Acts
3:12-16 … And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel,
why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own
power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you
delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to
release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a
murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God
raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his
name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is
through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
The first thing Peter does is to guard the glory of God.
He says, “Don’t look at me! It wasn’t my power or righteousness that did this!”
Then Peter starts preaching again. Peter then makes several points;
1) God
glorified Jesus
2) The
crowd delivered Jesus and denied Jesus before Pilate
3) The
crowd asked for a murderer to be released
4) The
crowd killed the Author of Life
5) God
raised Jesus from the dead,
6) the
Apostles are witnesses to the resurrection, and
7) Jesus
name, faith in His name, faith that is through Jesus healed the lame man.
God’s grace runs through Peter’s Christ-centered message from beginning to end. Peter mentions the healing but only at the end. The act that had the crowd so excited was the result of faith that Jesus produced. Jesus is presented as both the object and the source of faith. Grace, God’s unmerited favor, was poured out by sending the Son and raising Him from the dead. God, in His grace, also gave the Apostles as witnesses and empowered them by the Holy Spirit in spite of the faithless mob that chose to release a murderer and kill Christ.
Peter uses some key words in this brief sermon that would
have communicated with first century Jews but we need to highlight the words.
First, Peter used the word “Servant” in reference to Jesus and this makes a
first century Jew think of the Book of Isaiah. Specifically, it is a reference
to Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 in which the Servant (52:13) is pierced for our
transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (53:5). Substitutionary atonement
was highlighted in this way from the Old Testament. Holy One is used to
indicate God (e.g., Psalm 71:22 or Psalm 78:41), Jesus (e.g., Psalm 16:10; see Peter’s
use of this Psalm in Acts 2:27), or for an anointed servant in the case of
Moses (Numbers 16:7). Isaiah alone uses the term “Holy One” twenty times.
Righteous one is also used by Isaiah as a term for Christ and is notably used
in the portion of Isaiah that also uses the word “Servant” in teaching
substitutionary atonement.
Isaiah
53:10-12 … Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to
grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring;
he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out
of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge
shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and
he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the
many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his
soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of
many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah is a remarkable book. I’m glad we were able to
study it in detail. It is a book that Peter’s audience would have been familiar
with and Peter’s message would have hit home and rung true in those that the
Holy Spirit was moving. They already knew the facts of salvation but had
previously not understood. So in a rush, the atonement and Christ’s willing sacrifice
would make sense.
Acts
3:17-26 … “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did
also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that
his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again,
that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the
presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,
whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about
which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, ‘The
Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall
listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who
does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all
the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also
proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant
that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring
shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his
servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from
your wickedness.”
After identifying the sin and guilt of his listeners,
Peter calls for repentance. They are told to repent and turn to God. Godly
sorrow results in leaving sin and turning to God. Ungodly sorrow results in
avoiding consequences and eventually a return to sin. Times of refreshing come
from the Lord and are produced by that repentance and turning with your whole
heart to God. Peter affirms that the resurrected Jesus is the Christ and that
He will come again. He also argues from Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-19) that their
response to Jesus and his teachings will either save them or condemn them.
At the end of his message, Peter seems to realize (by the
prompting of the Holy Spirit) that the Holy Spirit is about to do a mighty
work. Peter declares that they are God’s children and the children of the
promises. Remember that not all of those who identify themselves as Israel
according to the flesh are truly Israel but here Peter, preaching under the
anointing, is inspired to say, “God having raised up his servant, sent him to
your first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” I
have never heard a preacher say to a crowd of unbelievers that everyone listening
to him is about to be saved. I’ve heard some wild stuff from various pulpits but
I’ve never heard anyone say that. Now Peter wasn’t talking to everyone who
could hear him (because some temple officials were listening in) but he was
talking to almost everyone who could hear him and it was those who had gathered
as a result of the healing of the man who was lame from birth.
Acts
4:1-4 … And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the
captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because
they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from
the dead. And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day,
for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the word believed,
and the number of the men came to about five thousand.
Here are a few that heard a portion of what Peter was
saying and rushed to stop him from teaching. The Sadducees had a real problem
with Jesus because they taught there was no resurrection and Jesus was
resurrected and spent 40 days proving it. To make it worse, Jesus promised
that, in Him, others would be resurrected from the dead. That made it really
hard to argue that there was no resurrection. In the face of this problem with
the theology of the Sadducees, they had Peter and John arrested and kept in
custody because it was late in the day.
Peter’s sermon (the Holy Spirit’s sermon) went off like a
bomb. Five thousand men were saved. How
could he even talk to that many people without using speakers and a microphone?
Don’t forget that the women were behind a screen but listening so the number
may have been 10 thousand. If the Holy Spirit tells you that everyone you speak
to is going to get saved then you can believe Him. It was truly a remarkable
event. The Holy Spirit was at work like a might rushing wind to exalt Christ to
the glory of God the Father.
Acts
4:5-12 … On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered
together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and
Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set
them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do
this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the
people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done
to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to
all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing
before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the
builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one
else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must
be saved.”
Isn’t Peter a different sort of guy from the cursing
coward of about 60 days before? We are to live for God’s glory and the Holy
Spirit enables us with power for that calling. The Jewish religious council was
brought together and the “executive committee” is named. Annas was the
father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the “official” high priest because the
Romans had deposed Annas in A.D. 15 but, the high priest was high priest for
life and the Jews didn’t like Roman decisions. John is either the son of Annas
who was appointed high priest in A.D. 36 or Jonathan ben Zaccai who came to
power after the fall of Jerusalem. We don’t know who Alexander was.
This is the first case of the persecution of the Church.
It is exciting to wonder about how much they remembered but I’ve got to think
they remember what Jesus said about this.
Mark
13:9-11 “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils,
and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and
kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be
proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and deliver you
over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is
given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
I feel certain that Luke remembered and since Peter and
John were under such a powerful move of the Holy Spirit they had to be thinking
about it. Peter must have been thrilled that a fisherman could speak the Gospel
so clearly. If you were just thinking in a secular way then you’d be worried
that the Church was too small to risk a confrontation with the religious
leaders in Jerusalem but if you’re thinking of what you’ve seen the Holy Spirit
do then you would not worry.
I think it is great that they have the sign standing with
them. This guy must have still been smiling and was probably bouncing up and
down while enjoying his new legs. What an embarrassment for the Sanhedrin. He
got a trip inside where he’d never been. The Sanhedrin couldn’t help him but
these two fishermen had healed him. Peter boldly declares that Jesus is the
cornerstone, rejected by the builders, and that Jesus is the only way of
salvation.
Peter, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, quotes
from the Psalms.
Psalms
118:19-24 … Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through
them and give thanks to the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous
shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become
my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the
LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
I think we may forget the level of familiarity with
Scripture that would have existed in the Sanhedrin. They would use Scripture in
conversation and in disputes. They had lots of Scripture knowledge and lots of
Scripture memorized. Consequently, Peter’s words hit home hard with this group
of men. They didn’t need to go home and look it up. The Sadducees were upset
because of the teaching on resurrection. The Pharisees were upset because the
teaching on resurrection was about a particular resurrection. The resurrection
of Jesus was problem and He claimed He would resurrect others.
Peter says that apparently he and John are arrested for
healing the man. Peter takes the offensive. He accuses these leaders of
crucifying Jesus. He tells them that God raised Jesus from the grave. He tells
them that Jesus healed the man crippled from birth. He tells them that their
sin of rejecting Christ was especially serious because He is now the
cornerstone or capstone. And, to take it on a pointed offensive, there is no
salvation anywhere else. Peter will not simply defend himself and go home. He
is preaching.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, fully man and fully God is often
rejected by our culture but He is that chief stone for each of us and
corporately for His Church. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no
other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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