Peter has come to realize that the issue at stake is not primarily food laws, but the removal of barriers which prevent mission to Gentile people. Contact with Gentiles will not make him unclean and is not contrary to the will of God. He can also eat the food which they would offer to him as a result of the cleansing work of Christ (see Acts 10:15; Titus 3:5–6). Peter has applied the vision of the sheet to human beings.1
28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.