The Comprehensiveness of the Gospel.
I. The gospel is here compared to a great sheet, a clear hint as to the cosmopolitan character of Christianity. It is noteworthy that Christianity as let down from heaven is larger than Christianity as represented in human creeds.
II. The gospel is compared to a great sheet let down from heaven. This idea is emphatically Divine. (1) You will not find it in heathenism; (2) you will not find it in Judaism.
III. The gospel is compared to a great sheet let down from heaven and knit at the four corners. What the precise meaning of this phrase is we cannot positively tell; it would, therefore, be wrong of us to try to make it proveanything. But commentators see here an intimation that the gospel is to extend its frontiers, and to exert its influence over the four quarters of the globe.
IV. Peter is here taught that the distinction between clean and unclean is abolished.
V. After the vision came the interpretation. God always explains His supernatural revelations by natural events. Providence is the best commentary on the Bible. Just when God was stirring large thoughts in Peter respecting the universality of the gospel, He was also working silently, but effectually, with Cornelius to send a messenger to the Apostle desiring a fuller knowledge of salvation at his hands.
J. C. Jones, Studies in the Acts,p. 240.