Acts 10:15

Acts 10:15. A second time. The mention of this fact is a pointed part of his statement at Jerusalem (Acts 11:9), and he adds there that this second voice came ‘from heaven.'

What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. The peremptory command now becomes the emphatic statement of a principle. This is a Dew step in the instruction which St. Peter was receiving, a further preparation for that which was to follow. It is incumbent on us to observe that there is a distinct reference here to a Divine ordinance. It is God (hat made all things pure. Hence we are not to regard them as impure. We are at once reminded here of certain words recorded in the Gospel history, when Christ Himself said that ‘that which entereth into a man's mouth cannot defile him.' But it is very important to observe that in that passage, as given by St. Mark (Mark 7:19), the sense is, ‘ this Christ said, pronouncing all meats clean' the correct reading being καθαρίζων, not καθαρι ́ ζον. This is noted by Dean Burgon (Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark, p. 179), who says of this part of the sentence, ‘It does really seem to be no part of the Divine discourse, but the Evangelist's inspired comment on the Saviour's words.' The Lord Jesus did actually, by this discourse of His, make all things pure. And it is further noted that the apostle to whom these words were spoken at Joppa (and the use of καθαρίζω is identical in the two cases) was the apostle who directed St. Mark in the composition of his Gospel. Can we doubt that those words which he had heard from his Saviour's lips flashed into St. Peter's memory, when at Joppa he heard that command from heaven, or at least that the recollection of them came when he reflected on what he had heard? This thought is forcibly put before us by Canon Farrar (Life and Work of St. Paul, vol. i. p. 276), who has dealt with the matter more fully in the Expositor for 1876. As to the fact of the reading in St. Mark, see a note by Dr. Field in his edition of Chrysostom's Homilies on St. Matthew, iii. 112. It is further to be observed that in St. Matthew's account of the Saviour's discourse, we are told that it was Peter who afterwards ‘in the house ‘asked the meaning of what the Lord had said.