The Acts of the Apostles (1911) — PDF Scan 142

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136 THE ACTS OF TEE APOSTLES wall of partition, broken down hy tlie death of Christ, still existed, and their labors had been confined to the Jews; for they had looked upon the Gentiles as excluded from the blessings of the gospel. Now the Lord was seeking to teach Peter the world-wide extent of the divine plan. Many of the G-entiles^had been interested listeners to the preaching of Peter and the other apostles, and many of the Greek Jews had become believers in Christ, but the conversion of Cornelius was to be the first of importance among the Gentiles. The time had come for an entirely new phase of work to be entered upon by the church of Christ. The door that many of the Jewish converts had closed against the Gentiles, was now to be thrown open. And the Gentiles who accepted the gospel were to be regarded as on an equality with the Jewish disciples, without the necessity of observing the rite of circumcision. How carefully the Lord worked to overcome the prejudice against the Gentiles that had been so firmly fixed in Peter's mind by his Jewish training. By the vision of the sheet and its contents, He sought to divest the apostle's mind of this prejudice, and to teach the important truth that in heaven there is no respect of persons; that Jew and Gentile are alike precious in God's sight; that through Christ the heathen may be made partakers of the blessings and privileges of the gospel. While Peter was meditating on the meaning of the vision, the men sent from Cornelius arrived in Joppa, and stood before the gate of his lodginghouse. Then the Spirit said to him, '^Behold, three