We must ask ourselves this fundamental question. When Peter said that God shows no partiality, was he referring to the choice of Cornelius to eternal life, or was he referring to the fact that Cornelius was a Gentile? I think that it is clear that he was speaking of the fact that God is no respecter of persons in this sense – that in every nation the person who fears God and does what is right is accepted by Him. The person who fears God has the beginning of wisdom because to fear God is to have regard for Him and for His word when it is presented to you. This can only take place when God is intending to bestow saving grace upon an individual. It is not as though Cornelius was a saved man yet. What was happening here, was that Cornelius was accepted by God in the sense that God realized that he had improved upon all the common grace that had been given to him because God had already sovereignly determined to give him the special grace which would bring him savingly to Christ, in in the gospel. God was not under any obligation to do this. For salvation is not of works. But He had determined to do this in just this way from before the foundation of the world.
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Pastor Paul Rendall was born in November of 1951, and grew up in Davenport, Iowa. He went to college at Drake University and the University of Iowa where he received a B.A. degree in Social Work and History in 1974. Paul searched for truth in all the wrong places in college, but...