Did God Change How Salvation Works? (Acts 10)

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we're going to answer this question: Did God change how salvation works?

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Today we’re in part 4 of our mini-series on how salvation works

• Three weeks ago: Is Anyone Too Far Gone for God? (Acts 8:26-40)
• Answer: No! God can reach you on the desert road to nowhere
• Two weeks ago: How Does Spiritual Conversion Actually Work?
• We’ll looked at the dramatic conversion story of Saul (Paul)
• – and what we can generalize from his experience.
• About the HS opening eyes
• And how faith/repentance changes you in an instant
• From death to life
• From enemy of God to child of God
• Last week: How can you know if you’re really saved? (Acts 9:20-31)
• Paul went about preaching the gospel immediately
• The disciples in Jerusalem didn’t believe he was really saved!? After 3 years! 
• We looked at how Christians can have “assurance” of their salvation
• Today to finish up we’ll dig deeper into a theological question: 

Q. Did God Change How Salvation Works?

• Have you ever thought about this?
• In the NT
• grace, forgiveness, Jesus
• Jn 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
• Jesus is THE way. But what about in the OT?
• Did salvation work one way in OT before Jesus
• And another way in NT after Jesus?

Q. What was the Old Testament way of salvation?

• Many thought: saved by keeping the commandments
• In Jewish tradition, there are 613 commandments (known as the Mitzvot) in the Torah. These commandments are derived from the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and encompass a wide range of moral, religious, and civil laws. 248 positive commandments (things to do) and 365 negative commandments (things not to do)
• Scholars estimate that around 100 to 150 of the 613 commandments address issues of purity and impurity.
• Dietary Laws (Kashrut): These include commandments related to clean and unclean animals (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14).
• Table fellowship refers to the practice of sharing meals, which in ancient Jewish culture held deep social, religious, and spiritual significance. In the context of the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, sharing a meal symbolized more than just eating together; it represented community, unity, and, in many cases, ritual purity. This practice also reinforced the separation between Jews and Gentiles due to differences in dietary laws and religious observance. Eating with Gentiles, who were considered ritually impure, could defile an observant Jew, requiring purification rites (Leviticus 20:24-26).
• Clean vs. unclean
• So is this how people were saved in OT? Keep yourself clean? 

The answer is found in today’s text. 

• The passage we’re reading today is groundbreaking. 
• The early Christians are going to learn the answer to this question
• …by way of answering a broader question about salvation.
• Here’s the story:

Acts 10:1-6 (NLT) 1 In Caesarea there lived a Roman army officer named Cornelius, who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. 2 He was a devout, God-fearing man, as was everyone in his household. He gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God. 3 One afternoon about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him. “Cornelius!” the angel said.

4 Cornelius stared at him in terror. “What is it, sir?” he asked the angel.

And the angel replied, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! 5 Now send some men to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.”

Acts 10:9-14 (NLT) 9 The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, 10 and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. 12 In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. 13 Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.”

14 “No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.”

• Even after Jesus’ teaching on this, Peter still didn’t understand (see below). This would be the moment that he really got it… and its implications for the church.
• Mark 7:18-19 (NLT) 18 “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? 19 Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)

Acts 10:15-16 (NLT) 15 But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” 16 The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.

• This is a watershed moment in salvation history
• Peter was learning the answer to our question today
• (Pillar New Testament Commentary) What was implicit in the teaching of Jesus is now made explicit. The clean and unclean provisions of the law were temporary, designed to keep Israel a holy and distinct people, until the time when Jews and Gentiles could receive the forgiveness of sins and sanctification on the same basis, through faith in Christ (Acts 20:32; 26:17-18; cf. 15:9, 'having cleansed their hearts by faith'). 

Peter was confused, then Cornelius’ men showed up..

• He went with them to the Gentile’s house, and said this: 

Acts 10:28 (NLT) 28 Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.”

• It wasn’t just about food! It was about people.
• God was revealing himself to Cornelius, and Peter was to share the gospel 
• Note similarity with Samaritan revival
• Philip shared the gospel
• But God waited for Peter and John to give HS
• This same pattern is happening
• God could have just shared the gospel in a vision
• But he wanted Peter to share it
• Not for Cornelius’ sake
• But for Peter’s sake!

Acts 10:34-36 (NLT) 34 Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. 35 In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. 36 This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all…. 43 He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”

• Not just Lord of Jews. (mind blown)
• Salvation now goes out to Gentiles. This isn’t just a Jewish thing.
• Salvation is not about being clean or unclean according to Law
• It’s about trusting Jesus to clean you by his final work on the cross
• He is the ultimate sacrifice
• No longer a need for the old system

And here’s where it connects to our question of the day…

This answer doesn’t just apply to Jews and Gentiles moving forward

• It applies to everyone looking backward!
• Q. Did God Change How Salvation Works?
• Answer: no!! Everyone who has ever been saved… has been saved by faith
• Jews in NT were saved by faith in the one who came (Jesus).
• Gentiles in NT were saved by that same faith in the one who came (Jesus).
• People in OT were saved by faith, too
• In the one who was to come, even though they didn’t know his name
• Object of faith was still Messiah
• Galatians 3:11 (NLT) 11 So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”
• Quoting OT! Now they look back and see the truth: it was always faith
• salvation by faith, apart from the Law was an Old Testament principle
• Romans 4:1-3 (NLT) 1 Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? 2 If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. 3 For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”
• Believed in God’s promise (about his offspring)
• Even though it was humanly impossible (he was old and childless)
• God counted him as righteousness (even though he wasn’t)
• Because of his faith.
• Faith in God to come through on his promise
• His promise was all about Jesus!

Here’s the point: 

• No one was ever saved by perfectly keeping the Law
• Not back then, not today
• The Law simply shows people how imperfect they are
• To set the stage for the One who could perfectly keep the Law
• = Jesus
• So all along this was God’s plan for salvation
• It was always about dependence upon God, trusting his pathway
• In the OT his pathway was a concept: Messiah
• In the NT his pathway had a name: Jesus
• Everyone who has ever been saved… has been saved by faith in Jesus.
• As Peter said to the Jewish leaders in Acts 4:

Acts 4:12 (NLT) 12 “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”