Exalting Christ
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2022 · 10 July 2022
We’re continuing our study of Peter’s sermon, preached on the day of Pentecost, the day the church was born. It’s very basic because you have to understand that Peter is preaching to a group of people who don’t know much, about theology they do not understand because they have no precedent. We’re going to hear the eternal story of Christ and the provision of His salvation for us.
But all of us certainly need to know how better to communicate Jesus Christ. So as we come this evening to that part of the sermon which is the main theme stretching from verses 22 to 36, and within the context of that, we deal with the resurrection and the ascension of Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of Christianity and is the most profound point in all redemptive history.
The resurrection becomes the crowning proof not only of Jesus’ deity but the guarantee of our own resurrection. And so it’s not primarily His teaching, His miracles, it’s not primarily His dying that is the key, it is primarily His rising again. When He arose from the grave and the church was born, this became the cornerstone of all preaching, and it’s still the life blood of Christianity.
The resurrection was the key to Peter’s sermon. He spends verse 22 on the life of Christ, verse 23 on the death of Christ, and then he spends from verses 24 to 32 on the resurrection. The Spirit of God set the stage for this sermon. All the events of the day of Pentecost were living illustrations to grab everybody’s attention. It was 50 days after the resurrection and hundreds thousands Jews were there.
Both Jews who lived there and those who were pilgrims from other lands 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, and then filled them with power. They spoke the great works of God in languages they did not know.
So Peter stands up in verse 14 and begins to preach. 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 in verse 17, “It shall come to pass in the last days,” quoting out of Joel, “says God, I will pour out of my Spirit.” And God announced the birth of the Messianic Age.
These ‘last days’ have now been going on for over 2,000 years. And so Peter says it’s the beginning of the last days. This will be fulfilled in the tribulation when all of the prophecy described through verse 20 will be fulfilled. All those signs that we saw in the earth and in the heavens indicated in verses 17 - 18. He says, “In view of that fact,” verse 21, “it’s time to call upon Him and get saved.”
So what he’s saying is it’s Messiah’s time, it’s the last days, and you know the last days are always connected with judgment, so you better get it right with God so you’ll be delivered from judgment. The Messiah for which the Jews had prayed and longed for for years and for centuries has arrived. Now, let me tell you who the Messiah is.” And Peter moves to the main body of his sermon.
And Peter spends his time exalting Jesus. He announces to them the overwhelming fact that the Jesus of Nazareth whom they had despised and mocked is none other than God’s chosen and approved Messiah. And this stands not only as a point of information, but as a great indictment, because they had crucified their own Messiah, together with the hands of the Romans.
First, he begins with Jesus’ life in verse 22, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know.” 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.
And the purpose of acting as a sign pointed to a spiritual truth. 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 you yourselves also know.”
They had seen Him heal time and time again. And so God had accredited Jesus Christ in the view of the whole world and established the fact by the very miracles that He did that He was the Messiah. The life of Jesus was living proof and living proclamation by God Himself that Jesus was Messiah, the Lord. Then verse 23, “Him, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death.”
In other words, here you have the two sides to the divine paradox, God’s 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 this was no shock to Jesus. He was no victim. It had all been planned by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge, which means foreordination of God.
We studied in John 19 the crucifixion. Do you remember that every single thing that occurred on the cross was a fulfillment of the Old Testament? When Jesus died, He was fulfilling every single detail of Old Testament prophecy. God had in His own counsel preplanned this totally. And so Peter says not only does the life of Jesus Christ accredit Him as Messiah, but so does His death.
Verse 24, “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” It’s God who did the miracles. 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 and Christ. It’s God doing the whole thing.
Jesus 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 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 His resurrection. And this became the major theme of apostolic preaching.
Now, all through this sermon, there is a dichotomy implied between Jews as they thought they were and the Jews as they really were because they constantly felt that they were connected to God and Peter shows them they were not. Do you see the contrast? “You killed Him, God raised Him.” Now, this is a recurrent theme throughout all the apostolic preaching in the book of Acts.
He sets the Jews at opposite ends of the world from God. In any kind of evangelism, 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. He made it all the way to the place of prominence in the Sanhedrin. But Jesus says, “Nicodemus, just go back and be born spiritually all over again.”
And so what Peter does here, is separate totally these Jews from God. “You killed Him, God raised Him.” The Jew always prided himself on his proximity to God. And they always rested in the knowledge of the will of God. The Jew kept saying, “Well, I’m okay, I have the law. Never kept it, but I have it.” The Jew made his boast in possession, not in obedience, and it was empty.
Peter starts out by separating the Jew and God and saying, “You don’t know God’s will at all.” “Whom you killed 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 person be reconciled to God.
In John 8, Jesus was in a dialogue with the Pharisees, the religious leaders, commonly termed “Jews.” He’s having a debate about the fact that they really don’t know the truth and they aren’t free while they’re saying they are free. Verse 37, “I know that you’re Abraham’s seed physically, but you seek to kill Me because my word has no place in you. But I speak that which I’ve seen with my Father.”
“You say you’re Abraham’s seed,” and they not only meant it physically but spiritually, And He said, “What’s strange is you claim to be Abraham’s seed, but you want to kill me.” He says, “I speak that which I have seen with my Father and you do that which you have seen with your father.” He’s saying, “We have different fathers.” They answered in verse 39, “Abraham is our father.”
Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.” “But now you seek to kill me, this is not what Abraham would do.” Then He says in verse 41, “You do the deeds of your father.” And then they replied, “We are not born of fornication. We have one Father, God.” Jesus said, “If God were your Father, you would love Me.”
They said to Jesus, “We are not born of fornication.” The early disciples of Jesus proclaimed that He was born of a virgin, but the Jews said that Jesus had been conceived by a Roman soldier named Panthera who got Mary pregnant when she was unfaithful to Joseph. The Jews here said, “We are not the children of any adulterous union,” they mean we have never been idolatrous.”
Jesus said in verse 44, “You are of your father, the devil.” Verse 47, “He that is of God hears God’s words. You therefore hear them not because you are not of God.” They started calling Him names. Peter separated God and these people because they had to know that they were at the other end from the will of God. They were religious, but they were very far from God.
Verse 25-28, “For David says concerning Jesus, ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad, moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. 27 For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. 28 You told me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.”
Did David speak about Jesus of Nazareth? The Jews believed Jesus of Nazareth to be a blasphemer. But Psalm 16 says differently and Peter begins to quote it. Frequently, the prophet speaking in the first person is really the voice of Messiah. For example, in Psalm 22, David says, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me.” They were the words of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Verse 25 says “I was continually seeing the Lord before my face.” Jesus never had any problem with anything He did because His focus was on God. Then he says at the end of verse 25, “For He is on my right hand that I should not be moved.” Verse 26, “Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad.” Hebrews 12:2 says, He went to the cross for the joy that was set before Him.
Then comes the indication of resurrection. Verse 26, “Moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope.” In other words, “I trust God. I don’t have anything to fear. I can go right into death and I can just believe God to come right out the other side.” That’s what He means in verse 27 when He says, “You will not leave my soul in Hades. Neither will You allow your Holy One to see corruption.”
Verse 27, “You will not leave,” and the word “leave” is “abandon.” “You will not abandon my soul in Hades.” Verse 28, “You have made known to me the ways of life.” “I’m going to rise.” And when I’m done rising, You shall make me full of joy with Your presence. I’m going right to that grave, out the other side and right into your presence and I’m going to look you face to face, God.
Verse 29, “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” David did not fulfill that prophecy. David was speaking prophetically. Verse 30, “Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne.”
Verse 31, “He, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” Peter applies it perfectly to Messiah. Verse 32-33, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.”
Then Peter quotes another Davidic Psalm to prove Jesus is Messiah by His ascension in verses 34 - 35, “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, 35 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” Now, when David said that, he wasn’t talking about himself. Well, it is this Jesus in Psalm 110:1 where He said that.
Someday all of His enemies will be made subject. And at that time, every knee shall bow before Him. And Peter comes to an overwhelming climax in verse 36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Do you see how far off they were from God? Whom they killed, God declared to be Messiah. Let us pray.