Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Acts 10:1-23.

There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius.

And when he looked at him, he was afraid and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said unto him, “Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner whose house is by the sea side. He shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.” And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants and a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually.

And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa. On the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour, and he became very hungry and would have eaten. But while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth, wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.

And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter, kill, and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice spake unto him again, the second time, “What God have cleansed that call not thou common. This was done thrice and the vessel was received up again into heaven. Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen was should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon’s house and stood before the gate and called and asked whether Simon, which was surnamed Peter, was lodged there.

While Peter thought on the vision, the spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise, therefore, and get thee down and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them. Then Peter went down to the men which were sent unto him from Cornelius, and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek? What is the cause, wherefore ye are come? And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nations of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.

Then called he them in, and lodged them, and on the morrow Peter went away with them and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray Lord God that you would now with the gift of your Holy Spirit illumine our hearts with the understanding of this text. Make it understandable to us, Lord God. More than that, make it convicting to our sin and encouraging to our acts and deeds of righteousness done in the power of the spirit for the sake of Christ’s kingdom. In his name we pray. Amen.

May be seated. Younger children may be dismissed to go to their Sabbath schools if their parents desire that for them.

I was reading one commentator in the Tyndale series and I’ll read to you what this commentator said about this very momentous set of visions that had occurred to Cornelius and Peter. This commentator said the following: He said the kindly tanner—rather, excuse me—that is, that Peter was staying with had made his guest comfortable on the roof and had spread a leather awning hung by four corners over his couch. Dinner tarried and Peter, weary from his wayfaring, fell asleep at prayer. The situation is touchingly human. The last impress of the tired man’s drowsy mind was the drooping awning in the sky at its four sides. Out of such homely stuff was fashioned the imagery of the dream, which was to have historic consequences.

Well, commentators such as that are destined to have a judgment from God for such things, to impute that kind of silliness to what God’s faithful record in the gospel, in the one who wrote the gospel of Luke, the historian Luke, gives us in the book of Acts. That is a terrible commentator, and so often that’s the way people read into the plain telling of God’s word what is not there.

Along this line, I was reading Larry Vos’s commentary in the book of Acts this week. He said that among other things we should see in this account here, as with most of the rest of things we’ve mentioned, the very simple manner in which Luke records the facts for us. He says, “We see here what the meaning is of a faithful witness. It is one who can tell a story in orderly sequence without embellishments for dramatic effect or designs to draw attention to oneself.” That’s what we have in this account. A very simple and yet important faithful witness to acts that had occurred to Peter and Cornelius which do have tremendous historic significance. These were acts that were plainly recorded for us and it’s very important that we attend to the plain details of this text.

Understanding it in light of course the rest of scripture, as we will, to get the understanding of these two visions that we see recounted here. We do have two visions and it should draw to mind the way that God worked with Ananias and Saul in preparing them for their coming together and the conversion of Saul. It should bring to mind that God very providentially and very supernaturally worked in such a way to prepare both Cornelius and Peter for this visitation of the apostle to the circumcised to bring in the first uncircumcised gentile convert into the Christian church and so open the doors of the church to gentile converts apart from coming through Judaism and the need to be circumcised.

So what we have in this account are two visions that prepare people for a particular event, and it’s very significant that both of them are confirmed one to the other, the one vision to the other.

Again, Mr. Vos commenting on this says that frequently texts like this are misused by people. He tells of an account that he’s heard on good authority of a young American who appeared in Athens and explained to a local pastor that God had told him to travel to Greece and do evangelistic work in the pastor’s church. The pastor’s reply was, “As soon as I get the same message, you can start.”

So people frequently misuse this kind of leading in scripture, but clearly here we have an example of historical details recorded for us with great significance. We want to understand the context of this. Of course, we have been talking about how the book of Acts flows from the command of our Savior in terms of the restoration of the kingdom to preach the gospel to Jerusalem and in Judea and then to Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

And we’ve seen this progression then up to this particular point in the book of Acts. We have seen earlier on, of course, the evangelism of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 2. They began their ministry in Jerusalem and Judea. In Acts chapter 8 we found Philip taking the gospel to Samaria, a region that was inhabited by essentially what you might call half-breed or syncretic Jews. So a step, kind of an interim step between Jerusalem and the gentile world.

The next step outward in Acts 8:26-40, we found Philip being directed to take the gospel to an Ethiopian eunuch. And as a prelude, of course, we’ve seen various snapshots or pictures of what would happen in terms of the conversion of the whole world. But here we have the full door to the gentile church being opened up.

Before we get into this account, I would just like to mention an account of another centurion. Cornelius is identified for us as a centurion. And in Matthew chapter 8, you remember that Jesus had an encounter with another centurion. And I just want to go through this briefly. In Matthew chapter 8, it’s very significant for how to understand this particular text in the context of the flow of Acts and the flow of biblical history.

Here, a centurion comes to Jesus with his servant who was sick at home, asking to be healed by Jesus. And Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.” You remember the centurion answered and said, “Lord, I’m not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak thy word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority. I tell people what to do, and I know you are in ultimate authority. So, please do this and it will be done. You say it and I know it will occur.”

When Jesus hears this, he marvels and said to them which followed, “Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into utter darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

And then he tells the centurion to go on his way for his servant has been healed. And that’s a picture for us. It’s a prelude of what’s happening here. The gospel is turning away from the bulk of the Jews in Jerusalem and in the promised land who would be damned by God and cast into utter darkness as they rejected even the gracious offer of God to forgive them, even after they had murdered his son. The preaching of the gospel occurs in the very city at which his son had been murdered and to those same people, and they reject it yet another time.

And so we have this transference that Jesus had pointed to, and that transference occurring through the context of a particular man who was a centurion, an uncircumcised gentile.

Now I mentioned as well the correlation between these two visions of Cornelius and Peter and the supernatural directing of Ananias and Saul. And the correlations between those stories are many. I’ll just mention that briefly. You can look at the accounts yourselves. But it is important for us to see that essentially now God is working. He will work, of course, primarily through Saul or Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles. But he opens the door with the apostle to the circumcised, Peter. But it is in conjunction. There shows a definite conjunction through these two stories of Ananias and Saul on the one hand and Cornelius and Peter on the other. It shows the correlation and it shows really the unity of Peter and Paul and the message that they would be giving to the Gentiles and the unity that would come from that and their joint work together for the kingdom.

As in the gospel account, the centurion said, “I’m not worthy of you to come to my house.” In this account, we have the messengers of Jesus Christ, the acts of Christ through his apostles, through his church, and Christ as it were enters into the centurion’s house in this account in the person of Peter, and will enter into many uncircumcised Gentiles’ houses in the person of Saul or Paul.

So, let’s go through this text then and try to draw some summary lessons for it at the end. And I just want to go through it verse by verse, making comments as we go along. And you’ll see in your outline that basically I have this structured in terms of the two visions and then within each of these visions, the structure of that vision occurring in the context of the two men and then their response to the vision. We’ll just go through it in that way.

We are told first of all some very interesting things about the one whom the gospel would now penetrate in its full sense into the gentile world, and that is one Cornelius.

In verse one we’re told that there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band. It’s quite important here to recognize that we are given much detail in this first verse of the person who would be the entrance portal, so to speak, into the gentile world. As opposed to Joppa, which we’ve just seen in the context of the flow of the gospel, which is a very ancient city, Caesarea is a very new city. It had been rebuilt and completely refurbished by Herod. He had named it in honor, of course, of Caesar. There are great public works projects that have been done there over a course of ten or twelve years. This was essentially a brand new city. It was a seaport city, an important city because of that.

Cornelius is part of what, in the mind I suppose of the Jews, would be an army that had occupied it. In a very real sense, he would have been very difficult to reach out to for those who had seen the Romans as persecutors of God’s people and an occupying army. He is a centurion. He’s not only in the military. He is a man who directs other troops. A centurion—the word comes from our word “century.” He was a ruler of roughly one hundred men who were under his authority, and he’s of the band called the Italian band. This was the governor’s residence, and the Italian band were those from Rome who were most loyal to Caesar and then also to the governing authorities wherever Caesar would station governors in the various areas.

So he was a very part of the most loyal group of Caesar’s soldiers, and he was a commanding officer in that account and he was in this one of the capital cities in the area, at least Caesarea. And so Jerusalem has now essentially moved away from, and we’ll see then over time the rejection of Jerusalem again. Here we can see correlations to later the acts of Paul. He will eventually find his way not just to Caesarea but to Caesar’s own household itself with the gospel of Christ, and some will be evangelized in the context of that.

So we’re given these details over who this man was. He was a picture, as it were, of the unsaved world who were persecuting the people of God in terms of the Jewish nation.

However, we are told immediately then in the second verse that this man was not apostate. He was actually a devout man. We’re told in verse two, “He was one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always.”

Now devout here has the sense of being dedicated, a religious man devout to God. That is, I wanted to just mention here that I used to try to get our family away from using the term “devotions” in our family worship time in church to talk about family worship. But it is a proper sense too to call what we do in our families devotions—training our children in being devoted to and devout in terms of their love and obedience to the great king Jesus Christ.

Well, Cornelius was a man who had such devotion and was devout and religious in that way. We’re told that he was one that feared God. Now, it’s quite important for understanding of this text, as well as many others that we’ll come to in the book of Acts, to understand that this phrase has specific connotations to it in the scriptures. A God-fearer is a gentile person who is approaching the faith. Not necessarily a full proselyte. He had not been circumcised. And we’re told specifically that Cornelius in Acts 11:3 was not circumcised, but as being referred to as a God-fearer here, he is identified with that group of people that are called as Gentiles, yet who have found the worship of Yahweh as their faith.

And so, for instance, this term will be used in other places in Acts. For instance, in Acts chapter 13, we read that Paul stood up and motioning with his hand, he said, “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen.” We tend to think of those two phrases as synonymous. They’re not. He’s referring to two separate groups of people. He was referring in the terms of the synagogue. The synagogue would have in the context of it three divisions. You would have those people who were Jews in one section, Israelites. Then you would have these God-fearers—that’s the term that they were called—who were Gentiles, uncircumcised. They would be in another section. And then you would have the women in a third section.

And so Paul here is addressing in Acts 13 two separate groups. Again in Acts 13:26, “Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God.” See the two classes again. Again in Acts 13, “Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes.” See, that’s that second group of which Cornelius is a member, followed Paul and Barnabas.

Then in Acts 17, “Some of them were persuaded to join Paul and Silas along with a great multitude of the God-fearing Greeks.” See, there’s the class again. And then finally, Acts 17, “He was returning to the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearers.” So we have this distinctive terminology here placed to Cornelius. This is very important because we want to see as we move through the book of Acts that much of the evangelism of the church is in the context of God-fearers. Not men who are being converted from pagan gentiles. Not many of those sorts of conversions, but rather this group called God-fearers who were sort of in the church, but were not full members of Israel because they had not been circumcised.

I might just mention in passing—I don’t want to necessarily list the verses for you, but you can do a concordance study—this same term is used in the Psalms. You’ll see the same term “God-fearers” is used. This is not a new thing in the time of our Savior. This had gone on for centuries in the context of the nation of Israel in the land. They would have proselytes. These were the strangers that you read about in the Old Testament who were to be their special recipients of the grace of God’s people, coming under the same laws, could offer sacrifices on the day of atonement without being circumcised, and yet were not included under all the rules that govern the Israelites.

This is very important for us to understand that when we’re talking about God here—yes, it’s describing the fact that Cornelius feared God, which is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge—but it’s specifically identifying him as a Greek proselyte to the faith.

Well, we’re told also that Cornelius feared God with all of his house. He was a man who led his house in family devotions or family worship and fearing of God with all his house. So he’s really commended to us here. Lensky says the adjective—that is, that he was a devout man—marks the good character of the man, where the participle “when who feared God” brings out the fact that him and his whole house were proselytes of the gate. That was another term that was used.

So, and as I said, he was definitely uncircumcised. Now we’re told as well that he has specific actions that he engages in. He has given much alms to the people. So he is a man, just as we had talked about Tabitha last week and the importance of almsgiving to the faith. So here we have in alms deeds, here we have Cornelius who would given much alms as well, loving mercy. Okay. So he demonstrates this love of mercy in his actions, and he does it specifically. The terminology is used to the people. Now that term “people” as well, you must understand, as a specific term that refers to again God’s people in terms of Israel.

So charity is seen specifically in the context of the household of faith or the household of the people of Israel. And so Cornelius has that devotion to God which expresses itself through his leading his family in worshiping and fearing God, being a Greek proselyte, although uncircumcised, and then engaging in deeds of charity to God’s special people, the Israelites. And also we read that he prayed to God always—he was continually and devoted to God in prayer. And these two factors—alms deeds and prayer—are the two distinctive marks given here and throughout other places of scripture as well for what believers are supposed to be like.

So we’re told that about Cornelius. We’re told his background, his military standing. We’re also told about his character. And then we have this vision coming to him.

Verse three: “He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius.”

Now, we’re told in verse 30 of Acts chapter 10, which we won’t deal with today—we’ll deal with in two weeks. Doug H. will be preaching here next week. But in verse 30, Cornelius in relating this vision to Peter said that he was fasting under this hour and at the ninth hour he prayed in his house and behold this man stood before him.

So we know that the vision to Cornelius happened at the ninth hour and we know that Cornelius was fasting. So in addition to being engaged in alms and in prayer, he was a man who fasted, apparently on a regular basis as well.

Now the ninth hour—there were three hours of prayer for the nation of Israel, for God’s people. That was roughly nine o’clock in the morning, noon, and three o’clock p.m. And those were the times of the sacrifices going on at the temple as well—the morning, noon, and evening sacrifices. And so related to those sacrifices is this action, this ritual action of regular prayer at these set times. Not a bad model for us to follow, by the way. So Cornelius had that kind of devotion that took its place and demonstrated through these regular hours of prayer and fasting.

And he has a vision then. In this vision, one looks upon him. The angel looks upon Cornelius. He gets afraid, as, you know, everybody does when the supernatural is revealed to us. He trembles. He shakes, and he says, “What is it, Lord?” Now, you remember it’s curious to see his response here. “What is it, Lord?” It’s a response indicating he wants to know what he is supposed to do, indicating it’s a response of obedience, as remember again Saul’s response was when God appeared to him in a particular way as well.

And the angel then speaks to Cornelius and says, “Your prayers and your alms are come up for a memorial before God.” Again, here we’re told specifically that prayer and almsgiving are these two characteristics of the devout man. And as a result of that, they come up—and the word there “come up” is come up like an offering before God as a memorial. And indeed, various offerings in the Old Testament are referred to as memorials before God. So the prayer of God’s saints goes up as sacrifices to him. And that correlation is made in the book of Revelation as well, going up as an offering. And it’s interesting that this terminology is used. It’s a memorial to God.

God hears the prayers and alms and sees the alms of Cornelius. And it is as if he has received into his nostrils the smell of the good sacrifices that his people would bring to him. That is what the image that’s being pictured for us here. And the image that’s pictured says that God remembers then Cornelius and who he is, and does things in relationship to him specifically as an individual on the basis of God remembering him because of these offerings.

Well, we know God doesn’t forget, but the scriptures very clearly want us to associate certain acts of devotion recognizing God sees those things and acts in response to them. This is significant, as I said, for the offerings in the Old Testament, significant for our prayers. And it’s also significant for what we’ll do over in the gymnasium in the second portion of our service where we have communion, which Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” And there is a sense by which we can draw an inference here that in part at least, what Jesus is saying is that as we celebrate the Lord’s supper that also is a memorial to God that causes him to remember his covenant and to look upon us with blessing.

So Cornelius’s prayers are heard here. And then I might just add: in verse 31, the angel says it a little differently. We hear there that he had said, “Is thy prayer heard and thine alms are held in remembrance in the sight of God.” So the alms—the evidence that his words are effectual, his deeds being righteous—is what prompts God to action in terms of answering his prayer.

Now I might just say here that this prayer, we don’t know what the content of it was. Lensky in his commentary said that Cornelius had apparently begged God—that’s what the word “prayer” can mean. This particular word for prayer, “begging” of God—had begged God to enlighten his heart to fulfill the great messianic promises, to grant him a share in these promises. He undoubtedly knew his Septuagint Old Testament very well. He knew that the Gentiles would be grafted in. That was clear from the Old Testament. He had prayed for that apparently. That’s the implication here. And these were the petitions that were now to receive a most notable answer.

And you know, I used to tell—I’ve told the story, some of you might have heard it—that when I, years ago, twenty years ago, smoked cigarettes, when I became in a full sense a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, I wanted to quit doing that and I prayed and I prayed and I wept and I could not stop doing it. And then I was accepted at Moscow School of the Bible. Somebody had provided alms, I guess you could say, to provide for my schooling there anonymously. And the very day that money came in, God delivered me from the urge of smoking. And like that, I was cured, so to speak. My sin was forgiven. And he caused me to go on to obedience in that area of my life.

And I just thought of that as I read about this. And I frequently talked about how well I prayed, but it didn’t work. But really what happened was God just put me under the authority of Moscow School of the Bible, and that was what took away that particular problem in my life. Well, you know, I think that obviously I should have understood, and I do now—you know, in the sight of God’s congregation—rejoice in the fact that that was answered prayer as well.

Prayers aren’t always answered right away. And Cornelius might have been praying long and hard waiting for the inclusion of the Gentiles into the full household of God. And God now moves, after much praying on the part of Cornelius, and he was in prayer continually. Remember, the text tells us, Yea—moves to answer that portion of his prayers.

Well, the angel tells Cornelius to send men to Joppa to call for Simon, the one who is named Peter. He’s lodging with Simon the Tanner whose house is by the sea. The sea there, the sea is frequently pictured as the place where the Gentiles are located. They’re related to the Gentile nations are related to the sea. And so Peter is there beside the sea, and ready to receive, as it were, the gentile into the church.

And Cornelius is told to send for Peter, and he’ll tell you what you ought to do. And we’ve talked about this before, but it’s, I think, important to mention it here again. That in the providence of God, he has in his providence decided to use men as the vehicle by which the gospel is preached. God doesn’t use the angel here to tell Cornelius of the full impact of the gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ and to preach Christ to him and to evangelize him in that full sense. No, he is going to use Peter. He’s going to have him call for Peter, and he’ll use the voice of a man.

Again, to quote Larry Vos in his commentary: “In order to deliver the gospel in our age, you have to walk up to somebody, even if you’ve arrived earlier on a concord jet, and there’s no proof that his spirit there’s no proof that the spirit Christian carriers of the spirit, which applies the gospel to a congregation, is transmitted over television. In Acts, the delivery of the gospel is a personal act.”

While Vos goes on to say that he acknowledges that God can use whatever means he wishes to call those he wishes to call, but the disciples who continue to do and to teach what Jesus began always apply the personal touch epitomized by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In other words, this is an encouragement to us as well. If God is going to evangelize the world, he’s going to do it through the agency of men. Here, he refuses to even use an angel that he has sent in a special mission to Cornelius to prepare him for that gospel. But never, as in the case of Saul as well, is the gospel preached by an angel. The gospel is preached by men—men who represent the Lord Jesus Christ in his personal ministry to them.

And so it’s an encouragement to us as well to witness to the people that we come in contact with, because if we don’t, if people don’t, God will not use other means.

Well, the angel then departs. And Cornelius calls two of his servants and a devout soldier—those who waited on him continually. And again, here we see that Cornelius’s religion was not something of a private matter to him. He had revealed this religion apparently even to his soldiers. The text wants us God wants us providentially, providing for two servants and a soldier to be Cornelius’s messengers, to show us the extent of Cornelius’s leading his household, those under his authority, in devotion to God. Because here these men are called specifically—that’s what the word tells us. And when he had declared unto them all these things, he sends them to Joppa.

And Cornelius here is shown as one who declares all things to these men. He trusts them. He trusts them because they are also followers of God. And so he is an example for us—a godly example of those who are devout to the Lord Jesus Christ and who, as a result of that, lead hold in faith.

Well, then verse nine tells us: “On the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up in the house to pray about the sixth hour.”

This is another hour of prayer. This is the noon hour. The other one had been the evening hour that Cornelius had his vision. So Peter goes up into the top of the house to pray. Now the text wants us to understand the correlation here in this verse that they had journeyed. They’d probably spent the night someplace. The next day the messengers from Cornelius are approaching unto the household. And just at that time Peter decides in the providence of to go up on top of the house and to pray.

Matthew Henry commenting on this says the following: “It was when the messengers sent from Cornelius were now nigh unto the city. Peter knew nothing of their approach. They knew nothing of his praying. But he that knew both him and them were preparing things for the interview and facilitating the end of their negotiation. To all God’s purposes, there is a time, a proper time, and he is pleased often to bring things to the minds of his ministers which they had not thought of just then when they may have occasion to use them.”

So God very, his providence is pictured for us here in a very striking way in bringing these people together at just the right time.

So we now shift over to the second vision. This is the vision of Peter. Peter is—it’s about the middle of the day. There is food being prepared. He goes up on the housetop to pray. And the word “prayer” here doesn’t mean—the form of the word here, the tense of the verb means that there were definite prayers that he was making. In other words, this was the definite hour of prayer and he had definite prayers that he would attend to. And he goes up on top of the housetop to pray.

And in the scriptures, always you see this picture of going up on top of a mountain, a high place in the Old Testament to worship God. And that’s where, of course, much worship occurs. And so Peter here is a picture of him going up an upper level, ascending, as it were, to speak with God and to intercede with him. Now that isn’t required, but it’s a picture, I think, that the text wants us to see, giving us the details that he does go on top of this housetop. The purpose of that is not—as that ridiculous commentator said—to make us think that he was laying under some leather awning or something. There’s nothing of that in the text, but it does tell us that he went up. And it’s important that he went up to pray.

So he goes up and he begins to pray, and he becomes very hungry and he would have eaten, but while they made ready—that is, the food—he fell into a trance. And that I just mention here: when it says that he becomes very hungry, it’s a very intense form of the word. He’s very hungry. He’s starving. He is completely without food. And he would have eaten. He would have tasted. That’s what the word means. He wants to taste food. And God is preparing him for the vision that will occur. He then falls into a trance.

Now, Cornelius, we’re told specifically that he had a vision. Here, we’re told that Peter falls into the state in which visions are received. This word for “trance” is the same word as our word “ecstasy.” Peter is prepared then by falling into this state of ecstatic trance for God’s messenger to come to him with his message.

In this state, he sees heaven open and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down to the earth. Cornelius—this vision that all of us are probably very familiar with—is one of the Bible stories probably most of us have heard for a good portion of our lives. Heaven opens. This thing that’s going to happen has its origins in God’s throne in heaven. So God marks this as coming from him specifically, and down from heaven a certain vessel—something that contains things. The word for “vessel” descends to Peter.

As it had been a great sheet. Now the word “sheet” here actually describes the kind of material this thing is made out of. It’s linen, and it’s significant. I couldn’t find any other place in the New Testament where the word “linen” is used in this way. And the word “linen” is used at all, but the word “linen” is the specific material that the priest’s garment is made out of.

Jim Jordan commenting on this says that in the new covenant all men are in Christ and wrapped in his priestly linen robe. Well, there’s much to commend that view. I think Peter is a priest of God and he will receive into the vessel of the church those who were previously to some degree excluded from it.

Well, this comes down having four corners, and there again the totality of this picture is pictured for us in the idea that this great sheet has four corners. The altars of the Old Testament had four corners. The temple and tabernacle are four-cornered structures. And even people in the Old Testament are pictured as having robes that have corners to them—four corners. The temple, the tabernacle—are images. They’re models of the whole world. They’re models, and as the person is they’re also models of people. And so this thing is complete. It has the completeness to it and may well indicate, as opposed to being the church being a picture of the whole world itself with all the created beings in it.

This is then let down unto heaven, or unto earth rather, from heaven. Wherein in the context of this vessel there are all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air. All manner of things—apart from those that swim in the water, which, of course, couldn’t be pictured in the context of this great sheet. All those things are in this sheet, in this vessel that’s lowered down. This contains all manner.

In other words, both clean and unclean animals are pictured in the context of this vessel that descends as Peter is in this trance. And it’s interesting that there we mention they’re mentioned there—the ones that crawl or that walk on the earth. They’re ones that crawl on the earth. And there are those beasts or birds that fly in the air, and those are the designations as well from the creation story—being a total picture of those beasts on the earth walking on the earth and then flying in the air. So there’s the totality being pictured here of animals.

And then a voice comes forth in the context of this, saying: “Rise, Peter, kill, and eat.”

Now, you know, I’m talking a lot about words today, but it’s very important we understand what these words mean as opposed to having our secular connotation put in the context of them. I want to read here from J. Alexander. He said that “kill” is a Greek verb denoting sacrificial slaying, or the act of slaying with a reference to some religious purpose. The use of this significant expression, which is not to be diluted or explained away without necessity, shows that the following command “and eat” refers not merely to the satisfaction of the appetite but to those ceremonial restrictions under which the law of Moses placed the Jews, both in their worship and in their daily use of necessary food. And as this is, as if the voice had said, “From among these animals, select your offering of your food without regard to the distinction between clean and unclean.” That’s what God is telling him here. He’s using sacrificial terminology in the sense of “kill” or slay.

So Peter is told to arise. He is told to slay sacrificially. And he is told to eat, in the sense probably in the context then of offering.

Peter’s response to this is no. One other comment: James Jordan says here we can see this: that Peter is called upon to kill or evangelize, and that’s what, as we’ll see this played out, that is a good understanding of what’s going on here. And to eat—to incorporate into the church all manner of men, all the nations. And that’s what we’ll see as this goes on. But in any event, this is what God tells Peter: to kill sacrificially and eat, and to offer.

And Peter says in typical Peter sort of language, I suppose: “Not so, Lord.” You know, kind of an oxymoron. “No, I’m not going to do that. One [to] whom I am to obey. Not so, Lord.” Typical of Peter.

Well, Peter may have been thinking, at least I thought, of Ezekiel chapter 4 when he says this. “No, I’m not going to do that.” In Ezekiel chapter 4, God is telling Ezekiel to perform for the people ritual actions that would denote to them the cursings of God upon them. And in the context of that, God tells Ezekiel to make a particular kind of bread. And he—all these grains are gathered together. You know, people think that we have a description in Ezekiel 4 of the best kind of bread. That’s not the picture. The picture in Ezekiel 4 is that they’re using in the context of bread making legumes and beans and stuff that you normally don’t put into bread because they’re not going to have the nice wheat to make the nice bread out of. That’s what’s going on there. He’s not saying this is a healthier kind of bread. He’s saying this is a bread of affliction to Ezekiel.

Well, in any event, God told Ezekiel to take all these weird things, mix them up into bread, and then cook them over human excrement or dung. And Ezekiel says—and I quote—”Then said I, Ah, Lord God, behold, my soul has not been polluted from my youth on, even until now. I have not eaten of that which dieth of itself or is torn in pieces, neither came there any abominable flesh into my mouth.”

So Ezekiel says, “I cannot eat this, or I choose not to, I would just assume not eat this because it is unclean by way of the human excrement.” And God then says, “Okay, I’ll let you use cow excrement, cow dung,” which is, you know, normal sort of cooking stuff, of course. And so God changes what he tells Ezekiel to eat.

And so perhaps Peter is thinking of this as he’s saying, “No, I don’t want to eat this stuff.” But Peter uses very specific terminology to talk about his objection to what God would have him eat. He says—he doesn’t cite portions of the law here specifically. He says, as Ezekiel did, and of course, he is much more—”Not so, Lord.”

Ezekiel wasn’t like that. Peter was. He says, “I haven’t eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

Now, a lot of commentators just sort of put those two things together, but they’re not to be put together. Those are two separate words. They are used throughout the New Testament for two separate classes of things. They’re not synonyms for one another.

Those things that are unclean are clearly those things that the Mosaic prescriptions provided. It said that these particular kinds of food—pork, for instance—was unclean in the sense of being useful for sacrifices. And then by way of application to your home life, showing the relationship between sacrifice and what we do in our homes, they were also unclean for dietary consumption. Okay? So those things are unclean. That’s what “unclean” means.

But “common” is a different word. “Common” has reference to things that have come into contact with uncleanliness and as a result they become defiled by way of contact with what is unclean. For instance, in the Old Testament a dead body is unclean, and if you touch a dead body you become unclean or defiled. So uncleanness throughout the New Testament is used for those things that are in and of themselves declared—outside of this particular—not useful for this particular use of God’s purposes. You know, it doesn’t mean pigs are bad. It means they’re not to be used for sacrifices in the old covenant dispensation and the Levitical instructions, and as a result of their uncleanness could produce uncleanness in things that were in association or touch them in some way.

And so the rabbis called these things “fathers of uncleanness.” They could defile other things. And the word “unclean” then has specific reference to those things that are specifically unclean in the context of God’s law, which was for a particular period of time under the Mosaic prescriptions for Levitical purposes in the context of worship in the land. [This] did not refer before the giving of the Mosaic prescriptions, relative to worship. But for a period of time, God had declared certain things unclean.

But “common,” as I said, means those things are to follow way of association. For instance, in John 18:28, they take Jesus from Caiaphas into the hall of judgment into Pilate’s place, and it was early. And they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled. Okay? But that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then goes out to them. That’s why Pilate goes out to them to talk to them. They don’t want to go in because they think this place is unclean. If we go into the home of a gentile, we’ll become defiled or common through our association with what is unclean.

And that’s what Peter is saying here. Peter is saying he could have said, “I will eat those clean animals in there, but I’m not going to eat the unclean ones.” He doesn’t say that because he sees two groups of animals in there. He sees ones that are unclean and ones that were formerly clean until their association with being mixed up in this bag with the unclean ones. He doesn’t see any clean animals to eat. He sees unclean ones and defiled ones. And he says, “I’ve never eaten either of those two categories, and I’m not going to do it.”

Now, that’s what Peter says. I could go through the textual analysis. I won’t bother the details with you, but you can if you want to and you’re in a, if you have a concordance—again, those two words are always used in very specific ways, and that’s important for us to understand what is going on here.

Let me give you one more reference along this same line. In verse 28 of Acts chapter 10, Peter says unto these same people, “You know how it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or to come into unto one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”

Uses those same two things. See, the word “unlawful” here does not mean in violation of God’s law. It means disorderly in violation to a tradition of men as opposed to the law of God. And so Peter was living in the context of the Jewish additions to the law of God that said that going actually into the house of a gentile would be a sin. It wasn’t ever to be considered a sin in God’s law. God’s law never says that if you touch a gentile or come into the Gentile’s house that you have become defiled by way of association.

He never says that if there are two animals next to each other, one clean and one unclean, that the one has become defiled. Peter was citing here Pharisaical extensions, oral traditions of God’s law. And on the basis of that was saying, “I can’t eat anything in this sheet.” That’s what Peter was doing.

Well, this doesn’t go well with God. God says in verse 15, through his messenger, the voice had spake to him again, the second time, said, “What God hath cleansed that call thou not common.”

Peter is wrong on two accounts here. He is wrong, first of all, because things are not defiled because of simple association with unclean things, prohibited things. The Jews were wrong for excluding themselves from the Gentile God-fearers in the context of the nation and refusing to go into their houses. That was just plain wrong. It wasn’t what God told them to do at all. In fact, it was a violation of God’s telling the Jews to be charitable to the stranger, the alien that lives in the context of the land. The proselyte who comes here to worship God is not circumcised. Is a stranger. Therefore is part of this God-fearing class. God told him to have a special charity toward those guys. But the Jews—the Pharisaic Jews particularly—had withdrawn themselves from those people. And Peter was caught up in that. And Peter’s going to have problems with this later as well.

So God says, “You’re wrong on that account, but you’re also wrong because I have cleansed something here—very significant for us. What God has cleansed, you shall not call un—or common or defiled.”

God says he’s cleansed something. What is cleansed? He doesn’t—he hasn’t—he couldn’t have cleansed the clean animals—are already clean. What he has cleansed is the unclean animals. God declares here a shift, an abrogation of the laws of cleanness and uncleanness relative to Levitical prescriptions and the sacrificial system that was now come to an end because of the finished work of our Savior.

And he says that he has cleansed now those unclean animals as well. And now he doesn’t tell Peter—now the text reads that—you know, very significantly—God is telling Peter here he’s cleansed something. But he goes on to tell him, “You do not defy—you should not defile what I have cleansed.” He doesn’t say literally in the text, “It doesn’t say ‘do not call common the things that I have cleansed.’”

What it actually says literally in the text is: “Peter, what I have cleaned, do not defile.”

Now some translators are justified in saying “call.” You can—you can deify—you can in the scriptures, to do something can be accomplished through a proclamation. You know, you can—you know, the Emancipation Proclamation, for instance—Abraham Lincoln called the slaves free, and in so doing he did it. So it is sometimes…