Acts 10:9-23
So the Lord sent his angel on a special trip to Cornelius’s house just to tell him whom to contact. The angel was forbidden to tell the man how to get saved, even while he was standing right there. For some mysterious reason, our Lord in his wisdom has chosen frail human vessels to carry the infinitely precious Message the world needs to hear.
Peter was on the roof of Simon’s house praying (which was commonly used for that purpose) when he saw a supernatural vision of his own. A sheet came down out of heaven and it held all sorts of animals on it, some of which were forbidden to be eaten under the Old Covenant law. Peter was hungry, so a Voice from heaven told him to go ahead and kill what was in front of him and eat it. Being a faithful Jew, of course, Peter refused.
Now the interesting thing is that some Bible teachers present the idea that this passage removes the distinction between clean and unclean food. With all respect, I couldn’t disagree more. It’s certainly true that, in Christ, there’s no longer “clean” and “unclean” food. Paul explicitly teaches us this in his first letter to Timothy. But that’s not the main point of the vision! God did not send this vision in order to get Peter to give up eating kosher.
He sent the vision to show Peter (and the rest of the church in Jerusalem) that the divide between Jew and Gentile was no longer necessary or appropriate. That’s why the Lord sent it right before the men from Cornelius showed up. What did the Lord mean when he told Peter “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”? Who was it who determines “clean” and “unclean”? Who sets the standards on that? Man? Or God? If it’s God, then he’s the One who gets to change the rules if he so pleases. The Lord told them to make the distinctions in the first place. In fact, that’s the whole point of most of the Law: separation. The Law separated clean and unclean food, people, clothing, houses, etc. You couldn’t mix milk and meat or two types of clothing in the same garment, or two types of the crops in the same garden. Days were separated by common days and holy days.
If he said the barriers were swept away by the Cross, then that’s his prerogative. Not that the Lord changes, nor do the principles which underline the Law. We’re still supposed to be separated from sin, and the seriousness with which we take sin frequently leaves a lot to be desired. But now there are no “unclean” races or ethnic origins or nations. All of us come to the Cross on one basis: We’re sinners in need of a Savior. Here there's no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, White or Black or Asian or Latino or any skin pigmentation that I forgot to mention. There’s really only one color that matters: Red. That’s the color of the blood that flowed that forgives us and cleanses us and erases these distinctions once and for all.
There are two instances in this chapter which I’m glad that happened, but they shouldn’t have been needed. The first we saw yesterday: This was a man who was ready to hear the Good News if ever there was one, and no one had approached him about it. Now here’s another one. The Lord had to appear to Peter not once, not twice, but three times to hammer into his head that if God calls someone clean, he’s clean.
So what’s it going to take with you and me? Maybe we’re not prejudiced in the same way, but we all have our biases. Maybe there’s someone in your office that you just assume isn’t interested in hearing about Jesus. They’re living a lifestyle which is so far away from Christ that they seem hopeless. They’re living with someone, or they’re getting drunk every weekend, or they’re doing something else that really offends or disgusts you. Is the Lord going to have to resort to tactics like he did with Peter, or will you listen before then?
Lord Jesus, I’m so sorry for writing that person off. Show me how to reach him, and—by your grace—I will.
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