Messianic Prophecies. Acts 3:12-19
What is interesting about
this whole message which starts in verse 12 and goes down to verse 26 is that
it is so loaded with references, vocabulary, allusions to the Old Testament
that if we really study this we realize you cannot understand the New Testament
if we don’t have a grasp of the Old Testament. Almost every phrase Peter uses
is loaded with baggage from the Old Testament, and it is so sad that most
Christians today just don’t spend time in the Old Testament.
There is a significance to
this healing in chapter three. Healing was a sign, a miraculous sign that was
predicted numerous times in the Old Testament to be an indication of the
presence of the Messiah and the presence of the future kingdom that God
promised. So the healing miracles of Jesus were to give credibility to His
claims to be the Messiah, to show that the Messiah was there and that the
healing that was prophesied about the kingdom was present in the person of Jesus
Christ. Now that He has ascended to the right hand of the Father the message
that Peter and John are still proclaiming relates to the kingdom and that even
though He has been crucified they are offering the kingdom to
Acts 3:12 NASB
“But when Peter saw {this,} he replied to the people, ‘Men of Israel, why are
you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety
we had made him walk?’” In other words, why are you so surprised about all
this? He is addressing the men, the males, and there is a reason for that in
terms of the practice of the Jews in the temple. This is the ninth hour, the hour
of prayer, and the men would just have gathered in the temple and would have
just gone through their prayer book. This particular prayer reads: “Praise be
you Adonai, our God and God of our Fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob.” How does Peter begin this message? [13] “The God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob…” This is what they had just been praying. He is telling them that the prayer that they
had just prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the God of our
Fathers and this is His plan. Then he said, [He] “has glorified His servant
Jesus.” When we look at Peter’s last statement in this sermon in verse 26 he
says “For you first, God raised up His Servant.” So he brackets his message
with the reference to the Servant Jesus at the beginning and the Servant Jesus
at the end. “… and sent Him to bless you by turning every one {of you} from
your wicked ways.”
We have
noted Isaiah 53:11 NASB “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He
will see {it and} be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant,
will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” In Acts
Acts
Peter says
that they delivered up and denied/disowned Jesus. They turned their backs on
Jesus is the idea that is presented here. The word “delivered” is the Greek paradidomi [paradidwmi] and it can also mean to betray.
The first
thing that happened when Jesus was arrested was that Pilate interviewed Him.
Pilate is not approaching this, though, from a purely neutral vantage point.
What happened to Pilate before he began to interview Jesus? The Scripture tells
us that his wife had a bad dream and warmed him that if he was responsible for
the death of this man, things would be pretty bad. He has been warned by his
wife and has taken a little time to interrogate Jesus and to find out what He
is talking about, what He was claiming, and he decided he was going to give the
people an option. He really thinks this is just the Jewish leaders and that the
people will choose Jesus, because Jesus is not a bad person; not like Barabbas.
Barabbas was a wanted criminal, a murderer, and was public enemy number one.
Matthew
27:15 NASB “Now at {the} feast the governor was accustomed to
release for the people {any} one prisoner whom they wanted. [16] At that time
they were holding a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas.” In other passages he
was identified as a criminal and a murderer. [17] “So when the people gathered
together, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release for you?
Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?’ [18] For he knew that because of envy
they had handed Him over.” Pilate is thinking this might be an out for him. He
is thinking there is going to be a way out for him but he has misread the
situation, misread the people and the way they have been stirred up by their
religious leaders. [19] “While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife
sent him {a message,} saying, ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for
last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him.’” So Pilate is warned
that this is a dangerous situation. [20] “But the chief priests and the elders
persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. [21] “But
the governor said to them, ‘Which of the two do you want me to release for
you?’ And they said, ‘Barabbas.’” Pilate just can’t believe this and he then
gives them a second chance. [22] “Pilate said to them, ‘Then what shall I do
with Jesus who is called Christ?’ They all said, ‘Crucify Him!’” Pilate
recognizes that he can’t sin this argument and so he went back in and washed
his hands as a symbol that he is innocent of the blood of this just person. He
claims that this absolves him of any guilt.
Matthew
27:25 NASB “And all the people said, ‘His blood shall be on us and
on our children!’” This is another verse that is famously used to justify
anti-Semitism. As we see from the passage in Acts chapter four that might have
been what they said in the emotion of the moment but it is not a justification
for hostility to Jews or
That is what
Peter is referring to. Remember, the group that is before him is the same group
that was in that crowd about 50 or 60 days before. When he says, “You did
this,” that is literal. He is not talking to their children, grandchildren or
subsequent generations; he is talking to the people who were actually in that
crowd. He says, “whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate,
when he had decided to release Him.” So Peter gives us insight here not found
in the Gospels, that Pilate was determined and trying to let Jesus go. He had
made a decision to release Jesus but he had to give it a legal cover—which
didn’t work.
The next
thing Peter says to them is Acts 3:14 NASB “But you disowned the
Holy and Righteous One [the just/dikaioj]…” This is an interesting and powerful statement. There are
people who say that Jesus never claimed to be God. We see here a statement by
Peter that is quite profound. Here is an orthodox Jew, a devout observant Jew
who is firmly against any kind of idolatry, because he would have been taught
by the Pharisees at that time that it was idolatry that led to the destruction
of the first temple, that led to God removing the people from the land, and
that the sin of sins that the Jewish people committed to anger God and bring
His wrath against them was idolatry. So above and beyond anything that was
going on above and beyond the Pharisaic interpretation of the Old Testament was
that however we mess up the one thing we can’t do is to worship another god.
They were already beginning to harden and to petrify into a rigid unitarian
monotheism. This is why they became so upset when Jesus claimed to be God. They
had rejected any indication from the Old Testament that there was a plurality
in the Godhead. Peter would never have wanted to worship another god other than
God. Here he is talking about Jesus and he uses two names for God from the Old
Testament and ties them to Jesus. That tells us something. It says something
has changed in the thinking of this rigidly observant Jew named Peter, and that
he clearly understands now that Jesus is fully God. He makes this very clear
here in front of this Jewish audience.
What is
surprising is that when the Sanhedrin finally arrests him and take him and John
for questioning in chapter four they are not nearly as hostile to their claims
that Jesus is God as they were to Jesus. At this stage, with all the numbers of
people who are converting and believing in Jesus, it may be there was a sense
of hesitancy among the Sanhedrin.
First of
all, Peter calls Jesus the Holy One of Israel. This phrase is used numerous
times in Isaiah to refer to Yahweh—thirty
times qadosh Yisrael. Cf. Isaiah 49:7 NASB “Thus says
the LORD [Yahweh], the Redeemer of Israel {and}
its Holy One, To the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the
Servant of rulers…” Isaiah 45:21 NASB “Declare and set forth {your
case;} Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old?
Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD [Yahweh]? And there is no other God besides Me, A
righteous [just] God and a Savior; There is none except Me.”
Acts 3:14 NASB
“But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be
granted to you, [15] but put to death the Prince of life, {the one} whom God
raised from the dead, {a fact} to which we are witnesses.” This is an
interesting term for a prince. It is the Greek word archegos [a)rxhgoj], a
word that is related to the shorter noun arche
[a)rxh], meaning beginning. We have seen arche referring to Jesus, the head of
the church, the beginning. It means there in that context the one who began
something, the one who initiated a cause, the beginning of the church. So this
is a lengthening of that term. archegos
indicates someone who is the prince, a leader, so He is identified as the
Prince of life. Colossians
Then we have
a strict appeal to the fact that this isn’t just something that they made up.
Everybody there knew the story. The Roman guards who were guarding Jesus’ tomb
are still around. The Marys who showed up on that resurrection Sunday morning
were all around. They could go and ask them, this was something that could be
demonstrated and proven empirically at that time. There was evidence for
everyone listening to Peter to know that what he was saying was the absolute
truth.
Acts
Who is
exercising faith that made the man strong in this verse? Is it the lame man?
No. The lame man didn’t expect anything. What was said in verse 6? “But Peter
said, ‘I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In
the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!’” Peter reaches down and grabs him
by the hand and pulls him up. He doesn’t do anything; he doesn’t respond to
anything Peter said. He doesn’t rise up and walk of his own volition, he did
not respond in faith on the basis of what Peter said. He is not expressing any
faith at that point and he is up and walking around. Then he believed, but not
before he was healed. His faith is afterward, so whose faith is it that gets
this man up off his feet? It is Peter and John’s. It is their faith, their
trusting in the promise and the instructions that Jesus gave them in terms of
their apostolic role and function to heal this individual. “…whom you see and
know”—you know this, you’ve known this guy for forty years and he has never
walked a day in his life, he was born this way; this is a genuine miracle that
has occurred because you all know that he has never ever walked. The faith that
comes through Him [through Christ, the faith that Peter and John had in
Christ], has given this lame man this perfect soundness “in the presence of you
all.” He recognizes that it is their faith but it is Jesus who is the
instrumental power that has enabled this man to walk.
Acts
Acts
Acts