and he beholds the heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending, as a great sheet, [bound] by [the] four corners [and] let down to the earth;
Peter went up on a housetop to pray, and while he prayed heaven opened above him. What came down was a sheet holding every kind of creature. The question it raises is whether God's mercy has any edge left.
Before Peter could go anywhere, God had to deal with Peter himself.
God first dealt with Peter through a trance. There was more difficulty here, for he was still bound by his Jewish thoughts, and God had to free him from them. The hearers were ready, but God had to make the preacher ready to go. He "went up on the housetop to pray," so he was in the right attitude to receive the guidance he needed. There was not only a praying seeker but a praying servant also.
Heaven does not open here to show a Person. It opens to lower something.
On the third occasion the heaven is not opened above nor for Christ. It opens to help Peter grasp the tremendous change that comes from the work of redemption accomplished on the cross… The curtain of the temple had been torn. The Holy Spirit had come to dwell on the earth. Peter himself had proclaimed a great message on the day of Pentecost. But he had not yet seen that Gentiles should be invited too, should fully share in Christian blessing, and be part of the church of God.
The law of Moses sorted animals as clean or unclean by their hooves and habits. The sheet sorts nothing.
How strange it must have seemed to a man taught from his earliest days in the principles of the Mosaic ritual! He saw a vessel coming down from heaven, and "in it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air." He did not only see the vessel, so filled; he also heard a voice saying, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." How wonderful. No examination of hooves or habits! There was no need of it. The vessel and its contents had come from heaven. That was enough… but the tide of divine grace was rising above all such fences, to take into its mighty compass "all kinds" of objects.
The four corners of the sheet carry their own meaning.
It was a great sheet "let down by its four corners", which gives us the thought of what is universal. The vessel coming down would show Peter that the gospel was to go out to everyone.
Mercy had reached outsiders before this. What is new is that it now has no edge.
The great sheet set out the worldwide scope of the grace of God today. In former times the river of God's mercy kept overflowing its banks. It overflowed to Rahab the Canaanite, Ruth the Moabitess, Naaman the Syrian, and a whole city full of Ninevites. But there are no banks for it to overflow in this day. It is like a shoreless ocean, flowing free to all mankind. It brings those whom it reaches to better blessing than Israel ever knew.
Peter did not learn this once. The lesson came three times over.
Peter receives a threefold testimony that God purifies the Gentiles by faith, instead of separating Israel by circumcision. The cross had changed everything, and put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile… From the open heaven light streamed on the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. Grace declared that the uncleanness was gone — the uncleanness the law given at Sinai had condemned strictly for a time… A Jew until then could no more eat an unclean animal than he could eat with a sinner of the Gentiles.
Commentators differ on what the sheet pictures. Some take it as the church.
The vessel comes down from heaven and returns there again. It is the Church, heavenly in origin, and heavenly in destination. Those within it are alike those whom God has cleansed, and no one must call them common.
Another writer disagrees:
Some have imagined this to be the Church, but I do not believe that is the thought here. Peter was not the vessel through whom God was going to bring out the truth of the Church — that was given to Paul. I believe the vision taught Peter that the Cross had done away with all the barriers that once stood between Jew and Gentile.
The sheet does not stay on the ground. It goes back up, and that raises a question for the reader.
God takes it back again, and that is just what one would expect. Nothing goes into heaven except what comes out of it… There is nothing in either you or me that fits us for heaven… The contents of the vessel show us that there is no limit to the grace of God. His grace meets and saves the most unlikely, and those who seem the least suited.
- Prepared — the hearer was ready before the preacher was. God freed Peter from his own thinking on a rooftop, then sent him.
- Opened — heaven opens here not to show Christ, but to lower a lesson Peter had not yet grasped.
- Unsorted — no hooves examined, no habits checked. The vessel came from heaven, and that settled it.
- Unbanked — mercy once overflowed to a Rahab or a Naaman; now it runs like an ocean with no shore.
- Returned — the sheet goes back up. Only what comes from heaven goes there, so grace cleanses the unlikely and carries them home.
in which were all the quadrupeds and creeping things of the earth, and the fowls of the heaven.
Peter is praying on a rooftop, hungry, when he sees a sheet let down from an open heaven. The point is what is inside it: creatures of every kind, clean and unclean together. Why would God fill that vessel with animals a Jew was forbidden to touch?
The shock is the mixture. Clean and unclean lie there together, so Peter cannot pick his way around the problem.
The great sheet which Peter saw descended out of an opened heaven. It embraced within its folds all kinds of creatures, both clean and unclean. It was received up into heaven. Peter was told to satisfy his hunger by eating, and he might have done this by selecting a clean animal for his food. Yet they were all jumbled up together, so he declined. He was told, however, that God could cleanse the unclean. In fact He had done so, and what He had cleansed Peter was not to call common. This happened three times, so that its meaning might sink into Peter's mind.
Peter had always read Leviticus 11, the chapter of clean and unclean animals, as a rule about food. In the vision God shows him it is about people.
Up to that time he seems to have taken this eleventh chapter of Leviticus, and scriptures like it, only literally... But now, under the direct teaching of God, he finds that these beasts, birds and creeping things stand for men who are completely unclean in themselves. Yet by divine grace the precious blood of Jesus can cleanse them.
One writer sorts these creatures into three kinds of people: the refined, the despised and the rebellious.
Domesticated animals would speak of the classes of men who are cultured and refined. Creeping things would speak of the more despised classes, in lowly and humbled places. The beasts of the earth remind us of men in their wild, rebellious state. This third class is even more common than the others.
Under the law, a Jew judged an animal by its hoof and its habits. The vessel came from heaven, and that alone settled the question of what was in it.
How wonderful. No examination of hoofs or habits! There was no need of this. The vessel and its contents had come from heaven. This was enough... It did not matter what was in the vessel, if God had cleansed it. The Author of the Book of Leviticus was about to lift the thoughts of His servant above the barriers that book had put up. He was raising them into all the magnificence of heaven's grace.
Why could the old distinction go? The answer is what happened at the cross.
The cross had changed everything, and put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile... It was no longer a question of the law, or of becoming a convert to the Jewish religion, or even of holding on to the edge of a Jew's robe. From the open heaven, light streamed down on the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. Grace declared that the uncleanness was gone — the uncleanness that the law given at Sinai had condemned so strictly for a time.
The sheet came down from heaven and went back up again. Another writer asks what the sheet full of creatures means.
What is the meaning of that? Nothing goes into heaven but what comes out of it. How am I to get there? That is a serious question. If there is no work of God in my soul and yours, let us not dream of heaven.
Commentators differ here. Some read the sheet as a picture of the church, gathering Jew and Gentile into one.
The vessel is a picture of the church. The four corners represent the four corners of the earth. The clean animals it contained are the Jews; the unclean, the Gentiles. But all in that vessel are cleansed... Believing Jews and Gentiles are redeemed by blood, saved by grace, washed and sanctified. God's purpose is to put them all into one body.
Others hold that the church was not Peter's subject at all.
Some have imagined this to be the church, but I do not believe that is the thought here. Peter was not the vessel through whom God was going to bring out the truth of the church — that was given to Paul. I believe the vision taught Peter that the cross had done away with all the barriers that had once stood between Jew and Gentile.
- From heaven — The vessel and its contents come down out of an opened heaven. That origin settles everything. No one examines hoofs or habits.
- All kinds — Clean and unclean lie jumbled together on purpose. Peter cannot pick and choose; he must face the whole question.
- Not food, but people — The beasts, creeping things and birds stand for men who are unclean in themselves. The blood of Jesus can cleanse them.
- The cross — The change rests on what Christ did at the cross. Grace declares the old uncleanness gone, and puts no difference between believing Jew and Gentile.
- Taken up again — What came out of heaven goes back to heaven, cleansed. The test for every soul is whether God has done that work in it.
And there was a voice to him, Rise, Peter, slay and eat.
Peter is praying on a rooftop in Joppa at midday, and he is hungry. Heaven opens, and a sheet comes down full of every kind of creature. Then a voice tells him to kill and eat. For a man raised on Leviticus 11, the order was unthinkable, and the rest of the chapter turns on what he does with it.
The setting is ordinary. It is the usual hour of prayer, Peter is hungry, and food is cooking downstairs. Then he sees clean and unclean animals side by side in one sheet.
It was about the sixth hour, the hour of noon. The third, the sixth, and the ninth hours were hours of prayer with the Jews. He was hungry, and while he waited for food, he fell into a trance... Peter saw what looked like a sheet let down from heaven by its four corners. It held all kinds of four-footed animals, creeping things, and birds of the air. To him these were clean and unclean beasts, all mixed together. A strange sight for one brought up in the strict rules of Judaism!
The law gave Israel a test for sorting clean animals from unclean. The voice skipped the test and rested everything on where the sheet came from.
How strange it must have seemed to a man taught the principles of the law of Moses from his earliest days... to hear a voice saying, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." How wonderful. No examination of hoofs or habits! There was no need of this. The vessel and its contents had come from heaven. This was enough... God would teach him that true cleanness — the cleanness heaven demanded — no longer meant chewing the cud, dividing the hoof, or any such ceremonial marks. It meant being washed in the blood of the Lamb, which cleanses from all sin.
The lesson was not about food. Peter had read Leviticus 11 as a list of animals. God now showed him what it pictured.
It seems that up to then he had read this eleventh chapter of Leviticus, and scriptures like it, in a literal way only... But now God teaches him directly. He finds that these beasts, birds, and creeping things stand for people who are completely unclean in themselves. Yet by divine grace they can be cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus.
The sheet came down from heaven and went back up again. That whole journey — down, filled, and up — carries the meaning.
The great sheet which Peter saw came down out of an opened heaven. It held within its folds all kinds of creatures, both clean and unclean. Heaven received it back again... We can see in the vision a fitting picture of the gospel. It comes from an opened heaven. It gathers a crowd into its folds, and among them are many Gentiles who were unclean under the ceremonial law. But grace cleanses all of them, and in the end they are taken up into heaven.
Peter answers a direct command from heaven with a flat refusal. So where did the wide grace of the gospel come from?
Even at this hour Peter had no thought of what the voice commanded from heaven, and he dared to object to it in the vision. The free grace that marks the gospel owed nothing to the hearts or minds of its most blessed preachers. God's word proves beyond doubt that what matters to us more than anything else, for time and eternity, came from God alone.
The command had a basis. The same writer points back to the cross, and to what the blood of Jesus settled.
The cross had changed everything. It put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile... Light streamed from the open heaven on the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. Grace declared that the uncleanness was gone which the law given at Sinai had condemned so strictly for a time... The Saviour speaks from heaven, where a distinction like Jew and Gentile has no place... Until now a Jew could no more eat an unclean animal than he could eat with a sinner of the Gentiles.
- Heaven speaks first. The sheet came down from an opened heaven, so no test of hoofs or habits was needed — its source settled the question.
- A new test. Clean no longer meant split hoofs or chewing the cud. It meant being washed in the blood of the Lamb.
- People, not food. The creatures stood for people — Gentiles counted unclean — gathered in and cleansed by grace.
- The cross is the reason. It put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile. It ended the separation the law had enforced.
- Grace was God's idea. Peter objected to the very command he would soon obey. The reach of the gospel came from God, not from the men who preached it.
And Peter said, In no wise, Lord; for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.
Peter is praying on a rooftop when a voice from heaven tells him to kill and eat, and the man who calls the speaker "Lord" flatly refuses. His refusal comes from a lifetime under the law — so what happens when God moves on and our training does not?
The two words Peter uses carry a double weight in the New Testament, covering both food and people.
It may mean 'unclean' in reference to animals forbidden by the law as food, or to Gentiles in contrast with Jews, Acts 10:14, 28; they were not sanctified.
God had to prepare Peter for this. His "no" came from loyalty to the law he had kept all his life, not from rebellion.
God prepares Peter's heart for a mission he was, until then, in no way ready for. But God wanted the Gentiles… Peter fell into a trance and saw what looked like a great sheet let down from heaven to earth, full of all kinds of four-footed animals… and birds of the air, which it was not lawful for the Jews to eat. A voice said, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." Peter, faithful to Judaism, refuses; he had never eaten anything common or unclean.
The sheet was not really about food. It announced that the cross had ended the separation the law had built.
Peter receives a threefold testimony that God purifies the Gentiles by faith, instead of separating Israel by circumcision. The cross had changed everything. It put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile… Until then a Jew could no more eat an unclean animal than he could eat with a sinner of the Gentiles. But the sheet came down from heaven and went back up there. In time it taught Peter the immense change that hinges on the cross.
The law judged an animal by its hoof and its habits. The vision leaves one question: has God cleansed it?
Peter had learned the principles of the law of Moses from his earliest days. How strange it must have looked to him to see a vessel coming down from heaven, and to hear a voice saying, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." How wonderful. No examination of hoofs or habits! There was no need of this. The vessel and its contents had come from heaven. This was enough… It did not matter what was in the vessel, if God had cleansed it… He would teach His servant that true cleanness — the cleanness heaven demanded — no longer meant chewing the cud or dividing the hoof, but being washed in the blood of the Lamb, which cleanses from all sin.
Peter's objection settles one thing: grace reaching the nations was not a human idea. Its leading preacher argued against it.
Even the least attentive reader of the inspired story can see how far the saints, or even the apostles, saw the grace of the gospel in advance. Up to this hour Peter had no thought of what the voice commanded from heaven. In the vision he dared to object to it. The gospel in its free grace owed so little to the hearts or minds of its most blessed preachers.
The vision came three times, and the repetition itself is part of the message.
The answer came: "What God has made clean, do not call common." To make it all the more emphatic, this happened three times, and then the vessel went back up into heaven. So the Lord was patient with His servant's conscience and taught him about the new work of grace now in hand. Distinctions of birth were to hold no longer. God would bring uncircumcised Gentiles in and bless them on common ground with the believing Israelite.
Peter obeyed this vision. Later he still failed to live by what he had been taught.
We may do certain things because of pressure, but this is always wrong… The Lord showed Peter the vision in Acts 10. The Lord Himself taught him that what God had sanctified he should not call unholy. Peter preached in the house of Cornelius. Even after all that, he failed in this respect. Can such a well taught man fail about this truth? Yes, that can happen. It can happen to the best one, and so it can happen to me and to you.
- Command. A voice from an open heaven tells a hungry Peter to kill and eat — food the law of Moses had always forbidden him.
- Refusal. His "no" is the loyalty of a man faithful to Judaism, who had never once eaten anything common or unclean.
- Cleansing. The old test of hoofs and habits is gone. One question is left: has God cleansed it?
- Reach. The cross put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile. No one may call a person unclean whom God has purified.
- Holding it. Peter argued with the Lord before he learned this, and failed to live by it later. A well taught believer can still slip on truth he already knows.
And [there was] a voice again the second time to him, What God has cleansed, do not *thou* make common.
Peter is praying on a rooftop in Joppa when he sees a sheet full of creatures his Bible had told him never to touch. A voice tells him to eat, he refuses, and the reply settles who decides what is clean.
The old test asked what an animal was. The new word asks what God has done with it. One writer sees grace rising over every fence the ritual had built:
The Jew might shelter behind the narrow fences of the Jewish ritual and say, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." But the tide of divine grace was rising in majesty above all such fences. It gathered "all kinds" of objects into its mighty sweep and carried them up to heaven, on the authority of those precious words, "What God has made clean, do not call common." It made no difference what was in the vessel, if God had cleansed it.
Peter refused the command outright. The word of this verse came back to him as a rebuke, and he needed it more than once:
He had gone unwillingly at first — he had even dared, so to speak, to argue with the Lord in the vision of the great sheet… But again and again he received the rebuke, "What God has made clean, do not call common"; and at last he profited by the lesson.
Peter had read the rules about clean and unclean animals at face value. God taught him to read them differently:
Up to that time he seems to have taken this eleventh chapter of Leviticus, and scriptures like it, only literally… But now God teaches him directly. He finds that these beasts, birds and creeping things stand for men utterly unclean in themselves, yet whom divine grace can cleanse by the precious blood of Jesus.
The change rests on the cross, and the voice comes from an opened heaven:
The cross had changed everything, and put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile… Light streamed from the open heaven on the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. Grace declared that the uncleanness Sinai had strictly condemned for a time was gone.
Commentators differ over what the sheet itself represents. One reads it as a picture of the gospel's whole course — where it starts, whom it gathers, where it ends:
The great sheet which Peter saw came down out of an opened heaven. It held within its folds all kinds of creatures, both clean and unclean. It was taken up into heaven… We can see in the vision a fitting picture of the gospel. It comes from an opened heaven. It gathers into its folds a crowd, and among them are many Gentiles who were counted unclean under the law. But grace cleanses all of them, and in the end they are taken up to heaven.
Another rejects the idea that the sheet stands for the church, and keeps the focus on the lesson Peter needed:
Some have imagined this to be the Church, but I do not believe that is the thought here… I believe God gave the vision to teach Peter one lesson. The Cross had done away with every barrier that once stood between Jew and Gentile. The grace of God was going out to each alike, and the same cleansing power was to bring both into blessing.
The voice came three times, and that was patience with a hesitating servant:
The answer came: "What God has made clean, do not call common." To press it home, this happened three times, and the vessel was taken up again into heaven. So the Lord in His grace bore with His servant's scruples and taught him about the new work of grace now in hand. Distinctions of birth were to hold no longer. Uncircumcised Gentiles were to come in, blessed on the same ground as the believing Israelite.
The lesson stayed with Peter and shaped how he treated Gentile believers:
He remembered the Lord's words at Joppa : "What God has made clean, do not call common." With thanks he recognised these uncircumcised men as brothers in Christ. He not only had open fellowship with them in the assembly. In everyday life too, he ate with the Gentiles.
- Cleansed by God. The question is never what was in the sheet, but whether God had cleansed it.
- Cleansed by blood. The creatures stood for people unclean in themselves. The blood of Jesus makes them clean.
- Cleansed at the cross. At the cross God made no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile.
- Cleansed, though he argued. Peter said no. The word came three times before he learned it.
- Cleansed, therefore welcomed. Peter remembered Joppa and ate with Gentile believers as brothers.
And this took place thrice, and the vessel was straightway taken up into heaven.
Peter sees a sheet let down from heaven, full of every kind of creature, and a voice tells him to eat. He says no, so the scene runs three times before the sheet goes back up — and this verse turns on those two facts: the three repeats, and the return.
Saying it three times made it emphatic, and it left room for God's patience with a servant who kept objecting:
The answer came, "What God has made clean, do not call common." To make it all the more emphatic, this was done three times, and "the thing was taken up at once to heaven." So the Lord graciously bore with His servant's objections and taught him about the new work of grace now in hand. Distinctions of the flesh were to hold no longer. Uncircumcised Gentiles were to be brought in and blessed on the same ground as the believing Israelite.
The message went beyond food. It touched who could be counted clean before God:
Peter receives a threefold testimony that God is purifying the Gentiles by faith, instead of separating Israel by circumcision. The cross had changed everything, and put no difference between believers, Jew or Gentile. The Jew had lost his old superiority according to the flesh. Both were now open alike to incomparably better blessings in Christ by faith… A Jew until then could no more eat an unclean animal than he could eat with a Gentile sinner. But the sheet, which came down from heaven and was taken up there, taught Peter in due time the immense change that hinges on the cross.
The sheet does not vanish. It goes back where it came from, still holding its contents — a round trip some read as a picture of the gospel itself:
This happened three times so that the significance of it might sink into Peter's mind. We can see in the vision a fitting picture of the gospel. It comes from an opened heaven. It gathers a crowd into its folds, and among them are many Gentiles who were ceremonially unclean — but all of them cleansed by grace, and taken up into heaven at the end.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. Some see the church in the vessel that comes down and goes up. Others reject that reading:
Some have imagined this to be the Church, but I do not believe that is the thought here. Peter was not the vessel through whom God was going to bring out the truth of the Church — that was given to Paul. I believe the vision was given to teach Peter one lesson. The Cross had done away with all the barriers that previously existed between Jew and Gentile, and the grace of God was going out to each alike.
Peter objected to the very message he would soon preach. That fact tells us where the gospel came from:
Even up to this hour Peter had no thought of what the voice commanded from heaven, and in the vision he dared to object to it. The free grace at the heart of the gospel owed so little to the hearts or minds of its most blessed preachers. The word of God proves beyond dispute that what matters to us more than anything else, for time and for eternity, came from God alone.
The vision also closed an era, and with it the rules about food:
This was done three times to emphasise its importance (Acts 10:9-16). The age of law was over. Its regulations must not be carried into Christianity. The cross had broken down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles. With it, of course, the rules about avoiding certain foods were done away (Eph. 2:14-15).
- Three times. God says it three times so it sinks in. He bore with His servant's objections until the lesson held.
- Cleansed. God is purifying Gentiles by faith, not separating Israel by circumcision. The cross put no difference between believers.
- Taken up. The sheet goes back to heaven with all it holds. Some read this as a picture of the gospel: heavenly in source, wide in reach, heavenly in the end.
- Law closed. The age of law was over. Its food rules must not be carried into Christian living, since the cross broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile.
- Not Peter's idea. Peter objected to the message before he preached it. Free grace came from God alone, not from the minds of those who announced it.