24On the following day he entered Caesarea. Now Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell at his feet and worshiped him. 26But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am just a man.” 27As he talked with him, he entered and found many people assembled. 28And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.”
Cornelius was waiting for Peter, like the father anticipating his prodigal son’s return while he was still a long way off (Luke 15:20). Because of the centurion’s influence, “his relatives and close friends” joined in the welcoming committee. This open-heartedness reminds us of another centurion who came to Jesus concerning his sick servant (Luke 7:6–7): though he considered himself unworthy for an audience with Jesus, he overcame his reticence because of a humanitarian concern for his servant.
The instinctive reaction from this God-honoring Gentile (vss. 2, 22) was to bow and worship the apostle, possibly seeing Peter as the Jewish Messiah. While the true Jewish Messiah, Jesus, accepted worship from a leper (Matt. 8:2), the mother of a demon-possessed girl (Matt. 15:22), and a blind man who regained his sight (John 9:38), Peter could not and would not accept worship from Cornelius. Neither the miracles he performed nor the divine intervention of visions elevated him to godhood. He knew whom he served, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing had changed since he had confessed Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16), the same One whom Thomas confessed as “[m]y Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
Peter would not allow any confusion in Cornelius’ mind. So he quickly and authoritatively reached down, pulled this Roman military commander up, and spoke directly and commandingly—one can imagine him holding Cornelius by the shoulders, looking him straight in the eyes—saying, “Stand up; I too am just a man.” Nothing tests a man’s loyalty to his master more than resisting the opportunity to take his master’s glory. Lucifer had failed at this, as we see in the cryptic personifications of Ezekiel 28:2, 9 and Isaiah 14:13–14, and in Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:5). Not so Peter.
Lest any unacknowledged elephant remains in the room, Peter addresses the animosity that Jews have toward Gentiles and assures Cornelius that God has taught him otherwise! The vision of the unclean animals now makes sense to him. Peter’s allegiance to God eclipses his prior ethnic prejudice.
Lord, remind me always to give You glory in anything I do for You.
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