Sometimes a place in Scripture is merely a geographical detail. At other times, the recurrence of a place in remarkably similar circumstances invites us to stop and take notice.
Joppa is such a place.
Centuries before Peter lodged there in the house of Simon the tanner, another servant of God came to Joppa with Gentiles very much in view. His name was Jonah.
“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish...”
— Jonah 1:3
Jonah had been commanded:
“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
— Jonah 1:2
Jonah went to Joppa intending to go in the opposite direction.
Many generations later, the book of Acts brings us back to the same place. Peter had come to Joppa following the raising of Tabitha from the dead and “tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon a tanner” (Acts 9:43).
It was there that Peter received the vision that prepared him to enter the house of Cornelius.
Once again an Israelite servant of God was at Joppa.
Once again Gentiles were in view.
The two accounts are not identical, nor is one intended to be a prophetic picture of the other. Yet the parallels and contrasts are difficult to miss. More importantly, comparing them raises a larger question running through Scripture:
What was God’s purpose for Israel concerning the Gentiles?
The answer eventually takes us beyond both Jonah and Peter to the apostle Paul and to a purpose of God concerning Jew and Gentile that neither Jonah nor Peter could have known.
Jonah, Nineveh, and the Gentile World
The significance of Jonah’s commission becomes clearer when we appreciate where God was sending him.
Nineveh stood on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in the region opposite modern Mosul in northern Iraq. It became one of the great cities of the Assyrian world and eventually the capital of the Assyrian Empire under Sennacherib. Its location placed it along important routes of commerce, and the city became associated with wealth, culture, pagan religion, and imperial power.
But Assyria was also notorious for its cruelty toward conquered peoples.
Jonah therefore was not being sent merely to a foreign village outside the borders of Israel. God was sending an Israelite prophet into a major city belonging to a powerful and fearsome Gentile people.
And God said:
“Arise, go to Nineveh.”
Jonah arose—but went down to Joppa.
There he found a ship headed toward Tarshish and attempted to flee “from the presence of the LORD” (Jonah 1:3).
Why?
Jonah eventually tells us himself. After Nineveh responded to his preaching and God withheld the threatened judgment, Jonah said:
“Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”
— Jonah 4:2
Jonah understood that God could be merciful to Gentiles.
Indeed, that was precisely his problem.
If Nineveh repented, Jonah knew God might spare it.
Consequently, Jonah’s story establishes something important long before we ever reach Acts 10: God’s separation of Israel from the nations never meant that God had no purpose of mercy toward the nations.
Separated—but for a Purpose
God had indeed separated Israel.
The distinction between Israel and the Gentiles was neither imaginary nor merely a product of Jewish tradition. It was established by God Himself.
Israel possessed the covenants, the promises, the law, the worship of God, and a privileged national relationship with Him that the Gentiles did not possess.
Paul later describes the Gentile condition:
“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:”
— Ephesians 2:11–12
There really was a distinction.
But separation was not the end of God’s purpose for Israel.
God had promised Abraham:
“in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
— Genesis 12:3
Israel was called:
“a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
— Exodus 19:6
And Isaiah spoke of light extending beyond Israel:
“I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
— Isaiah 49:6
The prophetic expectation was therefore not Israel separated from the Gentiles merely for separation’s sake.
Israel was separated unto God, with a purpose that ultimately involved blessing reaching the nations.
The Gentiles did not possess Israel’s position, covenants, or promises. But God’s purpose for Israel always looked beyond Israel.
Jonah proves the point dramatically.
God could take one of His prophets and say, in effect, “Go to that Gentile city and speak My word to them.”
Israel’s separation did not prevent that mission.
It made the mission significant.
Peter at Joppa
Now return to Joppa.
Peter was staying in the house of Simon the tanner when he received the vision of the great sheet descending from heaven.
Meanwhile, at Caesarea, Cornelius had been instructed to send for him.
Cornelius was not merely a Gentile:
“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band.”
— Acts 10:1
He was associated with Rome—the dominant Gentile imperial power of Peter’s world.
That creates an intriguing correspondence with Jonah.
Jonah was sent toward Nineveh, a great city associated with Assyrian Gentile power.
Peter was summoned to Cornelius, an officer associated with Roman Gentile power.
In both accounts an Israelite servant of God confronts the Gentile world.
And in both accounts Joppa stands at the turning point.
But the responses are quite different.
Jonah knew exactly where God wanted him to go and went to Joppa attempting to get away from the Gentiles.
Peter was already in Joppa—and the Gentiles came looking for him.
“An Unlawful Thing”
It is here that Peter says something particularly interesting.
After entering the house of Cornelius, Peter declared:
“Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”
— Acts 10:28
The first half of that statement deserves more consideration than it often receives.
What exactly was “unlawful”?
The law certainly separated Israel from the nations. It contained dietary restrictions, ceremonial distinctions, prohibitions concerning idolatry and intermarriage, and numerous provisions preserving Israel’s sanctified identity.
But where did the law establish an absolute prohibition against an Israelite entering the company of a Gentile?
Israel’s own Scriptures make such an absolute separation difficult to maintain.
Rahab was received.
Ruth was received.
Solomon specifically prayed concerning the stranger who would come from a far country for God’s name’s sake (1 Kings 8:41–43).
And perhaps most strikingly for our comparison, God Himself had commanded Jonah to enter the Gentile world and preach to Nineveh.
Peter was therefore correct that God had established a real distinction between Israel and the nations. But it appears that the practical separation practiced in Peter’s day had carried that distinction beyond its intended purpose.
Israel was to be separated from the idolatry and uncleanness of the nations.
That did not mean Israel had no ministry toward the nations.
Perhaps Peter’s problem was not that he believed Israel was separated. Scripture confirms that she was.
The problem was treating separation as though separation itself were God’s ultimate purpose.
And God’s explanation to Peter is telling:
“but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”
— Acts 10:28
Peter himself tells us what the vision meant.
The great lesson was about men.
Two Kinds of Reluctance at Joppa
The comparison with Jonah now becomes even more interesting.
Jonah knew God could send an Israelite to Gentiles.
He simply did not want to go.
Peter apparently believed that entering the company of Gentiles was unlawful.
God had to show him otherwise.
Jonah’s reluctance came despite knowing God’s mercy toward Gentiles.
Peter’s reluctance grew out of his understanding of Israel’s separation from Gentiles.
Jonah went down to Joppa looking for a ship that would take him away from his Gentile commission.
Peter sat in Joppa trying to understand a vision when:
“the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate.”
— Acts 10:17
The scene is almost impossible to improve upon.
Jonah went to Joppa trying to get away from Gentiles.
Peter was sitting in Joppa when Gentiles came looking for him.
Peter obeyed.
Yet Acts 11 demonstrates that his difficulty was not peculiar to Peter.
When Peter returned to Jerusalem:
“they that were of the circumcision contended with him,
Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.”
— Acts 11:2–3
Peter had to rehearse the entire matter “from the beginning” and explain what God had done.
Only then did they respond:
“Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”
— Acts 11:18
Israel’s struggle with the Gentile question was real.
And yet Israel’s Scriptures had always contained a purpose concerning the nations.
Israel’s Rise and Gentile Blessing
That purpose is beautifully expressed in the prophets.
Isaiah speaks concerning Israel:
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.”
And then:
“And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
— Isaiah 60:1, 3
Notice the order.
Israel rises.
Gentiles come to Israel’s light.
This is entirely consistent with the prophetic purpose.
Paul himself confirms that Gentile blessing was no secret:
“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy...”
— Romans 15:8–9
Paul then cites Israel’s Scriptures:
“Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.”
— Romans 15:10
And:
“Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people.”
— Romans 15:11
Gentile salvation, therefore, was never itself the mystery.
Jonah alone should prevent us from saying that.
God’s revealed prophetic purpose had always anticipated blessing reaching the Gentiles.
The expectation was that blessing would reach them through God’s purpose for Israel.
But Israel did not rise.
Israel fell.
And it is here that the purpose of God takes an astonishing turn.
“Through Their Fall”
Paul asks:
“I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.”
— Romans 11:11
That is not the expected prophetic order.
Prophecy anticipates:
Israel’s rise → Gentile blessing.
Paul announces:
Israel’s fall → salvation unto the Gentiles.
The difference is profound.
Israel’s rejection did not defeat God’s purpose.
Rather, God used Israel’s very fall as the occasion for accomplishing something concerning Gentiles that He had not previously revealed.
And only two verses after announcing salvation coming to the Gentiles through Israel’s fall, Paul writes:
“For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:”
— Romans 11:13
Jonah could never say that.
Peter never said that.
Paul did.
God’s concern for Gentiles did not begin with Paul.
But God’s revelation of what He was now accomplishing among Gentiles through Israel’s fall was committed distinctively to him.
“But Now”
Ephesians 2 brings the magnitude of that change into focus.
Paul first tells Gentiles to remember their former position:
“aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise...”
— Ephesians 2:12
That was “time past.”
Then comes one of Paul’s great dispensational expressions:
“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
— Ephesians 2:13
Notice what Paul does not say.
He does not say that Gentiles have now been brought into Israel so that they may participate in Israel’s covenant position.
Instead:
“For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;”
— Ephesians 2:14
And:
“for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:”
— Ephesians 2:15–16
This is something far greater than an Israelite prophet entering Nineveh.
It is something different from Peter entering the house of Cornelius.
The answer to the Jew-Gentile distinction is no longer merely Gentiles receiving blessing through Israel’s privileged position.
God has made both one.
The former dispensational distinction has given way, in the Body of Christ, to a new creation in which Jew and Gentile are reconciled unto God “in one body by the cross.”
And this purpose was not simply another feature of Israel’s prophetic hope waiting to be discovered.
The Purpose That Had Been Hidden
Ephesians 3 guards us against confusing what God had revealed concerning Gentiles in prophecy with what He later revealed through Paul.
Paul writes:
“How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery...”
— Ephesians 3:3
And:
“Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;”
— Ephesians 3:5
What did that revelation concern?
“That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:”
— Ephesians 3:6
There had always been a revealed purpose concerning Gentiles.
But there was also an unrevealed purpose concerning Gentiles.
That distinction is essential.
The mystery was not that God loved Gentiles.
Nineveh proves otherwise.
The mystery was not simply that Gentiles could be saved.
Israel’s prophetic Scriptures had already anticipated Gentile blessing.
The mystery concerned what God would accomplish through Christ apart from Israel’s national rise: Jew and Gentile made one in Christ, reconciled unto God in one Body, according to a purpose previously kept hidden in God.
And herein lies one of the remarkable ironies of the biblical story.
Israel struggled with God’s revealed purpose toward the Gentiles.
Yet God used Israel’s rejection as the historical occasion for revealing His secret purpose concerning Jew and Gentile through the apostle of the Gentiles.
Israel’s failure did not frustrate the wisdom of God.
It became the occasion upon which another dimension of that wisdom was made known.
Back to Joppa
And so we return once more to that little port city on the Mediterranean.
Joppa does not mark the beginning of God’s concern for Gentiles.
Far from it.
Instead, Joppa appears twice in Scripture at remarkable moments when servants of Israel are confronted with God’s purpose toward the nations.
Jonah knew God had sent him to Gentiles—and resisted going.
Peter understood Israel’s separation from Gentiles so strongly that God intervened to show him that he should “not call any man common or unclean.”
One fled from Joppa rather than go.
The other had to be divinely persuaded at Joppa to go.
Yet in both cases God’s mercy reached beyond Israel.
Nineveh repented.
Cornelius believed.
And neither account exhausted God’s purpose concerning the Gentiles.
The prophets had foretold a day when the Gentiles would come to the brightness of Israel’s rising.
But Israel stumbled.
Israel fell.
And then came an announcement no student of prophecy would have anticipated:
“through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.”
Along with that announcement came an apostle who could say:
“I am the apostle of the Gentiles.”
And through that apostle God revealed something that Jonah could not have known, Peter at Joppa did not yet understand, and the prophets had never disclosed:
“to make in himself of twain one new man.”
The story that begins with an Israelite prophet reluctant to enter a Gentile city and continues with an apostle of Israel reluctant to enter a Gentile home eventually leads us to something neither man’s reluctance could prevent:
the manifold wisdom of God.
God had a revealed purpose by which blessing would reach the Gentiles through Israel.
And when Israel rejected that purpose, God revealed through the apostle of the Gentiles a purpose that had been hidden in Himself.
Jonah at Joppa helps us see that God’s mercy toward Gentiles was never a secret.
Peter at Joppa helps us see how deeply Israel struggled with the implications of that mercy.
Paul helps us see the mystery:
Not Gentiles blessed because Israel had risen,
but salvation sent to Gentiles through Israel’s fall;
not Gentiles brought into Israel’s privileged standing,
but Jew and Gentile made one new man in Christ.
The comparison does not erase the dispensational distinctions.
It brings them into view.