It was the constituted leader of the apostolic band, who now, in direct execution of his solemn commission received from his Master, and in the literal fulfilment of the prophetic charge given therewith at the base of distant Hermon, opened the gates of the kingdom of heaven to all nations. Bearing the keys of the kingdom of God on earth, he now, in the set time of divine appointment, at the call of his Master in heaven, so signally given to him both directly and indirectly, unlocked the long-closed door, and with a voice of heavenly charity, bade the waiting Gentiles enter. This was the mighty commission with which Jesus had so prophetically honored this chief disciple at Caesarea Philippi, and here, at Caesarea Augusta, was achieved the glorious fulfilment of this before mysterious announcement;—Simon Peter now, in the accomplishment of that divinely appointed task, became the Rock, on which the church of Christ was, through the course of ages, reared; and in this act, the first stone of its broad Gentile foundation was laid.
On duty about him.—This phrase is the just translation of the technical term [Greek: proskarterountôn],
(proskarterounton,) according to Price, Kuinoel, Bloomfield, &c.
Of all the honors with which his apostolic career was marked,
there is none which equals this,—the revolutionizing of the whole
gospel plan as before understood and advanced by its devotees,—the
enlargement of its scope beyond the widest range of any
merely Jewish charity,—and the disenthralment of its subjects
from the antique formality and cumbrous ritual of the Jewish
worship. And of all the events which the apostolic history records,
there is none which, in its far-reaching and long-lasting effects,
can match the opening of Christ's kingdom to the Gentiles.
What would have been the rate of its advancement under the
management of those, who, like the apostles hitherto, looked on
it as a mere improvement and spiritualization of the old Mosaic
form, to which it was, in their view, only an appendage, and
not a substitute? Think of what chances there were of its extension
under such views to those far western lands where, ages
ago, it reached with its benign influences the old Teutonic hordes
from whom we draw our race;—or of what possibility there was
of ever bringing under the intolerable yoke of Jewish forms, the
hundreds of millions who now, out of so many lands and kindreds
and tongues, bear the light yoke, and own the simpler faith
of Jesus, confessing him Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Yet hitherto, so far from seeing these things in their true light,
