Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

4. Cornelius is even honored with the visit of an angel from heaven, notifying him that his prayers
are heard and his alms recognized. Sinners are visited by angels, but they come from the bottomless
pit.
5, 6. When I was in Joppa, I visited the house of Simon the tanner by the seaside, ascended to the
roof, and there prayed where Peter was praying when he saw the vision and heard the voice of the
Spirit commanding him to go with the messengers who had already arrived from Cornelius. “Do you
think it is the same house?” I have no reason to doubt. All the houses in Palestine are stone,
consolidated by that wonderful calcareous cement, so they never decay. This house is all solid stone
walls, floors, stairway and roof, so consolidated that it looks like a monolith throughout, not so much
as a seam anywhere visible. The roof is simply a great solid, flat rock, looking as old as the native
mountain strata.
7. Such was the exemplary and practical piety of Cornelius that God honored his prayers,
testimony and preaching, not only in his home, but among the soldiers of his command.
9, 10. The distance from Cæsarea to Joppa is about sixty miles, two light days for the pedestrians.
Hence, starting in the morning, they arrive before night the afternoon of the following day. Ekstasis,
translated in E.V. “trance,” is “ecstasy,” a pure Greek word which means ineffable joy, involving
the simple fact that Peter, while praying alone on the house-top, the most retired and private place
in a Jewish city, also reminiscent of heaven by reason of altitude, is literally flooded with a Niagara
from the upper ocean, inundating his entire being so he sinks away into God, losing sight of self and
environments.
PETER’S VISION.
11. “And he saw heaven open and a certain vessel, like a great sheet, sitting down on the ground
with four rope’s ends,
12. “In which were all quadrupeds, creeping things of the earth, and fowls of the air.” This vision
forever sweeps away all the restrictions of the Levitical law and the rigid fortifications of exclusive
Judaism in the Mosaic economy, unfurling the gospel banner to the whole Gentile world, bidding
them a hearty welcome to the redeeming cross, the cleansing fountain, and the glorious triumph of
Pentecostal sanctification, perfect spiritual freedom, and illimitable gospel rights and privileges. The
vision has nothing to do with the problem of edibles and potables. The signification is purely
spiritual and evangelical, forever smashing the impregnable walls which had separated the Jews and
Gentiles from the days of Abraham, thus completing the final elimination of the last vestige of the
Mosaic dispensation, now and forever superseded by Christ, the glorious Antitype, in whom all the
types and symbols converge and find their triumphant verification. Doubtless the sheet was circular,
representing the world, and held up by four ropes, whose ends alone were seen, the one extending
from the North, the other from the South, another from the East and a fourth from the West, thus
representing the four cardinal points which constitute the world, and focalizing all nations at the
gospel feast. Why was the manifestation repeated thrice? At the dispersion of Noah’s family from
Mt. Ararat after the Flood, he divided his estate, the whole world. [Europe, Asia, and Africa;
America, hidden behind the oceans, reserved for the enlargement of Europe in the latter days, and