10:14
We see here how God’s command so went against everything that was inbred in Peter. The Law specifically forbid the eating of various foods, most of which were on the blanket in Peter’s vision. He had been brought up not to eat them, and had never eaten with them. For God’s plan to succeed He needed to change the heart and mind of Peter, and we see in this episode that He is perfectly capable of doing that. Ezekiel in Ezek 4:14,15 objected when told to eat impure food. In that case God relented, here He does not. In the case of Ezekiel the eating of impure food (under the Law) was symbolic. Here it is pointing to something much greater, the acceptance into the kingdom of all people who will repent and believe.
10:15,16
In this case there was no relenting, for the matter was so important. What God wanted was a change in Peter’s mind, and in his actions. “What God has made clean, do not call common”. This reminds us of Mark 7:19 where Jesus says that it is what is in a man’s heart that matters, not what he eats, and the comment is added “Thus he declared all foods clean”. Given that Mark was essentially writing on Peter’s behalf, or getting a lot of his information from Peter, one wonders if this incident caused Peter to think back to those words of Jesus and then understood that Jesus was declaring all foods clean. Just to make the point clear, Peter receives the vision three times. There could be no room for error on this one!
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