Whenever Peter said "Not so, Lord," that was a tip-off that he was wrong about something revealed by the Scripture and by the Lord Jesus.
Peter was wrong about Jesus being God's Lamb of sacrifice to save sinners, because he wanted Messiah to be the political savior of Israel.
Peter was also wrong about the Gospel's power to save the Gentiles. Jews treated Gentiles as unclean dogs who could only receive God's blessing by converting to Judaism.
So when the Lord determined to save Cornelius and his family, He had to prepare Peter to discard his wrong ideas about the Gospel and Gentiles. Peter's vision of the unclean animals, and God's declaration that they were now clean, was meant to prepare Peter to minister to Gentiles and see them also saved by faith in Jesus.
Peter, and the rest of the Jewish church, had eyes blinded to all that the prophets had written about the salvation of the Gentiles. Isaiah had promised Christ would bring salvation to the whole world, not just to Israel. Through Malachi, God had sworn that Gentiles would truly worship and trust in Him.
Indeed, the promise of salvation to the Gentiles goes back to the promise to Abraham that through his seed, which is Christ, all the families of the earth would be blessed! Salvation is by faith, and whoever believes in Jesus is saved and counted as a child of Abraham, even though he be Gentile.
God confirmed Peter had been wrong when Cornelius believed the Gospel Peter preached and the Holy Ghost fell upon him. Soon, Peter understood that Jews are saved just like Gentiles - not by their birth, but by faith in the Gospel!
God has made all believers His own chosen nation and His special people!
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...