What God Has Cleansed Text: Acts 10:1-23
Introduction: A Divine Conspiracy
We come now to a pivotal moment in the history of redemption, a story so crucial that Luke tells it, in one form or another, three separate times in the book of Acts. This is the Gentile Pentecost. This is the moment when the floodgates of the gospel, which had been trickling out to the Samaritans and an Ethiopian eunuch, are thrown open to the entire Gentile world. What we are about to witness is nothing less than a divine conspiracy, a sovereign and coordinated pincer movement orchestrated by God Himself from two different cities, Caesarea and Joppa, to bring down the dividing wall of hostility that had stood for centuries.
The separation between Jew and Gentile was not a mere cultural preference or a matter of racial animosity, though it certainly included that. It was a theological and liturgical reality, established by God Himself in the Mosaic law. The dietary laws, the ceremonial washings, the entire structure of the Old Covenant was designed to build a hedge around Israel, to make them a distinct and separate people. This separation was holy. But it was also temporary. It was a picture, a type, a shadow of a greater reality to come. The problem, as is so often the case with us, is that we can fall in love with the shadow and, when the substance arrives, we can refuse to let the shadow go.
In this chapter, God is going to pry the fingers of His apostle Peter off of that shadow. He is going to do it with a bizarre vision, a divine interruption, and a providential knock at the door. And on the other end of this operation is a Roman centurion, a man of the occupying army, a man who by all rights should be an enemy of the people of God. But God had other plans. This story is a master class in divine providence. God is the grand chess master, moving His pieces on the board. He is preparing a pagan heart in one city and deconstructing a prejudiced apostle in another, all to bring them together for a glorious collision of grace. This is the story of how the church became truly catholic, truly universal. And it is a story that has profound implications for how we view the people God brings across our path every single day.
The Text
Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the people and prayed to God continually. About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had come in and said to him, "Cornelius!" And looking intently on him and becoming afraid, he said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send some men to Joppa and summon a man named Simon, who is also called Peter; he is lodging with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea." And when the angel who was speaking to him had left, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier of those who were his personal attendants, and after he explained everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
And on the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. But he became hungry and was desiring to eat. And while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the sky. And a voice came to him, "Rise up, Peter, slaughter and eat!" But Peter said, "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and unclean." Again a voice came to him a second time, "What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled." And this happened three times and immediately the object was taken up into heaven.
Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius, having asked directions for Simon's house, appeared at the gate; and calling out, they were asking whether Simon, who is also called Peter, was lodging there. And while Peter was reflecting on the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Behold, three men are looking for you. But rise up, go down and accompany them without taking issue at all, for I have sent them Myself." And Peter went down to the men and said, "Behold, I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for which you have come?" And they said, "Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and hear a message from you." So he invited them in and gave them lodging.
(Acts 10:1-23 LSB)
The Righteous Gentile (vv. 1-8)
The story begins not in the church, but in the heart of the Roman military machine.
"Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the people and prayed to God continually." (Acts 10:1-2)
Cornelius is an impressive figure. He is a centurion, a commander of a hundred men, a man of discipline, authority, and Roman order. But he is more than that. Luke stacks up the commendations. He is devout. He fears God. He leads his entire household in this fear. He is generous to the Jewish people. And he prays continually. By any human measure, this is a good man. He is what the Jews called a "God-fearer," a Gentile who was attracted to the God of Israel and His ethical monotheism but had not gone all the way to become a proselyte through circumcision. He is a man God has been preparing. His heart is fertile soil, waiting for the seed of the gospel.
But we must be very clear. His piety, his prayers, and his generosity do not save him. They cannot save him. If good works and sincere devotion were enough, God could have just left him alone. But they are not enough. Cornelius, for all his righteousness, is still a dead man walking. He needs to hear the gospel. His good works are not the cause of his salvation, but rather the evidence that God was already at work in him, drawing him toward the one who would save him. His prayers and alms have "ascended as a memorial before God." God sees. God remembers. And God acts.
An angel appears to him, not with the gospel message itself, but with a set of instructions. "Send some men to Joppa and summon a man named Simon, who is also called Peter." This is a crucial point about how God has chosen to work in the world. God uses means. He could have had the angel preach the gospel to Cornelius directly. It certainly would have been efficient. But God has ordained that the gospel should go forth through the mouths of redeemed sinners. He honors the office of the preacher. The angelic work is to get the seeker and the preacher in the same room. And Cornelius, being a man accustomed to authority, obeys immediately and without question.
The Prejudiced Apostle (vv. 9-16)
Now the scene shifts to Joppa, where God must prepare the preacher for the seeker.
"Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray... he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down... and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the sky." (Acts 10:9-12 LSB)
Peter is doing what a good Jew does. He is praying at the appointed hour. But God interrupts his regular piety with a vision that is designed to short-circuit his entire religious framework. He sees a smorgasbord of everything Leviticus 11 forbids. This is a kosher nightmare. Pigs, camels, lizards, vultures, all mixed together. And the command from heaven is a direct assault on his lifelong obedience: "Rise up, Peter, slaughter and eat!"
Peter's reaction is instinctual and revealing: "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and unclean." Notice the glorious contradiction. He calls Jesus "Lord" and then immediately tells Him "no." How often do we do the same? "Lord, I will follow you anywhere... except there. Lord, I will do anything... except that." Peter's identity, his sense of personal holiness, was wrapped up in his meticulous observance of these dietary laws. He is proud of his clean record. But here, his past obedience has become a barrier to his future obedience. His righteousness has become a stumbling block.
The voice from heaven rebukes him with one of the most revolutionary statements in the New Testament: "What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled." The Greek is emphatic. Stop calling common or profane what God has made clean. This is God announcing a paradigm shift. He is the one who established the categories of clean and unclean for a time, and He is the one who is now declaring them obsolete. The purpose of the dietary laws was to paint a living picture of the separation between Jew and Gentile. But now that Christ, the substance, has come, the shadow is no longer needed. Christ has fulfilled the law. The repetition three times is for the thick-headed apostle. God is patient, but He is also insistent. Peter must learn this lesson.
The Providential Intersection (vv. 17-23)
God does not leave Peter to puzzle over abstract theology. He immediately provides the application.
"Now while Peter was greatly perplexed in mind as to what the vision which he had seen might be, behold, the men who had been sent by Cornelius... appeared at the gate." (Acts 10:17 LSB)
This is the beautiful machinery of divine providence. As Peter is scratching his head about the meaning of the unclean animals, the unclean men arrive at his door. God provides the interpretation of the vision not through another vision, but through a knock at the door. The timing is perfect, down to the minute. While Peter is reflecting, the Spirit speaks to him directly, connecting the dots. "Behold, three men are looking for you... accompany them without taking issue at all, for I have sent them Myself."
The Spirit's command removes all wiggle room. "Without taking issue" means without hesitating, without making distinctions, without arguing. And the reason is foundational: "for I have sent them Myself." Peter is not just dealing with three Gentiles; he is dealing with emissaries of the Holy Spirit. To reject them would be to reject the one who sent them. The vision was not about food. The animals on the sheet were symbols for people. God was cleansing the Gentiles. The command to "eat" was a command to accept them, to fellowship with them, to enter into their lives and homes.
And Peter gets it. He goes down and greets them. And then he does something that would have been unthinkable for him just hours before. "So he invited them in and gave them lodging." He brings uncircumcised Gentiles into a Jewish home to spend the night. The wall comes down. The application of the sermon begins, not in Caesarea, but right there in Joppa. The first act of this new, global mission is an act of radical, boundary-breaking hospitality. Before he preaches the gospel to the Gentiles, he eats with them and sleeps under the same roof. He is living out the truth that what God has cleansed, he must no longer call unclean.
Conclusion: Demolishing Our Walls
This is more than a historical account of how the gospel got to the Gentiles. It is a permanent lesson for the church in every age. The central message is this: God is the one who defines the boundaries. He is the one who cleanses. And our job is to receive those whom He has cleansed.
The great dividing wall in that day was Jew and Gentile. We may not have that exact wall today, but we are experts at building our own. We build walls of race, of class, of political affiliation, of cultural preference, of personal history. We have our own lists of "unclean" people, people we would never invite into our homes, people we keep at a safe distance. We look at the recovering addict, the political loudmouth, the person with a messy sexual past, the family from a different culture, and our inner Pharisee says, "By no means, Lord."
And the voice from heaven thunders back at us, "What God has cleansed, no longer consider defiled." If a person has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, they are not unclean. They are your brother. They are your sister. To refuse fellowship with them is to insult the God who cleansed them. It is to say that the blood of Christ is not quite sufficient. It is to rebuild the very wall that Christ died to tear down (Eph. 2:14).
The gospel's progress in the world, and its power in our own communities, depends on us learning the lesson of Peter's rooftop vision. It is a call to see people not through the lens of our cultural or personal prejudices, but through the lens of the cross. It is a call to a radical hospitality that mirrors the welcome God has given us in Christ. Who are the "Gentiles" God is sending to your door? Who is the Spirit telling you to accompany "without taking issue?" May God give us the grace to obey, to open our doors, and to see the kingdom of God advance, one "unclean" person at a time.