|
The date was 1514, a
little commentary on the current study of a church teacher was
published. It would be followed in 1543 with his life study. What he set
forth in his writings was greatly opposed by the visible church. One of
his disciples was tried before the Inquisition, condemned, and burned at
the stake for his "heretical view." Another one was brought
before the Inquisition, forced to his knees under threat of torture and
death, pressured to renounce all belief in this teaching, and sentenced
to imprisonment for the rest of his life.
The church teacher was Copernicus. Although what he taught is accepted
today, it then countered a belief that had been taught for almost 1400
years. The simple truth that the sun and not the earth is the center of
the universe was greatly contested by the visible church. With his
understanding that the earth and all of the other planets revolved
around the sun, his teaching has been appropriately called the
Copernican revolution. It brought a new, revolutionary way of thinking
about the universe.
It seems when new truth or even a clearer understanding of an
established truth is revealed to man it is always resisted by the mind
of man. Such was the new understanding brought to Peter by the
revelation of God that he must go and eat with the Gentiles. He not only
found himself resisting this change but the contemporary church resisted
as well.
After Peter had his thinking challenged and changed, he went up to
Jerusalem. Upon his arrival, he was confronted by the brethren that were
in Judaea. They were struggling to understand how Peter could go into a
home of the uncircumcised and eat with them. Preaching the gospel to all
people just was not done in that fashion.
Peter told them how he too struggle to understand what God was doing. He
shared with them how he was on the housetop praying when the vision came
to him. A great vessel came down from heaven containing all matter of
beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air. After the vessel
descended to him he heard a voice say, "Arise, Peter, slay and
eat." Peter told the men of the circumcision how he had responded
to the voice, "Not so, Lord: for nothing unclean has at any time
entered my mouth." Then, he added that the voice answered him,
"What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." Moreover,
this vision had occurred to him three times.
The circumcised then were told how that even as Peter was experiencing
the vision there were three men at his door from the Gentile, Cornelius.
Peter further stated that the Spirit of God had told him to go with the
men from Caesarea doubting nothing. Upon entering the house of the
uncircumcised, Peter shared with the circumcision how he had learned
that Cornelius had a vision from God as well: Peter was to come and tell
the Gentiles the things they needed to hear.
The men of the circumcision in Judaea were probably astonished as much
as the men in Caesarea when Peter told them what occurred next. He said,
"...as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at
the beginning." He then added, "Forasmuch then as God gave
them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?" (11:3-17). Peter
who had placed himself in an adversarial role against God’s revelation
had now come to accept the truth once challenged.
It was not the first time that Peter had become an adversary to the ways
of God. When he was following Jesus on the shores of Caesarea Philippi,
Jesus raised the question, "Whom do men say that I am?" After
several different responses from his disciples, Jesus then asked,
"But whom say ye that I am?" Peter spoke up and said,
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter is not
the adversary here for he is answering Jesus based upon a revelation of
truth that he had already received. It would not be long, however, until
he would become an antagonist to the ways of God.
It was not that Peter did not believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son
of the living God. He did. He just did not understand how believing
Jesus as the Christ should work out in his life. After Peter told Jesus
of his belief that he was the Son of God, Jesus told him and the other
disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. He told them how he
must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, and be killed.
Peter immediately took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying,
"Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee." Not
knowing how Jesus was to be the Christ, Peter at the thought of Jesus
being killed became hostile. His thinking had put him in enmity with the
ways of God. By the exercise of his mind, he became an adversary to
things of God.
Although Peter found himself in an adversarial role in Caesarea Philippi
and in the vision concerning the Gentiles, he was not going to spend all
the days of his life with a fleshly mind--an adversary to the outworking
of God in his life. After many years of God continually breaking through
to him, he would write to believers who were struggling at the time as
he had once struggle: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he
may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same
afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But
the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by
Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect,
stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever
and ever. Amen" (1 Pet. 5:8-11).
When the believers to whom Peter was writing were going to face the
afflictions (hardship or pain, emotions or influences) of living life,
as all men in the world do, they were to be sober. Their minds were not
to become intoxicated with ever-increasing imaginations of gloom and
despair in the midst of the afflictions. They were to be vigilant
(watchful) for that which would destroy their abundant life of God. The
mind instead of being controlled by the Spirit could become fleshly.
Like the bombardment of a torrential downpour of rain, the thoughts of
the mind can be thrown against the stable, secure soul. With no
capability to instill harm other than by mental anguish, the mind can
become the adversary to the working of God. The run-away mind can become
occupied with seeking, plotting, envisioning destruction for all. It can
become intoxicated with its own death.
When Peter walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry, he became an
adversary to how God was going to take Jesus to his death. After Jesus
ascended and returned by the Holy Spirit into the life of Peter, he
still became an adversary to how God was going take Jesus to the
Gentiles. In the first instance, Peter struggled in his adversarial role
for several years. In the second instance, Peter’s opposition
diminishes at a much faster pace. Finally, in his maturity, Peter
recognized instantly who, where, and how the adversary to the outworking
of God in his life would come.
Peter now knew that if the adversary, the fleshly mind of man, is
resisted in faith, God would not be prohibited from revealing his Son,
Jesus Christ, in all of his glory to man. In the midst of the same
afflictions that all men face, Peter wrote, "the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye
have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle
you." When the adversary is resisted in faith, God will thoroughly
complete his work. He will confirm upon the believer a sense of security
that will hold fast in troubling circumstances. He will strengthen the
believer with spiritual knowledge and power that will carry him through
the tempest. He will give the believer a foundation so sure that it
cannot be shaken by the most violent of storms. The God of all grace
will "make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."
From Caesarea Philippi, to the vision concerning the Gentiles, to the
final solution, Peter had come to understand a vital truth in
experiencing the full gospel of Jesus Christ. Although the men of the
circumcision to whom Peter was giving his testimony probably did not
fully understand what they were saying, they nevertheless voiced the
truth revealed in Peter’s life. After Peter finished speaking, they
withdrew their contention with him and said, "Then hath God also to
the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."
As illustrated by Peter’s life, repentance unto life is not a one time
experience. It is a way of life, a process of the mind being brought
back to full restoration of the grace of God. With repentance meaning,
"reversal (of decision)" which in turn is derived from
"to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider," it
seems that the renewing of the mind only occurs in consecutively stages
of being brought out of its own thinking.
Peter’s life serves as an example. Peter could not come to understand
that Jesus was the Christ by his own mind. God had to revealed to him
that truth. His mind however could grasp that truth only on a certain
level. The level of understanding of that truth for Peter was restricted
by his already preconceived ideas of how the ways of God would be worked
out in the Christ. His mind once again had to be changed (repentance),
although he now knew that Jesus was the Christ. God had to break through
to him again with more revelation to deliver him from his current level
of understanding of the Christ.
Repentance unto life is the continual process of God bring man out of
the limits of his own understanding. As with Peter, man seems to
continually say, "Not so, Lord." As with God, he keeps sending
the vision again and again. The God of grace is able to finish that
which he has begun. |
Schedule