Repentance Unto Life: A Meditation on Acts 10 & 11

And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, 

John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

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?

When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying,

 Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

In the 10th and 11th chapters of Acts, the story is recounted of the salvation of the Gentile Cornelius and his family.  He was one who sought the true God, rather than the pagan gods of his community.  Somehow he became acquainted with the Word of God through his exposure to the Jews, but like all Gentiles, he was excluded from the Jewish community by their interpretation of the Old Testament Law.  Cornelius had faith in the God whose Word He had heard, fasted and prayed to Him, and His prayers were answered:  God sent to Cornelius an angel, who directed him to send for St. Peter to preach for him the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.

St. Peter was also praying, and received a vision of his own.  With the imagery of a great sheet descending from heaven, God spoke to Peter three times, instructing him not to call anything unclean which God Himself had made clean.  Through reference and allusion to the dietary Laws of Moses, Peter was being prepared to bring the Word of God to the Gentiles.  Not long after Peter's preaching of Christ crucified for the sins of the world brought faith, baptism, salvation, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Gentile house of Cornelius, other Christian brothers of Jewish descent found fault with Peter for having not obeyed their understanding of the Law regarding Gentiles.

Peter recounted for the Church at large what God had done-- how His Word was sent to both Jew and Gentile, giving the same gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  To the awestruck ears of his  brethren he said, "What was I, that I could withstand God?"  The church's response to the Word and works of God was an act of contrition and faith, when they said, "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."  With St. Peter the Jewish church came to understand and believe that the gift of salvation was His gift to give, and that He had offered that gift to the whole world.

In the presence of such an awesome gift as repentance unto life, it would do us well to ponder how we respond to it.  Cornelius was not alone among the Gentiles to be converted by this gift, but there were certainly many Gentiles who spurned this gift and remained in their paganism.  Likewise, not all the Jews received God's gift, but some preferred to remain in the darkness of their Pharisaical misinterpretation of Moses.  As God created (and still creates) all mankind, He also in the Person of His Son suffered and died for all mankind, that He might offer forgiveness and salvation to all mankind.  But in the mystery of salvation, God also allows Himself to be rejected by those whom He has created and redeemed, as saving faith and love cannot be coerced-- they must be freely given and freely received, if they are to remain truly faith and truly love.

Even so, the gift of repentance unto life comes to our age and place, as well.  Like every age and place before, there are those who will hear the Word of Christ and abide in it by faith, and those who will reject it in unbelief.  While the Word, and the Holy Spirit who works through the Word, offers the same free gift to all, breathing life into the dead hearts of fallen humanity, God does not remove from every one of us the freedom to either cling to Christ's life through His Word by faith, or to return to the death of unbelief in which He came and sought us.  God comes to give us life abundantly and eternally, but He still gives to us the freedom to choose death.

Such is the old and everlasting gift of repentance unto life in Jesus Christ.  It is the gift of His Law which pierces every false and vain imagination of man, showing to us the vast gulf which exists between the holiness of our Creator and the wickedness of His fallen creation-- a chasm we are unable to cross, traverse, or bridge.  But even more than the gift of His Law which inspires godly sorrow for our own corruption and evil, the gift of His Gospel comes to show us the Savior who crosses that chasm to reach us in our hopeless state.  That Gospel shows us what God has done for us that we could not do for ourselves: giving us life by creating us in His image, redeeming our lives through the Vicarious Atonement of His only begotten Son on the Cross, and sanctifying us in the power of His Holy Spirit unto life everlasting.  It is a Gospel which offers forgiveness and life by His gracious gift, and which can only be received by faith blooming forth in love for God our Savior.  It is a Gospel which calls all people to turn-- to repent-- from those ways of evil and death which would chain us in hell forever, unto a new and everlasting life of faith in Jesus Christ, abiding in Him through His Word and Spirit in the eternal glory of His Kingdom.

In our age and place, there will be those who prefer the darkness of their evil, and who hear the Word of God's call to repentance as infuriating and condescending.  There will be those who ignore it, who despise it, who reject it, and even those who will persecute it.  But that gift of God through His Word still comes to every soul born into His world, offering the same forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who will repent and believe His Gospel.  Thus His Word and gift come to you, of repentance unto life everlasting.  Hear God your savior call you out of your death into the life of His Son.  Believe Him, repent, and live.  Amen.