Cornelius' Conversion and Holy Spirit Baptism

The idea is in vogue in some quarters that Cornelius was saved when the Holy Spirit fell upon him (Acts 10:44) without any further action on his part.  One of the verses used to support this idea is 1 John 4:13, "By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit." (NKJV)  So, it is said, that settles it. 

Go take a look at that verse and read it in context.  Verse 12 just before it reads, "If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us." (NKJV)  Two verses down I read this, "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." (1 John 4:15 NKJV)  In a broader context, but still in the book of 1 John, it is said if we keep his word we abide in him and he in us. (1 John 2:5, 1 John 3:24)  Thus we have a series of items being listed by which we can measure whether or not we are in a faithful relationship with God.  John is writing to fellow Christians thus he uses the word “we.” 

In the passage, 1 John 4:13, John is not talking about initial obedience to God, gospel obedience.  It is speaking to those who are already Christians as are the other verses in context round about it. 

There can be no obedience to what is cast upon you, the Holy Spirit.  Cornelius and his household obeyed nothing when they miraculously received the Holy Spirit.  They were passive in that. 

Receiving the Holy Spirit is not equivalent to obeying the gospel.  If receiving the Holy Spirit is equivalent to obeying the gospel for salvation then there is nothing to obey.  Why say that?  Only Jesus could baptize one with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is a gift, a gift from God.  The individual is passive in the matter.  The giving of the gift is up to God, not to the individual.  Had Cornelius obeyed the gospel?  No! 

Paul said, concerning the matter of salvation in Rom. 6:17-18, "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you ­obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." (NKJV)  There is then something to obey, not something to just passively receive.  The gospel must be obeyed. 

The Bible says when Jesus returns he will be “taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thess. 1:8 NKJV)  So, we see again the gospel is something to be obeyed. 

What is the nature of that obedience?  The answer is to be found in the command of Peter to Cornelius and those gathered with him, "And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord." (Acts 10:48 NKJV)  

Let the reader note that obedience from the heart spoken of above (Rom. 6:17) necessarily implies faith or else how can it be from the heart, thus the obedience being spoken of is in addition to faith and it is something they must do for themselves--not God do for them or to them. 

I do not know of a case in the Bible where it is said or implied that the Holy Spirit was ever said to be given to a man for the purpose of saving him.  Do you?  Yes, a person has the Spirit if he is saved but is that the reason it was given to him--to save him?  That is what needs to be shown. 

There is an interesting passage in 1 Cor. 14:22 about the very thing Cornelius received.  It reads as follows:  "Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe." (1 Cor. 14:22 NKJV)  This has an application to the case of Cornelius.  Remember the evidence that Cornelius and those with him received the Holy Spirit was their speaking in tongues. 

Without convincing the Jews that God was willing and desirous of saving the Gentiles, as well as themselves, the gospel never would have been preached to the Gentiles.  The Jews were so biased against the Gentiles it was going to take something special and unusual to convince them that God had any interest in Gentiles.  Ten years had gone by since Jesus' ascension back into heaven and yet there had been no preaching to the Gentiles.  The Jews up to this point in time did not believe God had an interest in the salvation of Gentiles. 

It took a miracle to convince the Jewish Christians otherwise.  "And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also." (Acts 10:45 NKJV)  This was the event that convinced the Jews that it was not only okay but the will of God that the Gentiles also have access to eternal life through the gospel.  "When they (the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem--DS) heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, 'Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.' " (Acts 11:18 NKJV)  Tongues served for a sign to the Jewish Christians with regards to the Gentile Cornelius and thus to all Gentiles concerning God's will for them. 

This whole episode at the house of Cornelius of being baptized in the Holy Spirit had nothing to do with gospel obedience or conversion.  Let us say the Holy Spirit had not fallen upon Cornelius that day.  Do you think Cornelius would have been disobedient to, and an unbeliever of, the things Peter was teaching him?  Do you think Peter would have left Cornelius as an unsaved man?  You know better.  With or without the baptism of the Holy Spirit Cornelius was going to obey the gospel that day and be saved.  Remember his conversion began with an appearance of an angel in a vision telling him to send for Peter and in doing so he would be told “words by which you and all your household will be saved.” (Acts 11:14 NKJV)  It was the message believed and obeyed that saved them, not the miracle that happened to them. 

One needs to be careful lest he take the exception to the rule and make it the general rule.  We do not do that in life and we should not do it in Bible study.  We do not say that the Lord appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus therefore unless the Lord appears to you personally you cannot be converted.  There was a reason Jesus appeared to Saul and that reason is not applicable to either you or me.  We understand this.  We need to understand the same principle as it relates to the conversion of Cornelius and his household.  It was a one-time event for a special purpose. 

It is the gospel that saves people “for it is the power of God to salvation.” (Rom. 1:16 NKJV)  It must be believed and obeyed. 

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Sinning Without Law

That man has always been under some kind of law from God I think there is little doubt.  We know Adam and Eve were under law but what about those who came after them but before the Law of Moses?  The flood came upon mankind because of "wickedness" and "every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Gen. 6:5 NKJV)  The earth was "corrupt before God" and "filled with violence." (Gen. 6:11 NKJV)  Peter spoke of the world before the flood as "the world of the ungodly." (2 Peter 2:5 NKJV)

Were these people innocent, not having a law of God before them for guidance and direction in life?  Did they not have a way of knowing right from wrong, good from evil?  There is no evidence we have of a written law but we do know Noah was "a preacher of righteousness." (2 Peter 2:5 NKJV)  How did Noah know what was righteous and what was not?  What is my point?  It is threefold:  (1) God had a law by which man was to live even if unwritten, (2) man had some means by which to know God's will and (3) man could sin "without law," that is, in this case, without written law.  God would and did hold man responsible for man's lawlessness by means of the flood.

Moving up to the account of the events surrounding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah the Bible says, "The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD." (Gen. 13:13 NKJV)  Lamentations 4:6 speaks of “the sin of Sodom.” (NKJV, NAS)  But, there was no written law.  They sinned against God but they sinned without law but only in the sense of written law.  God had a standard, a law, against their conduct whether written or not. 

To elaborate Peter says, speaking of Lot and his time in Sodom, "That righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds." (2 Peter 2:8 NKJV)  Lot saw them; Peter called them "lawless deeds" so there was law there even without a formal code, as was later found in the law of Moses.

I have said all of this to lay some background material for Paul's discussion of the sins of the Gentiles in Romans 1.  (I remind the reader the Gentiles were never given the Law of Moses; it was given to the Jews at Mt. Sinai while the Gentiles remained without a formal law code or written law from God.)  I cannot quote it all here but the reader would be advised to stop and read Rom. 1:18-32 before proceeding.  Paul lists the sins of the Gentiles, especially in Rom. 1:29-32.  How did the Gentiles come to know these things were sins?  They had no written law and in that sense they were "without law," a phrase Paul uses later in Rom. 2:12.

I ask again, how did the Gentiles come to know these listed sins were sins when they were without law?  That they did know is evident for Paul says in Rom. 1:32, "Who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them." (NKJV)  They knew; Paul says so.

I do not propose in this piece to give you answers that would be mere speculation on my part as to how the Gentiles were to know sin from righteousness other than the fact that some things ought to be self-evident to all men.  The Gentiles went for thousands of years, up until Christ, without any kind of formal law from God but they "sinned without law." (Rom. 2:12 NKJV)  One might ask how can this be since "sin is the transgression of the law?" (1 John 3:4 KJV)  That is the question.

This is my opinion and mark it down as that, just opinion, which is that God has law (or put another way a set of standards for conduct) whether it is given to man or not and any violation of that law is sin.  For example, as far as we know God never told Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel not to murder or kill.  Does that mean Cain did not sin when he murdered his brother?  (Should one not know instinctively that this is sin?)

Sin is the transgression of God's law but one can sin without a formal law being in place.  How would one do that?  Well, one could not do it today since all men today are under the law of Christ but back in Old Testament times after Mt. Sinai and God's covenant that was made there with the Jews things were different.  The world was divided thereafter into two groups of humanity.  You were either a Jew or a Gentile (anyone not a Jew was a Gentile).  To the Jews, God gave a formal law—the Law of Moses.  The rest of humanity was without law, that is without a written formal code of law.

The Jews obviously sinned anytime they broke the Law of Moses.  The Gentiles sinned without law, without a formal law code such as the Law of Moses.  However, that does not mean they did not break God's law for God has a standard of right and wrong whether it has been delivered to man formally or not.

Sin is a transgression of God's law period.  Romans 1:18-32 is the Holy Spirit's listing of and condemnation of the sins of the Gentiles.  Paul says, "where there is no law there is no transgression" (Rom. 4:15 NKJV) thus the Gentiles were under condemnation for the very reason that they had transgressed God's law.  "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23 NKJV), Paul said in Rom. 3:23, but that would not be true of the Gentiles in the period under discussion if they had no law of God to transgress.

Where did this law that was never formally given to the Gentiles, that the Gentiles lived under and a law they could and did violate, come from since it was not formally given?  Some of it came, evidently, naturally or instinctively as Rom. 2:14 says, "For when Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the Law, these not having the Law, are a law to themselves." (NAS)   

The law the Gentiles lived under was not as strict as that the Jews lived under.  Of that, there can be little to no doubt.  When the scriptures talk about doing instinctively the things of the Law they are surely not speaking of offerings, sacrifices, clean and unclean foods, etc., the kinds of things that were regulated in detail and could only be known by a direct revelation from God (the very thing the Gentiles did not have).  The scriptures thus had to be speaking of things that relate to man's relationship with his fellowman and of his reverence toward God.  Paul summed up the fulfillment of the law when he said, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Gal. 5:14 NKJV)  A Gentile was capable of doing that without a formal written code.

Did anyone, Jew or Gentile, ever live perfectly without sinning against the law under which he lived?  Of course not!  That is the point Paul is driving home in Romans chapters 1 and 2.  He says, "We have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one.'" (Rom. 3:9-10 NAS)

Paul says, "Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3:20 NAS)  Does this mean that since the Gentiles did not have a formal written code or even an oral code from God they had no knowledge of sin?  No!  Why not?  Paul speaks of "the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending themselves." (Rom. 2:15 NAS)  Is there a man, living or dead, Jesus being the exception, who ever lived to manhood who could honestly say he never violated his own code of conduct, his sense of right versus wrong, never ever violated his own conscience?  Our own heart has condemned us all at one point in time or another.

Law has condemned all men, even those the Bible refers to as being "without law" for that phrase means only without a legal code of the likes of the Law of Moses. 

There is a passage in Rom. 5 that raises questions that ought to be dealt with.  It reads as follows:  "For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law." (Rom. 5:13 NKJV)

If a person were to read this for the first time ever and have no knowledge of the Bible he would think that God did not punish sin or hold man accountable for sin before the Law of Moses but we have already discussed the account of the flood and why it came and talked about Sodom and Gomorrah and we have even discussed how God held the Gentiles to account for their sins as recorded in chapter one of this very same book—the book of Romans.  We have also discussed how men had law but just not a law of a formal code given by direct revelation and we have shown how the Gentiles violated the law or light they did have.

My take on this verse (Rom. 5:13) then is this—we take it at face value.  What do I mean?  It is a simple declaration, "sin is not imputed when there is no law." (Rom. 5:13 NKJV)  Thus, if sin exists at any place, anywhere, or anytime among anyone then there was a law that was violated even though that law may not have been in the form of a written or oral code and may not have been in the form of a specific commandment such as Adam was given.  Put another way one could say it is impossible to sin against a law that does not exist thus if there is sin there is law.

If Gentiles who lived in the period between Adam and Moses were eternally lost because of sin how could it be said that sin is not imputed when there is no law (they had no law given by revelation as did the Jews)?  We have already shown the wickedness of many in that time.  The answer is there was law, just not a written code of the nature of the Law of Moses.  I add in closing I do not presume to become the judge of the Gentiles before the Christian dispensation.  That is God's realm, not mine.  I am only saying God was not unjust in those he condemned because they were "without law." 

What God will do with the Gentiles of those ages past who lived without a written code is a question only he has the answer to.  I do know each of us will stand before the Lord on the Day of Judgment individually, not as a group, to answer for our own deeds.   Luke 12:47-48 seems to teach we will be judged to an extent on our ability to know and do.  My purpose in writing this article was certainly not to make myself a judge of the Gentiles or to answer questions men have been contemplating for centuries but I do have an answer.  "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25 NKJV)   

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