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.