Acts 10:28

An unlawful thing. The apostle states it as a known fact that a Jew might not associate with a Gentile. The action of the messengers of Cornelius in standing outside the house of Simon and calling upon someone to come to them in the open air showed that they were aware of Jewish prejudice. Such Jewish exclusiveness was known to the classical writers. Juvenal says: “Having been wont to flout the laws of Rome, they [the Jews] learn and practice and revere the Jewish law, and all that Moses handed down in his secret tome, forbidding to point out the way to any not worshipping the same rites, and conducting none but the circumcised to the desired fountain.” Similarly Tacitus declared: “The Jews are extremely loyal toward one another, and always ready to show compassion, but toward every other people they feel only hate and enmity. They sit apart at meals, and they sleep apart.”

Peter, of course, was speaking from the standpoint of traditional Pharisaism rather than from that of the law itself; but such feelings were exhibited widely, and showed themselves in rigorous forms wherever Jews and heathen came in contact. The strict Jew would hesitate to enter a Gentile’s house, as is reflected by a prohibition in the Mishnah: “The dwelling-places of heathens are unclean.” In an ancient Jewish commentary on Leviticus appears a remarkable example of ceremonial defilement by contact with a Gentile: “It is related that Simeon the son of Kimhith went out to talk with an Arabian King, and a jet of saliva from the latter’s mouth was spurted on to his garments and defiled him. His brother Judah entered and ministered in the office of the High Priesthood in his stead.” The Hindu feeling of caste, of shrinking from contact with those of a lower grade, although now slowly dying out under pressure of law and liberal feeling, presents a close modern parallel.

To keep company. Or, “to join himself.” The word signifies direct contact. Although the ordinary dealings of life forced Jews constantly to be in the company of Gentiles, they were to avoid such contact if possible, lest they be ceremonially defiled.

Not call any man common. The apostle now showed that he had learned the lesson of the vision. Humanity had been redeemed by the incarnation, the sacrifice, and the ascension of Christ, and even the lowest heathen was no longer common or unclean. God was willing to receive all men, and through Jesus He does so. Sin alone is that which separates men from Him. Impurity is to be thought of as a moral, not a physical or racial, taint. The follower of God must learn to see in every sinner the potentialities of a redeemed, justified, and sanctified man. Inasmuch as every man is potentially the subject of such a godly transformation, he must be respected as one in whom the image of God is not entirely effaced and may yet be restored. Pride of class resting on mere differences of culture or opportunity, and showing itself in acts and words of contempt, is from one point of view even less excusable than distinctions resting upon a religious basis. The latter is the more amenable to cure.

It is evident from this verse that the lesson God taught Peter concerned, not beasts, but men. All men were to be reached with the gospel; ultimately they would be unclean only when they should reject God’s endeavors to save them.