“Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know,
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“Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know,
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Ye men of Israel heare these wordes. Iesus of Nazareth a man approved of God amonge you with myracles wondres and signes which God dyd by him in the myddes of you as ye youre selves knowe:
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Yee men of Israel, heare these woordes, JESUS of Nazareth, a man approued of God among you with great workes, and wonders, and signes, which God did by him in the middes of you, as yee your selues also knowe:
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Cross-references (38)
Passages linked to Acts 2:22 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 3:2 The same came to him by night, and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.”
- Matthew 12:28 But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come upon you.
- Luke 11:20 But if I by God’s finger cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come to you.
- John 14:10-11 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
- Acts 4:10 may it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands here before you whole in him.
- Matthew 9:8 But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
- Hebrews 2:4 God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders, by various works of power and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will?
- John 11:47 The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs.
- John 12:17 The multitude therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead was testifying about it.
- John 15:24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father.
- Acts 26:26 For the king knows of these things, to whom also I speak freely. For I am persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him, for this has not been done in a corner.
- 2 Corinthians 12:12 Truly the signs of an apostle were worked among you in all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty works.
- Matthew 2:23 and came and lived in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets that he will be called a Nazarene.
- Matthew 11:2-6 Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to him, “Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.”
- Luke 7:20-23 When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptizer has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?’ ” In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits; and to many who were blind he gave sight. Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John the things which you have seen and heard: that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.”
- John 4:48 Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe.”
- John 5:17-20 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.” For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise. For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
- John 5:36 But the testimony which I have is greater than that of John, for the works which the Father gave me to accomplish, the very works that I do, testify about me, that the Father has sent me.
- John 6:14 When therefore the people saw the sign which Jesus did, they said, “This is truly the prophet who comes into the world.”
- John 6:27 Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”
- John 9:33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
- John 10:37 If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me.
- John 11:40-42 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?” So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
- John 19:19 Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
- Acts 3:12 When Peter saw it, he responded to the people, “You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk?
- Acts 5:35 He said to them, “You men of Israel, be careful concerning these men, what you are about to do.
- Acts 6:14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”
- Acts 10:37-38 you yourselves know what happened, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; even Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
- Acts 13:16 Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen.
- Acts 14:27 When they had arrived, and had gathered the assembly together, they reported all the things that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of faith to the nations.
- Acts 21:28 crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place. Moreover, he also brought Greeks into the temple, and has defiled this holy place!”
- Acts 22:8 I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.’
- Acts 24:5 For we have found this man to be a plague, an instigator of insurrections among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
- Acts 26:9 “I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
- Isaiah 41:14 Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel. I will help you,” says Yahweh. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
- Luke 24:18 One of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things which have happened there in these days?”
- John 1:45 Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
- John 7:31 But of the multitude, many believed in him. They said, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more signs than those which this man has done, will he?”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (23 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 22. Jesus of Nazareth Now doth Peter apply unto…
22. Jesus of Nazareth Now doth Peter apply unto his purpose the prophecy of Joel; namely, that the Jews may thereby know that the time of restoring was present; and that Christ was given them for this purpose. For this promise was no otherwise to be fulfilled, save only by the coming of the Mediator. And this is the right use of all those gifts which we have by Christ, whilst that they bring us unto Christ, as unto a fountain. But he cometh hither by little and little. For he doth not by and by in the beginning affirm that Jesus was Christ; but he saith only that he was a man sent of God; and that doth he prove by his miracles. Afterward he addeth, that he rose from death when he was slain. Whereby it appeareth more certainly and more fully that he was not one of the prophets, but the very Son of God, who was promised to be the repairer of all things. Let this, therefore, be the first member, that Jesus of Nazareth was a man approved of God by manifest testimonies, so that he could not be despised as some base and obscure person. The old interpreter did not evil translate ὑποδεδειγμενον approved. And Erasmus is deceived, who thinketh that he did read it otherwise; and he himself did not express Luke’s mind, when as he translated it given. For, seeing that word doth signify among the Grecians to show, whereupon the mathematicians also call those arguments whereby they set a thing, as it were, before a man’s eyes, αποδειξεις, or demonstrations, Luke meant to say, that Jesus came not unknown, and without any testimony or approbation, but that those miracles which God showed by him served to this end, that he might be famous and excellent. Therefore he saith that he was showed toward the Jews; because God would have his Son to be accounted excellent and great among them; as if he should say, that miracles were not appointed for other nations, but for the Jews, that they might know that Jesus was sent unto them of God.
By great works. He calleth miracles by these three names. And because God doth show forth his power in them after a new and unwonted sort, or doth, at least, procure greater admiration, they are, for good causes, called great works. For we are commonly more moved when any extraordinary thing doth happen. In which respect they are also called wonders, because they make us astonished. And for this cause are they called signs, because the Lord will not have men’s minds to stay there, but to be lifted up higher; as they are referred unto another end. He put in three words, to the end he might the more extol Christ’s miracles, and enforce the people, by his heaping and laying of words together, to consider the same. Furthermore, he maketh not Christ the chief author, but only the minister; because, as we have already said, he determined to go forward by degrees. Notwithstanding, here may a question be asked, whether miracles do suffice to be a sufficient and just approbation [proof] or no? Because by this means inchanters might cause their legerdemain to be believed. I answer, that the juggling casts of Satan do much differ from the power of God. Christ saith elsewhere, that the kingdom of Antichrist shall be in wonders, but he addeth by and by, in lying wonders, (2 Thessalonians 2:9.) if any man object, that we cannot easily discern, because he saith that they shall have so great color that they shall deceive (if it could be) the very elect; I answer again, that this error proceedeth only from our own want of wit, because we are so dull; for God doth show his power manifestly enough. Therefore, there is sufficient approbation of the doctrine and of the ministry in the miracles which God doth work, so that we be not blind. And whereas it is not of sufficient force among the wicked, because they may now and then be deceived with the false miracles of Satan, this must be imputed unto their own blindness; but whosoever hath a pure heart, he doth also know God with the pure eyes of his mind, so often as he doth show himself. Neither can Satan otherwise delude us, save only when, through the wickedness of our heart, our judgment is corrupt and our eyes blinded, or at least bleared through our own slothfulness.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Christ being innocent, was by God’s providence crucified of…
Christ being innocent, was by God’s providence crucified of wicked men.
Who is by those works which God wrought by him, so manifestly approved and allowed of, that no man can gainsay him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus…
22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
Ver. 22. A man] From Adam, but not by Adam.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Jesus of Nazareth; for so Pilate had called our…
Jesus of Nazareth; for so Pilate had called our Saviour through contempt, in his superscription on the cross: and that they might certainly know of whom he spake, and that he was not now (as formerly) ashamed to own him, he mentions our Saviour under that name here.
Approved; demonstrated, and beyond any contradiction proved, to be the Messiah: for this was that great truth St. Peter preached upon, that Christ, whom Pilate had condemned, and called Jesus of Nazareth, was indeed the Son of God, and the true Messiah.
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Miracles and wonders and signs; the critical difference is not so material; it was ordinary to add many words to show the greatness of the matter spoken of; indeed all sorts of wonderful works Christ did, and so many, and so great, as no variety of words can express.
As ye yourselves also know; those that are not convinced are self-condemned.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain St. Peter having wiped off the unjust aspersion of…
St. Peter having wiped off the unjust aspersion of drunkenness cast upon himself and his brethren in the foregoing verses; in these he makes it his business to convince the Jews that they were the murderers of the best man that ever lived in the world, even Jesus of Nazareth, the true and promised Messiah.
In order to this he treats in this sermon,
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1. Of the person and life of Christ.
2. Of the sufferings and death of Christ.
3. Of the resurrection of him from the grave.
First, as touching his person, the apostle shows , That he was evidently sent from God and approved of him, by those many miracles, wonders, and signs, which were wrought by him.
Hence note, That the many and great miracles wrought by Christ, evidently prove that he was sent of God, and came from him, and was approved by him. Our Saviour’s miracles, for the nature of them, were beneficial to mankind; for the number of them, they were many; for the manner of their operation, they were public and open, in the sight and view of all the people; not in corners, like the Popish miracles, (wrought before their own creatures only,) but before his enemies; and for the quality of them, they were of the greatest magnitude, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, giving sight to them that were born blind; by a word spoken, by a touch given: so that our blessed Saviour had all that attestation that miracles can give, that he was commissioned by God, and came from God.
The second part of Peter’s sermon here treats of the sufferings and death of Christ: By wicked hands ye have crucified and slain him, who was delivered by he determinate counsel of God.
Where note, 1. The name and kind of death which Christ died: this is described more generally; it was a violent death, Ye have slain him; more particularly, it was an ignominious, cursed, and dishonourable death, ye have crucified him.
Learn thence, That the Lord Jesus Christ was not only put to death, but to the worst of deaths, even the death of the cross. Now the death of the cross was a violent death, a painful death, a shameful death, a lingering death, a succourless death, and an accursed death.
Note, 2. The causes of Christ’s death are here expressed. The principal cause, permitting and ordering, was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. The instrumental cause, effecting, was the wicked hands of the Jews: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel, &c. ye have taken, and by wicked hands crucified, &c.
Learn hence, That there was not any one particular action or single circumstance relating to the death of Christ, but what came under the holy counsel and wise determination of God. Yet this foreknowledge and counsel of God, as it did not necessitate and enforce them to it, so neither doth it excuse them in it. God’s foreknowledge and determinate counsel did no more compel or force their wicked hands to do what they did, than the mariner’s hoisting up his sails to take the wind to serve his design, can be said to compel the wind to blow. God’s end in acting was one, their end in acting was another; his most pure and holy, theirs most malicious and daringly wicked. In respect of God, Christ’s death was justice and mercy; in respect of man it was murder and cruelty; in respect of himself, it was obedience and humility.
The third part of the apostle’s sermon, respects the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the grave, Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it Act 2:24. Christ, though laid, was not lost in the grave; but revived and rose again, and rose by the power of his Godhead.
True, God is here said to raise him, and Spirit elsewhere; but we are not to understand it so, as if they raised him by their power without his own power; for he declares it expressly, In three days I will raise up the temple of my body. Joh 2:19
And if he had not raised himself by his own power, how could he be said, To be declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead Rom 1:4? What more had appeared in Christ’s resurrection that in any other, if that were all? For others were raised by the power of God as well as he. Now because the Jews, to whom Peter here preaches, were filled with prejudice against Christ, the apostle thought fit to tell them that God raised them from the dead; yet by the consequence it sufficiently appears in the following discourse, that Christ raised himself from the dead.
Learn hence, That the Lord Jesus Christ, by the omnipotent power of the Godhead, the Father’s, the Spirit’s and his own Godhead, revived, and rose again from the dead, to the terror and consternation of his enemies, and the unspeakable consolation of all believers. As by the eternal Spirit, or the power of his own Godhead, he offered up himself to God when he died; so when he was put to death in the flesh, he was quickened by the Spirit; that is, by the power of his divine nature. The same Spirit enabled him to do both.
Observe also, The reason annexed, why God raised up Jesus Christ: because it was impossible that death should hold him. But how impossible?
1. ’Twas naturally impossible, upon the account of that divine power which was inherent in his person as God.
2. ’Twas legally impossible, because divine justice being fully satisfied by his sufferings, required that he should be raised to life; as when a debt is paid, the prisoner is discharged, and the prison-door opened.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Ye men of Israel hear these words,.... The Arabic…
Ye men of Israel hear these words,.... The Arabic version prefaces this passage with these words, "in those days Peter stood and said unto the people"; as if it was not on the same day, and the following oration was a new one, and not a continued discourse with the former; whereas it was delivered at the same time, and is in connection with what goes before. Only the apostle having finished the vindication of his brethren, and the whole society, and set that matter in a clear light; and being willing to take this opportunity of preaching Christ to the Jews, addresses them under another character in a new form of words, though to the same sense as in Act 2:14 in order to soften their minds, and raise their attention, and proceeds to describe the person, the subject of his following discourse:
Jesus of Nazareth; first by his name Jesus, which the angel gave him before his birth; and that for this reason, because he is the Saviour of his people from their sins, and which his name signifies; and next by the place, not where he was born, for that was Bethlehem, but where he was educated and brought up, and where he lived the greatest part of his life, Nazareth, a city in Galilee; whence he was so called, generally by way of contempt, and not so much to distinguish him from any of the same name:
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a man approved of God; he was truly and really a man, who in his incarnation assumed a true body, and a reasonable soul; but he was not a mere man, and much less a common and ordinary man: he was the famous son of man the Scriptures speak of; the man of God's right hand, the man his fellow, a great, mighty, and wonderful man: "approved by God"; or shown, declared, and demonstrated by him, to be sent by him in human nature, to be the true Messiah and Saviour of the world, who was the chosen of God, loved and honoured by him, whom he sealed, and bore a testimony to; and that not privately, but openly and publicly:
among you; in the face of all the people in Jerusalem, and in the temple, and at the time of public feasts:
by miracles, and wonders, and signs; by dispossessing devils, cleansing lepers, restoring sight to the blind, causing the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk, and by raising the dead:
which God did by him in the midst of you; not but that he did the miracles himself, as and the Son of God; but as he was man, God did them, by his human nature, as the instrument: the meaning is, that his miracles were wrought by a divine power, and not by a diabolical influence, by Beelzebub the prince of devils, as the Pharisees blasphemously said of him; and these were done, not in a corner, but in the midst of them:
as ye yourselves also know; for they must be sensible and convicted in their own consciences, not only that these things were done by him, but that they could not be done by him, unless God was with him, or he was from God; and so were testimonies both of the divine approbation of him, and of his deity and Messiahship.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 22. A man approved of God] αποδεδειγμενον, celebrated,…
Verse 22. A man approved of God] αποδεδειγμενον, celebrated, famous. The sense of the verse seems to be this: Jesus of Nazareth, a man sent of God, and celebrated among you by miracles, wonders, and signs; and all these done in such profusion as had never been done by the best of your most accredited prophets. And these signs, &c., were such as demonstrated his Divine mission.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Act 2:22. Ye men of Israel, hear these words…
Act 2:22. Ye men of Israel, hear these words — Let me charge it upon you, as a most important duty, to pay attention to these remarkable words of the prophet, which I have now repeated in your hearing; and a part of which is this day evidently fulfilled, and the rest shall be fulfilled in their season. Jesus of Nazareth — So I call him, because he was generally known among you by that name, though he was not born there, nor, properly speaking, was a Nazarene; a man approved of God among you — Censured, indeed, and condemned by men, but approved of God, who testified his approbation of his life, doctrine, and of the whole of his proceedings, by the miraculous powers he gave him; a man, marked out by God, as Dr. Hammond translates απο του θεου αποδεδειγμενον, signalized and made remarkable among you that now hear me; for you yourselves are witnesses how remarkable he was rendered by the miracles, wonders, and signs, works above the power of nature, out of its ordinary course, and contrary to it, which God did by him — That is, which he did by that divine power with which he was clothed, and in which God plainly co-operated with him; for no man could do such works, unless God were with him. Observe, reader, the amazing stress Peter lays upon Christ’s miracles: 1st, The matter of fact was not to be denied; they were done, says he, in the midst of you — In the midst of your country, your city, your solemn assemblies; as ye yourselves also know — You have been eye- witnesses of his miracles, and I appeal to yourselves whether you have any thing to object against them, or can offer any thing to disprove them. 2d, The inference from them cannot be disputed; the reasoning is as strong as the evidence; if he did those miracles, certainly God approved of him, showed him to be what he declared himself to be, the Son of God and the Saviour of the world: for the God of truth would never set his seal to a lie.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Ye men of Israel - Descendants of Israel or…
Ye men of Israel - Descendants of Israel or Jacob, that is, Jews. Peter proceeds now to the third part of his argument, to show that Jesus Christ had been raised up; that the scene which had occurred was in accordance with his promise, was proof of his resurrection, and of his exaltation to be the Messiah; and that, therefore, they should repent for their great sin in having put their own Messiah to death.
A man approved of God - A man who was shown or demonstrated to have the approbation of God, or to have been sent by him.
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By miracles, and wonders, and signs - The first of these words properly means the displays of power which Jesus made; the second, the unusual or remarkable events which attended him, as suited to excite wonder or amazement; the third, the sights or proofs that he was from God. Together, they denote the array or series of remarkable works - raising the dead, healing the sick, etc., which showed that Jesus was sent from God. The proof which they furnished that he was from God was this, that He would not confer such power on an impostor, and that therefore Jesus was what he pretended to be.
Which God did, by him - The Lord Jesus himself often traced his power to do these things to his commission from the Father, but he did it in such a way as to show that he was closely united to him, Joh 5:19, Joh 5:30. Peter here says that God did these works by Jesus Christ, to show that Jesus was truly sent by him, and that therefore he had the seal and attestation of God. The same thing Jesus himself said, Joh 5:36, “The work which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.” The great works which God has made in creation, as well as in redemption, he is represented as having done by his Son, Heb 1:2, “By whom also he made the worlds,” Joh 1:3; Col 1:15-19.
In the midst of you - In your own land. It is also probable that many of the persons present had been witnesses of his miracles.
As ye yourselves also know - They knew it either by having witnessed them, or by the evidence which everywhere abounded of the truth that he had performed them. The Jews, even in the time of Christ, did not dare to call his miracles in question, Joh 15:24. While they admitted the miracle, they attempted to trace it to the influence of Beelzebub, Mat 9:34; Mar 3:22. So decided and numerous were the miracles of Jesus, that Peter here appeals to them as having been known by the Jews themselves to have been performed, and with a confidence that even riley could not deny it. On this he proceeds to rear his argument for the truth of his Messiahship.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Jesus, ... a man, who suffered as man, though…
Jesus, ... a man, who suffered as man, though he was both God and man. --- Delivered by the determinate decree, or counsel; to wit, by that eternal decree, that the Son of God should become man. He mentions this decree, and foreknowledge of God, to signify that Christ suffered not by chance, nor unwillingly, but what God, and he as God, had decreed. (Witham) --- By the determinate, &c. god delivered up his Son; and his Son delivered up himself, for the love of us, and for the sake of our salvation: and so Christ’s being delivered up was holy, and was God’s own determination. But they who betrayed and crucified him, did wickedly, following therein their own malice, and the instigation of the devil; not the will and determination of God, who was by no means the author of their wickedness; though he permitted it; because he could, and did draw out of it so great a good, viz. the salvation of man. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain § II.—Peter’s address, continued; he demonstrates that, although the…
§ II.—Peter’s address, continued; he demonstrates that, although the Jews had crucified Jesus of Nazareth, he was, nevertheless, by virtue of his resurrection and exaltation (as a consequence of which he poured out the Holy Ghost,), in truth the Lord and the Messiah
Act_2:22-36
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22Ye men of Israel [Israelitish men], hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles [mighty works] and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also [omit also]11 know: 23Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken [Him, delivered according to the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have received],12 and by wicked hands [by the hand of lawless men]13 have crucified [affixed] and slain: [.] 24Whom [Him] God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death:14 because it was not possible that he should be holden of [overcome by] it. 25For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw [saw] the Lord always before my face; for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: 26Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover [yea] also my flesh shall rest in hope: 27Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [in the place of the dead (Todtenreich, hades)],15 neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 28Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with [before] thy countenance. 29Men and brethren, Let me [I may]16 freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that [David:] he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. 30Therefore being [Now as he was] a prophet, and knowing [knew] that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne [that of the fruit of his loins One should sit on his throne];17 31He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul [that he]18 was not left in hell [as in Act_2:27], neither [and that] his flesh did [not] see corruption. 32This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. 33Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now [omit now]19 see and hear. 34For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, 35Until I make thy foes thy footstool. 36Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same [made this] Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act_2:22. a. Ye men of Israel.—Peter had hitherto exhibited the occurrence of the day in the light of the word of prophecy, and affirmed that it was the fulfilment of very solemn words of God, which, while they contained rich promises, set forth, at the same time, very impressive and alarming truths. His hearers are deeply moved, and their present devout frame of mind enables him to announce the main purpose of the miraculous event, and to unfold the fundamental truths which it taught. He testified publicly and explicitly, and in a manner which touched the conscience of the hearers, that Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified by his people, but had, in accordance with former promises, been raised up and exalted by God, had now poured out the Spirit, and that he is the Lord and Messiah [Χριστὸν, that is, The Anointed One, the current Greek translation of the Hebrew official title, Messiah.—Tr.]. Peter, accordingly, never loses sight of the great event of the day; the gift of the Holy Ghost, like a thread of gold, reflects its light in every part of the discourse. As the circumstances, however, assign the character of a missionary address to his words, these assume the form of a testimony which he bears to Jesus, who, as the Crucified, but also the Risen and Exalted One, is the Lord and Redeemer. On approaching this leading theme of his discourse, he again solicits his hearers to listen to his words.
b. Jesus of Nazareth.—When Peter names Jesus, he describes him personally as one whom God had preëminently distinguished by deeds and events (see below, the Doctr. and Ethical views), insomuch that the Israelites had been placed in a favorable position for recognizing in him an eminent personage, to whom God himself had borne witness (ἀποδεδειγμένον εἰς ὑμᾶς—έν μέσῳ ὑμῶν, καθὼς καὶ αὐτοὶ οῖδατε). Here already the apostle very plainly makes an appeal to the conscience of the hearer, and endeavors to awaken in him a deep sense of the atrociousness of the treatment which Jesus had received; this is his next topic.
Act_2:23. Him—ye have, etc.—Peter presents the two-fold origin of the sufferings of Jesus—the human, and the divine. When the human influences which directly caused them, are considered, the whole was a complicate deed, in which various individuals coöperated. Those on whom the guilt of having slain Jesus chiefly rests, are the Israelites (προςπήξαντες ἀνείλατε., Act_2:23 : comp. Act_2:36); the next, are the intermediate persons through whose direct instrumentality the Lord was affixed to the cross and executed, namely, the ἀνομοι, pagans, who were without the law (of Moses); these were Romans, and not merely the Roman soldiers, but also the Roman procurator. Lastly, there is at least an allusion, in the word ἔκδοτον, to the treachery of Judas. Peter addresses his hearers as if all were indiscriminately guilty: “ye have slain him”, while many are doubtless now among them who were not present in the city eight or nine weeks previously, during the last days of the Lord’s passion; it is, therefore, obvious that the crucifixion of Jesus was an act of the people, viewed as a whole—it was a common act, involving the whole people alike in common guilt.—Peter, in the next place, proceeds to answer the question which might naturally arise: “How could these things be permitted to take place, if Jesus was truly such a man of God?” In order to remove the offence which the Lord’s death on the cross might give, Peter now exhibits the other influence, or, the divine participation in the sufferings of Christ. He presents the following view:—They were endured in consequence of the fixed purpose and foreknowledge of God; that is to say, they were not simply the result of the uncontrolled action of human malice and sin. Those sufferings could not have advanced to such an extreme, if they had not been at the same time in accordance with the will of God, who had not only foreseen, but also positively decreed them. Hence, a divine decree was also carried into execution when Jesus suffered and died.
Act_2:24. Whom God hath raised up.—When the apostle refers to the sufferings and death of Jesus, he utters thoughts of deep import, but the language itself is exceedingly concise. His remarks on the resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand, extend through not less than nine verses; he thereby indicates that this great fact was the most important of all those to which he directed attention, and that he regarded it as his chief task to explain it to his hearers in a convincing manner. His remarks on the resurrection involve two points. First, he bears witness in his own name, and in that of all the other apostles, that the resurrection of Jesus was a fact which had actually occurred (Act_2:24; Act_2:32). His testimony is sustained by the circumstance, (not, however, expressly mentioned by him,) that he and the Eleven had seen the Lord personally after his resurrection, and could thus testify from their own knowledge to the life of the Risen One, (comp. Act_1:21 ff.). The apostle, in the second place, exhibits the resurrection in the light of prophecy, showing that the fact had been predicted by David, and that the prediction was necessarily fulfilled in Jesus. His testimony respecting the fact itself, coincides with the exclamation: “The Lord is risen indeed,” (Luk_24:34)—the resurrection really occurred; his argument derived from prophecy, advances a step further, and is equivalent to the words: “It behooved [ἔδει] Christ to rise,” Luk_24:46—his resurrection was necessary. These thoughts are distinctly indicated by the words: οὐκ ἦν δυνατόν, etc. Here, Peter, speaking in the Aramæan language, doubtless employed the expression חֶבְלֵי־מָוֶת [found in Psa_18:5-6; Psa_116:3.—Tr.], signifying the snares or toils with which death [“personified as a capturing hunter” (Meyer)] catches and holds fast his prey. But Luke here adopts the version of the Septuagint; the authors of this translation supposed the forms to be חֲבָלּים,הֵבֶל [found in Isa_66:7, and elsewhere, and referring especially to the pains of parturition (Meyer)—Tr.], and, accordingly translate ὠδινες θανάτον [not, the cords, snares, but, the pangs, throes of death.—Tr.]. It is certain that the word [ὠδινες] is not used by Luke here in the Hebraizing sense of cords or bonds (Olshausen), but in that of pains, pains of travail, since here a new life was born of death. The interpretation which represents death itself as enduring the pains of parturition until He who was slain was raised up (Meyer), is far-fetched; it is much more natural to refer the pains (Act_2:24) to the Person of Jesus himself, since that state which is succeeded by the διαφθορά was regarded as attended, even in the place of the dead, with pain.—But what is precisely the sense of the apodictical declaration: “It was not possible that he should be holden of [overcome by] death”? Both earlier and also recent interpreters explain the direct meaning to be the following: ‘It was impossible’, Peter says, ‘on account of the very nature or being of Jesus Christ, since the Son has life in himself’ [Joh_5:26]. (Olshausen); or else: ‘It was impossible with respect to (1) God the Father, (2) the Son, as the eternal Son of the Father, (3) Death, which could not have a permanent claim on a Holy One and a Prince of life.’ (Gebrand van Leeuwen). But such explanations connect important truths with these words, to which Peter did not directly refer; the immediate context suggests no other explanation than the following: ‘It was impossible that Jesus should be overcome by death, for the simple reason that such had been the prediction, and the divine promise must needs be fulfilled.’ This is the most direct and logical meaning, which, however, does not exclude, but rather includes the thought that the source both of the promise and also of its fulfilment lies in that victorious power and that fulness of life of the Anointed of God, which are indicated in the prophecy.
Act_2:25-32. I foresaw [saw] the Lord always.—[προωρώμην, saw, not foresaw, πρό is intensive merely. (Hackett, ad loc.); the verb here has respect to place, and means saw before me. (J. A. Alexander).—Tr.]. The prophecy to which Peter appeals, Psa_16:8-11, contains an animated expression of the joyful confidence of a devout mind; the believer’s body and soul rejoice in the living God, and, even in the sight of death, are assured of an eternal, blessed life. The passage, (in accordance with the Septuagint), is quoted in full. David’s intimate and faithful communion of life with God is here set forth, (Act_2:25), in so far as he always has the Lord before his eyes, and as the Lord is at his side with divine aid and support. Hence proceed (Act_2:26) the joy in God and the hopeful confidence which influence the believer’s whole nature (καρδιά, γλῶσσα, for כְּבוֹדִי, σάρξ,) so that he has an assurance (Act_2:27) that he shall not be retained by death as a prey—his soul shall not remain in the place of the dead [Todtenreich], neither shall the Beloved One of God moulder in the grave. He hopes, on the contrary (Act_2:28), that, by the guidance and love of God, he shall be placed in possession of the fulness of life and of joy in the presence of God.—Now all that David expresses in these words of joyful confidence, the apostle refers to Jesus Christ. He premises (Act_2:25) that David speaks εἰς αὐτόν, that is, not “concerning” Jesus, but “in allusion to” him [“aiming at him (dicere in aliquem), as εἰς is employed in Eph_5:32; Heb_7:14.” Winer: Gram. N. T. § 49. a.—Tr.]. All this is fully explained by Peter (Act_2:29-31), after the introductory remark that he can speak with freedom concerning David. Peter is aware that the minds of men who revered the holy character of King David, might become prejudiced against himself, and suppose that the remarks which he intended to make were designed to disparage that devout man: in order to prevent his hearers from receiving this impression, and to conciliate them, he remarks that it was certainly allowable (ἐξὸν. sc.ἐστὶν, not ἔστω) to state a fact which no one thought of denying. Next, in order to testify his own reverence for David, he gives him the title of πατριάρχης, that is, the honored founder of the royal family from which, according to the promise, the Messiah was to come. Nevertheless—Peter proceeds—the facts are well known, that David not only died and was buried, but that his sepulchre still remains [1Ki_2:10, comp. with 2Sa_5:7]: it necessarily follows, (as he plainly intimates), that David’s corpse had been abandoned to corruption. Consequently, David, who was unquestionably enlightened by the Spirit of God, and who had also received a promise, confirmed by an oath, that God would place one of his descendants on his royal throne (2Sa_7:12; comp. Psa_89:3-4; Psa_89:35-36; Psa_132:11), must have cast a prophetic glance at the future, and have spoken of the resurrection of the Messiah, meaning that He should not be left in the place of the dead, and that His flesh should not be given over to corruption. Psa_16:10. The words ὅτι οὐ κατελ. etc., “that he was not left”, present the substance of the prophetic declaration in a direct form, and are not to be taken as equivalent to εἰς ἐκεῖνο ὅτι (Meyer) [“spake in reference to this, that, etc.; ὅτι in the sense of εἰς ἐκ., ὅτι” Meyer.—Tr.]; the former is the more natural construction. The objection that, in this case, εἶπε would have been employed in place of ἐλάλησε is unfounded, since the latter word is connected with those that immediately follow it, περὶ τῆς … Χριστοῦ; besides, if the other view were correct, we would naturally expect to find γάρ in Act_2:32, or a similar particle.
But how are we, in accordance with the opinion of the apostle, to understand the prophecy of David psychologically? Did David, who speaks in the first person, and therefore really seems to refer to himself, in truth speak, not in his own name, but in that of the Messiah? The Psalm itself does not furnish the least support for such a view: nor, indeed, does Peter maintain that David, omitting every reference to his own person, spoke exclusively of Christ. It is quite consistent with the words and the meaning of the apostle to assume that David certainly expressed more immediately his personal hope of life, founded as it was on his close communion with God; but Peter as certainly asserts emphatically, that at the same time, David, by virtue of the illumination of the Spirit of God, which was in him, expressed a hope which, in its full sense and meaning, was to be fulfilled, not in himself, but in that Anointed One of God, who was promised to him, and who was his descendant and a successor on his throne. It is, at the same time, undoubtedly true, that the apostle does not here define the degree of light or knowledge granted to David when he cast a prophetic glance at Jesus Christ and his resurrection.—But while he applies the words of David, Psa_16:10, directly to the resurrection of Jesus, he mainhains not only that the Lord’s body had remained untouched by corruption, but also that Jesus had gone to the place of the dead, without having remained there, Act_2:31.
Act_2:33-35. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted.—The apostle’s address proceeds, in historical order, from the resurrection to the ascension of Jesus, and to the outpouring of the Spirit, i.e., the hour in which it was delivered. “Jesus is exalted by the right, hand of God” to heaven, to divine power and glory. The words: τῇ δεξιᾷ are not to be translated: “to the right hand,” which version (Bleek, de Wette) is not sustained by the the laws of grammar, including those observed by the New Testament idiom; Peter, rather, says “by the right hand of God,” inasmuch as he ascribes weight especially to the circumstance that Jesus, who had been
dishonored and slain by the wicked act of men, had been raised up and exalted by the favor and almighty power of God.—Peter adds: ‘Jesus at once received the promised Holy Ghost from the Father, in order to impart the same to men, and hath shed forth this which ye see with your eyes and hear with your ears—that power, the operation of which ye plainly perceive.’ Here, too, Act_2:34 ff., the apostle appeals to the prophecy as a confirmation of his testimony: ‘David, confessedly, did not ascend to heaven, like Elijah; nevertheless, he says: “The Lord said, etc.,” Psa_110:1. Peter, to whom, doubtless, the question proposed by Jesus in Mat_22:42, had occurred, assumes that the word of God, in which a seat at the right hand, that is, a participation in the honor and power of God is promised to the Messiah, refers to Jesus.
Act_2:36. Know ye, therefore, that Jesus is the Christ!—Such is the practical conclusion of the address—a summary of all that Peter had said. This knowledge (γινωσκέτω) is derived with entire assurance (ἀσφαλῶς) from the premises. The conviction of mind which is thus established, should, as he now wishes, influence the whole moral nature of the hearers; it should humble them, and lead them to sorrow and repentance, in view of the fact that Israel had crucified Him, who was, nevertheless, the Messiah, and had been so highly exalted by God. The apostle trusts that such knowledge will exercise a benign influence on the will, since it is of a practical character, leading to a recognition of Jesus as the Lord, in the obedience of faith [Rom_16:26]. That recognition may be expected from the whole nation (πᾶς οἶκος Ἰσρ.), as a duty, and the more justly as the nation has heinously sinned against Jesus. Hence Peter places the words: ο͂ν ὑμεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε (“whom ye have crucified”) at the end of his address, intending that they should continue to pierce the souls of his hearers like a sting, until their conversion and the remission of their sins should restore them to peace.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Both the human and the divine nature in the Person of Jesus Christ are set forth in this first apostolic discourse, but the references to the former predominate. For although the dignity of Jesus is continually and gloriously displayed in his life and works, in his death on the cross, in his resurrection, his ascension and his heavenly honor and action, still that which is divine in him, is represented as having been bestowed on him, (Act_2:22) and wrought by God. Thus, in Act_2:24; Act_2:32, “God raised him up;” the language is not: “Christ is risen.” In Act_2:33, he is exalted “by the right, hand of God,” not “he has ascended;” it is, indeed, expressly stated in Act_2:36 that “God had made him both Lord and Messiah.” Not a single positive intimation is given that Jesus was originally the Son of God, that he had life in himself, that he was God from all eternity, etc. But these facts cannot perplex, nor suggest the thought that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ was of a comparatively late origin, and was not founded on eternal truth. It is not even necessary to resort to the explanation that Peter and the other apostles, in whose name he speaks, had temporarily observed silence respecting that doctrine only from considerations connected with his hearers (accommodating himself, in a manner that might be considered allowable, to their grade of knowledge)—that it was his object to induce his hearers first of all to recognize the Messiahship of Jesus—and that he intended subsequently to disclose to them the deeper doctrine. The true explanation is furnished by the peculiar nature of the case and by the nature of religious knowledge in general. Jesus had distinctly borne witness concerning himself; nevertheless, the personal knowledge or insight of the apostles, and their conviction of the deity of the Redeemer, could necessarily attain clearness and depth only by degrees. Now their growth, in its natural course, exhibited the usual features of such a process, that is, their knowledge of the Lord’s appearance in time, was enlarged to a knowledge of his eternal being; their acquaintance with the leading facts, grew into an acquaintance with the leading truths connected with him. Thus their view was gradually turned from things without, to things within, and from those which are below, to those which are above.
2. The apostle’s remarks on the sufferings and death of Jesus exhibit the same characteristic features. The view which he presents of the Lord’s passion (see above, Exeg. and Crit. note on Act_2:23) is designed to teach his hearers that the whole was indeed the guilty act of the Jewish people, but was, at the same time, foreknown and determined by God. On the other hand, however, he does not utter a word which would explain the reason that rendered the death of Jesus necessary, or would, in particular, show that his sufferings and death on the cross were an atoning, redeeming and saving work. And we are not authorized to assert that he had designedly observed silence on these points, since he was delivering at the time, not a didactic discourse, but a missionary sermon, that is, giving a simple statement respecting his faith. The true view is rather the following: It was still necessary at this period, that the apostles should be guided into all truth with respect to these points also. All that Peter said was truth—truth, never contradicted, but established by all the later and deeper views which he acquired; still, it was not yet all truth, comprehended in its fulness, its depth, and its height.
Similar observations may be made respecting the resurrection. The apostle declares that it was not possible that Jesus should be overcome by death, that is, he maintains the necessity of the resurrection. He means, however, simply that the resurrection of the Messiah had been predicted under the old covenant in the word of prophecy, and that, consequently, as God is true and faithful, it necessarily occurred at the proper time. But he does not utter a single word which would intimate that Jesus, by virtue of the inherent vital power and the victorious energy of his Person, must needs overcome death, that is, that an internal and essential necessity of the resurrection had existed. He bears witness to the truth, but his comprehension of it is not yet thorough and complete. Here, too, we may observe the peculiar feature which characterizes the mode of divine revelation, namely, its gradual advance. The divine wisdom is also revealed in the mode according to which the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit are manifested; the disciples are not placed instantaneously, as if by magic, in full possession of the truth, but are guided step by step, or gradually, into all truth; comp. Joh_16:13.
3. Christ in the place of the dead.—Peter shows that the prophecy in Psa_16:10 had been fulfilled in Jesus (Act_2:31 comp. with Act_2:27), and accordingly maintains that Jesus had been in Hades, but had not remained therein (erat in inferno, non est relictus in inferno. Bengel). The appeals which have been made to views prevailing under the old covenant, for the purpose of evading the force of this fact, have the less weight, since Peter recurs to it in a professedly didactic manner in his first Epistle, Act_3:18 ff. The present address assigns a high degree of importance to the fact that Jesus had subjected himself truly and fully, but not abidingly, to the law and necessity of death. He, too, had been in that state of transition which intervenes between terrestrial life and the resurrection-life of eternity, and thus all that belongs to human nature, was manifested in his personal experience; the raising up of Jesus, on the other hand, was a victory the more decisive, since he had himself fully and unconditionally entered into the state of the dead. The particular end which was in view, when he descended to the place of the dead, was clearly revealed, it is true, only at a later period.
4. It is worthy of observation that Jesus, (who was exalted by the glorious power of God), received the promised Spirit first himself, in order to impart the same to the disciples. All this implies that the exalted Redeemer was not competent to impart the Holy Ghost by virtue of a fulness or authority originally dwelling in him [i.e. in his human nature.—Tr.] It was rather a special degree of the glorification of Jesus, that he “received the promise of the Holy Ghost.” [Act_2:33]. It appertains, indeed, to the perfect human nature of the Redeemer, that he not only grew during his life on earth, and waxed strong in spirit (Luk_2:40), but that he also received in his state of exaltation that which he had not yet previously possessed, namely, the fulness of the Spirit which was to be poured out upon his people; comp. Joh_15:26.
[It is obvious from these concluding remarks that the author adopts the interpretation of Php_2:5 ff., according to which the subject of the humiliation and exaltation there described, is not, as some allege, the λόγος ἄσαρκος, but rather, as others hold, the λόγος ἔνσαρκος, the incarnate Word, that is, the whole, undivided Person of Christ, it is true, but specially, his human nature. The former is the interpretation adopted by “the Greek and Catholic commentators (Corn, a Lap., Estius), by most of the Reformed—Beza, Zanchius, Crocius, Aretius, Coccejus—and by more recent writers, as Semler, Storr, Keil, Ust., Rilliet, Müller; the latter, by Ambrose, Erasmus, Luther, Hunnius, Calov, Calvin, Piscator, Grotius, Heinrichs, van Hengel.” (de Wette, ad loc.). Those who adopt this latter view, proceed on the principle that the divine nature of Christ, being absolutely perfect from all eternity, was not capable either of an increase or diminution of glory or power; hence, all the Scriptural expressions which imply that Christ received any accession of dignity in time (before or after his resurrection), assign all such changes, not to his divine, and therefore immutable, but to his human nature.—Tr.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Act_2:22. Jesus of Nazareth, a man, etc.—It is here obvious that it was the apostle’s chief desire to magnify Jesus Christ among his hearers. Hence he speaks both of the state of humiliation, and also of that of the exaltation of our Saviour. Even when he describes Jesus in his deepest humiliation, he intends to show that it was the purpose of God to convince men by the amazing miracles which preceded the passion, that Christ is the true Messiah and Saviour of the world. Indeed, we should never forget the lofty position which Jesus occupied even in the state of humiliation. (Apost. Past.).—Herein, also, the servant of Christ is made like unto his divine Head, that when afflictions are permitted to visit him, he receives a testimony from the Lord, which is previously addressed to the conscience of men, even of his enemies, that he is the servant of that Lord, (ib.).—God comes with his Son among men, so that men may come to God. (Starke).
Act_2:23.—Him, being delivered, etc.—After Peter had reminded the Jews of the “wonderful works” which God had done in connection with Jesus, and through him, he made a powerful appeal to their hearts, by reminding them of the guilt which they had contracted by their treatment of Jesus.—Although not all those persons who mocked the apostles on the day of Pentecost, at the third hour, may have, at the same hour on Good Friday, exclaimed, “Crucify him!”; [Mar_15:13; Mar_15:25], nevertheless, the blood-guiltiness of the whole nation continued to cling to all; who had not truly repented. Yea, even we ourselves have abundant reason to make the confession: “I have, blessed Jesus, by my sins, which are as the sand of the sea, been the cause of all thy pains, thy misery, and thy shame.” Besser).
Act_2:24. Whom God hath raised up, etc.—He addresses the conscience of the hearer, and speaks of the grievous sin which the people had committed against the Anointed of God with “wicked hands;” he then contrasts with their act all that the hand of God had wrought in connection with the Crucified One. Their guilt is revealed in the darkest colors, but he appears in unclouded glory, whom they had indeed put to shame, but whom God had crowned with glory and honor.—It was needful that the people should behold the Lord in both aspects—humbled, and yet exalted—wearing a crown of thorns, and yet rising from the grave as the victorious King of glory.—Hitherto the disciples had refrained from proclaiming the wonderful event—the resurrection of Jesus; but the Spirit that beareth witness, had now been given to them, and Peter stands forth as the first public “witness of the resurrection.” (Besser).—Having loosed the pains of death.—Death is nothing more than a cord, which God can easily loose; therefore be thou not afraid of death. (Starke).—My own bonds are broken, when those of Jesus break, for we belong together. (Lindheim).—The joy of the risen Saviour may be compared to the joy of a mother whose anguish has passed away, and who now rejoices “that a man is born into the world” [Joh_16:21]; for we are now “begotten again unto a lively hope by his resurrection.” 1Pe_1:3. (Apost. Past.).—Because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.—For he was not like the prey which death usually catches in his toils; he passed through the net and tore it asunder, so that it can no longer hold the Christian.—Death is prostrated, is swallowed up of life, and can never regain its power; life towers high above, retains the victory, and with outstretched hands exclaims: “All is gained! All is gained.” (Luther).—The testimony of God respecting Jesus: I. In the miracles of the Lord himself; II. In his resurrection and exaltation; III. In the gift of the Holy Ghost.—The counsel of God, and the action of man: I. Their apparent opposition; II. Their real harmony.—The malice and wickedness of men are always under the control of a higher power.—There are limits prescribed to the growth of the tree, as it grows upward.—The Scriptural doctrine respecting the common guilt of men: I. The source of that guilt; II. The punishment; III. The deliverance from it, and forgiveness, in the case of individuals.—The witness which the resurrection of Jesus bears: to, I. The omnipotence; II. The faithfulness; III. The pity of God. (Lechler).
Act_2:25-28. For David speaketh concerning him, etc.—Even as our faith looks back to the past, and finds a firm foundation in the saving work of God in Christ, so the faith of the saints of the old covenant found rest and security in the same saving work. (Besser).—I foresaw [saw] the Lord always before my face.—Those who have the Lord always before their face in this world, shall stand before his face in the other; they, on whose right hand the Lord now is, shall then be placed on his right hand. (Starke).—Therefore did my heart rejoice.—Severe conflicts which have successfully terminated, are the source of great joy to the victor, (ib.).—No one can truly rejoice in heart, save that man who sees God always before his face. (ib.).—When our Redeemer, by his resurrection, entered into life eternal, he opened a pathway to it for us also. (ib.).—The kingdom of God is here already joy in the Holy Ghost; but what will our portion be, when we shall see God face to face!—Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.—The Scriptures apply such words to no other one, but consign all men to corruption and the dust. He alone proclaims to us, in this hymn [Psalms 16] which is truly a treasure of gold, the Gospel truth, that His flesh shall not decay, nor turn to dust, but that He will die and repose with calmness and security, waiting for the resurrection. (Luther).—Thou hast made known to me the ways of life.—All the ways in which Jesus walked in his humiliation and exaltation, when he entered through suffering into his glory, are altogether the ways of life for all men; and all those in which he conducts the soul, from the original conversion to the glorification of that soul, are, too, altogether the ways of life. (Ap. Past.).—The death and resurrection of Jesus, a twofold mystery: I. In so far as He was capable of dying, who had life in himself; II. In so far as He arose, who came to give his life for many.—Our communion of life with God, an earnest of eternal life.—The body and the soul [Act_2:26], rejoicing in the living God.—The word of prophecy, a light in a dark place. [2Pe_1:19].—The deep import of the descent of Jesus into hell: viewed as, I. An evidence of the perfect humanity of the Redeemer; II. The utmost depth of his humiliation; III. The point at which his exaltation commenced; IV. A standard by which the vast extent of his redeeming work may be judged. (Lechler).
Act_2:29. Men and brethren, etc.—Peter terms these assembled Jews, brethren, both on account of their common descent (Rom_9:23), and on account of his cheerful hope that many among them would yield to the authority of the Gospel, and become brethren indeed; his address, now that he has become more fervent, reveals the warmth of his love. O, how gladly would he have rendered them every service in his power, so that they might become the children of God. (Apost. Past.).—He is both dead and buried.—Death and the grave are the end of all the glory of this world; take heed that thou give not thy heart to it. (Starke).
Act_2:32. This Jesus hath God raised up, etc.—The apostle completes the circuit of his remarks by recurring to the subject with which he commenced.—“Ye are witnesses of these things”, said the risen Lord to the disciples (Luk_24:48); the full echo of this saying of the Lord, proceeds from the apostle’s mouth. (Besser).—How cheering the sight is, when pastors, who conduct the work of the Lord in the same congregation, are truly united on this vital subject, so that the one can always refer to the other with confidence! (Apost. Past.)
Act_2:33. Being by the right hand of God exalted, etc.—He whom the world raised up on the cross, is raised by God into heaven. (Starke).—Having received, … he hath shed forth.—The Son receives from the Father for us; the Holy Ghost receives from the Son, and gives to us; Joh_16:14 ff. O how blessed is such giving and receiving! Let us imitate the Holy Trinity; faith receives—love gives. (Starke).
Act_2:34-35. Sit thou on my right hand, etc.—This prophetic passage, which the Lord repeats in the presence of the scribes (Mat_22:43), like a fruit-bearing tree, distributes the wealth of its fruit through the whole extent of the apostolic writings; 1Co_15:25; Eph_1:20; Heb_1:13; Heb_5:6. (Besser).—Until I make thy foes thy footstool.—If Christ must wait until all his foes shall be made his footstool, why should not we wait? (Starke).—The act of making his foes his footstool, is not to be simply so understood, that the Lord will consign his enemies to eternal suffering and punishment; it is done, also, when they are induced to acknowledge their misery and enmity, to cast their weapons away, and to sue for mercy; such a victory he prizes most highly. Then he lifts such supplicants up, throws his arms around them, yea, places them at last on his own seat. (Apost. Past.).—Our weak senses do not readily perceive that Christ rules with vast power in the midst of us; we rather see and feel the reverse, and discover only feebleness and helplessness in Christian people: they seem to us to be wretched and forsaken, trampled under foot by the world, rudely assailed by Satan, and overcome by sin and the terrors of death and hell. And then, the trials and sorrows of this life appear to fall with greater weight on Christians than on other people. Here our faith must manifest all its power, must arm us for the struggle with such thoughts and fears, and must give us strength to cling to the word alone which is here pronounced, namely, that Christ the Lord, although invisible to us, is placed by God on his right hand; there he will remain, reigning over us with power, even though his glory is hidden from the world. For this Sheb limini (“Sit thou at my right hand” [שֵׁב לּימִינִי]) was spoken by God himself; that word must, therefore, be true and will abide, and no creature can overthrow or disprove it. Neither will he himself ever deny it, although all around us should seem to contradict it. (Luther).—The exaltation of Christ: I. By the right hand of God; II. To the right hand of God.—Christ, ascending his throne.—“While Jesus is the Lord, glory and joy will daily increase.”—The outpouring of the Holy Ghost, an evidence of the exaltation of the crucified Redeemer. (Lechler).
Act_2:36. Therefore let all the house of Israel know, etc.—With these impressive words Peter made a last appeal, primarily, to the understanding of his hearers: he demonstrated that Jesus is the Messiah, by placing before them the testimony furnished by the word of God, by their own experience, and by the wonderful signs from heaven which they had even then both heard and seen. He appealed also to the heart and the conscience of his hearers, which he deeply pierced; he intended alike to convince them of their sin, and to show the way of salvation, when he closed with the words, Ye have crucified him, but God has made him both Lord and Christ.—The testimony that Jesus Christ lives, and that he is exalted to heaven: I. In the Scriptures—testified by the prophets and apostles; II. In the history of the world and the kingdom—by all the events that have occurred from the day of Pentecost to the present time; III. In the heart and the conscience—by both his friends and his foes.—“God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”: I. These words, full of stern truths, are a loud call to repentance; II. They are full of grace, and are words of comfort.—Christ, on the right hand of God; I. Protecting his friends; II. Subduing his foes.—Jesus Christ on his throne, as the King of glory: I. In the Scriptures, wherein all the prophets and apostles point to him; II. In the world, wherein he reigns invisibly, and rules in the midst of his enemies; III. In the heart, wherein he continues to manifest himself as the Prince of peace, and the Captain of our salvation; IV. In heaven, wherein his glory will hereafter be revealed unto all.—[Peter, a model as an earnest and intelligent preacher of the Gospel.—The first public discourse of an inspired apostle: I. The circumstances under which it was delivered; (a) the outpouring of the Spirit; (b) the amazement of the devout; (c) the mocking of the ungodly; II. Its substance; (a) explanations of Scripture; (b) solemn warnings; (c) words of comfort and encouragement; III. The results; (a) some remained unmoved; (b) others were hardened; (c) others, converted.—Tr.].
Footnotes:
[11]καὶ before αὐτοὶ, of text. rec. [on authority not stated], has very properly been deopped by Lach. ans Tisch. [ans Alf.], in conformity to A. B. C. D. E., as well as other manuscripts [Cod. Sin.], Church fathers, and ancient versions. [But Vulg. et.—Tr]
[12]Act_2:23. a.—λαβόντες after ἔκδοτον [of text. rec. with D. E.], conforms to the sense, but is, according to A. B. C., other manuscripts [Cod. Sin.], and also Church Fathers, and ancient versions [Vulg., etc.], to be regarded as a later addition. [A later hand (C) added λαβόντες to the original text of Cod. Sin.—Tr.]
[13]Act_2:23. b.—χειρός, the more difficult reading, found also in important manuscripts [A. B. C. (original). D., Cod. Sin.], is preferable to the plural χειρῶν [of text. rec., with E. Vulg. (per manus)], which was suggested by the termination of the next word, ἀνόμων. [In place of ἀνείλετε of text. rec., found in many minuscules ἀνείλατε has been substituted by recent critics, in accordance with A. B. C. D. E. Cod. Sin. See Winer: Gram. N. T., § 13, 1, a.—Tr.]
[14]Act_2:24.—θανάτου [of text. rec., with A. B. C. E. Cod. Sin.] should be unhesitatingly preferred to ἅδου, which occurs only in one MS. [D.], some versions [e.g. Vulg. (inferni)], and fathers, and was taken from Act_2:27; Act_2:31.
[15]Act_2:27.—Instead of εἰς ἅδου [of text. rec. with E.], Lach. and Tisch. [but not Alf.] adopt εἰς ᾅδην; but this reading, which is found in various MSS. [in A. B. C. D. Cod Sin.] and fathers, is probably a later correction. [The reading of the LXX. is doubtful, in Psa_16:10, A. exhibiting ᾅδου, but B. ᾄδην; Meyer regards the weight of testimony as inclining in favor of the latter.—Tr.]
[16]Act_2:29.—[The margin of the Eng. Bible presents (with Geneva version, 1557) the more accurate version: I may. Ἐξὸν, i.e. it is permitted, is lawful; the Eng. text conforms to liceat, of the Vulg.—Tr.]
[17]Act_2:30.—Before καθίσαι, the text. rec., which Bornemann follows, inserts the words: τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ἀναστήσειν τὸν Χριστόν. They [vary in D. E., and] are wanting in the best manuscripts [in A. B. C. D. (corrected)] and versions, as well as in many fathers, and are unquestionably a later interpolation. [Rejected by Lach., Tisch., and Alf. as an “explanatory gloss.” The following is the reading of Cod. Sin.: ὀσφύος αὐτοῦ καθίσε ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ προἵδών.—Τὸν θρόνον, of A. B. C. D., is adopted by Lach., Tisch., and Alf., instead of τ. θρόνου of text. rec. with E.—Tr.]
[18]Act_2:31.—In place of the reading of the text. rec.: οὐ κατελείφθη ̔η ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ . . . οὐδὲ, Lach., Tisch., Born., etc., adopt, in accordance with weighty authorities, the following: οὔτε ἐγκατελείφθη εἰς Ἅιδου οὔτε. The former reading appears to have been influenced by Act_2:27. [Alf. reads: οὔτε κατελείφθη εἰς ἅδου οὔτε.—Οὐ in E., οὔτε in A. B. C. D.—ἐγκατελ. in A. B. C. D. E.—ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ in E., but these words are omitted in A. B. C. (original) D.—ᾃδην in B., but ᾃδου in A. C. D. E. The reading of Cod. Sin. is the following: οὕτε ἐνκατελίφθη (not—λείφ—) εἰς ᾅ δην οὕτε.—Tr.]
[19]Act_2:33.—νῦν before ὑμεῖς [of text. rec. with C. (second correction) E.] has very properly been omitted by the most recent critics, who follow the authority of important manuscripts [A. B. C. (orig.) D. Cod. Sin.], versions [Vulg. (quem vos videtis)] and Church fathers; it is obviously an explanatory addition.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain a man approved of God--rather, "authenticated," "proved," or "demonstrated…
a man approved of God--rather, "authenticated," "proved," or "demonstrated to be from God."
by miracles . . . which God did by him--This is not a low view of our Lord's miracles, as has been alleged, nor inconsistent with Joh 2:11, but is in strict accordance with His progress from humiliation to glory, and with His own words in Joh 5:19. This view of Christ is here dwelt on to exhibit to the Jews the whole course of Jesus of Nazareth as the ordinance and doing of the God of Israel [ALFORD].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain II. Peter’s second answer to the question of Act_2:12…
II. Peter’s second answer to the question of Act_2:12 : This effusion is shed forth from the crucified and risen Jesus, Act_2:22-33.
Jesus, wickedly slain, has risen, (Act_2:22-24,) as is proved by David’s prediction, (Act_2:25-28,) as interpreted by Peter, (Act_2:29-31,) and confirmed by witnesses, Act_2:32. Therefore from the risen and ascended Jesus this effusion is shed forth. Which is the full answer to the question.
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Sustained now, both by the Pentecostal miracle and its confirmation by prophecy, Peter is emboldened to assert and maintain by further prophecy the great miracle which proves Christianity true—the resurrection of Jesus—and that resurrection enables him to explain the Pentecostal miracle.
22. Ye men of Israel—The orator at this point seems to collect his strength and begin anew. He addresses them by their noblest title of Israel, as if to show that it is from no want of love or respect that he lays upon them firmly the charge of being the slayers of Jesus.
Jesus of Nazareth— Pity that our English translators, and so our English speaking Christendom, had not retained the true literal terms, Jesus the Nazarene. We should have more clearly felt the power of the prophecy in Mat_2:23; and we should more constantly recognise the inspired magnanimity with which the early apostles gave the key-note of glorying in the cross of that name.
Approved of—Sanctioned by.
Miracles… wonders… signs—As prophesied in Act_2:19-21. And of course to the believers in genuine prophecy there need be no difficulty in believing real miracles.
Ye yourselves also know—It was but little more than fifty days since Jesus lived on earth. The devout foreign Jews had, doubtless, all been at the Passover, and witnessed, and in some degree shared in the crucifixion; and most knew Jesus and his miracles as eye-witnesses. But of the dwellers of Jerusalem the knowledge of Jesus’ works and participation in his death were matters that Peter could safely charge.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 22–36. Recital of God’s witness by the Resurrection to…
22–36. Recital of God’s witness by the Resurrection to the Messiahship of Jesus
22. men of Israel] As the prophecies which St Peter is about to put forward were given before the nation was rent into two parts, he calls them by a name which points to their union and common descent from Jacob.
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Jesus of Nazareth, a man, &c.] He begins with the manhood of Jesus as that which they would all confess.
approved] i.e. publicly demonstrated or set forth. Cp. the words of Nicodemus (Joh_3:2), “No man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.”
among you] Better, unto you; for the testimony had been given not only among them, but presented unto them, cf. Joh_12:37, “Though he had done so many miracles before them yet they believed not on him.”
by miracles and wonders and signs] These distinct names are given to Christ’s marvellous works according to the light in which they are viewed. The first name, miracles, lit. powers, is applied to them because they proclaimed the might of Him who wrought them; they are named wonders, because they called forth that feeling when they were wrought; and signs because they point out their author as Divine.
God did] St Peter does not yet advance to the declaration of Christ as God, only as God’s agent, in works which their own eyes had seen.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (22) Jesus of Nazareth.—We hardly estimate, as we read…
(22) Jesus of Nazareth.—We hardly estimate, as we read them, the boldness implied in the utterance of that Name. Barely seven weeks had passed since He who bore it had died the death of a slave and of a robber. The speaker himself had denied all knowledge of Him of whom he now spoke.
A man approved of God.—The verb is used in its older English sense, as proved, or pointed out, not as we now use the word, as meeting with the approval of God.
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Miracles and wonders and signs.—Better, mighty works . . . The words are three synonyms, expressing different aspects of the same facts, rather than a classification of phenomena. The leading thought, in the first word, is the power displayed in the act; in the second, the marvel of it as a portent: in the third, its character as a token or note of something beyond itself.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Unto you for among you, A.V.; mighty works for…
Unto you for among you, A.V.; mighty works for miracles, A.V.; even as ye yourselves know for as ye yourselves also know, A.V. Ye men of Israel. This title includes both the Jews of Judaea and all those of the dispersion, to whatever tribe they belonged. Approved of God. Observe the distinct reference to the miracles of Christ, as the proofs that he came from God, the authenticating evidences of his Divine mission. So St. Peter again, in his address to Cornelius, declares how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. (Act_10:38) The miracles of the gospel are, and were intended to be, a demonstration of the truth of Christianity, and it is at their peril that Christians allow themselves to give up this argument at the bidding of the skeptic. Mighty works and wonders and signs. Dunameiv are powers, acts of healing and such like, done by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit; (see the above reference to Act_10:38) terata are wonders or portents, such as are spoken of by the Prophet Joel, "wonders in heaven above," the darkening of the sun, the discoloration or the moon, or any ether wonder considered only with reference to its portentous character; shmeia are signs, not necessarily miraculous, but things which are proofs, either by their miraculous character or from the time or mode of their occurrence, of the truth of the things spoken. "Miracles, wonders, and signs" occur together in 2Co_12:12. The three seem to include every kind of miracle, or, as Meyer says, miracles viewed
(1) according to their nature,
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(2) according to their appearance,
(3) according to their destination or proposed end.
Which God did by him. So we read (Heb_1:2, "Through or "by whom also he made the worlds." And so our Lord said of himself, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" and "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do". (Joh_5:17, Joh_5:19; comp. Mat_28:18) On the other hand, our Lord often speaks of his own power, as Joh_2:19 Joh_10:18 comp. Joh_2:11 As Mediator, Christdid all things by his Father"s appointment, and for his Father"s glory, Even as ye yours, elves know. Mark the confidence with which Peter appeals to their personal knowledge of the miracles of Christ. This was a fitting preparation for the announcement of that mighty power, wonder, and sign which he was now about to proclaim to them the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead.
Vers. 22-36. The connection of the Christian events.
All history has an inner logic and meaning, contained in the person and the love of God. The secret links of events may be in part traced by us.
I THE LIFE OF JESUS.
1. His simple and homely humanity. "Jesus of Nazareth," a name of scorn to many, of unpretentious lowliness to all.
2. His gracious, divinely attested career. Though poor and despised of men, the favor of God was upon him. And the proof was in the energy which went forth from Jesus. Again we come upon the note of power. "Mighty works" or "powers," "wonders" which called attention to will introducing change, and "signs," or all-significant acts which pointed to an unusual meaning, attested that Jesus was the Organ of Divine power and will.
3. This career was public, led in the light of day. The evidence was not only of the highest quality, but of the most unquestioned universality: "as you all know.
II THE DESTINY OF JESUS TO DIE. To the superficial observer, or one knowing the facts only from the outside a Jewish or Roman historian of the time it might appear that Jesus perished as Judas the Gaulonite had done, the victim of the conflicts of the time. Jewish and Roman interest and passion seemed to unite against him, and he perished, the Victim of hate and misconception. But this was but a small part of the truth. To one instructed in the Divine logic of history, the death of Jesus was no accident; it lay in the laws of the moral order, in the "definite counsel and foreknowledge of God." Yet it was an act of wickedness to put him to death. Possibly we cannot solve in thought the seeming contradiction of the foreknowledge of God and the freedom of man. Enough that we can recognize separately the perfect truth of each.
III THE UPRAISING OF JESUS. God"s hand released him from the grasp of death. Here, again, was the operation of necessary law. It was impossible that he should be mastered by death he who is the very affirmation of life. The absolute life cannot live beneath its negative. And here, again, the past furnishes its hints to the solution of the truth of the present. Spiritual life is imperishable; he who possesses it has an immediate consciousness of immortality, and can find parables of the victory of life over death everywhere. J.
The Divine humanity.
"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God.
I THE CLAIM.
1. Viewed in the light of human work. A man, to teach, to atone, to lead, as never man did. Compare the human supply of such wants with that provided by God in Christ.
2. Viewed in the light of Scripture promises. The line of prediction from the protevangel to the promise of the "Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings.
II THE PROOF OF THE CLAIM.
1. The superhuman character of Christ"s humanity; as spotlessly pure, coming forth out of an impure nation and decayed religious life; as supreme in spiritual qualities love, self-sacrifice, etc.
2. The direct testimonies given by God, at birth, baptism, with a voice from the cloud, etc.
3. The works of the Lord himself. Their authority thus solemnly and conspicuously put forth by the Apostle Peter; their embodiment in the gospel; their harmony with the character and mission of the Savior; their superiority to all others, before or since. "God did them.
III THE APPEALING FORCE OF THE CLAIM.
1. A "great salvation!" "How can we escape, if we neglect" it?
2. A Man amongst men, touched with fellow-feeling, tenderly claiming obedience.
3. A Name which gathers round it the testimony of the multitude which no man can number, approved by the facts of salvation in the past, waiting to find in us another proof that he is "able to save unto the uttermost," etc. R.
Vers. 22-28. The first facts of gospel preaching.
From the very first the gospel preaching was made to rest on an historical basis. Apostles fearlessly appealed to certain known facts, which could not be gainsaid. It has been left to these later times to find myth and legend, when the contemporaries of the apostles dare not dispute the literal and truthful character of their statements. The interest of Peter"s sermon the first gospel sermon lies mainly in its indicating what were early regarded as the essential facts of the gospel, and so the points to which the faith of men was called. The interest of the occasion of this sermon may be shown, and it should be impressed that we properly expect, at such a time, the utmost clearness and definiteness. Whatever is essential to Christianity surely found expression then, in broad statement and general principle. We find
I DISTINCT IDENTIFICATION OF JESUS. Peter will allow no possibility of confusion or mistake. There were doubtless many persons named "Jesus" in the country, but he speaks of Jesus of Nazareth; the Teacher who was so well known by this name; the man whom the elders of the nation despised and crucified. St. Peter, like St. Paul afterwards, testifies for "Jesus," whatever may be the disabilities that seemed to attach to him, and however Jew and Greek may despise him. They take Jesus, and his whole story, shameful crucifixion and all, and will not let any man doubt who it is that they preach.
II FIRM ASSERTION OF DIVINE POWER IN HIS MIRACLES. God did them by him." The miracles as facts could not be denied, but their testimony to the mission, authority, and power of Christ might be turned aside if it could be made out that they were impostures, clever medical triumphs, or works wrought by Satanic power. Therefore St. Peter so earnestly declares that the miracles are signs of God"s power in Christ. Show how this, once admitted, involves the truthfulness, sincerity, and goodness of Christ, since God would not work gracious healing works through a bad agent; and so it follows that Jesus rightly claimed the office and mission of Messiahship. This line of argument from the miracles is of permanent value in Christian evidence. Press our Lord"s words. "Believe for the very works" sake.
III OUR LORD"S ACTUAL CRUCIFIXION AND ACKNOWLEDGED DEATH. There is permitted no dispute as to the personal guilt of Jesus; he was admittedly innocent, freed from charge by every court that tried him, and made a victim to prejudice and malice and religious bigotry. There could be no dispute as to his real death on the cross; Peter seems to remind the Jews that their council held the Roman centurion"s certificate of death, and that council had set "watchmen" to keep the grave. And still there are two foundation facts of the gospel system:
1. Jesus was crucified as an innocent man.
2. Jesus actually yielded up his fife on the cross. Show the importance of these facts to the doctrine of redemption in Christ"s blood. A "lamb without blemish" was the only fitting "burnt offering" for humanity; it was consumed upon the altar, and the sacrifice accepted of God.
IV OUR LORD"S RESURRECTION AS THE TESTIMONY OF DIVINE APPROVAL. Apostles constantly urge the fact that Jesus had risen from the grave. It is significant that the men of their day could not deny the fact. Give the lame and poor attempts to make out that the disciples had stolen the body. But apostles carefully say God raised him, and so publicly declared His acceptance of him and of his sacrifice. They do not say "he was raised," or "he raised himself. " We know, therefore, that with him "God is well pleased." Peter seeks to carry home his teachings by appeal to Scripture. His plea is this Jesus, crucified and risen, asks our faith, and to all who believe in him he gives "eternal life. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Ye men of Israel, hear these words.
Act_2:22-36
Ye men of Israel, hear these words.
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Personal preaching
One of the old English worthies said that a great many sermons were like carefully written letters dropped into the post-office without any address written upon them. They were not intended for any one in particular, and they never reached anybody.
The effect of Pentecost upon Peter
If we see the effect upon Peter, we shall have a true idea of the effect of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon the entire Church. Fix your minds, therefore, upon Peter. We know what he has been up to this time, ardent, impulsive, unbalanced, enthusiastic, cowardly. Since we last saw him he has been the subject of Pentecostal influence. We have therefore to look on that picture and on this; and upon the change discoverable between the two pictures you may found your estimate of the value of spiritual inspiration. Notice--
I. His heroic eloquence. It is not enough to speak--you may teach an automaton to speak. This man is not only speaking words, he is speaking them with unction, with fire, with emphasis, never heard in his tone before. You have not the whole speech in the words. You must be enabled, by a kind of semi-inspiration of your own, to read between the lines, in order to get hold of all the force and weight of this burning oration: there are palpitations which cannot be reported, and tones which have no typal representation. It carries everything before it like a fire marching through dry stubble.
II. Not only was he transformed into an orator, but into a profound expositor of the Divine purpose in the creation and education of the Church. He speaks like a philosopher. He sees that the ages are not unrelated days, broken and incohesive nights, but that the ages are one, as the day is one, from its grey dawn to the time of the lighting of the evening star. This always follows deep acquaintance with the mysteries of God and high fellowship with the Spirit of the living One; we are delivered from the vexation and torment of daily details, and are set in the great currents and movements of the Divine purpose, and thereby do we acquire the balance which gives us rest and serenity, which often glows into courageous joy.
III. Peter shows us how prophecy is fulfilled. The fulfilment of prophecy is not something which God has been arduously trying to do and has at last barely accomplished; it is a natural process, and it comes to express a natural end. Prophecy is not to God a mere hope, it is a clear vision of what must be, and of what He Himself will bring to pass. It is prophesied that the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. It is not a mere hope, it is the sure outcome of the Divine way of doing things. Christ must, by the necessity of righteousness and light and truth, reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. Prophecy is Gods note of hand that He will yet give His Son the heathen for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession, signed in every ink in the universe, signed in heaven before the earth was formed, signed on Calvary by the blood-ink of the Cross. We must rest in this assurance; the word of the Lord will prevail, not by means of education, eloquence, or mechanical efforts on the part of the Church, but the world will be converted unto Christ because God has said it will be so, and when His word has gone forth it cannot return to Him void.
IV. Peter startled the Church by becoming its most solid and convincing reasoner. Observe where and how Peter begins his address. Jesus of Nazareth, a man, there is no appeal to theological bias or prejudice. Had he begun by saying, Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate God, he would have lost his audience in his first sentence. He began where his hearers could begin, and he who begins otherwise than at the point of sympathy, how eloquent soever, will lose the reins ere he has time to put one sentence to another. Already, therefore, this inspiration is beginning to tell in the mental force and astuteness of this unlettered fisherman. He gives up the Deity of Christ, does he? Note the argumentative skill. Had Peter broken off his speech in the first sentence, the coldest Socinian could have endorsed his utterance, but Peter makes way through Scriptural quotations and through inspired exposition, until he concludes with this burning breath, God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Notice, too, how Peter stands without equivocation upon the historical fact of the resurrection. He was not talking to people who lived a century after the reported rising again of Christ: he was talking to men who knew perfectly well what had happened. Does he put any gloss upon the matter--does he seek to make it a parable, a typal instance, a quasi resurrection? He talks with the absolute frankness of a man who is relating facts, which every child in the assembly knew to be such, and could instantly have contradicted the statements which he made, had they been false. Does Peter separate Christ from the wonderful manifestation of the Spirit which had been granted? On the contrary, he connects the Pentecost with the risen and glorified Son of God. This enables him to use another therefore. I refer to these therefores in this connection because we are trying to show how inspiritedly argumentative the apostle had become. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, etc. This is His last miracle, the spiritualisation of all the miracles, the marvel to which all signs and wonders were leading up, the capital without which the column would have been unfinished, the revelation of the purpose which moved His heart when He came to save the world and found His Church.
V. It was also a great evangelical speech which Peter made. He gave the house of Israel a new chance. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly--it is as if Peter would say, Now you have the opportunity of escaping all the past and beginning a new and glorious future. This is the continual speech of Christianity. Every morning Christianity says, You can make to-day better than yesterday. Conclusion.
1. We have in Peter a standard whereby to measure ourselves. When the Holy Ghost falls upon us we shall go to the Bible with a new reading power, and we shall see wonders where before we saw nothing because of our spiritual blindness. Under the enlightenment of the Spirit we shall see that everything grand in thought, thrilling in poetry, tragic in experience, noble in heroism, is in the Bible. There is nothing in literature whose root is not to be found in the inspired volume. This is the Book out of which all other books are made, as the earth is the quarry out of which all its palaces have been dug, and as there are grander palaces in the rocks and woods than have yet been built, so there are more glorious visions in the Bible than we have yet beheld.
2. As the earth owes nothing to any other world but her light, so God has made men that we carry everything in us but our own inspiration. He does not make us new men in the sense of losing our old identity, He makes us new by His inspiration in the sense of lifting us up to the full expression of His own holy purpose in our original creation. We cannot inspire ourselves. The Holy Ghost is the gift of God. We have wondrous faculties as the earth has wondrous treasures--all these are the gift of God, all these we hold in stewardship for God. But these will be in us so many weights and burdens, curses rather than blessings, unless there fall upon us the mighty Pentecostal Holy Spirit. Then shall we be our true selves, eloquent, wise, argumentative, strong, evangelical, sympathetic, new creatures in Christ Jesus, through whom the Holy Ghost has been shed abroad in our hearts. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The first Christian apology
1. The present confusion of theological opinion is not wholly to be regretted. It is sad enough, no doubt, if you look at it on one side, that men should still be asking the question, What is Christianity? and giving to that question the most contrary answers. Grave and able men tell us that the virtue of Christianity lies in an order of men, is transmitted by one man putting his hand on another mans head, and reaches the rest of the world through water, wine, and bread. Other men as grave and able assure us there is in the system no supernatural virtue at all, only certain religious instincts which long ago attached themselves crudely to a few more or less mythical facts, the real value of which we can hardly now make out. Betwixt them an infinite variety of not less inconsistent opinions finds room, and for each of them intelligent and honest advocates may be heard to plead.
2. But sad as this bewilderment is in some aspects, it surely betrays at least a desire to get at the heart of Christianity, and to do so by disentangling its essentials from its accretions. No one can pretend that such disentangling is unnecessary. Christianity, in the course of her nineteen centuries, has had her own central and proper truths so sorely overlaid by external forms of Church life; has seen her simple doctrines pressed into shapes determined by changing fashions of thought, speculated on, debated over, worked up into systems, and deduced into syllogisms; has entered also into alliance with so many other influences, with art, with politics, with social systems; that in no land of Christendom does she offer to us to-day the features she wore when she began her mission, or speak in the voice with which she first spoke when she won the world. To get at the kernel of our faith, and know it as it is, there is need for some unwrapping. And if the critical tendency which has thrown the theology of educated men into such confusion has any raison detre at all, it is this, that it is bent on getting at the kernel of what we call Christianity.
3. It would be a blunder for the Church to suppose that criticism has only a hostile tendency. Men who hate our holy faith are to be found in this as in every age; and they take advantage of the prevailing uncertainty, as they would do of anything else, to create a prejudice against religion. But there are multitudes of inquirers who mean no ill to Christianity, and numbers more who revere and trust it as their only hope or guide in the perplexities of our present condition.
4. In these circumstances a timid distrustful clinging to traditional forms of truth, with a nervous desire to defend the farthest and most doubtful outposts of orthodoxy is an utterly mistaken policy. It is so, whether the criticisms we are called to face be hostile or friendly.
(1) If it be hostile, it seems unwise tactics to spend our strength in defending outworks, which are either barely defensible or of inferior moment, when the enemy we fear is already thundering at the central citadel of the faith. The question which the Church must gird herself to answer is, whether there is any living Christ at all. For strategic reasons, therefore, the field to be defended needs to be contracted, that the strength of all gallant advocates of the faith may be concentrated on those main positions which are as a key to the whole situation.
(2) Nor is a narrow dogmatism any better policy if our critics are friendly. It is better, surely, and hopefuller, to meet the new spirit with the frank admission that where human reason has manipulated things of God, and forms of words, beaten out in hot controversy, have been forged to set forth infinite truth, there something may need correction.
5. In what shape the religious faith of Christendom shall emerge after this time of doubt shall have worked itself out, no man can foretell. Yet the creed of the future is not likely to be very different in substance from the creeds of the past. There is, if any one care to look for it, a solid body of Christian verity which has been, with hardly any change, the possession and life of the Church at every period of her history, and the secret nutriment of her true life through her impurest periods--the faith once delivered to the saints.
6. Whatever may be the issue within the Church of such revision of her ancient belief, in our contest with outside scepticism we find ourselves thrust back upon our centre, and driven to do battle there for the first principles of our faith, just as the apologists of the earliest age of Christianity had to do. Not against the same sort of doubters, nor altogether with the same arguments, yet the essentials of the Gospel we must make good as they did. In this first Christian apology, and in all other reported addresses of St. Peter in the Acts, I find the gospel defended in its germ. Back to this earliest kernel of gospel fact and truth the controversy of our day is again pressing us. We may borrow a lesson, therefore, from the apologist of Pentecost. How does he conduct his defence? In this and the other sermons of that first period, the Christian cause is made to rest on two pillars of supernatural historical fact bearing on its Founders life. These are not two isolated facts, however, but two periods of supernatural history. The first is His earthly life of ministry and passion, the supernaturalness of which was sealed mainly by the fact of resurrection after death. The second is the later celestial life of Jesus, the supernatural relation of which to human experience is proved by a series of spiritual facts which began at Pentecost and have not yet ceased. Of course, when the Church asserts this double claim for a continuous Divine history from her Masters birth, she is met by a denial from those who hold any direct intercourse betwixt highest God and us earthly men to be, on philosophical grounds, a thing impossible. But she has no right to be so met by the inductive science of our day. It is the boast of modern science to have no prejudices, but to accept without misgiving whatever is established on its proper evidence. It therefore cannot bar Christianity in her attempt to prove her facts. For the Christian apologist in the Acts, and all wise Christian apologists since, profess to establish the two supernatural facts on the self-same sort of evidence on which the most ordinary facts of a like order are established.
(1) The audience whom St. Peter addressed were familiar with the main outlines of Jesus life as recent and notorious events. We assume them also. We owe it to the historical criticism of late years that no one now doubts the existence of Jesus and the leading features at least of that biography which we have in the holy Gospels. It is when we try to look behind the external events, and to explain their spiritual value, that the Churchs faith and the unfaith of our age part company. That the Jewish teacher of Nazareth whom the Romans crucified was in very literal deed, God, a Divine Person, come among us to do a Divine work; that on His life and death rest the hopes of every man to be redeemed from sin and recovered to the favour and likeness of our heavenly Father: this is the Christian theory for the explanation of such historical facts as all admit. For the truth of this theory the Church offers one test-proof--the resurrection. Virtually, St. Peter does so in these early sermons of his. Expressly, St. Paul, the ablest of all her defenders, does so in his second letter to Corinth. If God did raise Jesus from the dead, as no other man ever was raised, then Jesus was the Son of God as He claimed to be, His life as Divine as it professed to he. But if God did not raise this Man, the Christian advocate throws up his case, our faith is false, our fancied Saviour an impostor, and we are in our sins like other men. So the case stood when Peter preached and Paul wrote. So it stands still. But the question, whether a given man was dead and became alive again, is one which nothing can help us to answer but the witness of such as saw what happened. It is a question of evidence, and it has pleased God that this crowning seal put to His Sons life should be sustained and guarded by an amount of proof such as no other fact in history can boast; so that no honest searcher for truth might be left in doubt that Jesus of Nazareth has been declared to be the Son of God with power, has risen the first fruits of an innumerable harvest of Christian sleepers, and by His resurrection has begotten us also unto a living hope.
(2) Even a Christ who became alive is not enough, if He has so withdrawn Himself that in His absence He cannot help us. Our Christ is not out of reach. We believe with St. Peter that the re-ascended Son has been exalted by Gods right hand to receive of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, and that by the special mission of this second Paraclete, He maintains a closer, mere equal, and more effective contact with human souls now than ever. Say that there is no Holy Ghost, or say that He is not otherwise present in Christian men than we know He is in all natural human life; and the Church is a delusion, and the word we preach as powerless for the spiritual cure of men as any socialistic or other earth-born scheme for the improvement of mankind. But how is it to be proved that through Christian agencies there does work a veritable Divine Agent? We have here the advantage over an apologist so early as St. Peter. In proof that his newly-departed Master had sent down the Holy Ghost, Peter had nothing to appeal to but one unique and startling phenomenon just happening in his hearers presence. We have the gathered spiritual experience of eighteen centuries. Not an age has passed since without leaving somewhere tokens that to the gospel belongs a heavenly power. It is quite true that infinite discredit has been over and over again done to the Churchs claims. But enough remains to us. Christianity is not now so new or so small a thing that it should be hard, for any man who tries, to track its working in detail on innumerable men and gather up even its secret fruits. Whoever honestly does this will satisfy himself, I think, of such facts as these: That where the gospel of Christ has been made known with tolerable correctness to numbers of men, it has been always followed, in the case of individuals, by spiritual and moral changes of a uniform type. Conclusion: To this ever-gathering evidence, each Christian must contribute. And you, who can bear no witness for Christ, because you have never let His Spirit in within your heart to change and cleanse you, be sure there is a risen living Christ who saves; be sure there is a present Holy Ghost who changes us; be sure the kingdom of God is come upon you. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God among you.
The gospel in its simplicity
We have here--
I. A distinct affirmation of the proper humanity of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth, a Man. Under this name He had been among them. They had not to think of Him as a recluse, but as one who had frequented the common walks of life. This would prepare the audience to think of His sympathy and compassion. But they knew that He had not been aa ordinary man. Around His person had gathered most remarkable circumstances that had to be accounted for. Accordingly we find in the text--
II. A distinct assertion of the extraordinary credentials of Jesus. He had been approved of God by miracles etc. These had demonstrated Him to be what He professed to be. Such things revealed the mind of God, and Peter now affirmed that the life of Jesus was full of God. This was a new thought to some who heard it. It followed that certain impressions of Jesus had to be corrected. For the present it was enough to make the hearer feel that Jesus was Gods messenger. More would follow.
III. Peter declares that even the sufferings of christ were included in the Divine plan. He had been apprehended and nailed to the Cross by the lawless, the representatives of Roman power; but in delivering Him up the Jews had been the greatest criminals, and this charge was now urged home upon them. Yet, as Peter explains, this was only in accordance with the Divine decree. Observe, then, that men are held accountable though they do not act with uncontrolled power, and that there is no excuse for sin in the mysterious blending of the Divine and the human in the working out of Gods decrees. If we could adequately survey all the facts, we might be able to remove the apparent disagreement between Divine sovereignty and human freedom: but we are ignorant.
IV. Peter affirms that in spite of appearances Jesus has gained a complete victory. Whom God raised up. (W. Hudson.)
Miracles and wonders and signs.--
Miracles
The first of these words, as more correctly rendered in the Revised Version, means powers, or mighty works. By Peter, therefore, the miracles recorded in the Gospels are referred to the three heads of powers, wonders, and signs, and the same terms are used by Luke to represent those wrought by the apostles and early Christians in the name of Christ. The word powers intimates to us the source of miraculous gifts, and the superhuman power manifested in their exercise. The second term, wonders, which corresponds more nearly with our word miracles, intimates their effect in producing wonder or astonishment, leading to conviction and belief; and the third term signs, indicates their value as proofs of a Divine mission. All these aspects may be more or less presented in different miracles, or may appear in different degrees in the same miracle, and in considering the relations of miracles to nature they should all be kept in view. More especially we should bear in mind that our word miracle, derived from the Latin, and meaning merely something wonderful, does not express the whole nature of the Biblical miracles, nor indeed, perhaps, their most important feature. There may be great miracles which excite but little wonder or astonishment, though they may produce important effects, as, for instance, some of those miracles of deliverance wrought for the apostles, and little known or thought of among their contemporaries. On the other hand, there are many wonderful phenomena which are not miracles. A more important aspect is that of powers, or mighty works, which indicate the presence of superhuman power, capable of controlling natural agencies, and of modifying or rearranging the laws of the universe. In this respect miracles bring us face to face with God as the only true miracle-worker. But, perhaps, the most important aspect of all, more especially in connection with the apostolic history, is that signs, or proofs, of the Divine character or mission of those who possess such powers, or to whom they are given. It is this aspect that they are most frequently referred to, and in which they approach most nearly to those moral and spiritual characters on which I am not to enter, any further than to say generally that miracles must conform in their natural relations to the higher moral and spiritual character of the message which, as signs, they authenticate. (Principal J. W. Dawson.)
The miracles of Christ appealed to on the day of Pentecost
These words contain--
I. An important appeal. It was addressed to the Jews, and its subject is the promised Messiah.
1. The name by which He is designated. Jesus of Nazareth.
2. The character under which He is set forth. A Man approved of God.
3. The conclusive manner in which His claims were established. By miracles and wonders and signs.
II. A solemn charge. Him being delivered, etc.
1. The unparalleled crime of which they were guilty.
2. It was no extenuation of their conduct that what they had done accomplished the Divine purposes.
III. A blessed announcement. It referred to the resurrection of Christ.
1. To whom this great event is here ascribed. Whom God hath raised up.
2. The manner in which it was performed. Having loosed the pains (or bonds) of death.
3. The necessity of its accomplishment. Not possible that He should be holden of it.
IV. A striking quotation. For David speaketh concerning Him, etc.
1. The feelings evinced. Those of confidence and joy.
2. The grounds on which they rested. Because Jesus died and rose again. (Expository Outlines.)
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of Nod, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.--
Christ crucified according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God
I. Who was delivered?
I. Jesus of Nazareth had at once a name of ignominy, and a name of renown. He was called a Nazarene by the Jews because He was brought up at Nazareth; and they availed themselves of that fact to fasten upon Him what they thought would be an indelible stigma. Jesus is a name of glory. It was, indeed, a human, a common name, borne by many before; but when it was once put on Him it never was put on any other. You do not hesitate to call your children by the names of the apostles, but no father dares to call his son Jesus, because God has called His Son Jesus. This is the name to sinners dear, the name to sinners given, the name above every name.
2. The particular feature of His character here developed is the power of working miracles. A miracle has been defined--a suspension or counteraction of the laws of nature. And what are the laws of nature? They are the agencies of God, by which He employs certain causes to the production of certain effects. What philosophers signify by the essential, inflexible, eternal laws of nature, is nothing but the will of God acting in a definite way; and these laws Jesus of Nazareth broke in upon, disturbed them when He pleased. He showed that He was the Author of nature, and that all these laws were of His own making; and, therefore, as He produced the effects apart from the usual associated causes He was the God of nature. His miracles are called wonders, because they filled the spectators with wonder; and signs, because they were indexes of the properties, and prerogatives, and character of Him that wrought them.
II. To what was He delivered? To a death the most extraordinary in its nature, and the most dolorous in its circumstances, if you consider:--
1. The place where He died. We all hope to die in our own homes and beds. But your Lord and Master died at Calvary, a place putrid with blood and bones--the atmosphere of which was impregnated with a blasphemous breath.
2. Among whom He died. He was crucified between two malefactors; He had the middle place as though He was worse than either of them.
3. The death itself. Crucifixion was the most lingering and painful mode of death, and the most infamous. Cursed is he that hangeth on a tree. What part of His body was exempt from anguish? Was it His hands and His feet?--they were pierced with nails. Was it His temples?--they were punctured with thorns. Was it His back?--that was lacerated with scourges. Was it His side?--that was broken by the hostile spear. Was it His bones?--they were all as it were out of joint. Was it His muscles?--they were stretched upon the gibbet. Was it His veins?--they were deprived of their purple fluid. Was it His nerves, those canals of feeling, those rivers of sensation?--they were wrung with anguish. And all this was as nothing compared with the sorrows of His soul. Though He had been a man of sorrows and a child of grief, yet, when He came to be delivered up, He said, Now, now is My soul exceeding sorrowful. The weight of mental anguish may be alleviated by three sources.
(1) The sympathies of affectionate friends. But when Christ died, His disciples forsook Him and fled; He was surrounded with grim guard-by hostile bands.
(2) By the holy angels, who are ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto them who are heirs of salvation; and perhaps the most important part of their ministration is rendered to us just when the immortal spirit is on the confines of eternity. Our Saviour had Himself, during His life, been ministered to by angels; but when delivered up to death, the angels afforded Him no sympathy. He drank the wine-press alone, with Him was none, neither man nor angel could sympathise with Him in His suffering.
(3) By the consolations of our heavenly Father. But Jesus of Nazareth when delivered up to death was without these. The Father that had honoured His birth by a new star, and His baptism by the sound of a more than mortal voice from the excellent glory, that had honoured Him when He performed the miracles to which I have alluded, forsook Him upon the Cross.
III. By whom was He delivered? I notice--
1. The human agents. It was the Jews that did it; their high priest had said it was expedient for Christ to die; it was their Pontius Pilate that condemned Him; it was their Judas that betrayed Him; their priests that plotted it; their Scribes and Pharisees that hailed it; their populace that shouted for it. But let not the Jews imagine that their guilt is at all diminished by the fact of the death of Christ being according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Their actions were not at all influenced by the determinate counsel of Jehovah; the apostle tells them they were not; he says, Ye have done it.
2. But there is another agency in this transaction (a God appears in this amazing scene). Lift up the eyes of your mind to the throne of the heavens, to the Majesty on high, and see God delivering up His own Son to this accursed death. They could have had no power against the Son of Man except it had been given to them from above. The death of Christ was not casual, it was not accidental, it was according to the certain councils entered into between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the abyss of a past eternity. In these counsels it was agreed that one of the persons of the Trinity should become incarnate for lost human nature; that one should die for our guilty world. According to the contract entered into, Jesus of Nazareth was delivered up unto death. How amazing that such deliberations should be followed by such results I Hear the declaration of the apostle on the subject, He spared not His only Son, but freely gave Him up for us all.
IV. The design on account of, and the end for which, Jesus of Nazareth was delivered. He was delivered up for what? for whom? Not for His own iniquity, for He had none; not for Himself, for He was no transgressor. He could challenge the bitterest of His enemies and say--Which of you convinces Me of sin? Now, we are only acquainted with the iniquity of angels and men, and the question is narrowed to this: If Jesus were not delivered for His own iniquity--having none at all--He was delivered for the iniquity of angels that sinned, or for ours. Now then, for which was it? He passed by the angels, He took not hold of their nature, He never was found in fashion as an angel. I love the angels, because, among other reasons, they do not envy man the grandeur and glory of his being redeemed by the Son of God, while part of their own species was not taken hold of by the Son of God. When Jesus of Nazareth was born the angels sang--Glory to God in the highest--and in hell peace? No; and because they could not sing in hell peace, did they refuse to sing on earth peace? They could not say, and they did net say, Good will to devils, to our lost brethren; but could say, and they did say, Good will to man. Jesus of Nazareth took hold of our nature and was delivered, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Why He felt for us, rather than for angels that sinned, I know not. It is enough for me to know that He loves me, and loves you, and that He loves all our apostate race. Here comes in the old, good-for-nothing objection to the innocent suffering for the guilty. Why, then, did Christ suffer? Oh, they say, He suffered to give us an example of magnanimity and patience under suffering. And they talk about justice. Why, if there is injustice in His dying to save a world from the curse of God, there is a million times more monstrous injustice in His dying merely to teach us how to suffer. He died by His own consent. What bound Him to the Cross? Was it the nails? If He had never been fastened by anything but nails, He had never been fastened at all. It was love that led Him to go to the high altar, and it was love to us that fastened Him to that altar. Conclusion: It is not enough to hear of this Saviour, and of this salvation, and the love that prompted it; there must be a personal appropriation of the benefit of the death of Christ. (J. Beaumont, D. D.)
The nature and quality of the death Christ died upon the Cross
I. The Kind Or Nature Of His Death.
1. It was a violent death in itself, though voluntary on His part (Isa_53:8; Joh_10:17). And indeed He must either die a violent death or not at all, partly because there was no sin in Him to open a door to natural death, partly because His death had not been a sacrifice satisfactory to God for us. That which died of itself was never offered up to God, but that which was slain when it was in its full strength and health.
2. A most painful death. Indeed in this death were many deaths contrived in one. The Cross was a rack as well as a gibbet.
3. A shameful death. One appointed for the vilest of men.
4. A cursed death (Gal_3:13; Deu_21:23).
5. A very slow and lingering death.
6. A helpless death.
II. The reasons why Christ died this, rather than any other kind of death.
1. Because Christ must bear the curse, and a curse by law was affixed to no other kind of death as it was to this.
2. To fulfil the types. All the sacrifices were lifted up from the earth upon the altar. But especially the brazen serpent prefigured this death (Num_21:9; Joh_3:14).
3. Because it was predicted of Him (Psa_22:16-17; Zec_12:10). Inferences: Did Christ die the death of the Cross? Then--
1. There is forgiveness with God, and plenteous redemption for the greatest of sinners, that by faith apply the blood of the Cross to their poor guilty souls (Col_1:14; 1Jn_1:7). Two things this will make demonstrable.
(1) That there is sufficient efficacy in the blood of the Cross to expiate and wash away the greatest sins (1Pe_1:18; Act_20:28). On the account of its invaluable preciousness, it becomes satisfying and reconciling blood to God (Col_1:20), and having enough in it to satisfy God it must needs have enough in it to satisfy conscience (Heb_10:22).
(2) As there is sufficient efficacy in this blood to expiate the greatest guilt, so it is as manifest that the virtue of it is intended by God for the use of believing sinners (Act_13:39).
2. Though there be much of pain there is nothing, of curse in the death of the saints. Death poured out all its poison and lost its sting in Christs side when He became a curse for us.
3. How cheerfully should we submit to, and bear any cross for Jesus Christ. What feathers are ours compared with His!
(1) We shall carry it but a little way.
(2) Christ bears the heaviest end of it.
(3) Innumerable blessings and mercies grow upon it. (J. Flavel.)
Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that He should be holden of it.--
The resurrection
I. Its cause. It was such an action as proclaimed an omnipotent agent. Death is a disease which art cannot cure: and the grave a prison which delivers back its captives upon no human summons. To restore life is only the prerogative of Him who gives it. Physic may repair and piece up nature, but not create it. Neither is it in the power of a spirit or demon to inspire a new life; for it is a creation, and to create is the incommunicable prerogative of a power infinite and unlimited. But; I suppose nobody will be very importunate for any further proof of this, that; if Christ was raised, it must be by God who raised Him. The angel might roll away the stone from the sepulchre, but not turn it into a son of Abraham; and a less power than that which could do so could not effect the resurrection.
II. The manner by which God wrought it. With what propriety can God be said to loose the pains of death, when those pains continued not till the resurrection, but expired in the death of His body?
1. Some have affirmed that Christ descended into the place of the damned and suffered the pains of hell. But this could not be; for if Christ suffered any of those pains it was either in His Divine nature, or in His soul, or in His body. But the Divine nature could not suffer as being wholly impassible: nor yet could He suffer in His soul; forasmuch as in the very same day of His death that passed into paradise; nor in His body, for that being dead, and consequently for the time bereaved of all sense, could not be capable of any torment.
2. Now can we make out the reason of this expression upon some other or better ground. The word rendered pains, in the Hebrew signifies also a cord or band; according to which it is very easy and proper to conceive that the resurrection discharged Christ from the bands of death; besides having loosed, is properly applicable to bands and not to pains. But--
(1) The words contain in them a Hebraism, viz., the pains of death, for a painful death; as it is said (Mat_24:15), the abomination of desolation, for an abominable desolation; and so the resurrection loosed Christ from a painful death, not as if it were so at the time of His release from it, but in a divided sense it loosed Him from a continuance under that death; which, relating to the time of His suffering it, was so painful.
(2) But though the pains of death ceased long before the resurrection, so that this could not in strictness of sense be said to remove them; yet, taken in a metonymy of the cause for the effect, the pains of death might be properly said to have been loosed in the resurrection, because that estate of death into which Christ was brought by those foregoing pains was then completely triumphed over. Captivity under death and the grave was the effect and consequent of those pains, and therefore the same deliverance which discharged Christ from the one, might not improperly be said to loose Him from the other.
III. Its grounds, which was its absolute necessity.
1. The hypostatical union of Christs human nature to His Divine rendered a perpetual duration under death absolutely impossible. For how could that which was united to the great source and principle of life be finally prevailed over by death, and pass into an estate of perpetual darkness and oblivion? It was possible, indeed, that the Divine nature might for a while suspend its supporting influence, and so deliver over the human nature to pain and death, but it was impossible for it to let go the relation it bore to it. A man may suffer his child to fall to the ground, and yet not wholly quit his hold of him, but still keep it in his power to recover and lift him up at his pleasure. Thus the Divine nature of Christ did for a while hide itself from His humanity, but not desert it; put it into the chambers of death, but not lock the everlasting doors upon it. The sun may be clouded and yet not eclipsed, and eclipsed but not stopped in his course, and much less forced out of its orb. Surely that nature which diffusing itself throughout the universe communicates an enlivening influence to every part of it, and quickens the least spire of grass, would not wholly leave a nature assumed into its bosom, and, what is more, into the very unity of the Divine person, dismantled of its prime and noblest perfection.
2. Gods immutability. Christs resurrection was founded upon the same bottom with the consolation and salvation of believers, expressed in that full declaration made by God of Himself (Mal_3:6). Now, the immutability of God, as it had an influence upon Christs resurrection, was twofold.
(1) In respect of His decree or purpose. God had from all eternity designed this, and sealed it by an irreversible purpose. For can we imagine that Christs resurrection was not decreed, as well as His death and sufferings? and these in the 23rd verse of this chapter are expressly said to have been determined by God. It is a known rule in divinity, that whatsoever God does in time, that He purposed to do from eternity; for there can be no new purposes of God, since he who takes up a new purpose does so because he sees some ground to induce him to such a purpose, which he did not see before; but this can have no place in an infinite knowledge, which by one comprehensive intuition sees all things at present, before ever they come to pass: so that there can be no new emergency that can alter the Divine resolutions.
(2) In respect of His word and promise, for these also were engaged in this affair (Psa_16:10). And Christ also had frequently foretold the same of Himself. Now when God says a thing He gives His veracity in pawn to see it fully performed. Heaven or earth may pass away sooner than one iota of a Divine promise fall to the ground.
3. Gods justice. God in the whole procedure of Christs sufferings must be considered as a judge exacting, and Christ as a person paying down a recompense or satisfaction for sin. The punishment due to sin was death, which being paid by Christ, Divine justice could not any longer detain Him in His grave. For what had this been else but to keep Him in prison after the debt was paid? Satisfaction disarms justice, and payment cancels the bond. Christs release proceeded not upon terms of courtesy but of claim. The gates of death flew open before Him out of duty.
4. The necessity of His being believed in as a Saviour, and the impossibility of His being so without rising from the dead. As Christ by His death paid down a satisfaction for sin, so it was necessary that it should be declared to the world by such arguments as might found a rational belief of it; so that mens unbelief should be rendered inexcusable. But how could the world believe that He fully had satisfied for sin, so long as they saw death, the known wages of sin, maintain its full force and power over Him? Had not the resurrection followed the crucifixion, that scoff of the Jews had stood as an unanswerable argument against Him (Mar_15:31-32). To save is the effect of power, and of such a power as prevails to a complete victory and a triumph.
5. The nature of the priesthood which He had taken upon Him. The apostle (Heb_8:4) says, that if He were upon earth He should not be a priest. Certainly then much less could He be so, should He continue under the earth. The two great works of His priesthood were to offer sacrifice, and then to make intercession for sinners, correspondent to the two works of the Mosaical priesthood. Christ, therefore, after that He had offered Himself upon the Cross, was to enter, into heaven, and there presenting Himself to the Father to make that sacrifice effectual to all the intents and purposes of it (Heb_7:25). Had not Christ risen again, His blood indeed might have cried for vengeance upon His murderers, but not for mercy upon believers. Ever since Christ ascended into heaven He has been pursuing the great work begun by Him upon the Cross, and applying The virtue of His sacrifice to those for whom it was offered. (R. South, D. D.)
The necessity of Christs resurrection
It was not possible that death should hold our Divine Lord and Saviour. Why?
I. Was it simply because of His power? Is the victory that He gained when He came forth from the grave only the prevalence of a stronger force over a weaker? The love of power, the delight in wielding it and in witnessing its exercise, the joy of battle, the elation of victory--how much of human energy finds vent in these great passions! Is this spectacle of the triumphing of Christ over death only another exhibition of strength? Doubtless we must see in the resurrection a proof of superhuman energy. No man taketh My life from Me, etc., said our Lord. Here is the sign of a strength superior to nature; of an energy that is not confined by the uniformities of physical law; of a force that is stronger than the strongest of the forces with which our science deals. But is this all? No; this is the least of the truths disclosed to us upon the Easter day. Men had faith enough in physical power before Christ rose from the dead. Worshippers of power most of them were. Men believed quite enough in the power of God; as a revelation of the fact that there is a Will behind nature superior to nature, the resurrection was not needed.
II. Was it logical? Does the apostle mean that Christ could not have been left in the grave, because the Divine plan and purpose made His resurrection necessary? Doubtless this is true. The success of His mission required Him to rise from the grave. It was necessary as a practical measure, for the confirmation of His claims, and the verification of His gospel. But is this all? No.
III. The impossibility was moral. It was not might nor policy but love and right that conquered.
1. The apostle expresses in this phrase one of the strongest and most persistent of the instinctive moral feelings of man, viz., that virtuous being ought to continue. It is sometimes said that man has an instinctive faith in immortality, and it is doubtless true. But the feeling to which I refer is much deeper and more dominant than this. I am not speaking now of the testimony of revelation concerning future existence, but of the conclusions to which our own instinct and judgment would lead us. And I think that if we had to depend wholly on these for our light upon this great question, while each one might hope for life beyond the grave as his own inheritance, we should hesitate to affirm it confidently respecting all our neighbours. Here, for example, is one whose life has steadily gravitated downward; who has grown more sordid, sour, brutish, with every passing year. So he lives, and so living he goes down to death. If we had no other guide than our own reason and moral instincts, should we confidently affirm of such a man that there would be life for him beyond the grave? I do not think so. I think we should be more likely to say of him, pityingly and mournfully: If there were any prospect that his character could be mended, then we would hope that he might have life beyond; but if his life is to go on in this strain, there is no reason why his existence should be prolonged. If this universe is built on righteousness, the continuance of such lives is illogical and inexplicable. That is what the moral reason would say about it. But here is another of different quality. His life has been full of faithful and loving service of his kind; the contact of his spirit made every man more manly and every woman more womanly. Steadily as the years have gone by his character has been ripening, and now in the midst of his years he suddenly falls, and among men no more is seen. Is not our feeling about such a mans departure quite different from that with which we noted the passing out of life of the other? Do we not say at once, that if this universe means righteousness such a man ought not to cease to be; that the discontinuance of such a life would be as illogical and inexplicable as the continuance of the other would be? Death has seized upon our friend, we say, but it is not possible that death should hold him fast.
2. In cases of many that we have known we have felt that this impossibility was strong, almost invincible; but how much stronger should it have been in the minds of those who had been the companions and disciples of Jesus Christ all their lives! Might they not have said, with far clearer emphasis, when the hand of death was laid on Him, It is not possible that He should be holden of it? Recall some faint outline of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Remember the clear truthfulness of His speech, His courage, His friendship for the outcasts and the despised, the grand independence with which He brushed aside the conventional estimates, the tireless beneficence and boundless sympathy of His life. And now suddenly this life terminates. By wicked hands this Prince of Life is crucified and slain! Is it possible that such a life, so pure and perfect and benignant, should end like this? You could not affirm that it would reappear on this earth; on that point experience could give you no encouragement; but you could say that there ought to be and must be given to that life, somewhere, glory and immortality.
3. The force of this conclusion respecting all highest and noblest life it is hard to evade. The expectation of future existence in the abstract may be more or less shadowy; but the expectation that virtuous life will continue rests on the very foundation of our moral nature. And there is a great word of science that reaffirms this verdict of our moral sense. It is the fittest that survive, we are told. And, in a moral universe, it is the righteous, surely, who are fit to survive. You stand upon some elevated spot, where you can see, far down the valley, a railway train approaching. The pennant of smoke is lifted by the wind as the train draws nearer and nearer, bending round the curves, speeding swiftly along the straight alignments, its first faint murmur deepening into an audible roar, until it rushes past you swift, majestic, resistless, the very incarnation of motion and of might. Quickly, almost before your nerves have ceased to thrill with the onset of its power, it is out of sight behind an embankment, and out of hearing beyond a hill; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it is gone. Would it be easy for you now to believe that that wonderful power has vanished out of being; that when it passed beyond your sight it suddenly ceased to be; that all which you saw and felt but for a moment ago is now nothing but a memory? No; that would not be possible. You are sure that the glory of going on still belongs to that wonderful mechanism, though it is now beyond your sight. And it seems to me that the reasons for believing in the persistence of a great moral force after it has disappeared from these scenes of earth are far stronger. Of such a power we say, more confidently than of any physical energy, It cannot be blotted out; it must continue to be.
4. It was to strengthen this conviction, to demonstrate its truth and its reason, to give the world, in a great object lesson, the proof that virtue does not die, that our Lord came back to earth. It was not only to show His own Divinity; it was also to show that virtue and holiness are immortal. And as it was not possible that He should be holden of death, so neither is it possible that any of those who have His life in them should be detained in that prison-house. This is no arbitrary decree by which a future life is assured to the disciples of Christ; it is the law of the universe. Over such characters as His death has no power; and they who by faith in Him are brought into harmony with Him in this life can never be the prey of the spoiler. He that believeth in Me, said the Master, hath everlasting life. He who is one with Christ, who has the spirit of Christ, hath eternal life. What, to him, are all the vicissitudes and perils of our mortal state, all the sullen and ominous noises of the flood of years whose tides steadily gather round the narrow neck of land whereon he calmly waits? There is a hope within him that many waters cannot quench. His life is hid with Christ in God. (W. Gladden, D. D.)
The resurrection inevitable
St. Peters way of accounting for Christs resurrection is the first apostolic statement on the subject. And certainly, even if the point were only one of antiquarian interest, it would be full of attraction to know how the first Christians thought about the chief truths of their faith; considering the influence which that faith has had and still has on the development of the human race. But for us, Christians, concern in this matter is more exacting. Our hopes or fears, our depressions or enthusiasms, our improvement or deterioration, are bound up with it. If Christ be not risen, our preaching is vain, your faith is also vain.
I. St. Peter states the fact that Christ had risen from the dead. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death. He is preaching in Jerusalem, the scene of the death and resurrection, and to some who had taken part in the scenes of the crucifixion. Not more than seven weeks have passed. And in Jerusalem, we may be sure, men did not live as fast as they do in an European capital, in this age of telegraphs and railroads. An event like the crucifixion, in a town of that size, would have occupied general attention for a considerable period. It was then to persons keenly interested in the subject, and who had opportunities of testing its truth, that St. Peter states so calmly and unhesitatingly the fact of the resurrection. He states it as just as much a fact of history as the crucifixion, in which his hearers had taken part. Some twenty-six years later, when St. Paul wrote his first letter to Corinth, there were, he says, more than two hundred and fifty still alive who had seen Jesus Christ after His resurrection. The number of witnesses to the fact, to whom St. Peter could appeal, and whom his hearers might cross-question if they liked, will account for the simplicity and confidence of his assertion. In those days men had not learnt to think more of abstract theories than of well-attested facts. Nobody, it may be added, who professed to believe in an Almighty God, thought it reverent or reasonable to say that He could not for sufficient reasons modify His ordinary rules of working, if He chose to do so. St. Peter then preached the resurrection as a fact, and, as we know, with great and immediate results. But how did he account for it?
II. He says that Christ was raised because it was not possible that he should be holden of death. Thus St. Peters first thought about this matter is the very opposite to that of many persons in our day. They say that no evidence will convince them that Christ has risen, because they hold it to be antecedently impossible that He should rise. St. Peter, on the other hand, almost speaks as if he could dispense with any evidence. In point of fact, he had his own experience to fall back upon (Luk_24:34). But this evidence only fell in with the anticipations which he had now formed on other and independent grounds. It will do us good to consider the reasons of this Divine impossibility.
1. It was not possible, for David speaketh concerning Him. Prophecy forbade Christ to remain in His grave. As to the principle of this argument there would have been no controversy, between St. Peter and the Jews. When once God had thus spoken, His word, it was felt by Jews and. Christians, stood sure. It could not return empty; it must accomplish the work for which God had sent it forth; since it bound Him to an engagement with those who uttered and with those who heard His message. Obviously enough, the true drift of a prophecy may easily be mistaken. God is not responsible for eccentric guesses as to His meaning. But where a prediction is clear, it does bind Him who is its real Author to some fulfilment, which, in the event, will be recognised as such. And such a prediction of the resurrection St. Peter finds in Psa_16:1-11., where David--as more completely in Psa_22:1-31.--loses the sense of his own personal circumstances in the impetus and ecstasy of the prophetic spirit, and describes a Personality of which indeed he was a type, but which altogether transcends him. The meaning of the Psalm was so clear to some Jewish doctors, that, unable as they were to reconcile it with Davids history, they invented the fable that his body was miraculously preserved from corruption. David, however, was really speaking in the person of Messiah. And his language created the necessity that Messiah should rise from the dead. Observe, here, that St. Peter had not always felt and thought thus. He had known this Psalm all his life. But long after he had followed Jesus, he had been ignorant of its true meaning. Only little by little do any of us learn Gods truth and will. And so lately as the morning of the resurrection, the apostles knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. Since then the Holy Spirit had come down, and had poured a flood of light into their minds and over the sacred pages of the Old Testament. And thus a necessity for the resurrection, which even Jews ought to recognise, was now abundantly plain.
2. A second reason lay in the character of Christ. Now, of that a leading feature was its simple truthfulness. He was too wise to predict the impossible. He was too sincere to promise what He did not mean. But Christ had again and again said that He would be put to a violent death, and that after dying He would rise again (Joh_2:19; Mat_12:40; Mat_16:21; Mar_9:31; Mar_10:32-34). Thus He was pledged to this particular act--pledged to the Jewish people, and especially to His own followers. He could not have remained in His grave--I will not say without dishonour, but--without causing in others a revulsion of feeling such as is provoked by the exposure of baseless pretensions. It may indeed be urged that the resurrection foretold by Christ was not a literal resurrection of His dead body, but only a recovery of His credit, His authority; obscured as these had been for a while by the crucifixion. The word resurrection, according to this supposition, is in His mouth a purely metaphorical expression. Socrates had had to drink the fatal hemlock; and the body of Socrates had long since mingled with the dust. But Socrates, it might be said, had risen, in the intellectual triumphs of his pupils, and in the enthusiastic admiration of succeeding ages; the method and words of Socrates had been preserved for all time in a literature that will never die. If Christ was to be put to death by crucifixion, He would triumph, even after a death so shameful and degrading, as Socrates and others had triumphed before Him. To imagine for Him an actual exit from His tomb is said to be a crude literalism, natural to uncultivated ages, but impossible when the finer suggestiveness of human language has been felt to transcend the letter. An obvious reply to this explanation is, that it arbitrarily makes our Lord use literal and metaphorical language in two successive clauses of a single sentence. He is literal, it seems, when He predicts His crucifixion; but why is He to be thought metaphorical when He foretells His resurrection? Why should not His resurrection be preceded by a metaphorical crucifixion; a crucifixion of thought, or will, or reputation--not the literal nailing of a human body to a wooden cross? Surely He meant that the one event would be just as much or just as little a matter of fact as the other. Those who cling to His human character, yet deny His resurrection, would do well to consider that they must choose between, their moral enthusiasm and their unbelief; since it is the character of Christ, even more than the language of prophecy, which made the idea that He would not rise after death impossible for His first disciples.
3. Not that we have yet exhausted St. Peters reasons. In the sermon which he preached after the healing of the lame man, he told his hearers that they had killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead. Remark that striking title. Not merely does it show how high above all earthly royalties was the crucified Saviour in the heart and faith of His apostle. It connects his thought with the language of his Master on the one side, and that of His apostles St. Paul and St. John upon the other (Joh_14:6; Joh_5:26; Joh_5:40; Joh_1:4; Col_3:4). What is life? We do not know what it is in itself. We only register its symptoms. We see growth, movement; and we say, Here is life. It exists in one degree in the tree; in a higher in the animal; in a higher still in man. In beings above man, we cannot doubt, it is to be found in some yet grander form. But in all these cases it is a gift from another: and having been given, it might be modified or withdrawn. Only the Self-Existent lives of right. He lives because He cannot but live. This is true of the Eternal Three, who yet are One. Hence our Lord says, As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself. Thus, with the Eternal Giver, the Eternal Receiver is the Fountain and Source of life. With reference to all created beings, He is the Life--their Creator, their Upholder, their End (Col_1:16-17). This then is the full sense of St. Peters expression, The Prince of Life. How could the very Lord and ,Source of life be subdued by death? If, for reasons of wisdom and mercy, He subjected the nature which He had made His own to the king of terrors, this was surely not in the course of nature; it was a violence to nature that this should be. And therefore when the object had been achieved, He would rise, St. Peter implies, by an inevitable rebound, by the force of things, by the inherent energy of His irrepressible life. From St. Peters point of view, the real wonder would be if such a Being were not to rise. The pains of death were loosed--not by an extraordinary effort, as in your case or mine--but because it was impossible that He, the Prince of Life, should be holden of it.
III. This necessity, while in its original form strictly proper to His case, points to kindred necessities which affect His servants and His church. Note--
1. The impossibility, for us Christians too, of being buried for ever in the tomb in which we shall each be laid at death. In this, as in other matters, as He is, so are we in this world. To us as to Him, although in a different way, God has pledged Himself. In Him an internal vital force made resurrection from death necessary; in us there is no such intrinsic force, only a power guaranteed to us from without. He could say of the temple of His body, I will raise it up in three days: we can only say that God will raise us up, we know not when. But this we do know (Rom_8:11). The law of justice and the law of love combine to create a necessity which requires a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. Death is not an eternal sleep; the tomb is not the final resting-place of the bodies of those whom we have loved. The empty sepulchre at Jerusalem on Easter morning is the warrant of a new life, strictly continuous with this, and, if we are faithful, much more glorious.
2. The principle of moral resurrections in the Church. As with the bodies of the faithful so it is with the Church. The Church is, according to St. Pauls teaching, Christ Himself in history (1Co_12:12; Eph_1:22-23). But the force of this language is limited by the fact, equally warranted by Scripture--that the Church has in it a human element, which, unlike the humanity of Christ, is weak and sinful. Again and again in the course of her history large portions of the Christian Church have seemed to be dead and buried. But suddenly the tomb has opened; there has been a moral movement, a new spirit of devotion, social stir, literary activity, conspicuous self-sacrifice; and, lo! the world awakes to an uneasy suspicion that John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that mighty works do show forth themselves in him. The truth is that Christ has again burst His tomb and is abroad among men. So it was after the moral degradation of the Papacy in the tenth century; so it was after the recrudescence of Paganism by the Renaissance in the fifteenth; so it was after the triumph of misbelief and profanity in the seventeenth, and of indifference to vital religion in the eighteenth.
3. What is or ought to be the governing principle of our own personal life? If we have been laid in the tomb of sin, it ought to be impossible that we should be holden of sin. I say ought to be, because, as a matter of fact, it is not impossible. God only is responsible for the resurrection of the Christians body, and for the perpetuity of the Christian Church; and therefore it is impossible that either the Church or our bodies should permanently succumb to the empire of death. But God, who raises our bodies whether we will or not, does not raise our souls from sin, unless we correspond with His grace; and it is quite in our power to refuse this correspondence. That we should rise then from sin is a moral, not a physical, necessity; but surely we ought to make it as real a necessity as if it were physical (Rom_6:4).
4. A real resurrection with Christ will make and leave some definite traces upon life. Let us resolve this day to do or leave undone some one thing which will mark a new beginning: conscience will instruct us, if we allow it to do so. (Canon Liddon.)
The inevitableness of Christs resurrection
I. The fact here stated. Him hath God raised up, etc. Note--
1. That Jesus did experience everything which death is able to inflict upon mortal man. It was not, as some ancient heretics pretended, the mere appearance of death, but the reality, which He underwent. He felt the pains of death. And so fearful and rapid was the operation of His sufferings, that, of the three who were crucified together, He alone was dead, when the hour arrived for removing the bodies. And death had then full dominion over Him.
2. That He was set free from the power of death by being raised to life again. To all human appearance the hopes of His cause were for ever buried with Him. But at this point the power of death was broken, and the grave is robbed of its victory. Death has no more dominion over Him. He is raised--not as the widows son at Nain or Lazarus, again to die--but to wear for ever that scarred body which He has brought with Him out of the sepulchre.
3. That this event was effected by Divine power: Him hath God raised up. This circumstance may excite no wonder in your minds; for who can raise the dead but God only? Unquestionably, He alone, who first breathed into mans nostrils the breath of life, can restore it after He hath taken it away. Call to mind, however, what He Himself had openly declared long before His death, No man taketh My life from Me, etc. Scripture teaches us that each Person in the blessed Trinity took His share in effecting this glorious resurrection.
(1) The Father (Heb_13:20).
(2) The Son (Joh_2:19).
(3) The Holy Ghost (Rom_1:4; 1Pe_3:18).
These would be contradictory statements were it not for that mysterious doctrine, that our God is one God in three Persons. That doctrine reconciles all; while it still calls upon us to wonder and adore.
II. The reason assigned for it. Had Jesus so willed, death could not have taken hold of Him; nor could it keep its hold one moment; longer when God commanded, Loose Him and let Him go. The impossibility here dwelt upon, however, seems to mean something more than that arising from Gods irresistible power. It could not be, because--
1. Prophecy had long ago foretold that it should not be; and the Scripture cannot be broken.
2. No good end would have been answered by the continuance of Christ under the power of death. All that He had suffered was in order to His being the propitiation for our sins. Now those agonies needed not to be eternal, although they were an equivalent to that eternal punishment which is our desert. The Sufferer being infinite, the merit of His sufferings was so likewise. And for the same reason, the humiliation of the grave once submitted to was enough, since it was the infinitely glorious Son of God who condescended to endure it. Just as one offering sufficed for the sins of many, so one short sojourn in the tomb of dishonour was sufficient to earn its infinite reward. More was not required--and God does nothing unnecessarily.
3. Satans apparent triumph would then have been a real one. The chief end of Christs coming was to destroy the works of the devil. Of this, Satan himself was fully aware; and to prevent his own defeat left no effort untried. He assailed the mind of Jesus with temptations: he stirred up enemies against His life. Defeated in the former by Christs holy nature, he appeared to succeed in the latter, and possibly began to boast that he had now triumphed over the only Redeemer of men. And had Jesus still lain in the corruption of the grave, who could have gainsaid this boast? St. Paul himself allows that it would have been the ruin of our hopes (1Co_15:17). Jesus, therefore, must needs rise again.
4. He had still one perpetual work to perform on behalf of His people, which required His entire presence as perfect Man before God. As our Priest He had offered the sacrifice for sins; in the same character He had now to make continual intercession for us. He might have done this, you say, in His Divine Person, or by His human soul in glory. Why not as well say He might have made atonement without a human body? No--the presence of that living body is indispensable, as an evidence of His merit, as the pledge of His claims. (J. Jowett, M. A.)
Christ still escaping from entombment
Dead, and yet not able to continue dead. A stone sepulchre, and yet not equal to the strain of the strange body that was entombed in it. Not possible that He should be holden of it. It is just that not possible that we are going to think about. The world has never made a great deal of the resurrection of Lazarus, or of the widows son of Nain, or the rulers daughter, or the Shunammites son. There are two kinds of resurrection: there is a natural resurrection and there is an artificial resurrection. Something roused Lazarus. Elisha roused the Shunammites son. Jesus has had His death-sleep out. Artifice versus: nature. It never could have been said of the rulers daughter that God raised her up, loosing the pains of death because it was not possible that she should be holden of it. It was possible, most possible. In the rending of the Lords sepulchre we are dealing with a distinct matter. It is an event on another plane. At any rate, people have never pinned their hope of immortality to Lazarus resurrection, and they have to the Lords. And something of the core of the case lies in this particular clause we are upon: Because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. We gain from Christs instance a sense Of resurrection power working from within outward; in other instances, the sense of resurrection power working from without inward. Here it is something indigenous. Here it is like the wheat-grain growing up out of the ground because there is intrinsic impulse making it grow up; resurrection inheres in its nature; it is not possible that it should be holden; rising is a part of its genius. The Lords life was somehow in His own hands. His life was such a thing that limitations did not limit it; obstructions were no embarrassment to it; death was not fatal to it. Life under any circumstances, life of any kind is a wonderful thing, spiritual life, animal life, yea, even vegetable life. We cannot say much about it, only wonder at it. An acorn lying, for months, still, brown and insensible, with a slight change of environment, begins to become dimly conscious of itself; and waking up into a mighty tree that fills the air, greens and withers, and greens and withers while children grow old and generations pass away. It is a long way from the buried acorn cracking in the dark to the rending of the tomb of the Son of God in the morning twilight of the worlds first Easter; and yet our thought to-day is upon the same feature in the two instances--the life element, vegetable in one, Divine in the other, but working out with an easy expanse, shattering confinement by the native tension of its own energy; with facile sufficiency disrupting its own confinement and crushing its own bonds. It was not possible that He should be holden of it. It seems to me we can almost see the very steps of the transaction, Divine life in the grave unnerving the clasp of death and striving to fracture the meshes of fatality; and all of that, not by virtue of extrinsic reinforcement, but out of the abundance of its own easy sufficiency, the exuberance of its irresistible fulness of Divine life. Now all of that brings almost to our very senses the event of Divine resurrection which the great Church catholic on earth celebrates. But not only is there a great historic meaning in this resurrection emergence of Christ from the sepulchre, but it seems to me there is a picture in small of what Divine life on earth is everywhere and always doing.
1. That is the grand meaning of history, slow resurrection of the Divine life float is buried in it, and that every day strains a little more the gritty sepulchre; not because you and I try to drive into the enshrouding rock the wedges of our holy endeavour, not because liberating power is borne in upon it from any outward source; but because of the strengthening tension and growing push of its own resistless life that is eternally destined to break loose from the confinement of death because it is not possible that it should be holden of it. All the sin that is in the world, and the apathy and the obstinacy, and the ignorance and the hopelessness, what is it but so much vast, cold granite tomb in which the immanent buried life of God is working itself forth day and night, century after century, as the dawn slowly reddens toward the perfect glory of the full day and the ushered kingdom for whose coming we reverently pray. Oh, in how many ways the Divine Spirit of all truth has been working through all the ages of the world and giving even pagan minds a presentiment and suspicion of the deep things of man and history of God! As geologists delight to lay bare the rocks and track the pathway upon them worn by the archaic forces of fire and flood, so it seems to me there is no grander effort of which human mind in the range of immaterial things is capable, than to trace the movements of human history, considering those movements always as being steadily marshalled by the generalship of Gods ordering Spirit, and every advance toward freer living, truer thinking, sweeter acting, and holier worshipping as being one more blow with which the rising Lord of Life strikes the grim casing of His tomb, and shatters Himself a pathway out into the light and splendour of the worlds final Easter.
2. Think again of this same confined Spirit of God, as struggling in quiet resurrection against the barriers of sin, ignorance, and prejudice that hinder the evangelisation of the world. Remembering how the claims of the gospel cut directly athwart the stalwart passions of every human heart, I cannot understand how any man, with a mind that is appreciative, and that has a grasp upon the history of the victories achieved by the Cross, can escape the conclusion of a God-Spirit striving in the midst of it all, and rending its way out like an entombed Jesus breaking forth into the light and liberty of full resurrection. There is no argument for the Divineness of Christianity like the steady, irresistible, onward march of Christianity. It is the same thing over again, a sepulchre entombing a waking Divine Lord, and it was not possible that He should be holden of it; antagonism compacted to granitic hardness; sin rolled as a stone against the door of the sepulchre and sealed with malignity and cruelty: cunning posted as a watch upon it. But the night is going by, it is a Divine presence that is straining at the grave clothes and struggling out from entombment, and every new tribe that has the gospel brought to it, every new island out in mid-ocean that is vocal to-day with Easter praises, every new dialect that this April spells out resurrection to the wondering eye of the untaught pagan, is one more blow with which the rising Lord of Life strikes the grim casing of His tomb and shatters Himself a pathway out into the light and splendour of the great worlds Easter.
3. And then, again, an imprisoned Divine Lord is struggling to full resurrection within the entombing religion of the world. One of the unappreciated marvels of our very Bible is the way in which, from the beginning of it to the end, it marks the steady rise of that current of Divine truth which it channels. There is not a greater mistake made, nor a sadder one, than the habit of treating the Bible as a dead level of Divine revelation. Its first lessons are but the seed-corn out of which, through the successive seasons of four thousand years, the primary germ has been unfolding into to-days blossomed and fruited Tree of Life. It was a Divine thing then; Divine in its inception as it is in its finish; just as the confined germ is as live a thing as the great air-filling elm after a growth of two hundred years. But away back there it was a Divine thing perpetually striving and struggling forth into unsepulchred life against the constraints and confinements that human small-mindedness and false-heartedness put upon it. Divine, but Divineness bandaged! Eternal Spirit, but Eternal Spirit in a vault. Four thousand years of resurrection in the domain of truth! The Word which in the beginning was with God and was God, breaking off year by year and century by century the coarse integuments of human stupidity and carnality with which, forsooth, even Divineness requires to come into the world encased.
4. The Lord, too, is sepulchred, and has always been most gloomily sepulchred, in the theology of His Church. To disparage theology is to forget the Divine Spirit of truth which the pettiness and faultiness of human conception encases; and to ignore or lightly to pass over the history of theologic thought for the past forty centuries is to be oblivious of the slow, steady process of resurrection through which the confined Spirit of God is straining and crushing, age by age, the tough integument by which He is so jealously guarded, the tomb of petrified opinion around which His lovers keep tearful vigil, and to which in the grey light of the early morning they gather with linen bandages and spices as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Theological controversy thus, so far as it is the cracking away of archaeological deposit and dogmatic stratification is but the emergence of the God-Spirit into freer air and wider liberty, and therefore can no more be stamped out or whistled down by a dogmatic constabulary than you could stop the growth of a California pine by girdling its trunk with cotton yarn, or than the resurrection of the Son of God at Jerusalem could have been delayed by piling more granite upon the roof of the sepulchre or posting more Roman police at its door.
5. And then, just in a word, the irrepressible Lord of Life is immured and struggling inside the ethics of the world. There is nothing in the history of the human race more calculated to amaze us than its improvement in morals; especially when you remember that every step of such improvement is taken in the teeth of every mans native tendency and original passion. No man ever becomes better except as he has Divine power given him to trample on himself. And to deny that there has been moral improvement is to be ignorant of history or to give the lie to history. As I say, it is all of it a growth; and the hindered, entombed, struggling life of the Lord is the Divine sap that permeates that growth. History, from the beginning of it to the end of it, is all resurrection; the straining, tenser and tenser straining, of the immured life of God in the world. Here is our hope. We praise God for the irrepressible and irresistible life that is in His Son Jesus Christ. We celebrate the empty grave with songs of loud acclaim. But while in this we are memorially celebrating the past, we would also, O God, by the same act anticipate and celebrate that greater coming Eastertide, when every bandage that human pettiness and ignorance wind about our risen Lord shall be sundered, when the whole sepulchre of world-sin in which He is yet entombed shall be rent, and the Lord of Life move forth a free Lord over a free earth--a glorified Lord in the midst of a redeemed world. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Bonds which could not hold
1. Our Lord felt the pains of death truly and really. His body was in very deed dead, yet there was no corruption.
(1) It was not needful: it could have borne no relation to our redemption.
(2) It would not have been seemly.
(3) It was not demanded by the law of nature; for He was sinless, and sin is the worm which causes corruption.
2. But from the pains of death His body was loosed by resurrection.
I. It was not possible that the bands of death should hold our Lord. He derived His superiority to the bondage of death--
1. From the command of the Father that He should have power to take His life again (Joh_10:18).
2. From the dignity of His human person.
(1) As in union with Godhead.
(2) As being in itself absolutely perfect.
3. From the completion of His propitiation. The debt was discharged: He must be freed.
4. From the plan and purpose of grace which involved the life of the Head as well as that of the members (Joh_14:19).
5. From the perpetuity of His offices.
(1) Priest (Heb_6:20).
(2) King (Psa_45:6.
(3) Shepherd (Heb_13:20).
6. From the nature of things, since without it we should have--
(1) No assurance of our resurrection (1Co_15:17).
(2) No certainty of justification (Rom_4:25).
(3) No representative possession of heaven (Heb_9:24).
(4) No crowning of man with glory and honour, and exaltation of him over the works of Gods hands.
II. It is not possible that any other bands should hold His kingdom.
1. The firm establishment of error shall not prevent the victory of truth. The colossal systems of Greek philosophy and Roman priestcraft have passed away; and so shall other evil powers.
2. The scholarship of His foes shall not resist His wisdom. He baffled the wise in His life on earth; much more will He do it by His Holy Spirit (1Co_1:20).
3. The ignorance of mankind shall not darken His light. The poor have the gospel preached to them (Mat_11:5). Degraded races receive the truth (Mat_4:16).
4. The power, wealth, fashion, and prestige of falsehood shall not crush His kingdom (chap. 4:26).
5. The evil influence of the world upon the Church shall not quench the Divine flame (Joh_16:33).
6. The rampant power of unbelief shall not destroy His dominion. Though at this hour it seems to bind the Church in the bands of death, those fetters shall melt away (Mat_16:18).
III. It is not possible to hold in bondage anything that is His.
1. The poor struggling sinner shall escape the bonds of his guilt, his depravity, his doubts, Satan, and the world (Psa_124:7).
2. The bondaged child of God shall not be held captive by tribulation, temptation, or depression (Psa_34:19; Psa_116:7).
3. The bodies of His saints shall not be held in the grave (1Co_15:23; 1Pe_1:3-5).
4. The groaning creation shall yet burst into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom_8:21). Conclusion. Here is a true Easter hymn for all who are in Christ. The Lord is risen indeed, and the happiest consequences must follow. Let us rise in His rising, and walk at large in His loosing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 22. Hear these words. Peter now begins to preach…
22. Hear these words. Peter now begins to preach Christ directly to them. He boldly declares that they knew of his miracles, and wonders and signs. He demonstrates the Messiahship in verses 22–36: 1. By the miracles of which they were witnesses. 2. By his Resurrection, proved (1) by the prophecy of David; (2) by the testimony of all the apostles present who were witnesses; (3) by the phenomena then witnessed, which could be only due to his exaltation to the right hand of God.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Act_2:22. Mighty works, wonders, and signs.—Compare 2Co_12:12; 2Th_2:9; Heb_2:4.…
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_2:22. Mighty works, wonders, and signs.—Compare 2Co_12:12; 2Th_2:9; Heb_2:4. Of these terms, the first, δυνάμεις, refers to the powers by which Christ’s miracles were performed; the second, τέρατα, to the astonishment they awakened; the third, σημεῖα, to the significance they possessed.
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Act_2:23. Counsel and foreknowledge are distinguished as antecedent and consequent.
Act_2:24. The pains of death.—τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θανάτου. Quoted from the LXX. (Psa_18:5; Psa_116:3)—the Hebrew having “the cords of death.”
Act_2:25. David speaketh.—In Psa_16:8-11, which is here ascribed to the sweet singer of Israel as distinguished from the Hebrew Psalmist generally (Act_13:35). Concerning Him.—Not merely words that might be applied to Him—i.e., Christ—but words that typically and prophetically referred to Him.
Act_2:26. My tongue as in the LXX. instead of “my glory” as in the Hebrew. The LXX. may have regarded man’s faculty of speech as his highest excellence; and Peter, reflecting on the miracle of Pentecost, may have agreed with them.
Act_2:27. Hell, ἅδης, Hades, the unseen world, the realm of the dead, comprising two regions, Paradise, the abode of the blessed (Luk_23:43), and Gehenna, the prison of the lost (Mat_5:29-30), is here represented as a rapacious destroyer.
Act_2:28. The ways of life were those which led from the realm of death to that of life—a hint of the doctrine of the resurrection. With Thy countenance signified not “by” but “in Thy presence”—i.e., in heaven.
Act_2:29. Let me freely speak.—Better, it is lawful for me to speak with boldness. David is here called patriarch as founder of the royal family. His sepulchre is with us.—On Mount Zion (1Ki_2:10), where most of the kings of Judah were buried. Compare Neh_3:16; Josephus, Ant., VII. xv. 3, XIII. viii. 4; Wars, I. ii.
5. “David’s tomb, on the south side of Mount Zion, is still pointed out by the guides. The tomb is described by one who has seen it as an immense sarcophagus in a room comparatively insignificant in its dimensions, but very gorgeously furnished by the Moslems, under one of whose mosques it stands” (Lawrence Hutton, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, March 1895, p. 549).
Act_2:30. A prophet was a divinely inspired person, hence one who could predict future events. The words, according to the flesh He would raise up Christ, are wanting in the best MSS.
Act_2:31. His soul is also omitted by the best authorities.
Act_2:32. Whereof, or of whom. In the former case the subject of witness is the resurrection; in the latter, the person of Christ.
Act_2:33. By the right hand of God.—I.e., through His almighty power; compare Act_5:31 (Calvin, Meyer, Zöckler, and others). The translation “at or to the right hand of God” (Neander, De Wette, Bleek, Hackett, and others), though admissible, is not so good.
Act_2:34. For David is not ascended should be did not ascend; but he saith himself in Psalms 110.
(1) which Christ ascribes to David (Mat_22:43; Mar_12:36). The Lord said unto my Lord, etc.—Thus distinguishing between himself and his Lord, who could be no other than the Messiah.
Act_2:36. All the, or every house of Israel shows that Peter’s address was directed exclusively to the Jews. Lord and Christ.—Compare Eph_1:22 : “Head over all” and “Head of the Church.” In both passages the general expression precedes, the specific follows.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_2:22-36
Peter’s Sermon.
2. The Mystery of Pentecost traced up to Christ
I. The earthly life of Jesus Christ (Act_2:22).—
1. His human nature. “A man”—i.e., no mythical creation or docetical simulacrum, but a bonâ fide flesh and blood personality; a genuine member of the race, possessed of a true body and a reasonable soul like the ordinary descendants of Adam. The certainty of this was attested by the fact that He lived among men, performed actions which they saw and uttered words which they heard, sorrowed and suffered like the rest of His contemporaries, and was eventually put to death at their hands. That Peter in connecting the Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Ghost with Him takes as a starting point His humanity does not signify that Peter was in doubt of His divinity (Mat_16:16; Joh_21:17), or regarded that only as a consequence of His exaltation, but merely that in attempting to gain a hearing from his countrymen he commenced with a proposition which he and they held in common—viz., that Christ had been amongst them as a man. That He had been even from the first more than this Peter believed and proceeded to show (Act_2:34-36).
2. His divine attestation. “Approved,” shown forth; accredited as a special messenger to His countrymen—
(1) by God, so that, like the prophets of old, He could at least claim to be an ambassador of Heaven, a plenipotentiary and representative of Jehovah (Luk_4:18; Joh_6:39; Joh_16:28).
(2) Through “mighty works and wonders and signs”—i.e., deeds of power, of mystery, and of significance, which God did, by Him, so that men, reasoning like Nicodemus (Joh_3:2), ought to have had no hesitation in recognising Him as “a teacher come from God.”
3. In the most public manner—not at all in secret, as His unbelieving brethren insinuated (Joh_7:4)—so that the fullest evidence was furnished of who and what He was and claimed to be (Joh_14:11). Though Peter represents God as working by and through Jesus, he does not thereby deny that Christ performed His miracles by His own inherent power; simply in addressing his countrymen, he asserts the least that could be affirmed about Christ—viz., that the divine power manifested itself through Him.
II. The atoning death of Jesus Christ (Act_2:23).—This Peter represents as having been brought about by a concurrence of human and divine will and action.
1. In accordance with the divine purpose. Reverting to the original and eternal decrees of God, who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will (Eph_1:11), Peter finds a place among them for the crucifixion of Jesus. The death of Christ was in his view no accident which had surprised either Christ Himself or God. As the story of the arrest in Gethsemane shows that Christ freely surrendered Himself into the hands of His captors (Joh_18:1-11), so does Peter here affirm that God delivered Him into their toils, not because He was unable to rescue His darling from the power of the dog (Psa_22:20), but in pursuance of a deliberate and determinate counsel, formed in eternity, to thus save man from sin and death (1Pe_1:2; 1Pe_1:20).
2. By an infamous act of betrayal. Though the person of the traitor is not named, clearly Judas is thought of as the perpetrator of this wicked deed. (Compare Mat_26:15; Joh_19:11.) As the counsel of God did not compel the man of Kerioth to sell Christ to His foes, so neither did it absolve him from guilt for so doing. While the predestination and foreknowledge of God are incontrovertible facts, being involved in the very conception of God, yet must they ever be conceived by us in such a way as neither to make God the Author of sin nor to destroy the efficiency of second causes.
3. By a cruel deed of crucifixion. The tragic event was too recent for any call on Peter’s part to reproduce the spectacle. Doubtless the strangers from foreign parts had been made acquainted with the deed of blood. Peter restricts himself to two points:
(1) That while the instruments of the crucifixion were “lawless men,” meaning, most likely, the Roman soldiers,
(2) The real authors of it were the people “ye,” who cried “Away with Him!” or their leaders who instigated them to demand His death. Both acted in ignorance, comparatively at least, of the personal dignity of Christ and of the heinous character of their crime (Act_3:17; 1Co_2:8), yet were neither thereby excused.
III. The triumphant resurrection of Christ (Act_2:24-32). Peter presents this in a fourfold light.
1. As effected by God. “Whom God raised up” (Act_2:24; compare Act_3:15; Act_4:10; Act_10:40; Act_13:30; Act_17:31; 1Pe_1:21), “having loosed the pangs of death.” Quoted from the LXX. version of Psa_18:5, which in the Hebrew reads “cords of death”; the imagery lying in “the pangs of death” may be different, but the sense is the same. The Hebrew poet represents death as a strong man, who binds his victim with cords, which must be untied to admit of resurrection; the Christian apostle compares death’s agonies to the pains of parturition—doubtless because in both cases life follows—with this difference, that he depicts these as not ending with the expiry of physical life, but as pursuing the body into the grave in the form of corruption, and requiring to be loosed-or made to cease in order that their victim might be raised. In Christ’s case both conceptions were realised. His body saw no corruption, and the cords of death were unloosed.
2. As necessitated by Christ Himself. “It was not possible that He should be holden of death” (Act_2:24). Inasmuch as the like averment could not be made of any ordinary son of man, the use of it concerning Christ marked Him off as standing in a distinct category by Himself. The impossibility of death’s dominion over Christ remaining unbroken lay in this, either that He, Christ, was the Resurrection and the Life (Joh_5:26; Joh_11:25), and had power in Himself to resume as well as to lay down His life when He pleased (Joh_10:17-18), or that, having satisfied the claims of justice in behalf of man by dying and lying in a sinner’s grave, the conditions of His covenant with the Father demanded His restoration to life (Isa_53:10-12).
3. As foretold by David. “David saith concerning Him.”
(1) That Peter referred to David the sweet singer of Israel as the author of this psalm, and did not merely use the term David as a convenient synonym for the Hebrew poet, or for the collection of hymns and spiritual songs that passed current under his name, is obvious from even a cursory glance at the passage, and must be held as confirmed by the fact that Paul also, indirectly at least, ascribed it to the son of Jesse (Act_13:35), notwithstanding that the higher critics of to-day pretty generally assert that both Peter and Paul were mistaken (?).
(2) That the psalm was prophetically written with an outlook to Christ must be maintained on the same twofold apostolic authority. That the passage cited literally from the LXX. version of the psalm (Act_2:8-11) could not have been meant by David to apply to himself was apparent, first, from the language (e.g., Thy Holy One), which befitted not a sinful mortal; and secondly, from the circumstance that David saw corruption and never rose again—his tomb being amongst them on Mount Zion at the very moment when the Apostle spoke (Act_2:29, compare Act_13:36). That it was designed to fore-announce the resurrection of Christ, Peter contended, was the unambiguous testimony of the Holy Ghost (Act_2:31).
4. As attested by the apostles and primitive disciples. “Whereof” or “of whom”—i.e., of the fact or the person; “we all,” the one hundred and twenty of Act_1:15, “are witnesses” (Act_2:32). If none of them had been present at the opening of the sepulchre, it is probable that all of them had looked on their risen Lord after His emergence from the tomb. Nor can it be doubtful that what these first witnesses understood by Christ’s resurrection was not the exaltation of His spirit to celestial life after His death (Ritschl), but the actual return of His body, though in a glorified form, from the tomb.
IV. The glorious exaltation of Jesus Christ (Act_2:33-36).—That Peter, as well as Luke and Paul, distinguished between the resurrection and the exaltation of Christ is too manifest to be successfully challenged. Having treated of the former occurrence, he naturally advances to speak of the latter, replying in succession to the following unspoken inquiries:
1. Whither?—“Into the heavens” (compare Act_1:11; Luk_24:51; 1Pe_3:22; Heb_9:24) and up to the right hand of God” (see Act_7:55; Mar_14:62; Mar_16:19; Rom_8:34; Col_3:1). This also had been a subject of prophecy by David in Psa_110:1-2, who could not have referred to himself for the simple reason that he “had not ascended into the heavens,” and therefore must have spoken of Christ. N.B.—The Davidic authorship of Psalms 110 is guaranteed by Christ (Mat_22:43-45).
2. By whom?—“By the right hand of God.” Though not the better of the possible renderings of this clause, it contains a thought in full accord with the teaching of Scripture, that Christ’s exaltation was the work of the Father (see Eph_1:20; Php_2:9), who so rewarded Him for His redeeming work.
3. For what?—To be “both Lord and Christ” (Act_2:36).
(1) Lord, or possessor of divine dominion, an idea already expressed in His sitting at the right hand of God as partner of His throne, which dominion, though originally and from eternity belonging to Him as the preincarnate Word (Joh_1:1; Joh_17:5), was now conferred on His divine manhood in reward for His obedience unto death (Php_2:9; Heb_1:3; Rev_3:21).
(2) Christ or Messiah, which signified not that Christ had not been Messiah in the days of His flesh (Joh_4:26), but that His Messiahship was, by His exaltation, incontestably proved, and that the purposes for which His Messiahship had been constituted could not begin to realise themselves in all their fulness until after His Ascension. That is to say, He was not to be a temporal deliverer rescuing Israel from political thraldom and erecting a world-empire upon earth, but a spiritual Saviour, wielding authority from heaven.
4. How long?—“Till His enemies should be made the footstool of His feet” (Act_2:35). Till the ends contemplated by His mediatorial sovereignty should be accomplished (1Co_15:23-28). Till all His believing people should be fully, perfectly, and finally saved (Joh_17:24). Till all His unbelieving adversaries should be reduced into absolute, if still unwilling subjection (Php_2:10-11).
V. The Mediatorial Activity of Jesus Christ (Act_2:33).—This, according to Peter, was—
1. Authorised by Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of the Father. Manifestly, only one possessed of divine authority could act as the glorified Redeemer is here represented as doing. More, only one who was the equal and fellow of the Most High. A Moses might serve as mediator for a nation; a mere man would be insufficient to officiate as mediator for the race.
2. Prepared for by the promise of the Father that He would pour out the Spirit upon all flesh in Christ’s days—a promise given to Christ beforehand in the words of Old Testament prophecy which referred to Him, and renewed to Him on His exaltation.
3. Manifested by the Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit, which Peter now ascribes to Him. “He hath poured forth this,” an indirect proof of Christ’s exaltation and divinity.
4. Verified by the unusual phenomena which the house of Israel saw and heard.
Lessons.—
1. The close and intimate connection with one another of all evangelical doctrines. This a powerful argument in favour of their truth.
2. The reality of distinct Messianic prophecy. A point contested by modern criticism.
3. The inspiration of the sacred Scriptures and, in particular, of the Psalms of David.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_2:22. Did Jesus of Nazareth really Work Miracles?—
1. “It is incontestable that Christ” (in asking the faith of his contemporaries) “appealed very emphatically to His miracles, to His ‘works,’ which He was able to perform in virtue of the divine power which stood at His command, to His ‘signs’ in which His Godlike character, and specially the energy and grace pertaining thereto, showed themselves.”
2. “In all the wonderful works which the Evangelists report of Him, the question concerns occurrences in which, if they really happened so (i.e., as reported), we cannot at all find merely specially striking arrangements of a common divine providence ruling in the world and nature, but must recognise a direct intrusion of superterrestrial divine power into the regularly ordered connection of finite natural things and the forces deposited in them by God.”
3. “It is, and remains, incontestable, that Jesus intended to perform such works and referred (His contemporaries) to them—and that such works were not first assigned to Him by a late, fabulous tradition, which, at the same time, put into His mouth the (above-mentioned) appeal to them.”
4. “Apart from every other thing, it is unthinkable that His first disciples and apostles would have ascribed to themselves miraculous powers, as they unquestionably did, had not such miraculous powers been known of Him.”
5. Hence “to a historical critic, who will deny to Jesus all real miraculous activity, remains only the supposition possible—at least, if he is clear and honest—that Jesus and His disciples, with respect to this matter of miracles, practised deliberate and constant deception” (Köstlin, Der Glaube, p. 28).
Act_2:23. Divine Afterknowledge and Foreknowledge.
I. The divine afterknowledge.—Does God know all persons, other creatures, or things that have existed, as well as all occurrences that have taken place in the past?
1. This question must be answered in the affirmative. God’s eye never closes. It never droops. He has never slumbered or slept. He is never unobservant (Psa_139:1-16; Psa_147:4; Joh_21:17; Heb_4:13).
2. The effect of this knowledge on persons, creatures, things, events past, is nothing. It does not in the least degree modify their nature. It does not make them either good or bad. It does not alter their relations to one another or to God.
II. The divine foreknowledge.—Does God foreknow all the persons, other creatures, events, and things that shall be in the future?
1. Some theologians have maintained that God can and does foreknow things necessary, but not things contingent—i.e., such things as owe their existence to free will. But this idea is not tenable, inasmuch as—
(1) It ascribes ignorance to God, and
(2) is at variance with the existence of prophecy in the Bible, and
(3) traverses the statements of both Peter (1Pe_1:2) and Paul (Rom_8:28-30).
2. Other theologians hold that it is neither logical nor scriptural to maintain the universal foreknowledge of God. “Whatever is actually foreknown must, they think, be actually fixed by being foreknown.” But “knowledge, whether simple (i.e., present) or after or fore, never fixes the object which it knows.” “Things foreknown, whether necessary or contingent, will come to pass, but each according to its own nature”—things necessary as necessary, things contingent as contingent.
3. The true theology is that while all things are foreknown nothing is thereby bound to be. “There is no certainty imparted to the essence of the things that are foreknown.”—James Morison, D.D.
Act_2:25; Act_2:34.—The Two Right Hands.
I. God upon the right hand of Christ (Act_2:25).—This was equivalent to a promise from God to Christ of four things.
1. Of support and protection in the execution of His redemptive work. Compare Isa_42:1; Mat_12:18.
2. Of joy and satisfaction in the inception and progress of His work. Compare Pro_8:31; Isa_42:4; Joh_15:11; Joh_17:13.
3. Of hope in death.—Not merely of inward peace, but of prospective recovery from death’s dominion. Compare Isa_53:10; Isa_11:4. Of a glorious resurrection to embodied existence beyond the grave.—Isa_53:11-12.
II. Christ upon the right hand of God (Act_2:34).—This could only mean the enjoyment on Christ’s part of three things additional.
1. Co-ordination (in the sense of equality) with God—i.e., essential divinity. Compare Zec_13:7.
2. Communion (in the sense of fellowship) with God—i.e., such converse as alone could be held by equals. Compare Joh_1:1; Joh_5:19; Joh_20:3. Co-partnership (in the sense of dominion) with God—i.e., the possession of absolute power. Compare Dan_7:13; Mat_28:18; Eph_1:21; Php_2:9; 1Pe_3:22; Rev_17:14.
Act_2:25-28. The Lord upon the Right Hand.—What that signifies to the follower of Christ.
I. Confidence.—He shall not be moved. With such a Companion and Protector, why should we either be troubled or afraid? (Pro_29:27; Isa_26:3).
II. Joy.—Arising from a sense of the divine presence and fellowship. All the nobler faculties of that man who has God for a defence begin to exult (Psa_5:11; Rom_5:11).
III. Hope.—When the good man’s flesh lies down to tabernacle in the grave, it does not do so in despair, but rather with the joyous expectation of a future coming forth (Pro_14:32; Act_24:15; Rom_8:19).
IV. Resurrection.—His soul will not be left in Hades, neither will his body be abandoned as a prey to corruption. It may be allowed to see corruption, but that which is sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption (1Co_15:42).
V. Immortality.—The good man will not be raised to judgment and condemnation, but to justification and eternal life (Joh_5:29).
VI. Glory.—He will be filled with gladness with Jehovah’s countenance; he will behold Christ’s glory and experience, the highest felicity in Christ’s presence (1Jn_3:2; Rev_7:13-17; Joh_17:24).
Act_2:31. The Resurrection of Christ.—Was—
I. The necessary counterpart of His death.
II. His final victory over all hostile powers.
III. The divine attestation of His Messiahship.
IV. The presupposition of His exaltation as “the Son of God in power.”
V. The pledge of His supremacy over the living and the dead.
VI. The seal of all blessings, rights, and privileges given through Christ, especially of the forgiveness of sins and the future resurrection.
VII. The constraining argument for a new life in the spirit on the part of Christians.
VIII. The decisive proof for the reality, supernaturalness, and eternity of the kingdom of God.
IX. The starting point of all Apostolic missions and evangelical preaching.—Bornemann, Unterricht im Christentum, p. 102).
Act_2:34. The Mediatorial Throne.
I. Its divine appointment.—“The Lord said unto My Lord.” Jehovah its Author. By His decree was it constituted.
II. Its glorious occupant.—“My Lord.”
1. David’s divine Sovereign.
2. Jehovah’s personal fellow.
III. Its specific object.—Here represented to be the subjugation of all the enemies of that throne—i.e., all the foes of Jesus Christ and His kingdom.
IV. Its long duration.—Till that subjugation is effected. But not for ever. (See 1Co_15:28.)
Act_2:22-36. Four Remarkable Things in Peter’s Sermon.
I. The courage that could venture to charge upon an immense miscellaneous street audience the death of God’s Messiah, and this in the most naked terms, and by a man who had himself but a short while before, quailing before a servant maid in the high priest’s palace, denied Him thrice.
II. The tenderness which tempered this awful charge with the announcement of an eternal purpose of God in that very death, so paving the way for holding forth this crucified One as their own now exalted Lord and Christ.
III. The dread harmony with which one and the same event is here presented as on men’s part a crime of unparalleled atrocity, and on the part of God the result of an eternal decree of saving mercy.
IV. The description given of that death itself—by a word signifying travail pangs, as the throes of a death which was to give birth to a new life.—David Brown, D.D.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 22-35. We find in these Scriptures that Christ was…
CHRIST, DAVID’S SUCCESSOR
22-35. We find in these Scriptures that Christ was predestinated to suffer and die to redeem the world. While this is true, it was perfectly optionary with Judas, the Jews and the Romans to betray and crucify Him pursuant to their own diabolical malice and turpitude. We must remember that God is not tied to the prophecies, but the prophecies to God, who sees the end from the beginning and with whom everything is present. We read in Samuel that when David came to Keilah in his flight from Saul, and the Keilites received him with gusto and enthusiasm, assuring him of their fidelity and support, illuminated by that spiritual gift, denominated in 1Co 1:12, “discernment of spirits,” he read them like books and saw falsehood and treason in their countenances. Turning the problem over to God on his knees, he inquires of the Lord, “Will Saul come down to Keilah?” The answer comes promptly, “He will come down.” Then David proceeds to inquire, “Will the men of Keilah deliver me up?” The answer comes promptly, “They will deliver thee up.” David was acquainted with God’s method of dealing with man, he understood the perfect compatibility of human contingency with divine providence. Hence he understood “Saul will come and the Keilites will deliver you up if you stay.” Consequently he leaps from his knees, roars a loud bugle blast, orders march at double-quick, till they all precipitately skedaddle away from the traitors who were ready to purchase royal favor with the head of David and his men. From this inspired history we learn that even the divine predictions are compatible with the perfect freedom of the human will. What was the result? Saul, close on David’s track, heard that he had fled away from Keilah, turned his course in the direct pursuit of David and did not come down to Keilah. Hence, we see that neither of these predictions ever took place; because David having fled, Saul did not come down, and, of course, the men of Keilah did not deliver up David to Saul. David understood the voice of the Almighty when He responded to him at Keilah, “Saul will come down and the men of Keilah will deliver thee up,” though there is no mention of any possible defalcation; yet David well understood, “He will come down” if you stay, and “they will deliver you up” if they have a chance. Hence, David immediately fled, thus preventing the coming of Saul to Keilah and his own betrayal by the Keilites. From this and innumerable Scriptures we learn the co-existence and compatibility of divine sovereignty and free agency, though our poor little minds may not be able to reconcile them. If Judas, Caiaphas and Pilate had never been born, nevertheless my Lord would have died to redeem the world with His blood. He came for that glorious philanthropy and, regardless of human or Satanic agency, would have verified it.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain 22-24. It is impossible, at this distance of space…
22-24. It is impossible, at this distance of space and time, to realize, even in a faint degree, the effect upon the minds so wrought up and possessed of such facts, produced by the announcement next made by Peter. (22) " Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you, by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him, in the midst of you, as you yourselves know; (23) him, delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; (24) whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held under it. " Filled with amazement, as they were already, by a visible and audible manifestation of the Spirit of God, they now see that the whole of this amazing phenomenon is subservient to the name of the Nazarene whom they had despised and crucified. This conviction is brought home to them, too, in a sentence so replete with overwhelming facts, as to make them reel and stagger under a succession of fearful blows rapidly repeated. In one breath they have just heard no less than seven startling propositions: 1st. That Jesus had been approved by God among them, by miracles and wonders and signs which God had done by him. 2d. That they, themselves, knew this to be so. 3d. That it was not from impotence on his part, but in accordance with the purpose and foreknowledge of God, that he was yielded up to them. 4th. That when thus yielded up they had put him to death, by the torture of crucifixion. 5th. That they had done this with wicked hands. 6th. That God had raised him from the dead. 7th. That it was not possible that death should hold him.
Here is a complete epitome of the four gospels, condensed into one short sentence. The name "Jesus of Nazareth" brought vividly before their minds a well-known personage, and all his illustrious history flashes across their memory. The first assertion concerning him is an appeal to his miracles as a demonstration that he was from God. There is no need of argument to make this demonstration clear; nor of evidence to prove the reality of the miracles; for they were done "in your midst, as you yourselves also know. " The fearfulness of the murder is magnified by the thought, that he had been voluntarily delivered to them, in accordance with a deliberate purpose of God long ago declared by the prophets. The manner of his death makes it more fearful still. They had nailed him to the cross, and compelled him to die like a felon. These things being so, how penetrating the appeal to their consciences, "with wicked hands you have crucified and slain him!" This was no time for nice distinctions between what a man does himself, and what he does by another. The "wicked hands" are not, as some suppose, the hands of Roman soldiers, who had performed the actual work of his execution, but the hands of wicked Jews. Here, before him, were the very persons who had been assembled but fifty days before at the Passover, and had taken a hand in the proceedings of that awful day. He appeals to their individual consciousness of guilt; and this gives an intensity to the effect of his discourse upon their hearts, which it could not otherwise have possessed. Conscious of fearful guilt in having thus cruelly murdered the attested servant of God; and suddenly revealed to themselves as actors in the darkest scene of prophetic vision, how shall they endure the additional thought, that God has raised the crucified from the dead? Never did mortal lips pronounce, in so brief a space, so many thoughts of so terrific import to the hearers. We might challenge the world to find a parallel to it in the speeches of all her orators, or the songs of all her poets. There is not, indeed, such a thunderbolt in the burdens of all the prophets of Israel, nor among the mighty voices which echo through the pages of the Apocalypse. It is the first announcement to the world of a risen and glorified Redeemer.
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Peter’s testimony of Jesus:
Peter’s testimony of Jesus:
v. 22. Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
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v. 23. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain;
v. 24. whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should beholden of it.
Peter here launches forth into his sermon proper, to testify of Christ as David’s Son and David’s Lord. He addresses his hearers as Israelites, as members of the covenant nation of God, and asks them again to mark well his words. He places the name of Jesus the Nazarene at the head of this section, in order properly to emphasize his intention of making Jesus the center of his discussion. This Jesus had been approved by God unto them; God had clearly shown that Jesus was His ambassador to the Jews. the demonstrations of His power in the Word and work of Jesus being manifest throughout. The powers, wonders, and signs which He performed had been done through Him in their midst by God, just as He Himself had argued. Peter tells the Jews outright that they were very well aware of these facts, that it was impossible for them to deny a single one of them, Joh 11:47. Peter furthermore informed the Jews that it was in accordance with God’s preordained purpose, with His constituted will and foreknowledge, that Jesus was delivered into their power, affixed to the cross and slain with wicked hands, and not because He had been overcome by their strength. And he finally tells his audience boldly that God had raised Jesus from death, by loosening and taking away the pangs of death, for it was not possible for death to hold the Prince of Life. Death had ensnared Him, but could not hold his prey. Like sledgehammer blows the powerful, brief statement of these facts falls from the lips of Peter, facts which make his hearers reel and stagger, and which force the conviction upon them that this man Peter must be telling the truth. "We might challenge the world to find a parallel to it in the speeches of her orators or the songs of her poets. There is not such a thunderbolt in all the burdens of the prophets of Israel, or among the voices which echo through the Apocalypse. " For us Christians it is most consoling that the climax of this section is reached in the magnificent statement: Whom God hath raised up. Upon the fact of the resurrection of Jesus we place our hope of everlasting salvation.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Peter continues his speech to the Jews that he began in Acts 1:16.
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hear these words
"listen to what I am about to say"
accredited to you by God by the mighty deeds, the wonders, and the signs
This means that God proved that he had appointed Jesus for his mission, and proved who he was by his many miracles.
by God's predetermined plan and foreknowledge
The nouns "plan" and "foreknowledge" can be translated as verbs. This means that God planned out and knew beforehand what would happen to Jesus. AT: "because God planned out and knew beforehand everything that would happen" (See: Abstract Nouns)
This man was handed over
Possible meanings: 1) "you handed Jesus over into the hands of his enemies" or 2) "Judas betrayed Jesus to you." (See: Active or Passive)
you, by the hand of lawless men, put him to death by nailing him to a cross
Although "lawless men" actually crucified Jesus, Peter accuses the crowd of having killed him because they demanded his death.
by the hand of lawless men
Here "hand" refers to the actions of the lawless men. AT: "through the actions of lawless men" or "by what lawless men did" (See: Metonymy)
lawless men
Possible meanings are 1) the unbelieving Jews who accused Jesus of crimes or 2) the Roman soldiers who performed the execution of Jesus.
But God raised him up
Here to raise up is an idiom for causing someone who has died to become alive again. AT: "But God caused him to live again" (See: Idiom)
freeing him from the pains of death
Peter speaks of dying as if death were a person who ties people up with painful ropes and holds them captive. He speaks of God ending Christ's death as if God broke the ropes that held Chist and set Christ free. AT: "ending the pains of death" (See: Metaphor and Personification)
for him to be held by it
This can be stated in active form. AT: "for death to hold him" (See: Active or Passive)
for him to be held by it
Peter speaks of Christ remaining dead as if death were a person who held him captive. AT: "for him to remain dead" (See: Personification)
translationWords
Israel
Jesus
Nazareth
might
works
sign
foreknew
lawful
crucify
raise
die
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.