Albert Barnes Commentary Acts 11:17

"If then God gave unto them the like gift as [he did] also unto us, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?" — Acts 11:17 (ASV)

What was I. What power or right did I have to oppose the manifest will of God that the Gentiles should be received into the Christian church?

Withstand God. Oppose or resist God. He had indicated His will; He had shown His intention to save the Gentiles; and Peter's prejudices were all overcome.

One of the best means of destroying prejudice and false opinions is a powerful revival of religion. More erroneous doctrines and unholy feelings are overcome in such scenes than in all the angry controversies and bigoted and fierce contentions that have ever taken place.

If men wish to root error out of the church, they should strive by all means to promote revivals of pure and undefiled religion everywhere. The Holy Spirit more easily and effectually silences false doctrine and destroys heresy than all the denunciations of fierce theologians; all the alarms of professed zeal for truth; and all the anathemas which professed orthodoxy and love for the purity of the church ever uttered from the icebergs on which such champions usually seek their repose and their home.