that God has fulfilled this to us their children, having raised up Jesus; as it is also written in the second psalm, *Thou* art my Son this day have *I* begotten thee.
Paul is preaching in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, and he tells his listeners that God has kept His promise to their ancestors. He proves it from the second Psalm, which raises two questions: what does "raising Jesus" mean, and how can an eternal Son be begotten on one particular day?
God's promise to Israel was not left hanging. He kept it by giving a Person.
The coming of Christ fulfilled the promise made to the fathers. Their children now had the good news of it in His person here below. The raising up of Jesus in verse 33 does not therefore go beyond the Child thus born, the Son thus given. This agrees with Psalm 2:7, which refers not to His resurrection from the dead, as many have supposed, but to His birth, as the words simply say. He, the Messiah, born of a woman, born under law, was the object, accomplisher, and heir of the promises.
The ESV reads "by raising Jesus." Older versions have "raised up again," which points the reader to the resurrection. But the same verb appears elsewhere in Acts for God bringing a man onto the stage of history.
The word "raised up" here has a wider meaning than where it is repeated just after. It means that God ordained Christ and, as it were, brought Him into the light by His own hand, so that He might fulfil the office of Messiah. Scripture also shows us kings and prophets raised up by the Lord. Acts 3:22, 26 and Acts 7:37 are clear cases of this use of "raised up" in the same book... "Raised up" is correct. "Raised again" would fit only if the text certainly pointed to the resurrection, and it does not at all. But "raised up again" is unjustifiable.
So the next verse goes further. There God raises Him from the dead.
The word "begotten" is where readers stumble. It sounds like the Son had a starting date.
The eternal Son was never begotten. Even if He is called the only-begotten Son, the sense is not any begetting. It means "unique and the only one of its kind." But here we have the begetting: the creation of a being who has not been there before in this way — a man in this world... This wonder, "today I have begotten you," comes true; this miracle of the incarnation of the eternal Son of God. And the angel answered her [Mary], "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." That is "today I have begotten you" in Psalm 2:7. And therefore the holy thing, this little child, this unique child, which shall be born, shall be called Son of God.
The rest of Psalm 2 settles the question. Its own words belong to earth.
This passage is quoted in Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5 and Hebrews 5:5. This however presents no difficulty. It refers plainly to Christ as a man, Jehovah's Anointed and Jehovah's King, in connection with this world. The expressions used — "the hill of Zion," "the uttermost parts of the earth," and "this day" — clearly belong to the earth and to time. This confirms the view.
Commentators differ here. Some tie the words to the incarnation alone, others also to the resurrection — while holding that neither one makes Him Son.
This psalm shows the royal glory and world-wide rule of Christ, the One whom Israel and the nations reject... The title here refers to His incarnation, and secondarily to His resurrection from the dead (Acts 13:33-34). So this statement is not about the fact of His eternal Sonship. It speaks of Him as Son of God in time. The eternal Son of God became incarnate, but this did not lower His eternal Sonship... "But for the truth, and for His own personal dignity, it is of the highest importance to remember this: His Sonship when incarnate, and in resurrection too, rests on His eternal relationship as Son. Without that, the other could not be."
Paul does not stop at who this Man is. He turns the argument into an offer his hearers can take home that day.
"Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this Man" (Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and glorified) "forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you" — not promised for the future, but proclaimed now, announced as a present reality — "and by Him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses."
- Promise — God kept His word to the ancestors, and He kept it by giving a Person: the Child born, the Son given.
- Raised up — God brought Jesus forward as Messiah, as He once raised up kings and prophets. Resurrection comes next, in verse 34.
- Begotten — not the start of an eternal relationship, but the miracle of incarnation: the holy child born of Mary is called Son of God.
- Today — Zion, the ends of the earth, "this day": the psalm's own words tie the verse to earth and time. Commentators differ over whether resurrection is also in view.
- Therefore — the identity of this Son is the ground of the offer: forgiveness preached now, and freedom the law of Moses could never give.
But that he raised him from among [the] dead, no more to return to corruption, he spoke thus I will give to you the faithful mercies of David.
Paul is speaking in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia. Here he reaches the heart of his sermon. God raised Jesus out of death, and so made good an ancient promise to David. Two questions follow. What makes these blessings "sure"? And why does resurrection have anything to do with them? (Several writers quoted below follow an older wording, "the sure mercies of David".)
The sermon has already said that God "raised up Jesus" in verse 33. Is this verse a repeat of that, or something new?
The raising up of Jesus in verse 33 does not go beyond the Child born, the Son given. God raised up the Messiah according to promise and the prophecy of the second psalm. To that, verse 34 adds another and still more important truth: God raised Him up "from the dead". This is as certain as it is plain. It is no mere reasoning on the verse before, and no explanatory note. It is further teaching of the highest value. That is why the words come in this way: "But that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, He has spoken thus…"
Scripture records others who came back from death and later died. The phrase "no more to return to corruption" marks the difference.
He is risen, not like Lazarus, Jairus' daughter, and others, to return to corruption, but never again to die (Acts 13:34). Death has no more dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). He is alive, then, for ever — the living One (Rev. 1:18).
One word in this verse repays a closer look. It comes back one verse later, as a title for Christ Himself.
The proper sense of the word is pious, compassionate, that which is not profane. Scripture applies it to Christ, who sums up all the goodness of God towards men, as well as perfect piety… In Acts 13:34 the word translated "the sure mercies of David" is the same word translated "your Holy One" in verse 35 of the same chapter, and in Acts 2:27. The resurrection of Jesus, the Holy One who was not to see corruption, makes these holy things, or mercies, sure. They are the same mercies set out in Psalm 89.
The promises to David were earthly blessings for Israel. Why would a resurrection be needed to secure blessings on earth?
We must have Christ's resurrection even to get the earthly blessings of Israel. So in Acts 13 Paul says that God raised Christ "up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption"; and "I will give you the sure mercies of David," Isaiah 55. Israel could not have them without death and resurrection. So the sure mercies of David are proof of resurrection. There was nothing sure till that. If they trusted in a living man, all failed.
Paul is quoting Isaiah 55, a chapter that opens with an invitation to anyone who is thirsty.
Only the death and resurrection of the Messiah could make the covenant everlasting. Only so could the promised holy or merciful blessings of David stand unbreakable… Only so could the soul even of the Jew live. Only so could the door of grace open wide enough to take in a Gentile. So notice how the chapter in Isaiah begins: with God's call to "everyone who thirsts". He who was lifted up on the cross will draw all, not Jews only. A risen Messiah gives the utmost sureness to Israel's promises, yet He cannot be bounded in His grace any more than in His glory.
Paul does not stop at prophecy proved. The same sermon turns the risen Christ into an offer made to the people who had killed Him.
The resurrection, then, was God's answering act to the guilt of those who killed the Fulfiller of His promise. By raising the Lord Jesus, God secured to them "the sure mercies of David". So the apostle applies the further Scriptures quoted from Isaiah and Psalm 16 to the raised One, who is "no more to return to corruption"… And "through this Man" the apostle preached the good news of the forgiveness of sins, and of justification from all things for all who believe.
- Promised. God pledged lasting blessings to David. Verse 33 speaks of the Christ born and given; verse 34 speaks of the Christ raised from the dead.
- Broken. Men put the Fulfiller of that promise to death. Nothing was sure while the promise rested on a living man who could die.
- Secured. Resurrection makes the blessings sure. He rose no more to return to corruption, and death has no more dominion over Him.
- Named. The word for these "mercies" is the word for God's "Holy One" in the next verse. The blessings rest in a Person, not a policy.
- Offered. The risen Christ cannot be bounded in His grace. So the door opens wide: forgiveness of sins and justification from all things for everyone who believes.
Wherefore also he says in another, Thou wilt not suffer thy gracious one to see corruption.
Paul is preaching in the synagogue at Antioch. He has been piling one Old Testament promise on another to explain what God did when He raised Jesus. Now he turns to "another psalm" — words written by David that, on any honest reading, cannot be about David.
The quotation is Psalm 16:10, and it settles one question only. The line follows straight on from what Paul had just said about God raising Jesus never to return to decay.
The quotation of Psalm 16:10 (verse 35) proves not His Sonship as man and Messiah here below, but His resurrection. So it stands in close and logical connection with verse 34. Peter had already used this Psalm in the same way in Acts 2:24-32. It is strange that any who believe the Christian revelation can allow a doubt that Christ's resurrection is the just and only meaning of the tenth verse of the psalm.
English hides something here. Two different Greek words lie behind the word "holy," and this verse does not use the one that means separate from evil.
"Holy" here answers to the Greek word hagios, while the word used in the Greek Old Testament version of the Psalm (and quite accurately) is hosios. The first means holy in the strict sense, separate from evil... The second is often used of Christ in the Greek Old Testament as the "pious" or "gracious" One. In practice that comes to the sense of "holy" when said of man, and "merciful" when said of God. This is the word that occurs in Psalm 16 as quoted in Acts 13:35. Psalm 89 is very instructive: the first word is used of the Holy One of Israel, our King, in verse 18, while in verse 19 God speaks in vision of His Holy or gracious One — the One in whom His loving-kindnesses or mercies centred.
The promise is not about the soul but about the body in the tomb — truly dead, yet untouched by decay.
Also, "Your Holy One" would not see corruption. This of course refers to His body. His body was in a state of death, because the spirit and soul had left it; even so, it would not see corruption.
The timing matters too. The psalm calls for a rescue quick enough to outrun decay itself.
Paul then quotes Psalm 16:10... This is most striking, because it points to nothing less than a resurrection before corruption could set in.
David wrote the line, but David's own grave answers whether he was writing about himself.
But one man, the Messiah, was to taste death and yet see no corruption. David served the counsel of God in his own generation, but he saw corruption. So did all his descendants, except that One of whom he prophesied in the Spirit. Scripture cannot be broken. One man alone does and must fulfil the condition: who was He but Jesus, the Christ? In fact the witnesses gave the fullest evidence for His resurrection, apart from the predictions. All proofs centre in Him.
Why did this one body escape what happens to every other? Commentators give two reasons: who He was, and what His death had already done.
The Lord was perfectly sinless. So we can understand how His blessed holy body saw no corruption, for corruption is the effect of sin. He had also fully settled the question of sin by His atoning death on the cross, so death could have no further claim on Him. When sinful bodies die, death holds its sway and the process of corruption sets in at once.
Commentators press the point the other way as well. To say His body could have decayed "strikes a blow at the sinless Person of the Son of God." It would make His death the common lot of sinful man instead of an atoning death (A J Pollock).
The verse is not only a proof about Him. It is a down payment on what happens to everyone who belongs to Him.
He is now in the heavens in a body which saw no corruption, a body which is incorruptible for ever. He is the Firstfruits from among the dead. He is the pledge that God will raise the bodies of all believers in the same way, though in their case they saw corruption.
- Promise. The line comes from Psalm 16:10, quoted here to prove one thing: the resurrection of Christ.
- Person. "Holy One" translates a word meaning gracious or merciful — the One in whom God's mercies centre.
- Proof. David served his generation, died, and decayed. Only one descendant fits the words, and eyewitnesses confirmed it.
- Purity. Decay is the effect of sin, so a sinless body in the tomb was never subject to it; the rescue came before decay could begin.
- Pledge. The body that saw no corruption is now in heaven as the Firstfruits — God's guarantee that He will raise believers' bodies too.
For David indeed, having in his own generation ministered to the will of God, fell asleep, and was added to his fathers and saw corruption.
In a synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul has just quoted a psalm promising that God's holy one would not see decay. But David, who wrote it, is dead and buried — so who was the promise about, and what does this verse say about David?
David's tomb rules him out as the subject of his own psalm. One writer sets Paul's reasoning beside Peter's earlier sermon.
Paul reasons in verses 36 and 37 much as Peter does in Acts 2:29-31, and both with unanswerable power. But one man, the Messiah, was to see no corruption while tasting death. David in his own generation served the counsel of God, but saw corruption — as did all his descendants, except that one of whom he prophesied in the Spirit. Scripture cannot be broken. One man alone does and must fulfil the condition: who was He but Jesus, the Christ?
This contrast is not a small point of history. One writer shows how much collapses if you deny it.
Paul urged this fact about our Lord Jesus Christ on those who heard him at Antioch. He contrasted Christ with the psalmist. David, he said, "fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption." But He whom God raised again "saw no corruption" (Acts 13:36-37). Those who deny the actual physical resurrection of Jesus must also deny that God kept His word in Psalm 16:9-11. They are committed as well to the blasphemy that Christ saw corruption. For it is written, "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile" (1 Cor. 15:17).
The phrase describes what happened to David, but not to all of him. One writer notes what Paul leaves unsaid, and sets Stephen's death beside David's.
At Antioch Paul is insisting that Christ did not see corruption, and that the psalm does not apply to David, for he has seen corruption. Does he say anything about his soul? Not a word. Stephen fell asleep — the word Paul uses of David — but Christ received his spirit.
This verse sums up David's whole life. One writer points out what is missing from it.
In Acts 13:36 we have a full, unqualified commendation of David's life. No "but" comes in to spoil the picture. The New Translation gives a delightful rendering of this verse: "David, indeed, having in his own generation ministered to the will of God, fell asleep."
The two halves of the phrase are not independent. The same writer ties them together in a single sentence.
We notice that David "served his own generation by the will of God," or "in his own generation ministered to the will of God." He could not truly minister to his own generation unless he ministered to the will of God.
What God asked of David was smaller than what David planned. One writer draws out what God values in a servant.
David had thought to do much in his day, and he was sincere in the thought. But he had to learn that the will of God for him was that he should "serve his generation." We too must learn this. A humble mind, a devoted heart, a tender conscience, an honest purpose are far more precious in God's sight than outward services, however showy and attractive.
The word "own" sets a limit. It rules out both longing for a better age and worry about what comes after us.
Scripture says of David that he "served the purpose of God in his own generation" and then "fell asleep." We cannot serve a generation that lived before our time, or one that lives after we are gone. God has brought us into this world to serve Him today, in the time we were born into. Sighing after another day, one we may judge to be better, will get us nowhere. It will only tempt us to give up.
Another writer finds relief in that limit. Keeping the work going is not our job.
The New Translation renders this verse, "David, after he had in his own age served the will of God." That is the most any of us can do. It is impossible to predict the details of the future. My business is to do the little bit given to me in the present, as His grace enables me. I do it very imperfectly, as I can see, but the great Head on high has resources that are everlasting. To carry on His work through the years — that is His business.
- Corruption — David's body decayed; Christ's did not. That one difference proves David wrote Psalm 16 about the Messiah, not about himself.
- Resurrection — Deny that God raised Christ's body and you deny His promise. Then faith itself is empty.
- Will — God measures service by His will, not by its size. David planned to do much; God asked him to serve one generation.
- Generation — We cannot serve those who lived before us or those who come after. Today is the only field God has given us.
- Epitaph — God's last word on David carries no "but": a full, unqualified commendation of his life.
But he whom God raised up did not see corruption.
Paul is preaching in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia. He has just quoted David's words about God's Holy One not seeing decay. Now he presses the question those words force. David is dead and buried, so whom was he describing?
The argument turns on a test that only one man passes. David served God in his own time, but his body decayed like everyone else's. So did the bodies of all his descendants.
The apostle to the Gentiles, in verses 36 and 37, reasons much as the apostle to the Jews does in Acts 2:29-31. Both speak with unanswerable power. But one man, the Messiah, was to see no corruption while tasting death. David in his own generation served the counsel of God, but saw corruption, as did all his descendants, except that One of whom he prophesied in the Spirit. Scripture cannot be broken. One man alone does and must fulfil the condition: who was He but Jesus, the Christ?
God could have spared His Holy One from decay in two ways. The first was to keep Him from dying at all.
It was clear that David did not mean himself in that sixteenth Psalm, the one the apostle had just quoted. David died, was buried, and saw corruption. So he was writing about another — about Him whom God raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ. … How would that come true? Not by keeping Him from death, but by raising the Lord Jesus Christ on the third day.
The timing matters. One writer says the words of Psalm 16 call for "nothing less than resurrection before corruption could set in" (Leslie M. Grant).
The body God raised was the same body that had hung on the cross. Once His work was finished, neither man nor decay could mark it again.
His work was finished. Now man could do nothing more to insult that body, though divine patience had permitted such insults before. It is taken down from the cross. It is wrapped in spices, which suggest the sweetness and fragrance of that death to God. It is laid in a new tomb that death had never tainted. The ashes of the sacrifice were poured out in a clean place, and no corruption may touch that Holy One (Acts 13:37).
Paul does not labour this proof for its own sake. The resurrection is God's own verdict on the cross.
Notice the great pains the apostle Paul took to prove that God had raised Christ from the dead (Acts 13:30-37). He proved it from the Scriptures, and from the testimony of eyewitnesses. And with reason. The resurrection of Christ was the evidence that His work of atonement was complete, to the satisfaction of God. Indeed, it was God's own demonstration that the death of His Son had glorified Him, and that the question of sin was settled once and for all. For God Himself stepped in. He stepped in with the abounding joy of His own heart, and He lifted out of the grave the One who died on the cross.
He is not only the exception to decay. He is the first of a harvest.
He is now in the heavens in a body which saw no corruption, a body which can never decay. He is the Firstfruits from among the dead. He is the pledge that the bodies of all believers will be raised in the same way, though their bodies did see corruption.
Deny that the resurrection was physical, and much more falls with it.
This fact is of basic importance for us today. Those who deny the actual physical resurrection of Jesus are committed to denying that God's Word in Psalm 16:9-11 came true. They are committed to the blasphemy that Christ saw corruption. And as a result they are committed to the falling away from the faith that was foretold. For it is written, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile" (1 Cor. 15:17).
- Corruption — the test. Every son of David decayed in the grave, David included. So Scripture's word about God's Holy One had to point past David to one Man.
- Corruption — not avoided, but defeated. The promise was kept not by keeping Him from dying, but by raising Him on the third day, before decay could begin.
- Corruption — never touching that body. They laid the very body that died on the cross in a new tomb that death had never touched, and no corruption could reach it.
- Corruption — the proof it is gone. God raised Him, and that is God's own demonstration: the work of atonement is complete and the question of sin is settled.
- Corruption — reversed for us. He is in heaven now in a body that can never decay — the Firstfruits, and the pledge that the bodies of believers will be raised too.