Acts 10:9-33--Peter's Vision

Acts 10:9-33
English Standard Version

Peter's Vision
9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

17 Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests.

The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.”

​30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

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This is a much longer passage than we've been dealing with recently, but it is a pivotal passage in the book of Acts (along with the passages that explain this vision in chapters 10 and 11).  Last time we saw the Lord send an angel to Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and a devout man of God who gave alms and prayed continually before God.  The Lord told him that He had accepted the alms that Cornelius had given and heard his prayers and that Cornelius should send men from Caesarea to Joppa to the house of Simon the Tanner to find a man named Simon Peter and compel Simon Peter to come back to Caesarea with them.  So Cornelius sent two of his most trusted servants and one of his most devoted soldiers with this message.

Today's passage tells us what was going on back in Joppa while all this was going on in Caesarea.  The day after Cornelius's men were sent out, Simon Peter went up on the flat roof of the house where he was staying to pray at about the sixth hour (this would have been high noon).  The text tells us that he became hungry and wanted something to eat, which makes sense because this was probably around lunch time for him.  The people in the house started preparing food for him to eat, but while they were making the food, he fell into a trance (he had a vision).

While in the trance, Peter saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth (I think it's saying the four corners were all gathered together so that you could not see the contents until it was let down on the earth and the corners were released to show what was inside).  Peter then saw that the sheet contained all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean animals, and there was a voice from heaven saying, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat."

This is a most strange commandment and Peter assumes this to be a test because Peter knew that there were dietary rules about what kind of animals he could and could not eat (clean and unclean animals) and even of the clean animals there apparently were animals that furthermore were "common" that were not to be eaten--I would assume here that Peter is talking about that certain animals that could be sacrificed on the altar were not supposed to be eaten as everyday food, but would be eaten as part of the offering of the sacrifice, especially on holy days when special offerings were made to the LORD.  Peter thinks that this is God trying to tell him to eat of anything on the sheet that he wants to satisfy his hunger that he is feeling right then and there and that this a temptation to see if he would break God's Law to fulfil that natural hunger that he is feeling.

The voice comes from heaven a second time and gives the interpretation of the vision, "What God has made clean, do not call common."  This is a key verse to hang onto as we read the rest of chapters 10 and 11, and Peter will come back to this verse to explain his vision to the Jews.  This vision had nothing to do with food or the taxonomy of animals or many of the other things that we try to make it out to be, but it did have something to do with "clean" and "unclean" and "holy" and "unholy" (that is ordinary).  Remember that Peter is about to be summoned by three men to go meet with a Roman centurion, and Peter is going to struggle with how the gospel can be taken to those who "unholy" and "unclean."  In Peter's eyes, these Gentiles were as detestable as the creepy-crawly animals on that sheet, but God has already declared Cornelius to be "clean" (that is declared righteous be grace through faith).  So then, what God had made Cornelius a part of His family by adoption and no Jewish person should look at Cornelius or any other Gentile that God was going to save as a second-rate disciple or that the gospel was not powerful enough to make them "clean" and "holy."  In typical Simon Peter fashion, even the things that were said plainly to him needed to be repeated to him several times, for the Lord repeated the vision and the sayings to him three time, and, yet, he was still perplexed when he awoke from the trance.

Honestly, I'm not sure many of us would do much better though if we were Simon Peter in that place and that time and in that culture.  If you hungry at noon-time and you see a vision of animals on a sheet and a voice says something about "Kill and eat," you're probably thinking about food going in your belly and not about the Abrahamic Covenant that said, "Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed," or the the Great Commission which told the apostles, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go into all the world and make disciples of all nations [people groups/ethnicities] baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And, lo, I am with you always even to the very end of the age."  Notice in both passages I quoted/paraphrased that "all nations" are mentioned, yet so far, with the exception of the Ethiopian eunuch, we only have people who were of some Jewish descent saved (and it's possible that the Ethiopian eunuch was also of Jewish descent, but we weren't told that).  Even the Samaritans were descended from the northern ten tribes of Israel and they had the Torah.  These Gentiles that God is sending to Peter and sending Peter to seemingly had nothing in common with him, and there was going to be an issue later of the Jews saying that close contact with the Gentiles and eating with them was going to make Peter unclean like them, and that will not be a one-time issue as it will be at the heart of the Jerusalem Council later in the book of Acts and it will be an issue as the Judaizers will follow the apostle Paul from town to town telling people that either the Gentiles can't be saved or that they must first become Jewish before being saved or that even after receiving the Holy Spirit they must still celebrate the Jewish holidays that foreshadowed what Christ would do even though the Gentile believers now celebrated the fulfillment of those holidays that were but a prophecy of what was to come.  Paul will argue later that there is no point clinging to the shadow when you now can clearly see the true image of what was casting the shadow.  To worship the sign rather than the Person that the sign points towards is silly and foolish.  We've covered some of that already in the book of Galatians, but perhaps you'd like to go back and read some of that again in light of Acts 10 and 11, especially the part of Galatians where Paul has to confront Peter for showing partiality towards the Jewish believers and refusing to fellowship with the Gentile believers because he hadn't remembered this very lesson that God was teaching him in this passage. 

About the same time that Peter came out of his trance, the men sent by Cornelius arrived at the house of Simon the Tanner and were standing at the gate and were calling out asking where Simon who was called Peter was lodging.  The Spirit speaks to Peter and tells him that these men are looking for him and that he should go with them without hesitation because the Sprit has sent them.  Peter goes down to them and greets, tells them that he is the one they are looking for and then asks them what business has brought them to him.  They tell of their master, his devotion to the Lord, the vision and message that Cornelius was given, and their instructions to return with Simon Peter so that he could speak the Lord's words to Cornelius.  Peter invites them into the house as his guests and gave them food and lodging for the evening (though he too was a guest in someone else's home).

The next morning, Simon Peter arose and went with these men from Joppa to Caesarea, along with some of the other brothers who were with him in Joppa.  When they arrived, Cornelius was expecting them and he had invited all of his friends and family over to hear what Peter was going to say.  When Peter arrived, Cornelius fell down at his feet in worship (probably in the same kind of way that he was expected to do when any of his superiors came into the room and he was expected to show them honor).  However, Peter was quick to correct him and to say that he too was just a man and not worthy of Cornelius's worship.  When Peter saw the large number of Gentiles that filled Cornelius's house, the vision he had made sense to him and he told the people, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.” (v. 28-29)

Cornelius then relates his vision to Simon Peter.  Peter had already been told this by the servants and soldier sent to him, but I believe that he wanted to hear it directly from Cornelius and he wanted everyone else in the house to hear Cornelius's testimony as well, because this will be part of Cornelius's public profession of faith.  Our passage today ends with Cornelius saying, "Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord."  We are left until next time waiting for the message that the Lord has commanded Peter to deliver to them.  We'll see that next time as well as their response to the message in verses 34-43 and then God's acceptance of them by giving them the Holy Spirit in verses 44-48.  Some key verses we will look at in the next couple journal articles will be, "“Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." (v. 34b) and “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (v. 47).  Peter starts to see that God's vision is much larger than he had originally thought--Peter thought they were taking the gospels to the Jewish people in all the nations of the world, but God is saving a remnant from every people group, and both Jew and Gentile received the same Holy Spirit and received it the same way --as a gift of God that came by grace through faith.  This is going to kick off our next main section of the book of Acts as we will start to focus on the gospel going to "the uttermost ends of the earth" through the work of the Apostle Paul and those who worked with him (there are about 70 different people named throughout Acts and Paul's epistles that helped him in this effort, and I'm sure there are many more who were not named).  This is not a task that we can do alone, but each of us must individually respond to the call that God has given to us, even when it is to go and speak to people that we find to be "unclean" and "unholy," for those are the people that Jesus is in the business of making "clean" and "holy," just like He did for us.