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10. What about Peter’s vision in Acts 10?

Peter explains clearly in Acts 10 and 11, that the vision he had was related to PEOPLE not food! God was showing Peter that he is not to consider someone ritually unclean/common (as many Jews thought of all gentiles at that time) when God has in fact declared that person (that God-fearer) 'clean.'


The vision itself is captured first in Acts 10:9 and following.  Picking up in verse 11 we read,





There are two different word groupings used in the Greek and spoken by Peter and God in the interaction of the vision as well as used by Peter later in his own explanation of the meaning of the vision. The first instance G2839 koinos/G2840 koinoo above is a term that refers to an unclean state that is used in the sense of “common” or something defiled by ritual means rather than by declaration of God as a permanent state of uncleanness such as is the case with, for example, shell fish or pig, which are G169 akathartos = unclean by declaration of God in His eternal Word in Lev 11/Deut 14.

The second group of words (G269, akathartos/G2511, katharizo) is a different Greek term in which the meaning is taken from a position in which God (in His Word) or via His priests including our High Priest Yeshua/Jesus (during their service of God) declares someone or something clean (G2511, katharizo) or unclean (G269, akathartos).

Even if you do not understand Greek at all, it is easy to see how the root of these word groupings is the same, i.e. koinos/koinoo and akathartos/katharizo.  When we analyze Peter’s explanation of the vision in Acts 10:26f, we see clearly how these terms help us and Peter to unlock the meaning of the vision in the manner God intended to communicate to Peter and to us, AND that these word groupings and associated meanings in the vision are consistent with the entire counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation.





There is an important distinction we see here.  God is correcting an erroneous man-made law that took God’s command not to associate or be joined with pagans and applied it uniformly to any and all foreigners what-so-ever, which is NOT what the Torah teaches at all. In fact, the Torah commands that Israel was to treat the foreigner who wanted to join him or herself to God’s people as a native born.  Meaning, the foreigner who was a God-fearer, like Cornelius, was to be accepted within Israel and given all the same rights and responsibilities, even land among God’s people.  

"You shall divide it by lot for an inheritance among yourselves and among the aliens who stay in your midst, who bring forth sons in your midst. And they shall be to you as the native-born among the sons of Israel; they shall be allotted an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And in the tribe with which the alien stays, there you shall give him his inheritance," declares the Lord GOD.” Ezekiel 47:22-23


As for the assembly (CHURCH), there shall be one statute (chuqah) for you and for the alien who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the alien be before the LORD.  There is to be one TORAH and one ordinance (Mishpat, Judgment) for you and for the alien who sojourns with you.'"







2 Cor 6:14 quoting the Torah’s teachings properly interprets these concepts and explains the true nature of who God’s people are to associate with and not associate with as well as the truth regarding a God fearing gentile’s acceptability before the Lord:


“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness (i.e. Torahlessness), or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you. "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.



 


All of the concepts God used in the vision were there in His eternal Word all along, they were just not always understood by the people.  God set about to clarify the nature of the “Gospel of God” (Rom 1) through Peter who would be the first to see a large group of God-fearing gentiles receive the Holy Spirit with power and be publicly shown to all that God really was accepting all people who, as Peter noted, “feared God and did what was right” and that these people were always acceptable to God and welcome to Him and should be welcome within the community of God.  In other words, God had declared men from all nations who would hear His voice, and seek His face, to be considered or declared “clean,” G2511 katharizo, whereas, we note in 2 Cor 6:14 GOD considered pagans “unclean” G169 akathartos.  Therefore, while the Jewish community lumped all gentiles into the “unclean” category, God understood all men to be “unclean” until and unless they exhibited the faith of Abraham and God’s High Priest Yeshua pronounced them “clean!”

The Torah forbids binding oneself to pagan peoples and doing what the pagans do, such as happened to King Solomon when he joined himself to pagan wives.  BUT, the Torah never says Jews are to never associate with anyone who is not a Jew (besides the fact that Jews are not the only tribes of Israel!)

In any case, God has used specific symbols in Peter’s vision related to clean and unclean in a specific way in order to correct a false teaching that forbid Jews from associating with foreigners of any kind and as such would have prevented the Gospel of God from going forth to all nations as the Spirit was preparing to do at that time in order to fulfill that second aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant that was to extend and be a blessing to all the nations of the world.  Peter learns that the Gospel is for all people who fear the Lord and do what is right; therefore, Peter should no longer consider all gentiles unclean or non-associable.

Yeshua/Jesus, our High Priest in John 15:3 declares to His disciples during the Last Supper; “You are already clean [katharos, G2513] because of the Word which I have spoken to you.”

Thus we see that our High Priest Yeshua/Jesus must declare us CLEAN in the katharos/kahtarizo sense.  Thus Peter’s vision makes perfect sense in regard to the symbols and the nature of the communication God was trying to teach Peter in the vision related to MEN (it HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH REDEFINING “food”)! Or making void Lev 11/Deut 14!!!!  Which would ultimately make something eternal, not eternal, and such an interpretation would also make no sense in light of Peter’s own explanation of the text and the full counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation!

The REFERENT of “CLEAN” that Yeshua/Jesus is speaking about above in John 15:3 is the second type of clean I spoke of earlier in Peter’s vision and is the same clean God tells Peter He has declared of gentiles (who place their faith in His Son Jesus Christ). See Acts 10:15 in Peter’s vision where God tells Peter to quit calling gentiles “common/unclean” (i.e. ritually unclean or defiled) [koinoo, G2840] when God has declared them “clean” (spiritually cleansed by declaration of God as in the case of John 15:3) [katharizo, G2511].

Anyone who wants to twist the natural meaning of the vision of Peter can try in vain to make it say that God said it is now okay to put anything in one’s mouth and call it “food,” but this simply is not what the text reads, and anyone who believes otherwise, I’m sorry to say, is simply allowing themselves to be self-deceived.

In conclusion, and just to bring it all home for any of you gentile Christians out there who are still holding on to the idea that you can put anything in your mouth and call it “food” based on Peter’s vision, and that such actions will not be displeasing to your Lord and Savior...here's an "end times" prophetic passage that should scare you out of any such notions, and also highlight the same idea we learn from Peter’s vision concerning PEOPLE in relationship to the concept of clean and unclean taught throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.


Isaiah 66:15-24
15 "For behold, the LORD will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For the LORD will execute judgment by fire and by His sword on all flesh, and those slain by the LORD will be many. 17 Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go to the gardens, following in the center, who eat swine's flesh, detestable things and mice, will come to an end altogether, declares the LORD. 18 "For I know their works and their thoughts; the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and see My glory. 19 I will set a sign among them and will send survivors from them to the nations: Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands that have neither heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they will declare My glory among the nations. 20 Then they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as a grain offering to the LORD, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem," says the LORD, "just as the sons of Israel bring their grain offering IN A CLEAN  (tahor,  H2889) VESSEL to the house of the LORD. 21 I will also take some of them for priests and for Levites," says the LORD. 22 "For just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before Me," declares the LORD, "So your offspring and your name will endure. 23 And it shall be from New Moon to New Moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will come and bow down before Me," says the LORD. "Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind."