We have seen what occurred on the day of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the group of 120 who had gathered with the apostles for prayer. Last week we began looking at Peter’s explanation of Pentecost, beginning in Acts 2:14.
Jesus was responsible for the outpouring of the Spirit. So we need to have a definition of who this Jesus is. F.F. Bruce points out that apostolic preaching regularly included the following four themes:
- Announcement that the age of fulfillment has arrived.
- Account of ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
- Citation of Old Testament pointing to Christ’s fulfillment.
- Call to repentance.
We will just be looking at the second theme this morning.
Before we read this passage let us look to the Lord in prayer for his help in understanding it.
Acts 2:22-24
This is the Word of the LORD.
Peter began his sermon with an explanation of the phenomena that accompanied Pentecost quoting from Joel 2:28-32. And maybe just when you think he is going to explain something more about the Holy Spirit he shifts his attention to Jesus. This is consistent with what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do . “He will bear witness of me” (John 15:26) and “he will glorify me” (16:14).
God did miracles through Jesus (22). He delivered Jesus over to be crucified (23). He raised him from the dead (24). This is what the crowd needed to hear. They knew Jesus had a reputation for working miracles. They knew Jesus’ death had recently occurred. In fact, many of them were in the crowd shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” And they had heard all the rumors that Jesus had come back to life. They had heard the message, but up to this point they did not believe God was behind it all.
I’m sure many of you can relate to the crowd. Maybe you’ve heard the gospel many times, but as of now you aren’t sure it’s true. You think those miracles can be explained some other way. You might think his death wasn’t any different than the death of many rebels at that time. And you don’t understand how anyone can take the resurrection seriously.
If that’s how you feel, Peter’s sermon is exactly what you need to hear. He doesn’t make some brilliant, air-tight, apologetical argument for the authenticity of Christ. He doesn’t take time to prove the existence of God or defend his claims against every alternative possibility. He simply assumes the authority of Scripture, and goes on to preach the power of the gospel, eventually calling all who will listen to repentance.
First, we will look at how God Attested Jesus (22). Second, we’ll see that God Delivered Up Jesus (23). And third, we will note how God Raised Up Jesus (24).
God Attested Jesus (22)
Miracles authenticated Jesus’ identity as the Messiah and Savior sent by God. They were God’s seal of authenticity revealing Christ’s authority. This is a major emphasis in Luke/Acts. Peter uses three words to describe the miraculous activity that characterized the ministry of Jesus.
“Mighty works” is a phrase that occurs 10x in Acts. Josephus confirms the reputation Jesus had as “a doer of remarkable/strange works.” God gave Jesus the power to heal and cast out demons (Acts 10:38). The “mighty works” are meant to demonstrate God’s power.
“Wonders” serve to arouse astonishment. This happens frequently throughout the gospel accounts even if it isn’t followed by faith.
“Signs” signify spiritual truth and prove divine activity. In Luke 7:22, we see how the signs of Jesus should have proved to John the Baptist that Jesus was the Messiah.
Now, let me clarify something that has come up a few times already. I believe God can work miracles today, but I do not believe God gifts particular individuals with miraculous gifts such as healing and tongues. For instance, I might pray for healing when someone is sick. God might miraculously heal that person through my prayer. But that doesn’t mean I have the gift of healing and can start selling my prayer rags to you. [Just to be clear: I don’t have prayer rags.]
In brief I believe the apostolic office was temporary and foundational for the New Testament church. Not only was the church expanding to Gentiles through their work, but Scripture was being written based upon their testimony. The gift of tongues, like other “signs and wonders and mighty works,” were an apostolic sign (2 Cor. 12:12). Tongues were a particular form of prophecy reserved for that foundational apostolic era.
I realize some of you will have further questions about this, and I would love to talk to you in more detail.
But getting back to Peter’s point: Why was it critical he begin with an explanation of Jesus Christ as “a man attested to you by God”? It is because we must see Christ as our only Redeemer.
The bad news is that we cannot save ourselves. Some of you are familiar with Dr. Henry Krabbendam. He summarizes the bad news by stating three fundamental problems we have:
- A rebellious heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9).
- A filthy past: “We are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousness is as filthy rags” (Is. 64:6).
- A destructive life: “There is no one who does good. Not one! Their throat is an open grave. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths” (Rom. 3:12-16).
Verse 22 assumes our need of a Redeemer who is both human and divine. Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.21: Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect? A: The only Redeemer of God’s elect, is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever.
Not only was Jesus attested by God, but…
God Delivered Up Jesus (23)
Jesus was crucified by men according to the plan of God. At the same time, Jews and Romans played a role, and thus they are culpable. This was not an accident, nor was it purely human sin. Guy Waters writes, “What the Jews did, freely and culpably, is precisely what the holy and good God had eternally foreordained to come to pass in time.”1
Jesus crucifixion is an almost indisputable historical fact. Contemporary readers were so familiar and probably disturbed by the practice that the gospel writers do not dwell on Christ’s death. Keener, “One being executed on the cross could not swat flies from one’s wounds, nor could one withhold one’s bodily wastes from coming out while hanging naked for hours and sometimes days.”2 Those are just a few of the things we don’t typically think about, but would have been seared into the conscience of Peter’s hearers. Crucifixion was an awful death—the most awful kind of death devised.
And yet, it was according to God’s definite plan that Jesus was delivered up to be crucified. Luke emphasizes both God’s plan and human responsibility. But I want to spend a bit of time defining Peter’s use of “foreknowledge”.
Peter has used the term “foreknowledge” in his first letter with reference to the elect exiles (1 Pt. 1:2). Later on, he writes that Jesus Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world (1 Pt. 1:20). Scripture consistently portrays the foreknowledge of God as referring to Jesus and the elect of God. In other words, “foreknowledge” has salvific connotations. God is not said to foreknow all creatures. If God’s foreknowledge is a neutral scan of the future it would be used to describe all people, not just the elect. But instead what we read is that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, or we are non-elect because of our unbelief.
Turn to Romans 8:29-30. Some suggest foreknowledge refers to God looking down the corridor of time and foreseeing who will choose him? Here in Romans 8, we would read, “For those whom he looked down the corridor of time and saw choosing him, those he also predestined…” Although I don’t believe that is a good interpretation of this text, it is a plausible one.
However, we face trouble when we use that definition in Acts. We would have to say that God looked down the corridor of time and saw that Jesus would be crucified, so He decided to make a plan to have him crucified. Do you see how that flips this verse directly on its head? If God delivered up Jesus to be crucified according to a foreknowledge defined in that way, then it wouldn’t be according to his definite plan.
God does not force his creatures to act against their wills (WCF 3.1). Nor has he decreed anything because he foresaw it as future (WCF 3.2). “For example, he does not save you because he knew that you would respond positively to the gospel.”3 To suggest such a thing is to imply that God’s decision is contingent upon your will. But we love God because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
The reason God has foreknowledge is because he planned it. He knows the future, because he ordained what would happen in the future.
Our rebellious heart, filthy past, and destructive life deserves the full weight of the wrath of God, but the good news is that it was God plan to deliver up his Son to take our place. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).
Theologians refer to the life and death of Christ as his humiliation, but it was followed by his exaltation when…
God Raised Up Jesus (24)
God raised up Jesus because death could not hold him. What does Peter mean by the “pangs of death”? It has been compared to a woman’s “birth pangs.” Bertram writes, “The abyss can no more hold the Redeemer than a pregnant woman can hold the child in her body.” John Stott writes regarding the connection between “pangs of death” and birth pangs: “His resurrection is pictured as a regeneration, a new birth out of death into life.”4
This was all part of the divine plan that must be considered. Apart from the resurrection, the gospel is incomplete. The resurrection becomes the main emphasis moving forward and is a central theme in the speeches of Acts. We will discuss this much more next week, but this brings us to the main point I want to emphasize this week: We have a Redeemer who bore our humiliation so that we might be united with him in his exaltation.
When we repent (v.38) and call upon the name of the Lord (v.21) we receive a new heart, a cleansed past, and a holy life. That is what Ezekiel spoke of in 36:25-27, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
The sovereign plan of God was to attest to the authenticity of Jesus through his miraculous works, to deliver him up to be crucified by wicked men, and to finally raise him up on the third day.
Conclusion
We cannot truncate any aspect of this gospel message. Remove the miracles from the life of Christ and you remove his divine authority. Remove the cross and you lose redemption—the purpose for which Christ came! Remove the resurrection and we are all left without the hope of victory and eternal life.
The greatest of all miracles is when a person repents and believes. If you are seeking an extraordinary experience testify to the truth of the gospel and witness the power of God at work through his Word.
1 Waters, Acts, 82.
2 Keener, Acts, 940.
3 Van Dixhoorn, Confessing The Faith, 47.
4 John Stott, Acts, 76.