK, why am I looking at this so closely? I think it is important to note that God said, in the vision to Peter, that he had already ‘cleansed’ the particular gentile to whom He was sending Peter. Cornelius is already a ‘saved’ person. God, in His love and mercy, appears to him, connecting him with Peter, the one holding the Keys to the Kingdom, in order to bring Cornelius, and all gentile believers, into the kingdom, the church.
And this would be the biggest bone of contention for the circumcision party in the Jerusalem church. This will force them to admit that there is only one church, one way, one Christianity … and Jewish beloved traditions have no part in it.
Peter goes on sharing his story, 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?”
In Peter’s ‘self-defence’ he brings out a valid point. He says, The Holy Spirit came upon them exactly as it did upon us that day. He quotes Jesus’ words about baptism in the Spirit. But then he adds something that is not totally accurate. He reminds these people that God gave the gentiles the very same gift that he gave the early church … but Peter says, “When we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is not really accurate. They did not receive the Holy Spirit when they believed in Jesus. They received it later, on the day of Pentecost. Why this discrepancy? Probably because time has gone by since Pentecost and many thousands of Jews have become Christians … and when they believed in Jesus and were born again … they received the Holy Spirit … just like now. So this has become normal to them.
As this group of listeners … the circumcision party and probably the 11 apostles, heard Peters testimony of what happened at Cornelius’ house, they make this statement: 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.”
They glorified God … they rejoiced. But even in their rejoicing they are not quite right. Gentiles have always been able to come to God and repent and receive eternal life. But the Jews thought they had to come the Jewish way.
What God did in Cornelius' case was to include him and all gentiles into the church, allow them to be a part of the same body, the same fellowship and have the same mission. These Jerusalem listeners are rejoicing. But the real meaning of what just happened in Caesarea is yet to sink in. These are yet the ‘early days’ of the Lord’s church.`
I want to spend a few minutes discussing the word ‘mystery’ in the New Testament. It will help us to see God’s eternal plan for His people.
We first come across the word in Matthew 4:11. And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables,
Jesus makes a statement regarding the kingdom of God and makes it clear that by teaching in parables, He could instruct His disciples, but the Jewish leaders would not be able to get what Jesus really was teaching. Remember that Jesus had said that the kingdom of God would be forcibly taken from the Jews and given to someone else. So as He taught about the kingdom He had to do it in such a way that His church would be able to get it. He was ‘giving’ the kingdom to the church. The church is called a holy nation, by the apostle Peter.
The word ‘mystery’ is next used by Paul in Romans 11:25. For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
So here we discover that Israel’s blindness to the ‘mystery’ will remain until the last of the gentiles have come to Christ. When is that time? That time will be the end of the tribulation period at the end of the age, before the return of Christ.
Without getting into it too deeply, I will say that God will use 144,000 (Christian) Jews in a special way during the tribulation. At the same time He will be using His church to stand for Him and to share the gospel of salvation. But right at the end of the seven years, there will be a ‘combining’ of Jews and gentile Christians.
The very clearest scripture which ‘explains’ the mystery is found in Ephesians chapter 3. Paul says, 3 “By revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel,”
That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body … That is what Peter was beginning to realize as he talked with the apostles back in Jerusalem. But the argument, if there was any, was this … Do the gentiles become part of the ‘Jewish’ body or do the believing Jews become part of a gentile body? The answer is … neither. The church of Jesus is a brand new body where ethnic backgrounds have nothing to do with it. We learn from Paul in Colossians, that when a person becomes a Christian that we have, 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
So, Jews don’t join Gentiles, Gentiles don’t join Jews, but now both join something brand new. It is a spiritual body. A spiritual kingdom.
The word ‘mystery’ has a very important meaning in Revelation 10.7. In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
The Jews and Gentiles, all being part of the same body … forever, happens when trumpet number 7 is sounded. The church is that body. John sees a vision of ‘the Holy City, New Jerusalem’ descending from heaven. The angel tells John, ‘Look … the bride, the Lamb’s wife!’ And when John describes the city he notes that it has 12 gates on which are inscribed the names of the 12 tribes of Israel … and he also tells us that the city had 12 foundations, and on them was written the names of the 12 apostles.
There will not be an eternal distinction between Israel and the church throughout eternity, as the dispensationalists would have us believe. They teach that the church will be the bride of Christ in eternity and Israel will be the bride of God, and that they will be forever distinct. That is not true. Paul would say that dispensationalists do not understand the mystery … Jews and Gentiles … all one body. The body is called the church. It is also referred to as His Kingdom authority.
Peter did his best to explain what happened at Cornelius’ house. But he would not grasp the true meaning of it until much later. We ourselves are likely going to be living at the time that God will seal and appoint 144,000 Jews to a ministry that will absolutely amaze us. God has a plan to reveal His mystery, and many of us will be alive to see it happen!
News travels fast sometimes. We would like to say, Good news travels fast. Bad news seems to travel faster.
Back in Peter’s time, social media consisted of all news traveling from person to person. In our parent’s day this would have been called a ‘rumor mill’.
Peter had been asked to stay with Cornelius for a few days. Six friends from Joppa had accompanied Peter to Cornelius' house. They may have returned without Peter. They certainly would have a story to tell.
By the time Peter got back to Jerusalem, everyone in the church had already heard the story. Or, at least one version of the story.
As Peter enters the room where some Christians were gathered, he should have heard, “Peter! You're back. What wonderful news! Gentiles can now be part of God’s kingdom!” But no. This is how it went. 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!"
Accusations! Why? And who are the accusers? From verse 2 we notice that the accusers are referred to as ‘those of the circumcision’. That is another way of saying, The Christian Jews. So why refer to them this way?
The answer is, those of the circumcision, means something other than merely a Christian Jew. What we discover here, as the early church developed and grew, discussions were taking place about the difference between the church created and established by Jesus, and regular Judaism as taught in all of the synagogues.
The Jerusalem believers all believed in Jesus. Many would see that if Judaism would simply come to see that Jesus truly was God’s Son, then Judaism would be reformed and on track once again. But others, the apostles in particular, knew that for Judaism to simply admit their error and begin preaching Jesus as the Saviour, would not make them ‘the church’ that Jesus founded and commissioned. Jesus had taught that ‘the kingdom’ would be forcefully taken from the Jews and given to someone else.
So polarization took place. A ‘party’ formed within the church. It became known as the ‘circumcision’ party. This division in the early church would become very damaging to gospel outreach among the gentiles.
I might add, we have a similar division in the church today. There are well meaning gentile believers who try to convince the rest of us that the Jews of today are actually worshiping Jesus. They remind us that all of the holidays and feast days that the Jews constantly observe, are symbolic shadows that point toward Christ. Their conclusion is, the Jews really are worshiping Jesus without knowing it, (but at least they are worshiping Him!).
Nothing could be further from the truth. They most definitely are not worshiping Jesus in ignorance. They are rejecting Jesus just like the ones who crucified Him. They commemorate holidays that most certainly are symbolic of Jesus … but Jesus is, in many cases, consciously rejected. The Jews see something totally different in their holidays. Paul says that they have been blinded to the truth and that the blindness would continue until the end times.
For example, when Christians read about the Passover, they see the blood on the doorposts symbolic of the blood of Jesus, which when spiritually applied to the ‘doorposts’ of our hearts, the death angel passes us by. We have eternal life. The Jews, on the other hand, celebrate the day that their ancestors were delivered from Egyptian bondage. They are not ‘inadvertently’ worshiping Jesus.
Jesus came to, not destroy the ‘law of Moses’, but to fulfill it. Here are His own words, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Mt 5:17 ¶
Fulfilled means finished. Jesus ‘finished’ and put an end to all of the ‘shadows’.
Col 2:16 ¶ So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,
Col 2:17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Christ is the ‘substance’. Shadows no longer serve a purpose. For a Christian to celebrate one of the old ‘shadows’ presents a confusing message. It gives off a message which in some way leaves the impression that the Jews are OK in their worship. And we should support them by also observing their feast days.
Paul said that this constitutes another gospel.
Ga 1:6 ¶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
The ‘circumcision party’ in the church were guilty of distorting the gospel.
Paul made the gospel very clear in I Corinthians 15. 1 ¶ Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
Paul wishes to make the gospel crystal clear. The scriptures pointed forward to the coming Lamb of God. Paul emphasizes, It happened! It is complete! It is finished! No more ‘pictures’.
The circumcision party, on the other hand, wanted to stay with all of the pictures, symbolism and celebrations. Their comfortable ‘religion’ was about to be shared with gentiles. To them, the gentiles had no appreciation for their beloved Judaism. They will be forced into doing one thing or the other …. Either they re-look at what it means for the shadows to be fulfilled and finished … or they insist that the gentiles learn all the shadows and feasts of the Jews.
Peter is put on the spot by some church leaders in Jerusalem. He begins to share the details of how it all came about. It is almost exactly the same story we read in the previous chapter, with only a couple of minor differences.
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.’ Here the story adds something that was not in the original account. Peter is telling these men what Cornelius had told him. He recalls that Cornelius had said, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ But when we look back at what the angel actually said to Cornelius, we find this.
About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!”
4 And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, “What is it, lord?” So he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.
5 “Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter.
6 “He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do.”
Notice that the angel does not say, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ He left it undefined by saying, …Tell you what you must do.
And then Peter arrived at Cornelius' house and he repeated to Peter the angel’s words, 32 ‘Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea. When he comes, he will speak to you.’ Notice the non-specific statement, … he will speak to you.
As Peter recites this event to the Jerusalem Christians, especially to the circumcision party, Peter remembers Cornelius’ words like this, “ ‘who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’ (14)
OK, why am I looking at this so closely? I think it is important to note that God said, in the vision to Peter, that he had already ‘cleansed’ the particular gentile to whom He was sending Peter. Cornelius is already a ‘saved’ person. God, in His love and mercy, appears to him, connecting him with Peter, the one holding the Keys to the Kingdom, in order to bring Cornelius, and all gentile believers, into the kingdom, the church.
And this would be the biggest bone of contention for the circumcision party in the Jerusalem church. This will force them to admit that there is only one church, one way, one Christianity … and Jewish beloved traditions have no part in it.
Peter goes on sharing his story, 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?”
In Peter’s ‘self-defence’ he brings out a valid point. He says, The Holy Spirit came upon them exactly as it did upon us that day. He quotes Jesus’ words about baptism in the Spirit. But then he adds something that is not totally accurate. He reminds these people that God gave the gentiles the very same gift that he gave the early church … but Peter says, “When we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is not really accurate. They did not receive the Holy Spirit when they believed in Jesus. They received it later, on the day of Pentecost. Why this discrepancy? Probably because time has gone by since Pentecost and many thousands of Jews have become Christians … and when they believed in Jesus and were born again … they received the Holy Spirit … just like now. So this has become normal to them.
As this group of listeners … the circumcision party and probably the 11 apostles, heard Peters testimony of what happened at Cornelius’ house, they make this statement: 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.”
They glorified God … they rejoiced. But even in their rejoicing they are not quite right. Gentiles have always been able to come to God and repent and receive eternal life. But the Jews thought they had to come the Jewish way.
What God did in Cornelius' case was to include him and all gentiles into the church, allow them to be a part of the same body, the same fellowship and have the same mission. These Jerusalem listeners are rejoicing. But the real meaning of what just happened in Caesarea is yet to sink in. These are yet the ‘early days’ of the Lord’s church.`
I want to spend a few minutes discussing the word ‘mystery’ in the New Testament. It will help us to see God’s eternal plan for His people.
We first come across the word in Matthew 4:11. And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables,
Jesus makes a statement regarding the kingdom of God and makes it clear that by teaching in parables, He could instruct His disciples, but the Jewish leaders would not be able to get what Jesus really was teaching. Remember that Jesus had said that the kingdom of God would be forcibly taken from the Jews and given to someone else. So as He taught about the kingdom He had to do it in such a way that His church would be able to get it. He was ‘giving’ the kingdom to the church. The church is called a holy nation, by the apostle Peter.
The word ‘mystery’ is next used by Paul in Romans 11:25. For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
So here we discover that Israel’s blindness to the ‘mystery’ will remain until the last of the gentiles have come to Christ. When is that time? That time will be the end of the tribulation period at the end of the age, before the return of Christ.
Without getting into it too deeply, I will say that God will use 144,000 (Christian) Jews in a special way during the tribulation. At the same time He will be using His church to stand for Him and to share the gospel of salvation. But right at the end of the seven years, there will be a ‘combining’ of Jews and gentile Christians.
The very clearest scripture which ‘explains’ the mystery is found in Ephesians chapter 3. Paul says, 3 “By revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel,”
That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body … That is what Peter was beginning to realize as he talked with the apostles back in Jerusalem. But the argument, if there was any, was this … Do the gentiles become part of the ‘Jewish’ body or do the believing Jews become part of a gentile body? The answer is … neither. The church of Jesus is a brand new body where ethnic backgrounds have nothing to do with it. We learn from Paul in Colossians, that when a person becomes a Christian that we have, 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
So, Jews don’t join Gentiles, Gentiles don’t join Jews, but now both join something brand new. It is a spiritual body. A spiritual kingdom.
The word ‘mystery’ has a very important meaning in Revelation 10.7. In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
The Jews and Gentiles, all being part of the same body … forever, happens when trumpet number 7 is sounded. The church is that body. John sees a vision of ‘the Holy City, New Jerusalem’ descending from heaven. The angel tells John, ‘Look … the bride, the Lamb’s wife!’ And when John describes the city he notes that it has 12 gates on which are inscribed the names of the 12 tribes of Israel … and he also tells us that the city had 12 foundations, and on them was written the names of the 12 apostles.
There will not be an eternal distinction between Israel and the church throughout eternity, as the dispensationalists would have us believe. They teach that the church will be the bride of Christ in eternity and Israel will be the bride of God, and that they will be forever distinct. That is not true. Paul would say that dispensationalists do not understand the mystery … Jews and Gentiles … all one body. The body is called the church. It is also referred to as His Kingdom authority.
Peter did his best to explain what happened at Cornelius’ house. But he would not grasp the true meaning of it until much later. We ourselves are likely going to be living at the time that God will seal and appoint 144,000 Jews to a ministry that will absolutely amaze us. God has a plan to reveal His mystery, and many of us will be alive to see it happen!