Peter's Sermon--Exalting Christ, Part 2
Acts 2:24-36
In your Bibles, turn to the 2nd Chapter of Acts and we're continuing in our study of Peter's sermon. Preached on the day of Pentecost the day the church was born. Now I might preface our message this morning by saying it's very basic what we're talking about, because you have to understand that Peter is preaching to a group of people who don't know scratch, which is vernacular for nothing, about theology and have really never been able to interpret anything because they have no precedent. And so everything he says is very, very basic. And what we're going over here is the beautiful, marvelous, eternal story of Christ and the provision of His salvation for us in His death and resurrection.
And we trust that God will enrich your heart even though much of it is familiar to many of you and to others of you who maybe are not quite so familiar with it, that it might come a moving power in your life to bring you to Jesus Christ. But all of us certainly need to know how better to communicate Jesus Christ and we need to know how to understand this scripture which God has given to us.
So was we come to Peter's sermon, and we're taking it in many parts, we come this morning to that part of the sermon which is the main theme stretching from verses 22 to 36 and within the context of that majoring particularly on verses 30...pardon me, verses 24 and following dealing with the resurrection and the ascension of Christ.
Now the resurrection of Jesus Christ as well known to all of us is the cornerstone of Christianity. It is mentioned at least 104 times in the New Testament. It is, without question, the most profound and prominent point in biblical history and in all redemptive history. When the apostolic company, for example, after the apostasy and suicide of Judas, met together for the purpose of selecting one to complete their number again to twelve, in the process of their selection the statement was made that the reason for which one was to be chosen was that he might be a witness with us of the resurrection. That become the very chief thing, the great issue in the proclamation of Jesus Christ, that he was alive. For that's what sets him apart from every other religious leader who ever existed.
He came out of the grave alive. The crucifixion loses its meaning without the resurrection, as we well know. The resurrection becomes in scripture the crowning proof, not only of Jesus' deity, but the guarantee of our own resurrection. And if you remove the resurrection, then the death of Christ is the heroic death of a noble martyr or it's the pathetic death of a deranged mad man or it's the execution of a fraud and it can't be anything more without the resurrection.
And so we would conclude then it's not primarily his teaching, it's not primarily his miracles, it's not even primarily his dying that is the key it is primarily His rising again. Unless Jesus Christ had risen there would be no church. At the death of Christ, the disciples were scattered like chaff in the breeze. They were regathered when He arose from the grave and the church was born. And this became the cornerstone of all great apostolic preaching. And it's still the life blood of Christianity.
When the Jews, for example, in Acts 26 caught Paul in the temple and attempted to kill him, the Bible says that he received help from God and preached unto them resurrection. In Acts 17, when Paul was preaching to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill, the subject of his sermon was the resurrection. When the disciples and apostles were filled with the Spirit of God some days after Pentecost, the Bible says "that with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus."
And the resurrection was the key to Peter's great sermon. He spends one verse, verse 22, on the life of Christ. One verse, verse 23, on the death of Christ, and then he spends from verses 24 to 32 on the resurrection. This takes the overwhelming portion of his sermon. Now, we've already begun to study Peter's sermon and we're studying it rather slowly because we want to get everything out of it that's there, because it sets so many precedents for us in terms of ministry, terms of preaching patterns.
We've learned to begin with that the Spirit of God set the stage for this sermon, did we not? That all of the events of the day of Pentecost were one great big living illustration to grab everybody's attention. It was Pentecost 50 days after Passover, the city was jammed with hundreds of thousands of Jews. Both those who lived there and those who were pilgrims from other lands. They were there to celebrate the feast. The Spirit of God came with a sound like a mighty rushing wind and that sound gathered all of these people together.
The Spirit of God baptized the believers into the body of Christ, indwelt everyone of them and then filled them with power. They spoke the wonderful works of God in languages they did not know. And the people were brought together and confounded by all of this and they heard them speak the wonderful works of God, their own God, Jehovah God. And they were confused because they believed that these people were followers of one who was a blasphemer. And they believed they were satanic, but they couldn't figure out if they were satanic why they were announcing the wonderful works of God.
And it is at that point with the Holy Spirit having provided the living illustration that Peter stands up in verse 14 and begins to preach. And the first of his sermon is his introduction. And in his introduction he explains Pentecost. He shows them what's been going on and in effect, he says, "what you have seen is the sign that the age of Messiah has begun." And he says simply in verse 17, "it shall come to pass in the last days." Quoting out of Joel, "Saith God I will pour out of my Spirit."
And what Peter is saying is what you've just seen is the beginning outpouring of the Spirit of God announcing the birth of the Messianic age. It is the last days. You know that the Jewish last days have now been going on for 2,000 years. The whole age of Messiah is called the last days. And we saw that in the Old Testament they saw no parenthesis, no church age in the middle. They just saw the coming of Messiah and the kingdom and once Messiah came the last days had begun.
And so Peter says it's the beginning of the last days. This was what we call the prefillment of what will be ultimately fulfilled in the tribulation and the kingdom when all of the prophecy running clear down through verse 20 will be fulfilled. All those wonderful signs that we saw in the earth and in the heavens, and the miracles indicated in verses 17 and 18. And so he's saying, you've seen the beginning. You've gotten the beginning taste of Messianic times. Messiah has arrived. And he says in view of that fact, verse 21, "it's time to call upon and get saved."
The word saved has to do with deliverance. Deliverance implies judgment, that you need to be delivered from. And so what he's saying is, you know it's Messiah's time, you know it's the last days and you know the last days is always connected with judgment, so you better get it right with God so you'll be delivered from judgment. That's in effect what he's saying.
And so Peter begins in his introduction by explaining that Pentecost is proof positive that the Spirit of God is poured out, which means the Messianic age has come. The Messiah for which the Jews had prayed and longed for for years and for centuries has arrived. Now if there is a Messiah or if there is a Messianic age, there's got to be a Messiah right? And that's exactly what Peter wants them to know. And so now he says, now that I have explained that it is a Messianic time, let me tell you who the Messiah is. And he moves from his introduction to his second point, the theme. The main body of his sermon.
And in his theme, he spends his theme exalting Jesus. His introduction explaining Pentecost, his theme exalting Jesus. And he announces to them, the astounding, overwhelming fact that the Jesus of Nazareth whom they had despised and mocked and looked down on is none other than God's chosen and approved and accredited Messiah. And this stands not only my dear friends as a point of information, but as a fantastic indictment. For they had crucified their own Messiah using the hands of the Romans.
All right, let's look for a moment just reviewing the theme at how it is that Peter presents the facts that Jesus is Messiah. First of all, he begins with Jesus' life in verse 22. "Ye men of Israel hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth," and he uses their kind of derisive term for Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, "a man approved," or proclaimed, proven, openly declared "by God among you by miracles, wonders and signs." Remember we told you the difference. A miracle is a mighty deed. The wonder has to do with the effect that it had. And the sign has to do with its intention.
Jesus did mighty deeds which produced wondrous effects for the purpose of acting as a sign pointing a spiritual truth. Signs always point somewhere don't they? And Jesus' miracles were never ends in themselves. They were to create wonderment that men might turn to look at spiritual truth. "And so God through Jesus approved His Messianic character accredited Christ as the Messiah by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you as ye yourselves also know." And he even indicts them because they knew. You remember Nicodemus who came from the Sanhedrin in John 3, said to Jesus, "we know that no man can do the things you do except," what, "God be with him." They knew that he was doing things that were divine. Even Ciaphas in and his cohorts admitted that He was doing miracles. That's what upset them so much.
There was no question about the miraculous nature. Many of the people had even eaten the things that He had produced out of His own hands. They had seen Him heal time and time again. And so God had accredited Jesus Christ and the view of the whole world and established the fact by the very miracles that He did that He was none other than Messiah. The life of Jesus was living proof and living proclamation. By God, Himself, that Jesus was Messiah the Lord.
Then secondly, and we're still reviewing, verse 23, Peter talks about His death as being another verification of His Messiahship. It says in verse 23, "Him," that is referring to Jesus of Nazareth, "being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken Him by wicked hands have crucified and slain." In other words, what we saw from this is and here you have the two sides to the divine paradox, absolute sovereignty and human responsibility, they had by their own act of will, their own evil natures, crucified Jesus Christ using the Roman hands to do it. But they had not done...this is a shock to Jesus. He was no victim. It had all been planned by, watch it, the determinate counsel and foreknowledge, which means for ordination, we saw that last time, of God. Now we studied in John 19 the crucifixion.
Do you remember, that's a wonderful passage. You really ought to study that one and be familiar with it. Do you remember out of every single thing that occurred on the cross was a fulfillment of the Old Testament. When Jesus died, He was not a victim, He was fulfilling to the very letter every single detail of Old Testament prophecy. God had in His own counsel preplanned this thing all the way down the line. And so he says not only does the life of Jesus Christ accredit Him as Messiah, but so does His death. You study any passage of the Old Testament that speaks of Messiah and you'll find it fulfilled in Jesus Christ. You study from the beginning of His death every single little event till the time that He died on the cross and you'll find that every single one of them is fulfilling an Old Testament prophecy to the very letter. Both verbally predictive and typically predictive prophecies.
And so it is the determinate counsel and foreordination of God that made it happen. And yet that doesn't take away from the guilt of those who killed Him, but they did it by their own will. So Jesus seems to be Messiah by the life that He lived as God did miracles through Him. He is seen to be Messiah by the death that He died. How that God was accrediting Him by Him fulfilling everything and the counsel of God to the very letter. This had to be the Messiah, had to be.
Thirdly, and we come for our major study this morning to this point. Peter says "He is accredited by God through the resurrection." And this begins in verse 24. If Messiah's sufferings were ordained by the foreordination of God so was His resurrection. Watch verse 24. "Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it." Now here we have God again getting involved. It's God who did the miracles. It's God who set the plan in order in verse 23. It's God who raises Him up in verse 24 and this gets repeated several times down here. It's God in verse 33 who exalts Him. It's God in verse 36 who declares that that He's Lord in Christ. It's God doing the whole thing.
Jesus never came on a humanitarian mission. He never functioned out of His own desires and His own designs. He was on a divine schedule preplanned by the God of the universe and God, Himself, was activating the plan through Jesus Christ. And so we see that it begins whom God hath raised up. Now, this introduces the resurrection. Jesus was dead, but God raised Him up. The greatest accreditation of Jesus as Lord and Messiah is, in fact, His resurrection. And this became the major theme of apostolic preaching.
Now all through, and I want you to catch this point, it's very important. All through this particular sermon, there is a dichotomy implied between Jews or I should say between the Jews as they thought they were and the Jews as they really were. Because they constantly felt that they were plugged into God and Peter constantly shows them they were not. Now watch the...catch this thought here and unfortunately there's a division between verses 23 and 24 when the flow really gives you this dichotomy. Watch this.
Then end of verse 23. "Ye have taken an by wicked hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up." Now do you see a little bit of a contrast? You killed Him, God raised Him. Now this becomes a kind of a recurrent theme throughout all the apostolic preaching in the book of Acts. For example, in Chapter 3 Peter's preaching again, verse 14, "But you denied the holy one and the just and desired a murderer to be granted unto you," now watch here it comes again, "and killed the Prince of Life whom God hath raised from the dead." You see.
He sets the Jews at opposite ends of the world from God. This is a very important point in any kind of evangelism, in any kind of commitment to a real presentation of the gospel, we must begin by setting men at the other end of the world from God. They must know they are rebels against God. Nicodemus came to Jesus and he was a pretty good guy. If anybody was a goody good-good, he was. I mean, he had made it all the way on self-righteousness to the place of prominence in the Sanhedrin. He may have been the number one teacher in Israel. Now you might have expected Jesus to say well Nicodemus you're pretty sharp. I mean, you're moral and you do a lot of wonderful things. If you just did one little thing, you'd be all right. And Jesus says, Nicodemus, you know what your problem is, you're you. Just go back and get born all over again.
In other words, you've got to realize Nicodemus, you're at the other end of the pole from God. And the further you go in self-righteousness, the further you go the other direction. And so what Peter does here really is separate totally these Jews from God. You killed Him, God raised Him. Do you see? Now this occurs again in Chapter 10 and in this case, dealing with Gentiles. 10:39, "And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom the slew and hanged on a tree Him God raised up." You see there's that same dichotomy again.
And over in Chapter 13, verse 29, I like the same thing here. "And when they had fulfilled all that was written of Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a sepulcher, but God raise Him from the dead." You see there's that same disparity. You killed Him, God raised Him. Now that is to show them that they are at the other end of everything from God, because the Jew always prided himself on his proximity to God. And he always rested Romans 2 in the knowledge of the will of God. See?
In Romans Chapter 2, I'm going to read you a couple of verses there. Verse 17, "But if thou art called a Jew," and here's a classic definition of the religious Jew, "if thou art called a Jew," here's what you'll do, "restest in the law." That was characteristic of a Jew that he made his boast in the law. Not the keeping of it, but the possession of it. Do you see? That'd it be like you driving in a 35 mile zone going 110. I mean, really just ripping through. See? And some policeman's able to catch you and he pulls you over. And he says man, he says you are really in trouble. Get out of the care. And you say I'm sorry officer, you can't give me a ticket. Why? Well, because I have right on the car seat right beside the vehicle code. I've got it. He's going to say what does that have to do with anything? You've got it, you're doubly responsible.
The Jew kept going well, I'm okay, I have the law. Never kept it, but I have it. You see the Jew made his boast in possession not in obedience, and it was empty. It was empty. I can't fault their zeal for they were zealous, but they were zealous in their own self-righteousness in the possession of the law and in circumcision, not in obedience. And then watch this in verse 17, "And makest thy boast of God," verse 18, "and knowest His will." The Jew always thought that He knew God and knew God's will. And Peter starts out by driving a gigantic wedge between the Jew and God and saying you don't God and you don't God's will at all, whom you killed, God what? God raised. You don't even know where you are. And don't you see this is where every man must begin. He must begin by realizing he is absolutely separated from the mind and the will of God.
Only in Jesus Christ can a man be reconciled to God. Now let me show you how Jesus brought this to the attention of the Jews in John Chapter 8 in the very familiar passage and one that gives us good illustration for this. John 8, Jesus was in a dialogue with the Pharisees, the religious leaders, commonly in the gospel of John termed Jews. That seems to be a title John reserves as opposed to the people, which means just the general populous. The term Jew is referring primarily to the leaders.
In verse 37, he's having a little debate about the fact that they really don't know the truth and they aren't free and they're saying they are free, etc. Verse 37, "I know that you're Abraham's seed," physically they were of the seed of Abraham, "but you seek to kill me because my word hath no place in you. But I speak that which I've seen with my Father." In other words, you say you're Abraham's seed and they not only meant it physically, but spiritually, they were...they believed they were his seed by faith too. And he said, what strangers, you claim to be Abraham's seed, but you want to kill me. That's a little incongruous.
He says, "I speak that which I have seen with my Father," and then watch this shot, "and ye do that which you have seen with your father." Now there's the dichotomy, right there. He hits it. He's saying we've got different fathers. Then answered...they answered in verse 39 and said unto him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said unto them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham." You sure don't act like Abraham. "But now you seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. Abraham didn't go to kill people who told the truth from God."
If you're Abraham's children, it's not obvious on the surface. Then he says, verse 41, "Ye do the deeds of your father." And then this reply, "Then said they to him, we are not born of fornication. We have one father, even God." Jesus said unto them, "If God were your Father, you'd love me for I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came I of myself but He sent me."
In other words, Jesus says, boy if you really knew God, you'd know me right off the bat, right? They couldn't miss Him. If they knew God here He was. There wouldn't be any problem of recognition, none at all. Verse 44, "Ye of your father," whom, "the devil." Verse 47, "He that is of God hears God's words. Ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God." And then they really got upset. And they started calling Him names. You see Jesus drove a wedge right between God and these people because they had to know that they were at the other end from the will of God.
And they were religious and they read the Old Testament, and they took care of all the little nitty gritty rules of the law, but they were a million miles from God. And that's where it had to begin. That's where Peter had to begin. But their claim, and look at in verse 41, it's kind of an interesting claim, they said to Jesus, "We are not born of fornication." Some writers think that that's a slam at Jesus, because at the early church, the early disciples of Jesus proclaim that He was born of a virgin, but the Jews had a kind of a tradition going around that Jesus had been conceived by a Roman soldier by the name of Pathera who got Mary pregnant when Mary was unfaithful to Joseph, and that Jesus was born of a union between Mary and a Roman soldier who slept with her.
And this was the accusation thrown at Jesus. And some say that that's what they're saying that they're making a nasty crack about Jesus. At least we're not bastard children. But better than that, and that may be true, but I'm not sure it is. Better than that, I'm sure of one thing that can be applied here, in the Old Testament, one of the loveliest descriptions of the nation of Israel was that which saw Israel as a bride. Do you know that one? That's illustrated in the book of Hosea. You remember the story Hosea? Hosea married a wife and she turned out to be a prostitute? You remember her name as Gomer? I've always felt that anybody who'd marry a girl named Gomer was asking for trouble.
But anyway, he married Gomer and he loved Gomer and he betrothed Gomer as his wife. And the Gomer was unfaithful and became a prostitute and God said that's how it is between myself and Israel. I married Israel as a chased bride and Israel went a whoring after other Gods. Now when Israel went after other Gods, she was said to go a whoring and the apostate Jews are described in Hosea, I think it's Chapter 2, verse 4 as "children of whoredoms." In other words, the apostate Jews were the offspring of the false union between Israel and the false Gods.
So when the Jews here said to Jesus we are not the children of any adulterous union, they mean that we have maintained our worship of the true God. We have never gone into idolatry, you see. We're not idolatrous children. We are not the children of spiritual adultery. We have always worshipped the true God. Now that shows you how locked in to their era they were. They did not worship the true God. They didn't know the true God. They were of their father, the devil. But because they had the system, they thought they had the reality. Oh is that dangerous. Oh so many people have a form of godliness, but no, what, power.
They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And so they claim that they had never gone astray. They had always worshipped the true God. A claim that is so sickening with self-righteousness it's almost unreal. And it was in the same self-righteous, so-called worship of God that they sought the death of God's own Son, Jesus Christ. So as always, they claimed to love God, yet hated Jesus and Jesus says no. You see Jesus, before He could ever regather Israel into His arms had to tell them where they really were at. And that's what Peter has to do back in Acts 2.
Before Peter can ever talk to them about where they need to be, he's got to show them where they are. And just in that subtle little statement that carries itself through Acts, "you have killed Him, God has raised Him," is implied that constant dichotomy. And that constant issue that every man on the face of the earth must face. That he is a rebel against God. Then I love this statement. "God hath raised Him up." That almost becomes a title for God in Romans 4:24 when Paul talks about God, he gives God a name. He says, God...he just talks about God with a name, "Him that raised up Jesus." That almost becomes a proper name for God. "Him that raised up Jesus."
Now notice in verse 24 and it says, and we'll move a little faster now maybe,