Preaching Jesus

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2016 · 3 January 2016

Acts 2:14-36 is the first apostolic sermon recorded in Scripture. It has no parallel. The substance of this event and sermon is so critical because it was the climactic moment of an incredibly important day. Everything was building up to this sermon. This was the day that would launch the church and the message of the church into the whole world.

This was the Feast of Pentecost, 50 days after Passover. Christ had been crucified on Passover. Pentecost was a celebration of the Feast of Harvest where hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims came from all around the Mediterranean to the city of Jerusalem. The feast was a celebration of God’s provision for a harvest. And the coming of the Holy Spirit on this day signaled that God was beginning to gather the great harvest of His redeemed church.

The believers, that is the church, were baptized with the Holy Spirit that day, and placed into union with one another and Christ. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and thus became a powerful force. They launched immediately into evangelism. They began to speak in languages that only the people from outside spoke, and the content was the wonderful works of God. The effect was astonishing. There was a supernatural sound, like a hurricane, that drew the crowd together where the believers were.

It was a divine event that shocked the people of Jerusalem. The church immediately went into action, and Peter, representing the church, preached a sermon. Their first activity was not to have a strategy session to decide what to do. The first thing the church did was preach the Gospel. Organization would come later, when the church meets for prayer, and fellowship and the breaking of bread, and to study the apostles’ doctrine.

Their transformation proved that the Holy Spirit had come, and the new age had been born. And the first sermon goes like this, “The Messiah has come. He is Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had just crucified.” They were set up for this, probably like no other audience in history. Peter begins his sermon with an introduction from verse 14 till verse 21. During this Messianic age, “It shall be,” verse 21, “that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This is the age of salvation.

So, starting in verse 22, we come to the second part of this great sermon: the theme. We have seen the introduction, explaining Pentecost and exalting Jesus Christ. Here, verses 22 down to verse 36, Peter presents Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Verse 22, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know.”

In other words, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Jesus Christ both Lord and Messiah. That is his sermon. This is the Messianic age because what Joel 2 prophesied has started to come to pass. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit. But to the Jews, Jesus was a blasphemer, an imposter and a false teacher. To say that Jesus was the Messiah was to increase the blasphemy.

So, Peter set out to prove to his people that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, was in fact, their Messiah. His argument is so powerful such that 3,000 people are stabbed in the heart, that’s the word used in verse 37. They are pierced. And Peter uses arguments based on Old Testament verses. This is a model of apostolic preaching of the death and resurrection of Christ based on Scripture.

Peter describes the life of Christ in several statements. His first evidence that Jesus is the Messiah is that God has attested to that through wonders, miracles and signs. Wonders describe what He did as to their appearance. Miracles describe what He did as to their nature. Signs describe what He did as to their intention. They were supernatural works, manifestations of divine power. The statement, “as you yourself know,” convicts them because all these miracles were done before their eyes.

So, he starts with the life of Christ, and he reiterates in one little summary statement, the miraculous ministry of Christ which was divine validation. This is proof by God that He is the Messiah. So we know that, first by His life. Secondly, we know that by His death, look at verse 23, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknow-ledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The very person whom God, the Father, delighted to honor, you have dishonored, you have slain.

This Jesus from the town of Nazareth was delivered to death “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” Plan means design, purpose and will. It is a strong statement, it is a definite plan. It means it was decreed and determined. Christ was delivered to death because God planned it and God ordained it. And also, according to the foreknowledge of God.

That word in English means that you know something before it happens. Did God make this decree because He looked down history and knew something was going to happen? No. So what does it mean? It means fore-ordination. It means that God can make everything happen through providence whereby He uses everything and everybody to accomplish His will and plan in the future. That decision God made in eternity past.

Again, foreknowledge is an act. God ordained that the Lord would be the Lamb, unblemished, who would shed His blood as the price of redemption. In Romans 11:2 it says, “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” It’s the same notion. Romans chapter 9, chapter 10 and chapter 11, is all about election. God specifically choosing, and God chooses on the basis of His foreordained end.

Peter is saying in Acts 2, that the Lord did not die accidentally. How can Jesus be the Messiah if He let Himself get executed at the hands of the Romans? How can He be the Messiah if He was rejected by the leaders of His people? So, Peter said: it was not the Romans’ decision. It is always God’s decision eternally. There never was a time when God saw new information, and on that basis made a decision. No, everything that God decrees is eternal.

So, the Jews have to change their thinking dramatically. The death of Jesus is God’s plan. And this launches all apostolic preaching to the Jews. And that is what they preach all the way through the Book of Acts. Christ, the Messiah must have suffered and died. If they knew the Old Testament, they would have known that the Messiah had to die. Isn’t that what Jesus told His disciples on the road to Emmaus? Didn’t He go back to Moses and the law, and the prophets, and speak of the things concerning Christ?

Look again at verse 23, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” In other words, you all nailed Jesus to the cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. Wow! The fact that it was God’s plan didn’t lessen their guilt at all. What they did is described as wickedness of lawless men. You, the Jews, you were the instigators. You are responsible along with them for putting Him to death. It was Pilate, Herod, the Romans and the Jews.

What we have here is this juxtaposing of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, right? The fact that we have been chosen, and called, and regenerated, is a mighty miracle of God. But at the same time, we are responsible for faith, and unbelief, and we are held accountable for it. The writers of the Scripture, when they bring these two things together did so being inspired by the Holy Spirit. People often ask how these two things can be harmonized. Maybe they cannot in this life.

All biblical preaching must include this conviction, not just for little sins. It isn’t because you broke the Law of Moses that you go to hell; you go to hell because you reject Jesus Christ. That’s the ultimate sin. So, Peter, the preacher, boldly accuses his audience of murdering the Messiah. Jesus is not a victim. This is all in the plan of God, but you are still guilty.

And then, starting in verse 24, Jesus is declared to be the Messiah by His resurrection, this now becomes the essence of this presentation and the major theme of apostolic preaching. Verse 24, “God raised Jesus up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” His resurrection was also foreordained and predetermined by God. Peter said, “You killed Him but God raised Him.” All through this sermon, Peter emphasizes the difference between how God treated Jesus and how Israel treated Jesus.

Peter connects this preaching to an Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 16. And this became a pattern of speech among the apostles to go back to Psalm 16:8-11. Verse 25-28 copies that, “For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; 26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. 27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. 28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’”

So while David wrote the Psalm, he wrote it in the first-person as the very words that Christ would speak. The Jews thought maybe this is David’s first-person testimony of his own hope that he is somehow going to escape death. But no one ever claimed that David rose from the dead. They all knew where his grave was. His spiritual resurrection occurred when he died in this life and entered into the presence of the Lord, and his bodily resurrection still waits for the fulfillment of Daniel 12, when the resurrection of the Old Testament’s saints will take place in the future.

Verse 29, “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” What I read now is the testimony of the Messiah declaring in verse 25, “I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.” Sure, there were those dark moments on the cross. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” But when that was over, He said, “into Your hands I commit My spirit.” God did not abandon Him. Verse 26, “Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced.”

Verse 28, “You have made known to me the paths of life; You will make me full of gladness with Your presence.” I will go through death, and out the other side into your presence. You will not abandon Me. He refers to Himself in verse 27 as the Holy One, well-known name for Messiah. Every detail of the death of Messiah was presented in the Old Testament. And the promise of His resurrection came through David. And everybody knew the Messiah would be a descendant of David. His mother Mary and even His father were in the Davidic line.

Verse 30-31, “Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” Who is Messiah? The one who comes at the time of the Messianic age, and rises from the dead. That leaves you one possibility. “This Jesus,” verse 32, “God raised up, to which we are all witnesses.” The only conclusion is that Jesus is the Messiah.

Peter explains one other aspect of the Messiah, and that is His ascension. Verse 33, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” The ascension is in Acts 1:9. They were there, eyewitnesses to His ascension. He was exalted to the right hand of God, and that was just the initial aspect of what happened because of His ascension. And once He had reached the right hand of God in that split second, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured forth this which you have both seen and heard.

This all happened because the Messiah went back to His glory. And Peter quotes another Davidic Psalm to prove Jesus is Messiah by His ascension. Verse 34-35, “It was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, 35 until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’ It was God the Father saying to the God the Son, the Messiah, “Sit at My right hand, and I will make all Your enemies Your footstool.” That is drawn out of Psalm 1:10, “the Lord said to My Lord,” both are equal in essence and nature. One member of the Trinity speaking to another.

Verse 36, his conclusion, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Peter doesn’t blame the Romans. He says you need to know that the house of Israel did this. The Sanhedrin rejected Him as a blasphemer, condemned Him to death. You joined in; you screamed for His blood. You crucified Him. His Messiahship was announced at His baptism. It was confirmed through His ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

And did you realize that this is not the word of Peter? Go back to verse 22, “this man is attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him.” Verse 23, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknow-ledge of God.” Verse 24, “God raised Him up again.” And it is God the Father who says to God the Son, “You are My Lord, sit at My right hand.” This is all the work of God.

That takes us to verse 37, “Now when they heard this they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” The word ‘pierced’ is only used here in the New Testament. The power of the argument wasn’t some kind of clever insight. It was the overwhelming power of the evidence from testimony and Scripture. That word is to literally penetrate with a sharp instrument. But metaphorically it is sudden and acute pain. So, they’re facing the reality: we have killed the Messiah. That leads to another reality: the fear of divine wrath.

The first and primary responsibility of all gospel preaching is to be truthful to Scripture and thereby causing profound, painful conviction and fear, most of which has been taken out of any kind of gospel preaching today. At this point, the first expression of amazing grace appears in apostolic preaching. Verse 38, Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” So then, those who had received His word were baptized; and that day there were added about 3,000 souls.

Are you pierced too? Or are you not affected by what you really believe? Facts and trends published by Life Way says and I quote Barna.org, “56 % of all Millennials born between 1984 and 2002 believe that Jesus sinned, and this is more than any other generation. And even millennials who have made a personal commitment to believe Christ do not believe that Jesus is the way to heaven.” Many people all around us are lost and believe what the majority of the Jews believed 2000 years ago. Are you spreading the good news? Let’s pray.