This Jesus

Last week we read about the unique event that happened at Pentecost, when the 120 followers of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the mighty works of God in the various native languages of the people who were in Jerusalem at that time. The event had amazed and perplexed the multitude who wondered what it all meant, and Peter claimed it was the fulfillment of the prophet Joel’s description of what God would do—pour out his Spirit upon all of his people—in the last days.

Peter continues to speak in verses 22-36. Having indicated what Pentecost means, he now “goes on the offensive,” moving from that text in Joel to a further elaboration of what was happening in that moment.[1]The citation ended with the promise that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” but the question that Peter now addresses is, “who is this Lord, upon whose name one should call for salvation?” In these 15 verses, Peter retells the basic story of Jesus. It is this Jesus who is the cause of Pentecost and for all that Pentecost means for the world today.

Pentecostal peaching is the bold declaration that salvation most certainly is found in this Jesus whom God has made both Lord and Christ. That’s what Peter proclaims in these verses. Or rather, that’s who Peter proclaims in these verses. It’s all about this Jesus, the one who was crucified, the one whom God has raised, and the one who now reigns.

This Jesus Who Was Crucified

First, in verses 22-23, Peter proclaims this Jesus, the one who was crucified, the one who was killed.

Jesus of Nazareth

Peter’s “sermon” (if you will) gets going here in verse 22 following his citation of the Joel passage. And it gets going as Peter addressed his audience: “men of Israel” tells us that he is addressing a Jewish audience. He urges them to listen to what he is about to say. And then he begins by putting front and center the important figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

It’s important here to note the significance of both the audience and the central character in Peter’s talk. In bringing up Jesus of Nazareth to a Jewish audience right after citing from the Jewish prophet, Joel, we are to understand that Peter wants to put this Jesus right into the middle of the great Jewish story with which his audience is quite familiar. Peter is not telling a new story. He is arguing that Jesus of Nazareth fits within the old story.

Attested by God

Which is why he also says that this Jesus of Nazareth was “a man attested to you by God.” Why even care about “this Jesus”? Why give him any consideration? Because, says Peter, he came with the proper credentials, the proper certifications that should command our attention. The life he lived was a demonstration that he was “God’s man.”

Peter refers to the “mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.” Read the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus and you will find plenty of examples of such things to which Peter is referring. But what is noteworthy about these extraordinary acts of Jesus is that they were widely accepted. No one was going around seriously making the argument that Jesus wasn’t doing some rather extraordinary things. Those who didn’t believe in him accused him of getting his power through dark magic (Mark 3:22-30). That Jesus did extraordinary things was a near-unanimous belief. The one thing Jesus could not do was be ignored.

Crucified, According to Plan

And yet, this great man, Jesus of Nazareth, through whom God himself had done so many great deeds was delivered up, crucified, and killed.

Why? What explains this? Who planned the death of God’s man?

There are two answers to that question. First, God planned it. Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” This is what Peter says here, and it is what we are told elsewhere (see Lk 22:22; Acts 4:27-28). It is the kind of thing that of course inspires much theological reflection. But Peter seems to want to make it plain here that Jesus of Nazareth, God’s man, was crucified and killed, not because he was a pitiful and powerless human being who succumbed to the powers that be but because it was all according to what God knew would happen and had indeed planned to happen all along.[2]

But second, who planned the death of this Jesus? Who committed “premeditated” violence against Jesus of Nazareth? Peter is rather pointed, isn’t he, in saying to his audience “you crucified” him? He is laying the blame here at the feet of the Jews who did not believe in him while also implicating the Gentiles. The phrase “lawless men” doesn’t mean especially wicked people but rather Gentiles who did not have the privilege of possessing the law of God.[3]

Peter is hardly anti-Semitic in bringing this pointed accusation. He has implicated both Jews and Gentiles in the crucifixion of Jesus. But in saying that it was all according to plan, the ground has been set for the main thrust of Peter’s message which we’ll look at next week, that the death of Jesus is the means of salvation even for the ones who were instrumental in killing him in the first place.

This Jesus Whom God Has Raised

But for now, Peter moves on to his central point, in verses 24-32. This Jesus who was crucified is also the one whom God has raised. These verses are at the heart of Christian witness all throughout the book of Acts, the proclamation of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. Peter speaks about it in some quite interesting ways.

Resurrection: Leaving the Womb of the Tomb

For example, in verse 24, Peter says that God raised Jesus up by “loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

He is using “a remarkably complex metaphor,” drawn from the Septuagint translation of Psalm 18:4-5 and Psalm 116:3 which speak of death as if it were pregnant and going through the pains of childbirth.[4]Although Jesus was crucified and killed, although Jesus was really and truly dead, “God raised him up,” delivering death from its travail.

This sounds strange to our ears, and it’s meant to be. We only know of a one-directional street, from “womb to tomb.” We are born, we are given life, and then death puts an end to that life we were given at birth.

But here we see a shock. Death itself has become pregnant with new life, and it was not possible for this new life to be held within the womb of the tomb forever. What emerges from the womb of the tomb is a new kind of life altogether, one that is physical, real flesh and blood, but now also immortal, a one-way street in the opposite direction. This life has been delivered from the womb of death and can never go back.

Yes, it’s a strange metaphor for resurrection but sometimes we need to think in very different ways in order to grasp the impact of what is going on here. When God raised him up, this Jesus entered into a new life that no one else had ever entered into before.

Resurrection: Leaving the Afterlife Behind

Here’s another way of looking at this new kind of life. In verses 25-31, Peter cites from Psalm 16 and then makes an argument from that text.

The citation is again of the Greek translation of Psalm 16:8-11, although the last line of verse 11 is not included here. In its original context, the psalmist speaks of his confidence and hope in the future because he is assured that the Lord is by his side. In verses 27-28, he expresses his confidence, writing that God “will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.” Instead, God has “made known to me the paths of life” and has made him “full of gladness” with his presence.

What does the psalmist mean by his soul being abandoned to Hades? Hades simply refers to “the place of the dead” and can simply be understood as death itself. Interpreting this psalm is complicated by the fact that we can’t be sure if the psalmist’s hope is that God will deliver him from a premature death and prolong his life (keeping him from going to Hades, at least for a time) or if he is trusting that God will take him out of Hades after having gone there, taking him to some other post-mortem existence.[5]

But as to Peter’s argument from this passage, a different point altogether is being made. Notice what he says about this passage in verses 29-31. He says, first, that David was not even speaking about himself but about Jesus. We all know, Peter is saying, that David did die and was buried—everyone knew where his tomb was and “there was no evidence,” writes one commentator, “of David having vacated the premises.”[6]

David was here speaking prophetically, Peter says in verse 30, because he believed in God’s covenant with him about a future descendent who would sit on his throne. God’s promise to David, in 2 Samuel 7:12–13, goes like this:

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall 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.

And so, says, Peter, what David was looking forward to was a future king whose kingdom would never end. But exactly how that promise has come to pass has now been made plain: David was speaking about “the resurrection of the Christ.”

What David was looking forward to (however much he could have understood it) was neither his own being spared from a premature death, nor of some kind of post-mortem afterlife while his body decomposed. Neither of those could be true salvation. Rather, his hope in God’s promise to him could only be fulfilled by some future Davidic king whose physical body would never see corruption.

That’s what Peter is saying about this Jesus. By virtue of resurrection, this Jesus has left the afterlife behind. Unlike David, this Jesus, this person with a body, has left the realm of the dead. You won’t find him there. He is risen!

Resurrection: Leaving Witnesses to Proclaim It

As I mentioned, the resurrection of Jesus is what is at the heart of Christian preaching and witness. Notice verse 32. “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.” A witness is one who has seen something or one who reports something. Peter is a witness in both ways.[7]

And although we have not seen the resurrected Jesus, we are to believe Peter’s testimony and then be witnesses of it as well by reporting it, proclaiming it. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is at the heart of it all, because “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Cor 15:17).

This Jesus Who Now Reigns

We have seen that Pentecostal preaching is focused on this Jesus who was crucified, on this Jesus whom God has raised. But finally, we see in verses 33-36, that Pentecostal preaching is focused on this Jesus who now reigns.

The Right Hand of God

Peter moves from proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus in verse 32 to proclaiming the ascension of Jesus in verse 33. “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God.” As we saw in the introduction to Acts, the ascension of Jesus is critical to the gospel story. Jesus was crucified and has been raised from the dead, but it is also important that we speak about where the resurrected Jesus is now and what that means, why that is good news.

So where is Jesus? He has been exalted to “the right hand of God.” That phrase, of course, means something. It is not so much about a place—we don’t have to insist that Jesus is always to be found to God’s immediate right side—this is about Jesus’s position. It means that this Jesus is “God’s right-hand man.” It is to this Jesus that God has granted the position of divine rule.[8]

Don’t let your orthodox trinitarian theology prevent this truth from having its full effect. Well, sure, since Jesus is God, of course he has divine authority. The point being made here is all about the human, fully embodied, Jesus of Nazareth, this Jesus who was killed, this Jesus who was raised from the dead, it is this same Jesus who is in charge over the whole universe. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” Jesus said in Matthew 28:18.

We need to let this truth come home to us so it can have its full effect. It is not that Jesus had no authority, or even less authority, prior to his death, resurrection, and ascension. To say that is to fall into the theological error known as adoptionism. Let’s be clear: there has never been a time when God was not in charge of the universe. But the climactic events of this Jesus—his death, resurrection, and ascension—mark the great “turning point in redemptive history” as the messianic kingdom that God had promised all the way back to Abraham has finally arrived, “has dawned in new power.”[9]

Enemies Subdued

And that—Peter says here in verse 33—that is what explains what “you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” The whole Pentecost moment—when this Jesus, exalted to God’s right hand, poured out the promise of the Holy Spirit upon his people—that whole moment was not some kind of religious frenzy that has a psychological explanation. That’s what some of the people who saw these first Christians mockingly said. But no! These people are not drunk. This is not religious hype. This is the exercise of divine authority. This is the kingdom of God himself laying claim over his territory.

And it’s all being carried out by this Jesus. Peter once again contrasts Jesus with the great king, David, in verse 34. It was not David who ascended into the heavens, it was not the Davidic monarchy that took the people of God to its greatest height, for even David himself wrote, in Psalm 110, of another “lord,” someone who would be David’s own Lord,” who would sit at God’s right hand until God turned his enemies into his footstool. “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25).

Lord and Christ

And so, Peter’s punchline in verse 36, his summarizing statement of his entire sermon, goes like this: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” This is one of the great biblical summaries of its own central message. This is the gospel. This is the good news of the kingdom of God.

This is what you can “know for certain.” That’s good news, because it’s hard these days to know anything for certain. But here it is: the one true Creator God has made this Jesus “both Lord and Christ.”

This Jesus is “both Lord and Christ.” We believe in the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, right?

Then let’s be Pentecost people! Let’s know this for certain.

This Jesus is Christ, the Messiah, God’s chosen and anointed one, the only one who has the power to save. Yes, he has the power to save you, but that’s because he has the power to save the whole of God’s creation. And that is precisely what God has chosen and anointed him to do. So, let’s not fall for the ridiculous and hopeless idea that some other human being is God’s chosen and anointed one to bring salvation. God has told us who his man is, and we who believe that Jesus is Christ ought never to be heard by the world proclaiming that somebody else can take his place.

This Jesus is Lord. The climactic events of Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension prove the point: “The Lord Jesus is able to do what he does because he is who he is,” writes one commentator. And “Jesus’ lordship is not viewed as a mere honorary title, but a description of his status and activity since at least the resurrection.”[10]So, if we believe that Jesus is Lord, risen and ascended, alive and well and in charge, then let us get our orders and our comfort from him. The earliest Christians “believed that confessing, invoking, proclaiming, praying, or even exorcising in [the name of Jesus Christ] produced miraculous events, including conversions and healings.”[11] Let us believe it still.

After all, this Jesus has poured out the promise of the Holy Spirit upon those of us who confess him as Lord and Christ. That means that while God manifests his rule and reign through Jesus, we who believe in Jesus are caught up in the mission of God’s kingdom, too. When we say that Jesus is Lord, when we announce that he rules and reigns, and when the world scoffs and we ourselves begin to doubt—it sure doesn’t look like he rules and reigns—then we must remember Peter’s preaching at Pentecost. Where do we see any evidence that God’s kingdom through Jesus is here now? We see it in God’s people, filled with his Spirit.

At least, that’s where we are supposed to see it. So, if there is a real problem in the world today, it’s not because of all those people who don’t now believe that Jesus is Lord. The problem is not so much an evangelism problem. It is a discipleship problem. The problem is never with those people. The problem is always with God’s people who are called to live out of the absolute certainty and conviction that “God has made [this Jesus] both Lord and Christ.”

If you believe in Jesus, then don’t you see what this means? Don’t you see the incredible privilege and responsibility you carry? You are one of God’s people, filled with God’s own Spirit. This is your identity; rest in it. But this is also your mission, your calling, your vocation, empowered by God himself.

So let us live in it. Let’s do it together, shall we? As we will see next week, wrapping up Acts chapter 2, when this message is believed, a community of faith is established which, like Jesus himself, simply cannot be ignored.

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[1] Ben Witherington, III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), 144.

[2] C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary, ed. J. A. Emerton, C. E. B. Cranfield, and G. N. Stanton (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 1:142–43.

[3] Barrett, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 1:142.

[4] Walter Bauer et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 443.

[5] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003), 103–4.

[6] Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles, 146.

[7] Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles, 147.

[8] I. Howard Marshall, Acts: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 5, ed. Leon Morris (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1980), 83–84.

[9] D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 595.

[10] Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles, 149. Emphasis original.

[11] Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles, 150-51.