biblestudy: Acts (Part Five)
Acts 3-4:4 Apostles' Witness Brings Conflict With Established Authority
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 23-Aug-88; Sermon #BS-AC05; 82 minutes
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Just to touch on a few things at least in the way of an overview in Acts the 2nd chapter. It is very important to the remainder of the book because it shows from whence the church's power and strength, wisdom and authority comes from. It lays that foundation that everything that the church does is contingent upon the power of God's Holy Spirit. It was the giving of God's Holy Spirit that makes the church a reality. Without it, there is no church, and it is also that same Spirit that enables the church to carry on the work that was begun by Jesus Christ and that He now does through the church.
And so it is essential to the remainder of the book that Acts the second chapter be right where it is, right at the beginning of the book, because it shows what is the cause of what follows in the remainder of the book.
One of the major things for us to consider in Acts the 2nd chapter is that it opens up salvation to all whom God might call. That is, the giving of God's Holy Spirit. Prior to this time, God's Holy Spirit was only given to a very select number of people. Now how many exactly we have no way of knowing, but there were not very many of them, and mostly we see in the Bible that being represented by those who were the authors of the books of the Bible, and a small number besides that. But now according to the prophecy that is given in the book of Joel and then repeated here in Acts 2, "It shall come to pass in the last day, says God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh."
Now this is a process. It does not mean all at once. It means that it is going to begin here in this church era with these 120 people in the book of Acts, and it is going to continue all the way through until Christ returns and then it is going to be poured out even more during the Millennium. So it is sort of like dropping a pebble in a pond and the ripples begin to go out. As they go out, it encompasses a larger and larger area, and that is the way it is with God's Spirit too. First, concentrated on the prophets, then next the ripple gets a bit larger and it is concentrated on the church, and finally in the next age, in the Millennium, the ripple is going to get larger and God is going to begin to pour out His Spirit on even more. And finally, in the Last Great Day, it will be poured out on all flesh. But that is a continuous process. It began on the Day of Pentecost in 31 AD and will continue right on until the end of the working of God on this earth.
Then He also indicates that He is going to give gifts along with the Spirit of God and that those gifts also will be given to all. We find in other places that it is given to all for the common good (I Corinthians 12th chapter). And so regardless of who we are, we have some of the gifts of God's Holy Spirit, and they are to be used for the common good of the church and, let us say, for the glorifying of God.
Now after the Spirit is given, there has to be an explanation, and that is what occupies the remainder of chapter 2. Peter's sermon given on that day is an explanation of what is occurring and why it is occurring, and of course it zeros in on the fact of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, especially the resurrection of Jesus Christ in terms of making it possible for the church to have God's Spirit, and the crucifixion to convict those people of what they have done and lead them to repentance as well. I mean, the people who are hearing what Peter was saying.
And then finally in that chapter, beginning in verse 40, we have a glimpse into some of the fellowshipping aspects of the church, and we said that there were four things that are mentioned here that characterized the church, and that was in verse 42. Teaching (in the first phrase), fellowship, the breaking of bread (that was not a communion or a Passover service but merely the eating of some kind of a meal), and in prayers.
Let us begin in chapter 3. Now that brief insight into the church here in verses 40 through 47 ended, chapter 3 begins another section. The overall the theme in this next section, which carries all the way through chapter 5, is the way in which the apostles' witness, or we might say the church's witness, brought them into conflict with the Jewish leaders. Every time the church—these are just examples, illustrations of how it occurred—did something that was part of their responsibility of the thing that they had committed themselves to under Christ, the commission, it brought them into conflict with the already established religion, Judaism. And then also it shows Peter and John especially, they seem to be the focus of things at the beginning here and then later on the same things happened to the apostle Paul (but right now we are focusing on Peter and John), it shows how they were able to do things just like Jesus did—the very same things—by acting in the name of Jesus.
What Luke is showing here is the continuity between the ministry of Jesus Christ and the church's witness as well. There is a similarity. If we would go back to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we would find exactly the same pattern. Jesus does something; He heals. It brings them into the scrutiny of the leadership. They have some kind of an argument, a discussion. Neither side seemingly can get anywhere. And the Jews leave somewhat frustrated. And then it repeats itself again in the next chapter. A healing takes place. There is some conflict. There is some preaching, and it is kind of like a standoff.
We see the same pattern here repeating itself, and God is showing you that because the same Spirit is driving these men as drove Jesus Christ; the same spirit is driving the Sadducees, especially in the book of Acts. The same spirit is driving them. The same kind of occurrence occurs all the time. There is a healing, there is some conflict, there is some preaching, and then things kind of dissipate.
Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.
That was 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It was the time of the evening sacrifice.
It is interesting to note there that though they were a part of something new, that is, the Christian church, they did not break away from the old way completely. There still was a focus on the Temple. There was still apparently a feeling of responsibility to attend the ritual that was going on there that involved the sacrifices. But it was not a complete breaking away from the routines of Judaism. That did not come until later when actually the Jews themselves forced the issue because of the persecution. It is entirely possible that if there had been no forcing of the issue by the Jews, there would have been a great deal more and longer concentration, I guess you might say, of the church's effort around the Temple.
But anyway, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the time of the evening sacrifice, Peter and John went to the Temple and it is specifically mentioned as an hour of prayer. Now were they going there to pray? I do not know. One thing is certain, they knew that if they did go there, there was going to be some sort of a crowd there and there might have been an opportunity to do some preaching.
Acts 3:2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they lay daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple.
Now there is a lot of disagreement as to which gate was the Beautiful Gate. Most of the commentators seem to feel that it was on the east side of the Temple and that there are two distinct possibilities on the east side. One was in the wall that surrounded the entire perimeter of the Temple area. And the other was inside that, in another wall, a wall that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the Women's Court. And that particular gate is generally called the Nicanor Gate, but it also is called or referred to as the Beautiful Gate. So nobody is quite sure which gate it was. Maybe it is not all that important, but one thing that I thought was interesting and an interesting comment was why they would even be on the east side, which was the side away from the city of Jerusalem. There would tend to be a lot more people on the west side of the Temple area which was closer to the city. Nobody knows the answer to that.
Would you not think that somebody who was begging for alms would want to go where the biggest crowd was? Do you not think that Peter and John would also want to go where the largest crowd would likely to be and they could begin to do some preaching, some evangelizing where there would tend to be larger crowds? The reason I interject this is because some bring this up as an argument as to, well, maybe this Beautiful Gate was not on the east side of the Temple after all. You have to be careful reading commentaries because you get all kinds of comments. Everybody has his own ideas and a lot of them do not amount to a hill of beans.
What difference does it matter whether the Beautiful Gate was on the east side or the west side? God said it was at the Beautiful Gate and that is all we need to know. But wherever it was, this man apparently was brought there virtually every day and he was a fixture in the community. Now this is important to the story because what occurred happened to somebody who was well known. He was not some obscure beggar that hardly anybody took any notice of. Apparently everybody who went in and out of the Temple was aware that this man was there almost every day. And that they could attest from the evidence that they saw with their own eyes that this man indeed was crippled, he was lame, and that he had been begging there for as long as anybody could remember.
Now I think we find out later that he was about 40 years old. So it is entirely possible that he was there begging at that gate for 30, 35 years of his life. So he was a fixture there. And he was there where he could make some money.
Acts 3:3-5 Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. And fixing his eyes on him, with John, Peter said, "Look at us." So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.
Now try to picture this little episode taking place. I get a picture of a man sitting by a doorway, an entranceway, a gate, you see, in a wall. There are crowds of people streaming by and amongst them, Peter and John. And the begging man specifically looks up into their eyes and probably holds out his hand and says something to attract their attention. Now what kind of a look would be on his face? Think about that. Would he not have a look on his face that was, he would hope, to be somewhat expectant, kind of appealing, maybe a little bit of a smile, something that would try to induce these men to be motivated to give a shekel or two to him? I hardly think that he would scowl. I do not think he would stick out his tongue. He would not do anything at all to try to turn them off.
So you have got one look on your face. A "please" kind of look on your face. And then when they turned their eyes to him, and he knew that he now had their attention. I am sure that he really had an expectant look. He was probably already beginning in his own mind's eye jingling the shekel in his mind, you know, in his pocket.
Acts 3:6 And then Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have. . .
What kind of a look is on his face now? He has gone from hopeful expectation to one that is probably, surely, at least on the edge of disappointment, if not completely disappointed. You know, "Another loser. Here is somebody that's just as poor as I am, only they can walk." And so you can almost begin to see him sort of collapse and begin to move his eyes away toward the next people. Peter did not stop there. He says,
Acts 3:6 . . . but what I do have, I give you: . . .
Now what look is on his face? He is going to receive something and I am sure the expression on his face changed again. Now I am sure that Peter and John would have his attention. And there would be an attentiveness there.
Acts 3:6-7 . . . In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And then he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
This is very important to the rest of the story in the book of Acts. Because there may have been those who could still kind of laugh off, shrug off, argue away the speaking in tongues or the hearing of all of these different languages into their own native language so that everybody heard what was spoken in their own tongue, and the tongues of fire and the mighty rushing wind. Now maybe those things could have been kind of just argued away. But here we see evidence that cannot be denied, that these men have been able to tap in, you might say, to a power that is far beyond anything that these people have seen except what they saw in Jesus Christ. You see, the connection is inescapable, and that is the point. See, what was done was done in the name of Jesus Christ.
So what this does, then, is it shows the continuing power of Christ to work through others. It also shows that Jesus Christ is alive. You see, you do not call on someone to act who is dead. Now this is just an aside, but when Peter said, "Silver and gold, I do not have," he may have been telling the truth and that he did not have any with him. I say that because other parts of the book of Acts show that he did have access to money. Because remember, we talked about these people bringing their possessions and laying it at the feet of the apostles. So he had access to money. He was in control of what was being given to him, whether it be tithes, offerings, or some kind of offering that was brought out of someone's response in the selling of property or whatever. He had access to money. But again, God is showing relative importance. That the social responsibilities of the church take a lower priority than the spiritual responsibilities. Now it is not wrong for the church to give alms, if we can use that as a general term. It is not wrong for the church to do good social works. But they are to be relegated to a secondary position to the spiritual work of the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
Now it does not say that we cannot give material help. I want them to make that clear. But it does show the priorities.
And now the healing was instantaneous. The man leapt.
Acts 3:8 So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God.
So his first act other than to test out his new legs was to praise God. Now, incidentally that fulfills a prophecy. You can see it back in Isaiah 35:6 where he talks about the lame leaping and jumping.
Acts 3:9-10 All the people saw him walking and praising God. Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
I have to interject something here. This wonder and amazement is not faith. It is entirely possible to be impressed by the spectacular without responding to what the spectacular represents. That is, the power and mercy of God in this case. That is the kind of experience that God had with Israel all through the wilderness. Those people stood in awe of God's power. They were impressed whenever He split the Red Sea. They were impressed when water came out of rocks. They were impressed by the pillar of fire. I am sure that they were impressed by the manna being available to them every morning. That it was not faith. Being impressed by the spectacular is not faith. Do not be misled.
Acts 3:11 Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed.
It is interesting here. This phrase "held on to" is the same phrase that is used in other places in the Bible to indicate an arrest by a police officer. In other words, he grabbed on and he would not let them go. He was kind of tugging at them, pulling at them, trying to get them to, I guess, go in the direction that he wanted to go, whatever. And so this news spread like wildfire.
Now, up to this point, you can see it does not matter which gate they went in. They now had the crowd that they might have desired by going there. So all the argument over whether the Beautiful Gate was on the east side or the west side or whether the man was at one gate or the other does not matter now because something has taken place that renders all that kind of argument null and void. What is the difference?
Acts 3:12-16 So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: "Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we have made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, who you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him his perfect soundness in the presence of you all."
Now Peter begins his explanation in much the same way, not the same words, but much the same way as he did in chapter 2. The first thing he does is try to remove any kind of misunderstanding. And the misunderstanding here might have been that Peter and John were the ones who possessed the power. In chapter 2, the misunderstanding was that perhaps these men were drunk. He wants to get everybody on the same footing. He wants to get everybody thinking in the same direction. And so he approaches this man with the same ploy, and that is, let us get everybody thinking in the same direction by removing any kind of misunderstanding.
Then he begins with a clarification that they did not possess any kind of power. Jesus does. Then he builds on that and says that He was killed, but now He lives. They did not have any remarkable power. He did not want them to get the idea that they were so devout, you know, they were just so close to God that God would respond to their every wish. They are trying to focus attention that the action was something that was completely done by Almighty God.
The theme of the sermon actually comes in verse 16. That is what he is leading to. What happened was the action of God, the same God who revealed Himself to the patriarchs and to the prophets. It was the God of Israel. And that God was the One that they put to death in the person of Jesus Christ. Now he identifies Him through these names, which are ones that they would have identified with the Messiah. "You denied the Holy One and the Just." He is making a connection here again between Jesus of Nazareth and these messianic names or titles. That is the connection that he keeps trying to make so that he can convict them of the fact that they crucified God. They were responsible for the death of God in the flesh.
Again in verse 15, and "killed the Prince of life." Another title of the Messiah. Back in verse 13 (I skipped one) your Bible probably has this capitalized. It says, "the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant." They would have understood that that referred to the person who was spoken of between Isaiah 41 and Isaiah 53, you see, and culminated with the Servant of God being crucified. And he is reminding them that the Servant was this Jesus of Nazareth that they crucified.
You will find Him referred again to as the Servant in verse 26 of this same chapter, chapter 3. In chapter 4 and verse 27, He is again called the Holy Servant Jesus. And he is doing that purposely to draw attention to the prophecies that were given in Isaiah, because again, there was a recognition that that was the Messiah. And then in verse 30 of chapter 4, again He is called Your Holy Servant Jesus.
In verse 14, that phrase, "the Holy One and the Just" is referring back to Psalm 16:10. There is something I wanted to get out of Mark 1. Let us go back there. It is the casting out of a demon.
Mark 1:21-24 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, "Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!"
Demons knew who He was. The men would not recognize it even though they had the Scriptures, and even though all those events surrounding His birth, all those events surrounding His life, all those things that the Old Testament prophesied of. They denied that Jesus of Nazareth did those things and instead put Him to death.
Now Peter is using these things to press this home so it should be pressed home to us as well. There is another place in Luke 1. An angel is here speaking to Mary.
Luke 1:35 The angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God."
Notice a couple of contrasts here. The contrast between what Christ was as in the word, the Holy One and the Just. But on the other hand, men denied Him and asked for a murderer. Now, you got to give Peter credit. Boy, he did not pull any punches. On the other hand, we can make another contrast there with murderer and they killed the Prince of life. They allowed to live somebody who had put someone else to death and they killed Someone who had the power to give life.
In verse 16 here is the point. The power to heal depended upon the power associated with the name of Jesus. And that that power becomes effective through faith in that name and that that faith also was given by that same Jesus. In other words, unless a person has a connection with Jesus, then there is not going to be the power to be able to heal. And if a person has a connection with Christ that is based upon faith, based upon trust, reliance in that name, evidenced by obedience, by prayer, by study, by growth, by the growth in the fruits of God's Spirit, then there is the possibility that person can call upon that name and the power behind that name will respond.
That is the whole point. The power was not in the men. You are going to see as we go on later that Paul ran into the same thing. He and Barnabas or he and Silas, I do not know which one it was right now, were worshipped as gods because of something similar to this. Because there is the immediate thought that the power is in the man. The power is not in the man, the power is in the name. And that name has power only because the possessor, the owner of that name, is alive.
Let us go back to Romans 10. Let us press this this point home.
Romans 10:11 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." [Whoever has faith in Him.] For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, but the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.
Now this did not occur back in Acts the 3rd chapter because Peter was a Jew. Nothing special about being a Jew. This is the power that those who call upon the name of Christ can have.
Romans 10:13 For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved [or shall be delivered].
That is the general meaning of this word that is translated into the English saved or salvation or even healed. We are going to find a little bit later that the word healed is the same as the word saved. It simply means to be delivered.
Romans 10:14-15 How then shall they call on Him [How can they call upon the power that is in that name?] in whom they have not believed [or had faith in]? And how shall they believe [or have faith] in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!"
See, the whole point that Peter is getting to, in a sense, was explained right there. If you go back to Acts 3, you find that the purpose for the preaching of the gospel is to get people to believe in that name so that they might be able to tap into that power. God did this miracle in order to focus on this point. That the power is not in the individual, the power is in the risen Christ. And that the only way to tap into that power is to have faith. And the only way to have faith is to first have the gospel preached to you, so that you can begin to have that kind of relationship with God.
Acts 3:17 "Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers."
Now that he has told them of their guilt, he begins to give them some hope. What they did, they did in ignorance, even as we have done what we have done in ignorance prior to this time before, that is, before our calling. You do not have to turn to this but in,
I Corinthians 2:8 [it says] Which none of the rulers [he is talking about wisdom] of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
And there is Paul saying virtually the same thing that Peter did. What they did, they did in ignorance. He has given them a little window of hope. But I want to pass something on to you here, that there is something that is unspoken here that is rather sobering. And that is the thought, as we go through this sermon, you are going to see it become more and more pronounced. And what Peter is saying is, if they do not do something, though, with what they are learning, because they are no longer in ignorance, then they are going to be much more culpable. To whom much is given, much is required.
We are responsible for what we hear. And it is important that we understand that. I cannot measure the responsibility for you. God only is our Judge. I do not know how much He holds us culpable. But we are responsible to act upon the knowledge that is given to us. I am going to show you some scriptures that make this very, very clear. It becomes our responsibility to act. Let us go back to John the 9th chapter. This is something that we do not stress very frequently. John 9, verse 41. This comes at the end of the discourse that took place between Jesus and a group of people after He healed a blind man.
John 9:41 Jesus said to them, "If you were blind [If you were in ignorance, you could not see it. If you could not get it, you could not understand it.], you would have no sin [you see, because of the ignorance]; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains."
There is a culpability there because of their understanding, because they did see it.
John 15:21-22 But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin."
That is pretty blunt. He is talking about unconverted, unbaptized people who do not have the Spirit of God, and He is talking about them being responsible. Now, how responsible? Well, God only knows. But there is a responsibility there. It is teaching. It is exhorting. It is admonishing.
Acts 3:18-21 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that Jesus would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, who heaven must receive until the time of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
God's actions, the things that God had done to this point—through Peter, carrying on back through the Day of Pentecost, carrying on further back through Jesus Christ; everything from His birth, to His preaching, to His death, to His resurrection, on up to these things, on up to the time that Peter is speaking here—all these things have been God's actions that had created the conditions by which it was possible for them to repent. Now the choice is there. How responsible they are going to be, I do not know. Is it possible that some of these people will go in the Lake of Fire unbaptized? I would say that there is that possibility. Apparently God felt, He inspired Peter to say this, feeling that there was sufficient there for them to turn.
Now the implication is, of course, if we take the word repent and just use a dictionary definition, what you will find is the word means "to undergo a change of mind." That is a basic definition. But that is not how it is used in the Bible. I remember Doctor Stavrinides said that he finds dictionaries come short in actually giving a precise definition. What they give you is usage of words.
What we are looking at here is not the definition of the word. We are looking at the usage of the word in the Bible. If you look at the definition, you will find that the word repent simply means to turn or to undergo a change of mind. Now that certainly is necessary in order for a person to repent. But the way the Bible uses the word repentance is that it means a literal change of life. It is not just a change of mind. A person can undergo a change of mind without undergoing a change of life. A person may agree that a certain argument is correct without ever making a change with his life. He may be presented with such an overwhelming amount of evidence that he cannot deny that what is given to him is correct. But it does not change him.
Repentance, as it is used in the Bible, produces a change in the person's life, not just a change in his mind. The person turns away from what he has been formerly doing to doing something else. He turns away from the world as his authority and guide for what he is going to conduct his life by to God. The repentance, the turning is toward God and faith is toward Jesus Christ. So there is a turning away and a turning to. Turning away from a former life and a turning to a new way, and that new way is based on faith and obedience to God.
Now there is going to be some results, some effect. The immediate effect will be the forgiveness of sin. See, repent, turn to God that your sins may be blotted out. It is very interesting to me anyway, this word blotted out is the same word that is used to erase ink writing. Now the ink that we use today is a fairly modern invention. The thing that makes it different from the ink that they used back then is that we have learned that if a small amount of acid is put into the ink, it then etches its way into the paper and it becomes virtually indelible. Because it actually gets into the pores of the paper, the vellum, or whatever it is that a person is writing on. But back then they used ink that did not have any acid in it. And so therefore the ink just sat on top of the papyrus or the vellum, and it was very easily erased. All that one had to do was to take a wet sponge and go right across the piece of papyrus or the vellum and what was written was gone.
That is what God says happens to our sins when we repent. It is just as if somebody takes a wet sponge and goes across the paper and what was formerly there is no longer there. It is gone. It has been wiped away. That is literally what that word blotted out means. It wiped away, just like ink from a piece of papyrus.
The next effect is that the "times of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord." This has two aspects to it. The times of refreshing is, on the one hand, a removal of the burden of sin. A refreshing comes into one's life. Peace, joy, absence of guilt, those kinds of things. But it is also talking in a long range sense about the times of refreshing that will come from the presence of the Lord, meaning His second coming. That is amplified in verses 20 and verse 21.
Now the word restoration is a little bit misleading. It is not wrong but is not quite right either. The way that the church of God has tended to look at this is the restoration of the government of God. Like I said, that is not wrong, but I really feel that there is a better word. And some of the modern Bibles use this better word, and that is the word "establishment." "Whom the heavens must receive until the time of the establishment of all things." Everything that God has promised in regard to the Millennium, let us say, to the Kingdom of God was not established before and so it cannot possibly be restored. But it can be established. And that does not in any way negate the idea of the restoration of what had been taken away. It is just something that is established again.
Also, the Greek word that is translated there restoration or that I have given here, the word establishment, it has the indication of the establishment of something good after something bad. It has that connotation or that implication within it. And so it helps to understand forgiveness of sin is what makes possible the refreshing and establishment of something good.
Acts 3:22 "For Moses truly said to the Father, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.'
Peter is going to start off on a new path. And what he is doing here now, he is going to reinforce what he has said before by more prophecy that had been fulfilled. He is going to hammer away at this until they come to fully understand and to be deeply convicted that they are responsible for the death of Jesus of Nazareth, who was God in the flesh. So he begins, since he has just mentioned the holy prophets since the world began, he decides to begin with Moses. And he shows that Moses spoke of Jesus of Nazareth in Deuteronomy 18:15-19. Now that is quoted here in verse 22. It is also quoted in Leviticus 23:29. And what he is doing here is he is driving home the point that Jesus of Nazareth was that Prophet. "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet.'
Now if you look at that back in Deuteronomy 18 and can kind of erase out of your mind the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was that prophet, Moses in the context was simply saying that, when I die, my place is going to be taken by someone else who will be like me. He did not mean exactly like me. He meant someone who will be a prophet and will lead the people, who will be in contact with God, and God will work through that person.
What Moses was actually prophesying of was that there would be a succession of prophets through whom God would work to provide leadership for Israel in both political and religious areas. However, through the years, the prophets themselves came to understand that that thing also may be primarily applied to the Messiah.
Now, the Jews of that day would have grasped that. They should have been able to get the point that Peter was making here and that was that you have seen, you have lived through the fulfillment of that prophecy. That God indeed had raised up that Prophet. So what Peter is doing here is associating Christ, then, with all the great leaders in the past, the patriarchs and the prophets. And there is a reason. True belief in Moses will lead to belief in Christ. It is a wonderful ploy. Peter really knew his audience. And he knew that they respected Moses. So he begins to associate Christ with Moses.
Let us go back to Luke 16, verse 29. This is the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. And the rich man is appealing to Abraham in the parable to go back and tell his brothers about this occurrence.
Luke 16:29-30 "Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' But he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'
Now were these people going to repent because of Jesus of Nazareth rising from the dead? Does the spectacular put a person into awe? Yes, it does. But does it produce faith? No, it does not. It hits a person emotionally but faith has nothing to do with emotion. Faith is something that is reason. It is a trust that is in a person's mind as a result of analyzing, if I can put it that way, evidence that is presented by God in this case. Then the person acts because of what is in his mind as a result of the work of God.
Luke 16:30-31 He said, 'No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.'"
So Peter is going to try this tack. He is going to get to them through Moses.
Let us go to John the 5th chapter, verse 46. Now this time Jesus Himself was the speaker.
John 5:46 "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me."
There it is, plain as day.
Acts 3:24-26 "Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."
What he did there was that even as that is true of Moses, it is also true of the other prophets as well. That they spoke of Christ even as Moses did. What he is saying here then is that the whole Old Testament bears witness to Jesus being the Christ. There are some who take issue with Peter mentioning Samuel because there is no recorded statement of Samuel's regarding the Messiah directly. But it is not hard to find statements that were certainly intended to include the Messiah within them. I can give them to you: I Samuel 13:13; I Samuel 15:28; I Samuel 16:13; and II Samuel 7:16. Now what you will find in each one of those cases, the word forever crops up in relation to David. Samuel did not make any recorded prophetic statements about the Messiah, like I mentioned before. But what Samuel did say was in context with God's overall purpose. So even though he did not make the direct statement, he was alluding to the fact that there was going to be someone on David's throne that would last there forever and that someone was the Messiah. Anybody with any kind of biblical sense would be able to see that, and that is what he was appealing to, their sense of what was in the Bible.
Let us go back to verse 25. He says again,
Acts 3:25 You are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'
Now that statement there contains a lot more than it appears to have on the surface, and we would probably tend to just brush by that without thinking on it too deeply. What Peter is saying to these people is this: That commitment to Jesus of Nazareth brings one in harmony with the promises made to Abraham. Another way of saying that would be just to change the wording a little bit. And that is that being in Christ, which is a common phrase that people use, made them an heir of the prophet.
You see what he was doing here? He was destroying their ideas that inheritance of the promise was hereditary. That was a bombshell. I am sure that for those people it did not just slide by like it would slide by with us. We try to, every once in a while, mention to you people that you are not born into the church. A person comes into the church by means of repentance, baptism, and the receiving of God's Holy Spirit. But the Jews had the idea that they were sons of Abraham by birth. They were confusing the physical with the spiritual and what Peter was telling these people is that the physical did not apply one iota toward becoming an actual heir of the receiving of the promises that were made to Abraham, that that was something that was reserved to those who were converted and who were the possessors of God's Holy Spirit, and that could be done only through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I do not know how many of them caught it.
You see, Jesus is the Seed of Genesis 12:3. It is not multiple seeds. And what God was saying is that there is only one through which all of mankind is going to be blessed. And that in order for us to come under that benefit, we have to have a commitment to Jesus Christ.
Go back with me to the book of Galatians, chapter 3, in verse 8.
Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nation by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
Now you have to go back to Acts 3:16 in your mind's eye, where I told you that this was the focus, this was the subject of the entire sermon. That the power was in the name and what activated that power was faith in the name. And in order to have that faith, it had to come through Jesus Christ. And the only way that a person could tap into that power was given three verses later in verse 19 where he said to repent. Then it makes possible the connection, the association with Jesus of Nazareth, so that there is the faith there by which a person can tap into that power.
One of the benefits that you see is given there in Acts 3:22, is it makes a person an heir of the promise.
Galatians 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," [not to every Israelite. That is the way they interpreted it though. They became heirs of the promise by birth.] as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," [he repeats it, singular] who is Christ.
Let us go to another place. Let us go back to II Samuel 7, verse 11, God is speaking here. Actually, what He is doing, He has given this prophecy promise to David through Nathan.
II Samuel 7:11-16 "Since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the Lord tells you that He will make you a house [read dynasty. That God will make David a dynasty.]. When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed [singular] after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever."
Now woven in and throughout there is the mixing of human seed with the Messiah. David understood that. And what Peter is doing is he is tying these things together so that these people will see as clearly as they possibly can who they were responsible for crucifying and who they are now dealing with because this One that they crucified is alive and that they have the opportunity to repent of what they have done and to come under the authority of that Seed, of the Messiah, the One who is going to have the Kingdom established forever, and they will thus become the recipients of, they will be benefited by the promises that were made to Abraham. He is trying to get across to them something that was very difficult for an Israelite to get through his thick skull, and that is that he is not automatically an inheritor of the promises that were made to Abraham. Others knew of it. That is why John the Baptist preached, told them, do not fall back on the fact that you are the sons of Abraham. God can raise up sons of Abraham out of the stones of the ground. He said, repent.
Families, in verse 25, means both Israelite and Gentile, "all the families of the earth." So we have two promises that Peter is focusing in on here that culminate in Christ. The one to Abraham and the one to David. And the Israelites, then, could be the first to come under the blessing of this fulfillment. And so then in verse 26, the blessing, of course, was in them being among the first to have their iniquities forgiven. And then as a result of that, being clean to receive the Holy Spirit of God, then fellowship and contact with God and those who are of like mind.
You see this phrase here or the term in verse 26, "To you first, God, having raised up." Now you might tend to think that that means a resurrection. It does not mean resurrection here. It means that to bring out on the stage of history He made Him appear. He brought Him forth. But it does not mean to resurrect Him. In verse 22 the same application is made, "The Lord your God will raise up," does not mean a resurrection there. It again means bring out on the stage of history, make Him appear.
Now chapter 4. Well, the healing really made quite an impression on the people but it also aroused the opposition. Here comes the other side, the bad guys, the ones wearing the black hat. And maybe they did, I do not know, maybe they literally wore black hats. Chapters 2 and 3 showed the preaching, let us say, the general approach to the preaching. Now the general approach to their preaching was to prove that Jesus was indeed the Christ and that He indeed was alive. Now this chapter concerns itself with the beginning of the opposition against the church. The authorities recognize that these men are acting in the same way that Jesus had done. But because of the popular support of the people they at least they felt unable to act beyond giving them a stern warning, as we are going to see, to stop teaching. You will also see that this in turn brings a challenge from Peter that they do not have the competence, they do not have the authority to do that. They might be able to say it, but they cannot stop it. Because the church cannot give up the very reason for its existence, and that is to witness to the Kingdom of God.
Acts 4:1 Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them.
I want you to notice the opposition. The priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees. Now it is very interesting that the Pharisees are not mentioned and their absence is indicative of something that we will see through the whole book of Acts. It is interesting that the opposition to Christ primarily came from the Pharisees. Only at the end of Christ's ministry did the Sadducees begin to become more directly involved. However, with the church, it was the Sadducees that gave the church the hard time and the Pharisees seemed to have accepted a great deal of, well, at least they were willing to coexist with the church, and you will find very little opposition by comparison.
Now Paul was a Pharisee, and so we understand that there was opposition from the Pharisees. But it was not united in the way that it was against Christ. Now we find a united opposition that is coming from the Sadducees. The Sadducees claim that their roots were in the Hasmonean family. Now the Hasmonean family was the family of the Maccabees. Maccabee was nothing more than a nickname. Maccabee means hammer and they got that name from their type of warfare. They kept hammering away at the enemy with a guerrilla-type hit-and-run tactic. And so the people gave them the name Maccabee. However, their family name was Hasmonean.
The Sadducees felt that the Maccabees, the Hasmoneans, initiated the Messianic Age. And so they religiously represented the status quo. Now the Messianic Age to them was an ideal. It was not a person. Were not represented by a person or a king. So then the Messianic Age was a process that was gradually unfolding and moving toward perfection. It did not have a datable beginning. You see, as we might say, that the Messianic Age is going to begin with the return of Jesus Christ. Well, the Sadducees did not look on it that way. They took a more practical, that is not the right word. I will think of it a little bit later.
Now the Sadducees were not a legal body in any sense, you know, it was not something that was registered with the government as a legal political party or anything of that nature. But they were a loosely organized group of men, women, who had the same basic ideal. And they were loosely organized together for almost entirely practical reasons and that was cooperation with Rome, at least at the time of Christ and the apostles. So both religiously and politically, they represented the status quo.
Apparently, from what writers of that period of time have said, there were far more priests who were Sadducees than who were Pharisees. Now when you see the term like this, "the priests," it almost invariably is referring to priests who were Sadducees. Now the captain of the guard here, the captain of the Temple, he was second in authority only to the high priest. His official position was to be supervising the Temple police. He maintained order there. And since most of the high priests were Sadducees, the captain of the Temple is also almost always invariably a Sadducee as well.
I mentioned the Sadducees being a loosely organized group. Most of the Sadducees were not priests. They were lay members of the congregation and sometimes you will see these people also labeled as the elders. What we are seeing is some specific terms of the same fairly large body that is generally called the Sadducees.
Now just to give you some sort of an idea of the grip the Sadducees had on the Sanhedrin and on the office of high priest: There were 28 high priests between 37 BC. and 67 AD. That is 105 years. Almost all of them were Sadducees and all but six of them came from four families. Now the priests from those four families are thought to be the ones who are called in various places in the Gospels and in the book of Acts as the chief priests, the ones from those families. Now you can understand why they would be the chief priests because of the nepotism involved. If the high priest was a Sadducee of one family, then would he not tend to appoint those that he was familiar with, and they were the ones who were primarily from his own family. Sons, sons-in-laws, nephews, cousins, and so forth. And so they sat in the chief responsibility. Therefore they were chief priests.
Acts 4:2-4 Being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.
You know, the teaching was a threat to the status quo. The Sadducees did not believe in angels, demons, or a resurrection. And so this preaching that they were doing was disruptive of their authority. Now they were particularly upset because the apostles claimed to have proof of a resurrection, and they were claiming it right in the heart of Sanhedrin authority, right at the Temple.
They put them in jail, probably with the hope that that would sober the apostles and they would reconsider and that everything would be all right in the morning. But we find in verse 4 that not everyone agreed with the Sanhedrin.
Now, the 5,000 figure here probably indicates the total number in the church at the time. If it means 5,000 men specifically, then there were considerably more. Maybe as high as 10,000 people actually in the church because of, let us say, an equal number of women. Now I do not know which it is, but most of the commentators seem to feel that the total men and women was 5,000.
The reason they say that is because they feel that it fits into what they understand to have been the population of Jerusalem. The population of Jerusalem is estimated at that time to have been anywhere from about 25,000 to 10 times that, 250,000. (They count about as well as we can!) I do not know who was taking their census, but at any rate, plus or minus 225,000 people either way. But if there were 25,000 people in the city and 5,000 of them already were members of the church, that is one-fifth of the total. That is 20% of the city.
Now, if indeed that was the population of the city, you can begin to understand why the Sadducees were getting excited because they were really having an impact. Now if it was 250,000 it is a little bit more understandable why they were so cautious at first. But anyway, the figure is probably somewhere in between that.
At any rate, 5,000 people in just a couple of days, a couple of weeks, or whatever, was a very significant period of growth.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
