but this is that which was spoken through the prophet Joel,
A crowd in Jerusalem has just heard the disciples speak in languages they never learned, and some of the listeners say the men are drunk. Peter answers by pointing to the prophet Joel — and what he meant by pointing there has been debated ever since.
Peter deals first with the sneer, and only then with the sign. The hour of the day was enough to answer the charge.
"Full of new wine," the mockers had said — an easy answer, as they thought, to the strange and startling sight they were watching. But the charge was easy to disprove, and its folly clear. The time of day should have kept the accusers quiet — it was only the third hour. Men were not used to being overcome with wine by nine o'clock in the morning. The disciples were not drunk with wine. They were filled with the Spirit.
Peter's exact words matter. These writers quote an older version — "This is that which was spoken" — where the ESV has "uttered." Peter names what kind of event this is; he does not say Joel's prophecy is finished.
The point he insists on was this — the wonder in front of them in Jerusalem was one their own prophets should have prepared them for. "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." He does not say that it was the fulfilment of the prophet. Men, theologians, have said so, but not the Spirit of God. The apostle only says, "This is that which was spoken." That was its character. How far it was to be carried out then is another matter. It was not the excitement of nature by wine, but the heart filled with the Spirit of God, acting in His own power and in all classes.
Read in its own book, Joel's promise follows Israel's restoration to their land. That setting is what keeps Pentecost from being the whole story.
"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh"... God speaks here of the time when He shall have re-established the Jews in their land, for He says, "My people shall never be ashamed"... This is after the blessing of the people, so that they may enjoy it. But when the day of Pentecost is there, Peter says, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," Acts 2:16. Yet the Holy Spirit came on only a small number, because the nation had not received Christ.
God kept the door open to Israel through the early chapters of Acts. How much of Joel's picture came true turned on their answer.
Students of Scripture have often noticed how patiently God bore with the Jews through the first seven chapters of Acts. Until Stephen's death, we might say, the Lord was ready to return to the repentant nation. Sadly, the nation was not ready to have Him, and so God's purposes went on to their fulfilment for the Church. If they had received the truth as a nation, Joel's prophecy would have been fulfilled in full. As it was, that fulfilment, for Israel, waits for a future day.
"All flesh" is the widest phrase in Joel's promise. The many languages the apostles spoke were the first sign of its reach.
"All flesh" here, we think, stands in contrast to Israel only. And Peter's heart at that moment must have been full of this. The last words he had heard from the Lord's lips as He ascended to heaven were "to the ends of the earth." He was filled with the Holy Spirit, who had come to bear witness to the world. Filled, gifted and inspired by the Holy Spirit, the apostles spoke — not the language of the Jew only, but many different tongues. The blessing was for all... All flesh does not necessarily mean every individual, but that all nations are in view.
Peter stops partway through Joel's prophecy. One writer sets this beside the Lord's own reading of Isaiah, where He stopped in the same way.
Peter's first use of the prophecy in Joel is similar to the Lord's use of Isaiah 61 in Luke 4. There He stopped at "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord"; the time for the "day of vengeance" had not come. So here, Peter ends with the words, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved," because this was the end of his ministry.
- Not that — Peter answers the mockery first. Nobody is drunk at nine in the morning. The crowd was watching hearts filled with the Spirit of God.
- This is that — Peter names the character of the event, not its completion. He never calls Joel's prophecy finished. This is the kind of thing Joel described.
- That is later — Joel's "afterward" belongs to a restored Israel in their land, so his full picture still waits.
- Only a few — the Spirit came on a small company, because the nation had not received Christ. Had Israel received the truth, Joel's words would have run their full course.
- But for all — Peter stops at the promise that everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved. "All flesh" means all nations, so a narrow beginning carries the widest promise.
And it shall be in the last days, saith God, [that] I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your elders shall dream with dreams;
Peter's first act as a preacher is to reach for an old prophecy. Joel had described this scene centuries earlier. But how does the day of Pentecost relate to Joel's words? Commentators still ask whether Peter announced that the prophecy had arrived, or something more careful.
Peter's exact wording matters. He does not claim the prophecy had run its course; he says the scene in front of them matched what Joel described.
Notice the point he presses. The wonder in front of them in Jerusalem was one their own prophets should have prepared them for. "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." He does not say that it was the fulfilment of the prophet. Men, religious teachers, have said so, but not the Spirit of God. The apostle only says, "This is that which was spoken." That was its character. How much of it was carried out then is another question. This was not nature stirred up by wine. It was the heart filled with the Spirit of God, acting in His own power and in every class of people.
The same care shows in where Peter breaks off. Joel's sentence continues, but Peter leaves the rest unsaid.
He stops in the middle of a verse... Peter stops at the general statement of salvation, which is true for every age. He deliberately holds back from quoting the end, which belongs only to the future, when the Lord returns to reign at Jerusalem. The Apostle was guided by God. Who on earth at that moment, apart from the Holy Spirit, knew what was about to happen, or the character of the work that must come before Israel's blessing?
Joel wrote "afterward." Peter says "in the last days."
If you look at Joel it is clearly this: "And it shall come to pass afterwards." That means after God has restored Israel, and set them in blessing in their land, and they own Messiah. Then they get the Spirit... "and afterward I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." Now here Peter changes the word "afterward" and puts in "the last days," and so takes in a distinct testimony.
Commentators differ over how far Joel's words were then met. Some place the full accomplishment still ahead:
For the Jew these are the last days, and they run on to the millennium... And the fulfilment of Joel's prophecy about the pouring out of the Spirit will come after the church is removed, and before those days close.
Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel all wrote about the Spirit being poured out. Joel's words reach further than the other two.
Isaiah and Ezekiel predict it, but they tie it to the last days, and to a blessing God would give Israel. On this matter their view as prophets stopped at the borders of the nation. Joel is different. His range of vision takes in all flesh... God was about to go beyond the narrow bounds of Judaism and to minister blessing to Gentiles. So saving grace would be known by some of all flesh, not only by some of Israel's race.
The phrase itself is wider than one nation, and it points to a blessing still to come.
Indeed, the prophet's words here reached beyond what that day accomplished. "All flesh" cannot rightly be limited to Israel. God was soon going to bring Gentiles to the name of Christ, and He will bless the nations in the future kingdom.
The blessing Joel promised was something new, and it reached even the lowest ranks of the people.
But there was a new thing God would give them. He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. The young men and the old men of the people would have visions and dreams. Even on the male and female servants this rain from heaven would fall.
Dreams and visions are not decoration in the promise; they are the method.
It is to be noted that in the last days when God pours out His Spirit on all flesh the sons and daughters will prophesy, and the young men shall see visions, and the old men shall dream dreams. This will be the way that God will make known His mind in those days.
So what should Christians expect today? One writer warns against a common mistake.
In this time of grace the Holy Spirit is here. He belongs by right to every individual Christian and to the Church of God. It is ours to walk in the Spirit and to be filled with Him. Many are unclear about this. They see that the spiritual condition of the Church as a whole is low, and they grieve over it. But they think the only cure is another outpouring or baptism of the Spirit. This is not the case, however sincere they may be. The real need is more simple faith in the mighty fact that the Holy Spirit is present on earth. Let us use the power we have, and God will honour the effort.
- Promise. Peter answers the mockery by pointing to Joel. What the crowd saw was the Spirit poured out, not wine at work.
- Precision. He says "this is that," not "this is fulfilled," and stops mid-verse — leaving unquoted what belongs to a future day.
- Timing. Peter turns Joel's "afterward" into "in the last days." Commentators differ on how much came then and how much still waits.
- Reach. "All flesh" reaches past Israel — sons and daughters, young and old, male and female servants alike.
- Possession. The Spirit given at Pentecost is still here. The call is not to seek another outpouring but to use the power we already have.
yea, even upon my bondmen and upon my bondwomen in those days will I pour out of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
Peter answers the charge of drunkenness by turning to Joel: God pours out His Spirit on His servants, men and women alike, and they prophesy. Three questions follow — was Joel's word finished that morning, who is included, and what does prophesying mean?
Peter chooses his words with care. He says what kind of event the crowd is watching. He does not say Joel's prophecy is now complete.
Notice the point he insists on. The wonder now in front of them in Jerusalem was one their own prophets should have prepared them for: "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel." He does not say it was the fulfilment of the prophet. Men, theologians, have said that; the Spirit of God does not. The apostle simply says, "This is what was spoken." That was its character. How far it was to be carried out then is another matter. This was not nature excited by wine. It was the heart filled with the Spirit of God, acting in His own power and in every class of people.
The verse names servants, the lowest rank in a household, and it names both men and women. So the gift was not kept inside a small circle.
We need only note that it came on all — young and old, male servants and female servants. There is no trace of a clergy, or of any group the gift was limited to. The wording says the opposite. And it was not only the apostles: a hundred and twenty were there, and women among them.
The promised result is prophecy. The word is easily misread as predicting the future.
Prophesying has no necessary link with the future, as some suppose. Nor is it preaching or teaching in general. It is forth-telling rather than fore-telling. It is speaking to a person in a way that puts him in the light of God — of God's dealing with his heart and conscience. It gives His mind.
The mention of female servants is not a throwaway. Women were praying with the disciples before the Spirit ever came.
"Women" were expressly named in Acts 1:14. At that point the disciples, close together as they were, were still only separate people holding to the Lord in faith, giving themselves with one mind to constant prayer. The one Spirit had not yet come down from heaven to unite them and baptize them all into one body. Joel's prophecy, applied to the gift at Pentecost, assumes that women were to have a share in the promise of the Father, and in its mighty result.
Writers are careful, though, about what this verse does not settle. Sharing in the gift is one question. Where a woman may use it is another.
This is also all that can be said of the passage in Acts 2:17-18. The daughters of Israel, the Lord's "female servants," were to prophesy — but where? Not in public preaching, for even "the law" forbade them that.
Joel's phrase "all flesh" in the verse before covers these servants too. Those words reach further than what happened that one morning in Jerusalem.
It really was what Joel spoke of — not the fulfilment as it will be in the last days, but a pouring out of that same kind. In fact the prophet's words went beyond what that day carried out. "All flesh" cannot be limited to Israel. God was soon to bring Gentiles to the name of Christ, and He will bless the nations in the future kingdom.
A further outpouring is still ahead, with a different purpose from the one at work now.
But we must remember what happens when the day comes for God to pour out the Holy Spirit again. That outpouring will not gather out a people for heaven. It will serve God's purposes of grace on the earth — that is the difference. Then it will be plain that God gives the Holy Spirit to men quite apart from their being Jews. So on the day of Pentecost, when everyone there was a Jew, the miracle of Gentile languages still showed that God did not mean to stop there, but to go out to all the nations.
- Promise. Peter says this is what Joel spoke of. He names the character of what happened, not the finish of Joel's word.
- Reach. The Spirit falls on male and female servants. There is no clergy and no closed circle, and women were among the hundred and twenty.
- Voice. Prophesying is forth-telling, not fore-telling. It puts a person in the light of God's mind.
- Limit. Sharing the gift is not the same as having a platform. This passage does not give women a place in public preaching.
- Horizon. "All flesh" already reached past Israel that day, through the tongues. A fuller outpouring still waits, for God's purposes on the earth.
And I will give wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke
On the day of Pentecost the crowd heard their own languages spoken. Peter explained it from the prophet Joel. But his quotation runs past the gift of the Spirit into wonders in the sky and signs on the earth. Nothing like blood, fire and smoke happened in Jerusalem that morning. So was Peter saying Joel's words had already come true?
Peter's wording is careful. He names the character of what was happening, not its completion. (The quotations below come from an older translation than the ESV.)
Notice the point he presses: the wonder in front of them in Jerusalem was, after all, one their own prophets should have prepared them for. "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." He does not say it was the fulfilment of the prophecy. Theologians have said so, but the Spirit of God has not. The apostle only says, "This is that which was spoken." That was its character. How much of it was to happen then is another question.
The New Testament has a set phrase for announcing that a prophecy has come true. Here it is missing.
Many passages in the New Testament use the phrase "that it might be fulfilled." That phrase is missing where Joel's prophecy is used in Acts chapter 2. Instead we read that Peter said, "But this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel." There is a great difference between this word and an out-and-out declaration that the passage was fulfilled. Peter's words point out that something like what happened on the day of Pentecost had been foretold by Joel. But they do not claim that Joel's prophecy was fulfilled there and then.
Acts later reports "wonders and signs" done by the apostles. Those were not the ones Joel described.
Plainly, the wonders in heaven above and the signs in the earth have not even yet come to pass (Acts 2:19). Verse 43 tells us that "many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles." But those were not the ones Joel foretold: "blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke," the sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood. God did pour out His Spirit in Jerusalem as He had promised, so to that extent the prophecy came partly true.
These signs have a purpose. They come before the judgment, and God works the same way with us now.
God will make a striking outward display of His power before the judgment falls. He always sends a witness ahead of the event itself. He does not strike before He warns. He deals with us the same way every day… These wonders are bound to catch people's minds and attention, but they will not take them to heart. Deluded, and hardened under God's judgment, they will turn a deaf ear to it all. So the great and terrible day of the Lord will overtake them like a thief.
Joel ties the outpouring to the nation's repentance. Commentators differ over whether history has already given a small first instalment of the signs.
When they repent, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on them and on all people. Peter quoted this in Acts 2:16-21, but the nation did not repent; only a remnant turned to the Lord. There will also be signs in the heavens and on the earth before the great and terrible day of the Lord. According to the historians, there were some such signs before the destruction of Jerusalem. So this passage, quoted in Acts 2, may have had a partial fulfilment then, though it still waits to be fully proved true in a future day.
Alongside the promise of the Spirit, something less obvious reached that crowd.
It was less prominent, but still clearly there: the Spirit of God had brought home to them the reality of judgment… All nature would shake before its Judge, and that judgment was close at hand.
Notice what the signs are timed against. They belong to the day of the Lord, not to Christ's coming for His people.
This hope may come true this very night. There is nothing at all to wait for… And, blessed be His name, when He does come for us, He will not come with terror, wrath and judgment. He will not come with blackness and darkness and storm. Those things belong to "the day of the Lord," as the apostle Peter tells the Jews plainly in his first great sermon.
- Wording. Peter says "this is that," not "this fulfils that." The New Testament's usual phrase for fulfilment is missing.
- Portion. God did pour out His Spirit, so part of Joel came true. The wonders and signs of this verse have not happened yet.
- Warning. These signs are God's testimony sent ahead of judgment — He does not strike before He warns.
- Deafness. People will see the warning and still ignore it, so the day will overtake them like a thief.
- Hope. Blood, fire and smoke belong to the day of the Lord. Christ's coming for His people is different, and there is nothing left to wait for.
the sun shall be changed to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and gloriously appearing day of [the] Lord come.
Peter explains a morning of wind, fire and foreign languages in Jerusalem by quoting the prophet Joel. Yet Joel's darkened sun and blood-red moon did not appear that day, which raises two questions: was the prophecy finished at Pentecost, and what is "the day of the Lord" these signs come before?
Peter introduced the whole quotation in verse 16 with the words "this is that." One writer weighs what those words claim:
It is strange that all these commentators use the word "fulfillment" for this prophecy. They say Peter called the day of Pentecost the fulfillment of what Joel wrote. But the Holy Spirit did not use the word "fulfillment" at all. He avoided such a statement on purpose. Many passages in the New Testament use the phrase "that it might be fulfilled." Peter does not use it here. Instead he says, "But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." … Peter's words point out that Joel had predicted something like what took place on the day of Pentecost. They do not claim that Joel's prophecy was fulfilled there and then. … The outpouring of the Holy Spirit had taken place, but not in the full sense given in Joel's prophecy. He came for a special purpose, the formation of the Church, and for this purpose He is still on earth.
Nothing in the sky changed that morning. One writer marks off the part of Joel that was left for later:
The verses he quotes (Joel 2:28-32) were not completely fulfilled when God poured out His Spirit at Pentecost. Verses 19 and 20 at least will be fulfilled only at the time of the tribulation period. Yet his words "this is that" show that God was doing an unusually striking work, in line with that prophecy. Such partial fulfilments are not unusual in Scripture.
The word "before" carries the verse. One writer draws a rule from that order and applies it to daily life:
God will show His power in a remarkable, visible way before He carries out the judgment. God always sends a testimony before the thing itself. He does not strike before He warns. He deals with us the same way every day. What Christian feels God's discipline before the Spirit of God has warned him? … He gives us the chance, if one may say so, to set ourselves morally right; and if we do not take the lesson, then the sorrow comes. So it is here too. These wonders are bound to catch people's minds and attention, but they will not truly heed them. … They will turn a deaf ear to it all, and so the great and terrible day of the Lord will overtake them like a thief.
Peter's hearers already knew this phrase from their own Scriptures. One writer sums up what it means wherever it appears:
On the day of Pentecost Peter speaks of "the day of the Lord, the great and magnificent day." … In all these passages, and in 1 Thessalonians 5, the phrase points to sudden and overwhelming judgments on the wicked. Those judgments open the way for Christ to set up His kingdom on earth by power.
Commentators differ on how to read the sun and moon here. Some take the language as a picture of authority collapsing:
Signs in the sun. These probably stand for the darkening and change of those in supreme authority over the earth in the last days.
Another writer takes the same words at face value:
In Joel the sun is darkened and the moon turned to blood before the day comes. I take it that if the sea in the appointed area literally becomes like the blood of a dead man, then the moon is literally turned into blood too. But then that is before the great and terrible day of the Lord in Joel.
Some read these signs as events believers must wait through. One writer asks what the word "before" actually points to:
Christ may come for His people tonight. Nothing stands in the way. … And when He does come for us, He will not come with terror, wrath, and judgment. He will not come with blackness and darkness and storm. Those things belong to "the day of the Lord," as Peter tells the Jews in his first great sermon on the day of Pentecost … "the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before" — what? Before the coming of the Lord for His people? No; but before "the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day."
- Sample, not completion. Peter says "this is that," not "this fulfils that." Pentecost matched Joel's words but did not use them up.
- Still future. Nothing in the sky changed that morning. The darkened sun and blood-red moon belong to the tribulation still ahead.
- Before, always before. God sends a warning ahead of the blow. He never strikes first — not in world judgment, and not in His daily dealings with us.
- A day of judgment. "The day of the Lord" means sudden, sweeping judgment on the wicked that opens Christ's kingdom on earth.
- A different expectation. These terrors come before that day, not before the Lord's coming for His people. Nothing has to happen first.
And it shall be that whosoever shall call upon the name of [the] Lord shall be saved.
Peter has just explained the rush of the Spirit at Pentecost by quoting the prophet Joel. He ends the quotation on a promise, not a threat. That raises three questions: whose name is meant, what calling is, and why Peter breaks off where he does.
Joel's sentence does not end where Peter's quotation ends. One writer traces the missing half and explains the choice.
He stopped in the middle of a verse. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Joel gives a reason for that. He adds, "For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls" (Joel 2:32). Peter stops at the general statement of salvation, which is true in every age. He carefully avoids quoting the end, because it applies only to the future, when the Lord returns to reign at Jerusalem.
Peter was following a pattern his Master had already set.
Peter's first use of the prophecy in Joel is like the Lord's use of Isaiah 61 in Luke 4. There He stopped at "to preach the acceptable year of the Lord" — the time for the "day of vengeance" had not come. So here Peter ends with the words "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," because this was the end of his ministry.
Peter's crowd was Jewish, yet the prophecy he chose was the one with the widest horizon.
It was really what Joel spoke of: not, of course, the fulfilment as it is to be in the last days, but an outpouring of that nature. Indeed, the prophet's words went beyond what that day saw accomplished, for "all flesh" cannot fairly be limited to Israel, and God was soon about to bring in Gentiles to the name of Christ.
Peter never calls this the fulfilment of Joel. His care carries a warning for anyone who thinks a later day will do.
Peter says, in effect: this is the first instalment of the prophecy of Joel… I have no doubt the complete fulfilment of Joel's prophecy remains for a future day, when the Jews are again in their land — a restored people. So Peter is careful not to say it is the fulfilment… But you, my reader, if you miss salvation now, will never come in for it then.
In Joel the name to call on is Jehovah. For Peter's hearers, that raised a problem.
Joel had added the necessary condition of salvation in the trouble of those days. It could hardly be called a condition at all. To "call upon the Name of the Lord" (that is, of Jehovah) would so naturally be what anyone turns to in trouble. Yet even here, sadly, man's unbelief might turn this into a stumbling-block — something to fall over and perish. For Jehovah had already come to them, and they had rejected Him!
The apostles put the same truth in its sharpest form, ruling out every other name.
At Pentecost the apostles preached and prayed in the spirit of these scriptures, in the name of the holy Servant Jesus. They said, "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." And they announced with force, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
The condition is as small as a cry — which is the whole point.
What is required of men in order that they may be saved? Simply to "call" upon the name of the Lord. This was all Israel could do while they were suffering in Egypt. To shake off Pharaoh was impossible; to get rid of the taskmasters was out of the question; but they could cry to God. In the same way today, the one who calls upon the name of the Lord, acknowledging Him as his only hope, will be saved.
But a cry can also be empty.
The calling spoken of here is not the vague cry of an uneasy conscience, but the cry of faith… Sadly, as we are solemnly warned, the cry "Lord, Lord" may come from lips whose sound never came from a believing heart.
The word "everyone" leaves no boundary standing.
It is clear that, if it is everyone who believes in Jesus, the Gentile comes in as well as the Jew. There is no difference; the same Lord is rich to all who call upon Him. It is beautiful to see this phrase, "There is no difference," repeated here. The apostle had used it before with the addition "for all have sinned." Sin puts all men on a level in ruin before God.
- The name — the Lord to call on is Jehovah. Peter's hearers had already rejected the very One they were told to call on.
- The call — the condition is a cry, all a helpless person can manage. But it must be the cry of faith, not the empty sound of "Lord, Lord."
- The reach — "everyone" takes in the Gentile as well as the Jew. The same Lord is rich to all who call.
- The pause — Peter breaks off mid-verse on purpose. He leaves out the part that belongs to the day when the Lord reigns at Jerusalem.
- The window — Pentecost is an instalment, not the finish. The offer stands now, and whoever misses it will not pick it up later.
Men of Israel, hear these words Jesus the Nazaraean, a man borne witness to by God to you by works of power and wonders and signs, which God wrought by him in your midst, as yourselves know
Peter is preaching to a crowd in Jerusalem, and here he names the Man at the centre of everything. He points them back to a life they had watched with their own eyes, and asks them to weigh what God had said about it.
Peter preaches a Man now raised to the highest place in heaven. Yet he keeps calling Him by the name people looked down on.
Along with all this, Peter sets out in the fullest way the weakness and humiliation of Jesus. And this is the same Jesus he kept testifying was now raised to the highest place in the heavens. This is very striking in these early sermons of his. Jesus had been slain, Peter says, treated as nothing, handed over, denied, seized, killed, hanged on a tree. He puts no restraint on language like this. And in the same spirit, he seems to glory in the despised name of "Jesus of Nazareth." He has it on his lips again and again.
The word sets God's verdict against the crowd's verdict. The works that filled His public ministry were God's own endorsement, publicly given.
Men despised Jesus of Nazareth, but God approved Him. The miracles that marked the whole course of His public ministry were God's witness to His worthiness and to His claims. They were the seal of God's approval placed upon Him. This verse is like a key, unlocking for us the real force and meaning of all miraculous signs and gifts.
Peter uses three terms, not one, and each looks at the same works from a different side. Notice too where he begins — not with the Son of God, but with the Man they had seen.
Peter then presses upon Israel the facts about this Lord Himself, "Jesus of Nazareth." He does not preach Him as the Son of God, as Paul did right after his conversion (Acts 9:20). He preaches Him as "a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs." The mighty works show divine power. The wonders stress their effect on people. The signs point to spiritual truth. Of these things the people themselves were witnesses.
Peter does not say Jesus did these works; he says God did them by Him. That phrasing describes the place the Lord had taken as a Man.
Acts 10:38 shows that this points to the service of the Holy Spirit, for there we read that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power." He truly became Man — humble, dependent, obedient. Even if we cannot fathom the deep mystery of His Person, we may at least learn this. When He went about doing good, and healing all whom the devil oppressed, He did not do it by any divine, personal, inherent power as Son of God, though He is Son. He did it as Man by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Peter hands the proof to his hearers: they had seen it themselves.
The evidence of Christ's heavenly mission was full and undeniable, and open for all to see. It was so clear that Peter charged the Jews on the day of Pentecost with full knowledge of His credentials. The apostle declared that God had attested Jesus of Nazareth to them "with mighty works and wonders and signs … as you yourselves know" (Acts 2:22). Not one voice from that crowded audience rose in protest.
Yet such proof was not aimed first at hardened unbelief.
Though God attested Jesus of Nazareth "with mighty works and wonders and signs" (Acts 2:22), the main object was not to convince stubborn unbelief. It was to encourage and confirm weak faith.
One writer traces these same three marks forward to a coming deception.
According to Peter's testimony about the witness given to Jesus, the very things that proved Christ had come from God will be the very things that lead the Jews to receive the false Christ in the last days. Compare this with 2 Thessalonians 2:8-9: "Then the lawless one will be revealed … with all power and false signs and wonders." So, just as the Jews rejected what God did among them by Jesus of Nazareth, they will receive what Satan will do by that wicked one. And all this, as the apostle goes on to say, is because they did not receive the love of the truth.
- Approved — God's public seal on the Man that people despised; His verdict overturns theirs.
- Attested — the seal came in three ways: power shown, people amazed, meaning taught.
- Achieved by God — Jesus worked as a dependent Man in the Spirit's power, not by His own inherent power as Son of God.
- Acknowledged — the crowd had witnessed it all, and no one contradicted Peter.
- Answered by a counterfeit — the false Christ will come with the same three marks, so only a heart that loves the truth is safe.
-- him, given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye, by [the] hand of lawless [men], have crucified and slain.
Peter's Pentecost sermon reaches its sharpest point here. He tells the crowd they killed their own Messiah. He also says God had planned that death long before. God's settled purpose and the guilty hands of men stand in one sentence, and neither cancels the other.
Peter first reminds the crowd of the life they had watched, and only then names what they did with that life.
Peter goes on to give a lovely testimony to the Lord. He points to the beautiful life of his Master: what He had been doing, and how He had been blessing people everywhere. They knew it well. But then what a charge he makes! He boldly lays their guilt on them. Terrible accusation! They were guilty of the murder of their Messiah, and of refusing the Son of God. Only seven weeks before, they had refused the Lord. They chose Barabbas instead — a robber and a murderer. They had cried, "Away with him, crucify him," even though Pilate, the Roman governor, had declared Him innocent.
Roman hands did the killing, but Peter puts the blame on the crowd in front of him. "Lawless" here means the Gentiles, outside Israel's law.
What then had been the outcome? They, the men of law, had used the hands of lawless men — of the Gentiles — to crucify and kill Him. That might seem to disprove His claims. But no. Everything that happened had its place in the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, and it was by that plan that He was given up. Apart from it, all man's efforts would have been useless!
The verb Peter uses here for the act itself is not the usual one.
Two different words are translated as 'crucified'. One is the common word, which comes from the word 'cross'. The other appears only once in the New Testament, and it means 'nailed' or 'fastened' to the cross. This shows the audacity as well as the folly of man in committing this act.
Someone handed Jesus over. Peter says God did.
How blessed it is to turn away from man and all his wickedness, and to learn this. The death of our Lord Jesus Christ was not only the result of man's evil. It was also the result of the counsels of God. He was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God," when men took Him with wicked hands to crucify and kill Him. God knew what men would do with His Son, and took the occasion of man's wickedness to work out His plans for the blessing of mankind. When Pilate delivered up Jesus to be crucified, God delivered Him up for our trespasses (Rom. 4:25).
The word behind "foreknowledge" carries more than advance information:
A knowledge of persons and events before they exist. It is one of the divine attributes of God, by which persons were foreknown by Him and events determined. It is a capacity altogether beyond the mind of man to grasp.
Does God's plan excuse the men who carried it out? This verse says no.
God had given Him up to this according to His "definite plan and foreknowledge." God knows how to make the wrath of man praise Him and carry out His purposes of blessing. Yet this does not lessen man's responsibility in the matter. Verse 23 clearly shows that the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man do not clash in practice. In theory we may still find the two hard to fit together.
The same cross displays two opposite things at full strength.
On one side, unbelief and rebellion and blasphemy were left free to run their course when the moment came. His own people rejected Jesus in the most shameful way, and they urged the Gentiles to crucify Him. On the other side, all of this was so that He might become a propitiation for the sins of His own who believed, yes, for the whole world. If that was man's inexcusable wickedness, this was God's sovereign grace. If they were the instruments of their own spite, He gave One who had been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Peter was not teaching history. He aimed at their hearts.
First, as to conviction of sin, he brings home to them the fact that they rejected Christ. Here the Holy Spirit presses their sin home. It was not now a question of this or that wrongdoing. They had refused to believe in Christ — they had rejected Him.
- Delivered — Pilate handed Jesus over to men; God handed Him over for our trespasses. The same act has two authors and two meanings.
- Determined — foreknowledge is more than God looking ahead. He knows persons and events before they exist, and He determines them.
- Guilty — men of the law used lawless hands to nail Him down; borrowed hands never transfer guilt.
- Both true — God's plan and man's guilt do not clash in practice. Only our theories struggle to hold them together.
- Turned — man's worst wickedness became the occasion of God's sovereign grace. The event that convicts them is the same event that saves.
Whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death, inasmuch as it was not possible that he should be held by its power;
Peter has just told the crowd that they killed Jesus. Now he tells them what God did with the Man they killed: He raised Him, and death had no power to keep Him.
The crowd had already given its judgment on Jesus, in words and then in a cross. The resurrection is God's reply. One writer calls it the moment God cleared Jesus of everything men had said about Him.
When was He justified beyond dispute? When He was raised from the dead. This was the standing justification of Him whom man crucified. If lawless hands slew the Lord of glory, God raised Him up, having loosed the pains of death: such was His answer to man.
The words "not possible" point to a matter of right, not difficulty. One writer finds the reason in who Jesus is: there was nothing in Him for death to hold.
Our Lord's soul would not, could not, be held by the unseen world, neither could the Holy One "see corruption"! This last part, of course, has to do with His body. But because of what He was — the "Holy One" — if He went into death He had to come out, for resurrection was inherent in Him. (John 11:25; 2:19.) A perfect, heavenly, holy Man could not be held by it. Death had no claim upon Him, and no seed of it in Him!
They killed Him, God raised Him — and then the cause of this, in the Lord's high personal glory. He loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it. "For David speaks," and so on. The hindrance to death's power, as it is stated here, is not the inherent power of the Lord, as we have it in Romans 1, declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, but the personal glory and dignity given Him by the counsel of God as the One witnessed of by the Spirit in David; and not in David only, but in all the Scriptures.
One writer points back to what was already finished. Nothing was left owing, so raising Him was the only fitting answer.
It was not possible, therefore, that He should be held by death (Acts 2:24), since all that righteousness required had been done. Only one answer could be given to such a work and such devotion — to be "raised from the dead by the glory of the Father," and to the throne in heaven.
The word Peter uses for "pangs" appears only a handful of times in the New Testament.
The word ōdin occurs only four times in the New Testament. It refers literally to the pangs of a woman in childbirth, and it has that sense in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Twice it refers to the pangs that will seize the wicked when God's judgments are poured out on the earth, Matthew 24:8 and Mark 13:8; and once it refers to the pains of death endured by the Lord, Acts 2:24.
Scripture tells of others who came back from the grave. What happened to Jesus was different in kind.
He is risen, not like Lazarus, Jairus' daughter, and others, to return to corruption, but never to die again (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). What is more, He was raised because it was not possible that He should be held by death (Acts 2:24). For He was holy and righteous, and His resurrection proclaims that.
Death had no claim on Him. But He had taken our place, and there it did have a claim. That is why His release is not His alone.
His resurrection was the loosing of the pains of death (see Acts 2:24). Death, of course, had no claim on Him personally. It had one substitutionally, since He took up our cause and on the cross assumed our liabilities. So His resurrection involves the loosing of us from all pains and penalties. He was set free, but so were we. He was "delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). Because of this, His resurrection is often called the receipt God has placed in the believer's hand. It announces the complete discharge of all the believer's debts, which the Lord Jesus took up in His death.
- Loosed — Peter's word for "pangs" is the word for birth pangs: death held Him the way labour holds a mother, and the end was never in doubt.
- Impossible — not just unlikely: death had no claim on Him and no seed of it in Him, so the Holy One who entered death had to come out.
- Answered — men gave their verdict at the cross; God gave His by raising Him, and that reversal is His public reply to man.
- Grounded — righteousness had all it required, so raising Him was the only fitting answer.
- Discharged — the death He entered was ours, so His release is the receipt in the believer's hand: He was set free, and so were we.
for David says as to him, I foresaw the Lord continually before me, because he is at my right hand that I may not be moved.
Peter is preaching at Pentecost, and he backs his message with words David wrote long before in Psalm 16. His argument turns on one claim: the man speaking in that psalm is not the man who wrote it.
Peter's reasoning rests on a fact the whole crowd could check for themselves:
Was David writing of himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was with them, still holding his dust. Clearly his tomb was well known at that time. And all were perfectly agreed that he, the first of his line, had not risen from the dead. Yet he wrote of One who would die, and would shortly afterwards be raised.
Behind that argument lies a way of reading the whole Bible:
No truth is clearer to the spiritual mind, or more important to the student of Scripture, than this: Jesus is the sum and substance of the Spirit's testimony in Scripture. If we do not see this, Scripture becomes to our poor foolish minds a maze of dark places. His name is the clue and the thread through it. Reader, when you study Scripture what do you look for in it? Testimony to Jesus, or something about yourself?
The psalm traces a trust that carries its Speaker to the far side of the grave:
The same psalm gives the clearest proof that the most absolute trust in God would mark the Messiah through all His life. He was to lay down His life with trust in God just as unbroken and perfect in death as in life. And in the end He would stand in resurrection. So it is the psalm of confidence in God, and that confidence goes right through life, death, resurrection. It was seen in Jesus, and clearly it does not apply to David who wrote it.
One word in the verse, always, marks this life out from every other:
No one but He could say, "I have set the Lord always before me." Never for one moment did He turn aside from the way of perfect obedience. Because He obeyed like this, Jehovah was always at His right hand to hold Him up. So He would not be moved, no matter what lay before Him. Passing into death as the dependent Man, death could not hold Him.
This is why the psalm shows Jesus as a real man among men, living by dependence on God:
Psalm 16 places Christ fully — though perfect — among men, in His walk of righteousness in owning Jehovah. The living God takes up His cause, so that death is not to have dominion over Him.
The phrase pictures nearness, not distance:
A friend at our right hand is a friend at our side, to whom we can turn at any moment. So David can say, "I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." The wicked man trusted in himself. He "said in his heart I shall not be moved," and then came under the judgment of the Lord. The godly man, trusting in the Lord at his right hand, can say, "I shall not be moved."
That same steadiness carried Jesus through what lay ahead of Him:
When the time came for Jesus to be received up, what enabled Him to set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem? It was because He had, with purpose of heart, set the Lord always before His face. Satan tried every means in the path of Jesus to shift Him off the place of dependence and obedience. He could not succeed. Jesus had said to the Lord, "You are my Lord." He had set Him before His face, and the Lord was at His right hand. Therefore He could not be moved.
Commentators differ over how far this applies to us. Some stress that only Christ could say "always." Others hold out the same path for us:
Such is the path open to the believer. Sadly, we have to admit how little we know of its blessedness. And yet, suppose day by day we set the Lord before us as our one object: to serve Him, to please Him, to do His will. Shall we not find that He will be at our right hand to support us? With that support, nothing will move us or turn us aside — no trying circumstances, no opposition, slights or sufferings we may be called to meet.
- Speaker — The "I" of Psalm 16 is not David. His tomb was still there, still holding his dust. He wrote of Another who would die and rise.
- Subject — Jesus is the substance of the Spirit's testimony in Scripture. His name is the thread through passages that otherwise stay dark.
- Span — That trust never breaks: not in life, not in death, not in resurrection.
- Support — "At my right hand" means help within reach at any moment. God was at His side, so nothing shifted Him from the path of obedience.
- Share — Set the Lord before you day by day. You will find Him at your right hand to hold you up, and opposition and sorrow will not move you.
Therefore has my heart rejoiced and my tongue exulted; yea more, my flesh also shall dwell in hope,
On the day of Pentecost, Peter quotes a song written a thousand years earlier — and tells the crowd it was never about its writer. Its words are gladness, singing, and a body resting in hope — spoken by a man walking straight toward death.
Peter quotes Psalm 16 as the voice of the Messiah, not of David. The psalm traces one unbroken confidence in God across three stages, and no Jew could claim it for the king who wrote it.
The same psalm gives the clearest proof about the Messiah — and no Jew could doubt that the psalm was speaking of the Messiah. He would show the most absolute trust in God all through His life. He was to lay down His life with a trust in God just as unbroken and perfect in death as in life. And in the end He would stand in resurrection. So it is the psalm of confidence in God that runs right through life, death, resurrection. It was seen in Jesus. It does not fit David, who wrote it.
Peter presses the point with a fact the crowd could check: David's tomb still held David.
Was David writing of himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was among them, still holding his dust. Clearly his grave was well known then. And everyone agreed that he, the first of his line, had not risen from the dead. For centuries that psalm had been read. Probably everyone in the crowd knew it. But until that day none of them could point to anyone who had died and say, "Here is the man."
The gladness is a result, not a mood. One writer traces it back to the way Christ lived, and finds a second meaning inside the word "tongue."
Christ lived in constant dependence and unswerving obedience. The result was that His heart was glad in a world where He was a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and that His glory (that is, His tongue) rejoiced. There is something very beautiful here: the Hebrew word for "glory" also means "tongue." So it was with Christ. His tongue was His glory, and it rejoiced, because He used it only for the glory of His Father and God. Our tongues, sadly, are often our shame. Every word spoken by that blessed tongue was a word of truth, love, grace and wisdom.
The three things named in the verse — heart, tongue, flesh — all rest on one expectation.
His heart rejoicing, His tongue glad, His flesh resting in hope, was because of the certainty of resurrection. His soul would not be left in hades, which is the unseen state of separation from His body. Also, "Your Holy One" would not see corruption. This of course refers to His body. The spirit and soul had left it, so it lay in a state of death — yet it would not see corruption.
The change of word from "heart" and "tongue" to "flesh" is deliberate, and writers note that the psalm keeps the two apart on purpose.
In Psalm 16:9-10, where the Lord Jesus speaks prophetically, the distinction between "My flesh" and "My soul" is clearly indicated.
What makes this verse remarkable is where the words come from. The path He walked led straight through death.
The path of life that the Lord walked led through death. This is not death as making atonement for His people, but death that shows the blessedness of a life death cannot touch. It is the path of life through death. Here the prospect of death raises no cloud on His spirit. So far from being cast down at the thought of death, His heart is glad, His tongue rejoices, for His flesh will rest in hope. For the one walking the path of life, death is only a means to a fuller enjoyment of that life. The natural man walks the path of death, and at that very moment gloom and dread fill him. The one walking the path of life is marked by joy, praise and the rest of hope.
The verse describes One who is unique. Yet commentators draw the same hope out for those who belong to Him. The Scripture wording below follows an older translation of Psalm 16:10.
The Lord's joy remains even in view of death. His confidence is still in God: "You will not leave My soul in Sheol; neither will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption." Christ is indeed the "Holy One." But believers are "holy and beloved," and as such they can know the blessedness of the life of Christ as man. They too can look ahead with confidence, knowing that God will not leave the soul in death nor the body in corruption.
- Confidence — one trust in God holds firm through life, through death, and out into resurrection.
- Cause — the "therefore" ties the gladness back to dependence and obedience — His heart was glad in a world of sorrow.
- Tongue — one Hebrew word means both "glory" and "tongue." His speech was His glory, because every word served His Father.
- Flesh — heart, tongue and body all rest on the certainty of resurrection. The soul is not left in the unseen state, and the body does not see corruption.
- Ours — He is the Holy One; believers are holy and beloved. They may face death with the same confidence, for soul and body.
for thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, nor wilt thou give thy gracious one to see corruption.
Peter is speaking to a crowd in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. To prove that God raised Jesus, he quotes words David wrote a thousand years earlier in Psalm 16. The psalm makes two promises: one about a soul, one about a body. Everything Peter argues next turns on whose soul and body they are.
Peter's point is not that the psalm could refer to Christ. It is that it could not refer to anyone else. The proof stood a short walk away, in a tomb everyone knew.
Was David writing of himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was among them, still holding his dust. Clearly his grave was well known then. And everyone fully agreed that he, the first of his dynasty, had not risen from the dead. Yet he wrote of One who would die, and would shortly afterwards be raised.
The verse is not saying the same thing twice. Each half tracks a different part of the person who died. Peter's own explanation a few verses later keeps them apart.
Hades never means the grave, as some claim, although the imagery of the grave may naturally be applied to it. It is still clearly distinct. It stands in the same relation to the soul as the grave does to the body... So in the words quoted about the Lord in Acts 2:27, "you will not abandon my soul to Hades" refers to the soul. "Or let your Holy One see corruption" refers to the body. The apostle Peter separates them in the same way when he explains the psalm.
Older English translations turn "Hades" into "hell." That has confused many readers.
The word "hell" in that verse is not "Gehenna," the lake of fire, but "hades" (or in Hebrew "sheol"), which does not indicate a place, but a state. It is the unseen state of the soul and spirit as separated from the body. So His spirit and soul were in the unseen condition called "hades." But they were in the place called "paradise," the third heaven. In resurrection God would not leave His soul in that unseen condition. Nor would He let His body see corruption. Soul and body would be reunited.
The title is not the ordinary word for those set apart to God. It describes a character, and the possessive pronoun matters.
"Holy One" here is not the same as "saints in the earth." "Saints" are those set apart — consecrated to God. Your "Holy" One is one who walks in devotion to God, pleasing to Him. It is Christ known in this character... Notice that it is "Your Holy One," One who morally belongs to God by the perfection of His character.
Commentators differ. Some read the title of His body, tracing the name back to the angel's word to Mary:
"Your Holy One" is the flesh of Jesus (Acts 2:27, 31). The title comes from Luke 1:35. That word set the human nature of Jesus apart from every stain, and kept it in full favour and acceptance with God.
Corruption is not simply what happens to dead matter. It has a cause, and in His case the cause was absent.
The Lord was completely sinless. So we can understand how His blessed holy body saw no corruption, for corruption is the effect of sin. The blessed Lord had 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 decay starts at once.
Peter states two impossibilities. Death could not keep its hold, and Scripture could not fail.
Death could not hold Him fast — the death that He, the Holy One, had submitted to for sin, for God's glory. Nor was it possible to break the Scripture that said, "For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption." ... Here Peter, and Paul in Acts 13:33-37, declare that God fulfilled it by raising Jesus from the dead. It was not fulfilled in David, still less in anyone else.
The confidence in this verse is first His, but it does not stop with Him.
Christ is indeed the "Holy One," but believers are "holy and beloved," and, as such, can know the blessedness of the life of Christ as man. They too can look on with confidence, knowing that God will not leave the soul in death nor the body in corruption.
- Proof. David died, was buried, and his tomb was still there — so the psalm was never about him, and Peter names the only Man it fits.
- Parts. Hades holds the soul as the grave holds the body. The verse promises release from both, and Peter keeps the two lines apart.
- Person. "Your Holy One" is One who belongs to God by the perfection of His character. David could not say that of himself.
- Purity. Decay is the effect of sin. There was no sin in Him, so His holy body saw no corruption.
- Promise. Death could not hold Him, and Scripture could not be broken. The same confidence now belongs to those God calls "holy and beloved."
Thou hast made known to me [the] paths of life, thou wilt fill me with joy with thy countenance.
Peter quotes a psalm of David in his sermon, and this verse is the last line he quotes: a path out of death that ends in the joy of God's face. Two questions follow: who is really speaking, and why does a promise of joy settle an argument about an empty tomb?
The words Peter reads out are David's, yet he treats them as belonging to someone else. The New Testament itself gives the ground for reading the psalm that way.
Twice in the New Testament the Psalm is applied to Christ. The apostle Peter quotes verses 8-11 to prove the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:25-28). The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews applies the principle of the first verse to prove that Christ shared in human nature (Hebrews 2:13). So we have the warrant of Scripture for applying the Psalm to Christ personally.
The psalm speaks throughout as "I" and "me," yet the "I" is not David.
In the sixteenth psalm, David speaks in the first person, yet he clearly speaks of Another than himself. That One was perfect in a perfect pathway. He kept the LORD always before Him, and the LORD was therefore always for Him. This gave unwavering steadiness to all His steps. So it was a pathway of life, even though it led through death. In it His flesh rested in confident hope. God would not abandon His soul to Hades, nor let piety such as His see corruption. Beyond, the face of God was the brightness before Him.
This "path of life" does not avoid the grave. It goes straight through it and comes out beyond.
So He would rejoice through it all, and pass through death with unclouded hope. His flesh would rest in hope; as a man He did not fear death. The LORD, whom He trusted, would not leave His soul in Hades, nor let His Holy One see corruption. His soul would go to the place of departed spirits and His body to the place of corruption, yet He would not be left in the one or see the other. The LORD would show Him the path of life through death, and beyond it.
Peter faces a charge: the disciples stole the body. He answers it from Scripture.
The lie that the disciples came by night and stole Jesus away, while the soldiers slept, is useless. Peter does not even notice such an unworthy excuse. He simply states the great truth on which the gospel rests: "Whom God raised up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it." ... Indeed death could not hold Him fast. He, the Holy One, had submitted to it for sin, to God's glory. Nor could the Scripture be broken which said, "You will not abandon My soul to Hades, or let Your Holy One see corruption." So He was shown the path of life through death, with fullness of joy in the presence of God His Father.
The verse does not end at rescue from death. It ends in gladness, and Jesus as Man finds that gladness in God Himself.
On His side too, Jesus, the ever blessed Man, lives to God. His holy nature as Man finds its untold, unmeasured bliss in God. He knows God infinitely, perfectly, with all the powers of the One risen from the dead. He is in the condition and the place where God has planned to put man in the closest relationship and privilege. He stands in the full light of all that God is. From that nearest and dearest place — may we reverently say it — the heart of Jesus rises up in ever happy and holy delight in God.
That destination explains why joy is possible long before the journey is over.
The secret of this joy is found in having the glorious end in view. The path of life may pass through a world of sorrow. It may lead through the valley of the shadow of death. But at last it ends in the presence of God. For Christ, and for those who are Christ's, this is the Father's presence. Here, among the sorrows of earth, we may taste the cup of life. There, among the joys of heaven, we shall enter into the fullness of life.
The path He was shown is not for Him alone.
In this place of death He makes out a path for us. His Father and God shows Him the "path of life." He was the life. But the path of life had to be tracked through this place of death, where not one thing testifies of God — one wide waste, where there is no way. Christ has tracked the path Himself... The gospel shows He gives it to those who believe.
- Speaker. David wrote the words, but the psalm speaks of Another. Peter and the Letter to the Hebrews both apply it to Christ.
- Path. The "paths of life" do not go around death. They run through it and come out beyond it, so the grave could not hold Him.
- Proof. Peter meets the theft-of-the-body story with Scripture, not debate. Death could not hold Him.
- Joy. The path ends at God's own face. Nearness to God is the source of the joy, and that end in view brings joy along the way.
- Ours. He tracked that path first, and the gospel hands the same path to everyone who believes.
Brethren, let it be allowed to speak with freedom to you concerning the patriarch David, that he has both died and been buried, and his monument is amongst us unto this day.
Peter has just quoted a psalm where the speaker says God will not leave his soul in Hades or let his body decay. To show that David was not speaking about himself, Peter points to a grave in their own city.
Older translations read "Men and brethren." That sounds like two groups. It is not.
In "men and brethren" (Acts 1:16; Acts 2:29, and so on), there are not two classes. The sense is "men who are brethren," or, in our own way of speaking, simply "brethren."
That is why the ESV reads simply "Brothers." Peter speaks to his own people, and he speaks freely.
Calling David a patriarch is unusual. The word normally belongs to a much earlier period.
"Head of a family." In the New Testament this title belongs to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the ancestors of the Israelites, and to the twelve sons of Jacob. David carries it too. Acts 2:29; Acts 7:8-9; Heb. 7:4. Other passages call these same men "the fathers."
So David stands at the end of that honoured line, the last of Israel's founding fathers.
Peter's argument rests on a fact nobody in Jerusalem could dispute.
Was David writing of himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was with them, still holding his dust. Clearly his tomb was well known at that time. And everyone agreed that he, the first of his royal line, had not risen from the dead. Yet he wrote of One who would die, and would soon be raised. For God would not leave that One's soul in Hades (the place of spirits without bodies), and He would not let His body see corruption.
The psalm describes a life of perfect uprightness and a body that never decayed. Neither fits David.
Certainly no one could say all this of David himself. No one could credit him with such perfection. His monument among them showed that he had seen corruption, like everyone else. So he was not speaking of himself. There was only One this could describe.
This argument was not Peter's alone.
Paul reasons in much the same way as Peter did in Acts 2:29-31; and both with unanswerable power. Only one man, the Messiah, was to see no corruption while tasting death. David in his own generation served the purpose of God, but he saw corruption. So did all his descendants, except that One of whom he prophesied in the Spirit. Scripture cannot be broken.
Peter does not stop at David's death. He moves from the buried king to the kingdom settled forever in David's son.
In his reasoning here, the apostle cites Psalm 132. That is the great psalm of the kingdom settled forever in the son of David. … This, and this alone, explains the uniquely glorious character of the kingdom, even on its earthly side. Even now the King is risen from the dead. This stamps permanence on it as nothing else could: yet it is the kingdom of a man. Only it is man risen from the dead, for in all things He must have the pre-eminence (Col. 1:18).
David's tomb is not an isolated case. It stands for the whole record of Israel's finest men.
Where is David, the man after God's own heart, in his glory? His tomb is with us today; the gates of Hades had prevailed over the king. Solomon in all his glory and wisdom, where is he? His tomb also is with us today; the gates of Hades had prevailed. All the great ones of the Old Testament had passed away.
- Brothers — Peter speaks freely to his own people. "Men and brethren" means one group, not two.
- Patriarch — David carries the title first given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob's twelve sons. He closes that line of fathers.
- Tomb — his grave was a known place in Jerusalem, still holding his dust; everyone agreed he had not risen.
- Prophet — the psalm describes a perfection and a body that never decayed. Neither was David's, so he spoke of Another. Paul later argued the same way.
- King — the buried patriarch points to the risen King. A kingdom held by a man raised from the dead can never be undone.
Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath, of the fruit of his loins to set upon his throne;
Peter stands in Jerusalem and argues from a grave: David died and was buried, so his psalm about a body that would not decay must point to someone else. Verse 30 gives the missing link — David was a prophet, and he knew God had sworn an oath about one of his descendants and a throne.
Peter's case rests on a fact anyone in the crowd could check.
The Psalm writer speaks in the first person all the way through. I, me, or my turns up in every verse. Was David writing about himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was there among them, still holding his dust... People had read that Psalm for centuries. Most likely everyone in the crowd knew it. But to that day none of them could point to anyone who had died and say, "Here is the man."
Being a prophet did not make David a passive channel. He understood something of what he was writing.
David was surely aware that he was describing more than his friend's betrayal... So we see that David knew he was an instrument in the hands of the Spirit of God. Through him God announced in advance His purposes about Christ: both His allowing the wickedness that brought Him to the cross, and the grace that by that very means accomplished our redemption.
Peter points back to an oath in the Psalms. Writers note that the same passage holds two promises side by side: one absolute, one conditional.
In verse 11 it is the expression of the divine purpose, "The LORD swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: 'One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne.'"... So when Christ, as the Son of David, is in the Spirit's view, the promise is unconditional, because it announces God's purpose in grace. But when David's own children, his immediate descendants, are in view, whether they stay on his throne depends on their responsibility.
This is why the resurrection carries the argument. An oath about a throne that lasts for ever needs an heir death cannot remove.
In his argument the apostle cites Psalm 132, the great psalm of the kingdom settled for ever in the son of David... This, and this alone, explains why the kingdom is so glorious, even in its earthly side. Even now the King is risen from the dead. Nothing else could stamp it with permanence like that. Yet it is still the kingdom of a man — only a man risen from the dead.
The oath calls for a descendant from David's own body. If Joseph was only Jesus' supposed father, how can Jesus be that descendant? The answer points to two lines meeting in one Person.
The Lord's manhood was real because He was born of Mary, "the Virgin" of David's house. If He had not truly been the Son of God on the other side, the truth of His Godhead would have been overthrown. And if He had not held the legal rights of Solomon's line through Joseph — though Joseph was only His supposed father — He would not be the true Messiah under the oath God swore to David.
Did the oath reach its goal when Jesus rose and ascended? Commentators say no. David himself, they point out, foretold a waiting time before that throne is taken.
Peter would have them know what David has shown: for that Son whom David calls his Lord there would be a time of waiting for the Kingdom, with enemies opposing... So the pause before He takes David's throne is itself a proof that Jesus is the Messiah, instead of an argument against it. And it is David himself who testifies to this.
The throne He sits on now is not the throne He was promised.
Now the Messiah rejected by the Jews sits on the throne of God His Father, in contrast with His own throne, which He is to take another day. Neither David nor any other sat on the Father's throne... At His coming again He will sit upon the throne of David according to the prophecy before us and many more.
- Oath. God swore an oath to seat one of David's descendants on David's throne. That promise rests on His purpose alone, not on anyone's obedience.
- Prophet. David knew it, and wrote about Someone else. His own tomb was still in Jerusalem, and his own body had decayed.
- Descent. The oath called for a real son of David: true manhood through Mary, of David's house, and the legal royal title through Joseph.
- Resurrection. A throne promised for ever needs a King death cannot hold. God raised Jesus, and that stamps the kingdom with permanence.
- Waiting. He now sits on His Father's throne, not yet on David's. David foretold that very pause before He takes it.
he, seeing [it] before, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither has he been left in hades nor his flesh seen corruption.
Peter's sermon at Pentecost reaches its turning point here, in words David wrote long before. The verse makes two claims — a soul not abandoned to Hades, a body that did not decay — and neither one fits David himself.
Peter's argument rests on a fact his hearers could check. David was still in his grave.
Was David writing of himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was with them, still holding his dust. Clearly his tomb was well known then. And everyone agreed that he, the first of his dynasty, had not risen from the dead. Yet he wrote of One who would die and would soon be raised. God would not leave that One's soul in Hades — the place of spirits without their bodies — nor would He let His body see corruption.
Hades means the state of the dead apart from the body. The second half of the verse turns to the body itself.
His soul would not be left in hades, which is the unseen state of separation from His body. Also, "your Holy One" would not see corruption. This of course refers to His body. The body was in a state of death, because the spirit and soul had left it. Yet it would not see corruption.
Commentators differ over the exact wording. One traces a long-standing error to a rendering the text does not support.
Psalm 16:10 teaches that the Lord would not leave Messiah's soul to Hades, any more than His body to see corruption. "To leave in" does not seem to fit either the Hebrew or the Greek in the correct text. Early superstition made much of that error, and many revive it today.
The verse names soul and body apart, because death parted them. Neither was lost.
His soul was in hades, His body in the grave. Death separated His soul from His body, but divine power held both, so to speak, for His resurrection and glory. I see no difficulty here. His soul was in paradise, His body in the grave. Hades is only the invisible place of departed spirits, nothing more.
Every other body begins to decay at death. His did not, and one writer traces the reason to who He was and to what His death settled.
It is clear that our Lord could not go to a place of torment. It is just as clear that His soul was without its body, while His precious incorruptible body lay in the grave those memorable three days. The Lord was perfectly sinless. So we can understand how His blessed holy body saw no corruption, for corruption is the effect of sin. The blessed Lord 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 decay sets in at once. In this verse our Lord's incorruptible body and His soul without its body were not to be left in death and hades. On the third day body and soul were re-united and His glorious resurrection took place — proof that the work of redemption was complete.
Peter does not stop to answer excuses. He rests his case on Scripture.
Peter does not even notice such an unworthy excuse. He simply states the grand truth on which the gospel rests… The word of God through David pointed to the resurrection of the Messiah. God showed Him openly, when risen, to witnesses He had chosen beforehand. But indeed death could not hold Him fast. He, the Holy One, had submitted to death for sin, to God's glory. Nor was it possible for the Scripture to be broken which said, "You will not leave My soul to Hades, nor let Your Holy One see corruption." … Here Peter, and Paul in Acts 13:33-37, declare that God fulfilled this when He raised Jesus from the dead. It was not fulfilled in David, and still less in anyone else.
The verse also settles what resurrection means.
What did the apostles regard as an essential feature of the resurrection? Let Peter instruct us, as he did his hearers on the day of Pentecost. David, he said, spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, "that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." Peter did not preach a resurrection of the person apart from the body that died.
- Foreseen — David wrote as a prophet about One still to come. His own tomb, well known in Jerusalem, proved he was not writing about himself.
- Separated — Death parted soul from body. His soul was in the unseen place, His body in the grave. Divine power held both for His resurrection.
- Preserved — Decay is the effect of sin. The sinless One's body did not decay, and His atoning death left death no further claim on Him.
- Raised — Scripture could not be broken, and death could not hold Him. God raised Him and showed Him to witnesses He had chosen.
- Bodily — Peter preached the resurrection of the very body that died, not of a person apart from his body.
This Jesus has God raised up, whereof all *we* are witnesses.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which *ye* behold and hear.
Peter's sermon has moved from the cross to the empty tomb, and now it climbs one step higher — to a Man seated in heaven. The crowd had asked what the noise and the strange languages meant. Peter answers by pointing away from the scene in front of them, up to the place it came from.
Peter's word for Christ's exaltation is not a new one. Scripture already uses it for His lifting up to die.
In Acts 2:33 Peter speaks of Jesus, "being by the right hand of God exalted," and in Acts 5:29-31 the "other apostles" join in the same blessed theme — "Him has God exalted." Peter uses the word "exalted" to describe the Lord's present position. It is the same word used in John chapters 3, 8 and 12 for the "lifting up" of the Son of Man! That truly touches our affections, and touches them deeply. He who endured the cross with all its shame has been "highly exalted" by God.
(Where older translations read "by the right hand of God exalted," the ESV has "at the right hand of God.") That place carries meaning drawn from across Scripture:
The "right hand" speaks of authority, power, and eminence. According to Exodus 15:6, delivering and subduing power belong to the right hand. In Genesis 48:14 the right hand gives blessing that is sovereign and cannot be taken back. Acts 2:32-36 hails His exaltation as God's approval of Him, and at the same time as a reversal of man's judgment.
Jesus had already received the Holy Spirit once, at His baptism. Commentators draw a careful line between that occasion and this one.
As the exalted Man, Jesus had received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, and had poured Him out on His disciples. At His baptism He received the Holy Spirit for Himself, as the dependent Man. Now He receives the same Holy Spirit on behalf of others, as their Representative. By pouring out the Spirit these others were baptized into one body and became His members.
God had put His Spirit on prophets before. Something different is happening here.
It was not simply God putting His Spirit into the prophets and others. It was a man exalted to glory, who received it to give it to others. So Psalm 68 says, "Received in respect of man," or as Acts explains it, "for men." But He received it as man, for them.
Peter appeals to their eyes and ears. Yet the outward signs and the Spirit Himself are not the same thing.
There were clear signs in front of them, and shown through them, that the Father's promise had been fulfilled. The promised Holy Spirit was not in Himself something the senses could take in. Still, outward power came with Him. This distinction matters greatly. Otherwise, when these outward signs are absent, men are in danger of overlooking and denying that incomparable gift, which was always above its effects.
What that evidence proved reaches further than the resurrection alone:
Peter points to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as proof of a glorious fact. The risen Jesus had "been exalted by the right hand of God," and had "received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit." The Spirit's presence on earth was and is unanswerable proof. It shows not only the resurrection, but also that the risen Jesus has left this world and gone to the Father.
Peter goes on to quote David, who never ascended, to show who the Psalm must be describing.
David himself had not ascended to the heavens, any more than he had risen from the dead. The One David spoke of was to sit in the seat of administration and power until His foes were made His footstool. So here is the conclusion of the whole matter. The pouring out of the Spirit, which they had seen and heard, proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that God had made the crucified Jesus both Lord and Christ.
Because Christ received the promise and then poured it out, the security of the gift rests on Him.
But when Christ went up on high, He received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. What amazing comfort, confidence, and rest this should give us! Suppose the Holy Spirit had been given straight to us. We might well think that if we did not behave as we should, the gift could be taken back.
- Lifted up, twice. The word for His exaltation is the word for His lifting up on the cross. The same Man, the same movement, now ending at God's right hand.
- Received as Man. At His baptism He received the Spirit for Himself. From the throne He received Him as Representative, for others.
- Poured out for men. Psalm 68 said He would receive "in respect of man." He takes as man, to give to men.
- Seen and heard. What the crowd saw and heard was the outward sign, not the gift itself. The gift was always greater than its visible effects.
- Therefore, Lord and Christ. The Spirit's presence proves the crucified Jesus is risen, gone to the Father, and enthroned. And the gift rests on His worth, not ours.
For David has not ascended into the heavens, but he says himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand
Peter quotes a psalm his hearers knew well, and turns it into proof. David never went up to heaven, so the psalm must speak of someone else — the man they crucified, now seated at God's right hand.
Peter's whole argument rests on one question his hearers could not answer: who is the person the psalm seats beside God?
So Peter cites another psalm. It shows that the Messiah had to ascend and sit at the right hand of Jehovah. He had shown just as clearly that resurrection was foretold of Him and of no one else. "For he says himself, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." Who was the man that sat at God's right hand? No one could pretend it was David. It was his Son, the Messiah. This matched exactly what the apostles had seen for themselves.
Some have used these words to argue that the dead have no conscious life. The answer turns on what "ascend" actually means.
We freely grant that David did not ascend into the heavens. The Lord says the same of Himself after He rose, and yet He had been in Paradise with the pardoned thief... the departure of the spirit to God is never counted as "ascension."
The psalm puts two Lords in one sentence. David's son is also David's Lord, and that says something about who He is.
His sitting at Jehovah's right hand proclaimed in the clearest way that, though a man, He would also be God... Then Peter quoted it in Acts 2:34, and Paul in Hebrews 1:13. Both dwell on the words of Jehovah, "Sit at my right hand." Who in David's day could have said that of David's son, unless the Holy Spirit guided him and spoke through him? So we learn that the Psalm foretold the Lord's ascension. No one who accepted the Psalm as the inspired Word of God could question that authority.
Peter quotes two psalms, and they promise different things. One holds an earthly throne for the Son of David. The other tells where Christ is right now — and the crowd had just seen and heard the proof.
Psalm 132 secures the risen Son of David as the everlasting King on His throne in Zion. It brings the rich privileges that belong to His kingdom on earth and in Israel. If Psalm 132 does that, the quotation from Psalm 110 testifies to His present exaltation in heaven. The proof of this was conclusive. The Father had now fulfilled His promise and given the Holy Spirit. They could see and hear that outpouring beyond dispute.
The seat comes first; the subduing comes later. One small word holds those two apart.
This can refer to no one but the Lord Jesus. He is therefore David's Lord. The prophecy does not show Him taking His throne at once. It shows Him seated at God's right hand for a set time, before God would subdue His enemies under His feet.
Some read the psalm as fulfilled today, each time someone is converted. But conversion puts a person somewhere very different.
Are souls, when they are subdued by grace, made the footstool of their Conqueror? We have always understood that when men are converted they are united to Christ — made one body and one spirit with Him... This all makes sense if the psalm predicts Christ's exaltation to the right hand of God. There He waits in patient grace until the moment He receives commission to tread down His enemies, placed under His feet as a footstool.
The quotation is not just information. Peter preaches it to the nation, and it demands an answer.
Peter takes up these words in this way in his appeal to the nation at Pentecost, and his appeal was most powerful. He set two ways open to his hearers. One was surrender to Him whom God had set at His right hand. If they refused that, the other was to be crushed beneath His victorious feet. And it must be one or the other for every soul of man.
- Proof. David died, was buried, and never ascended — so his own psalm forces the question of who did.
- Person. The One David calls "my Lord" is his Son, yet seated at Jehovah's right hand: a man, and also God.
- Place. The throne in Zion is still future. Christ is at God's right hand now, and the poured-out Spirit proved it.
- Pause. "Until" marks a real interval — Christ exalted, enemies not yet made His footstool.
- Point. Every hearer must land on one side of that word: surrender to Him now, or fall under His feet later.
until I have put thine enemies [to be] the footstool of thy feet.
These words close Peter's quotation of Psalm 110 at Pentecost. They say where Christ is now, how long He stays there, and what happens when the waiting ends.
One objection stands in the way: can a man be in heaven? A psalm David wrote had already answered it, and the crowd could see the proof that day.
Would anyone object to the thought of a man in heaven? Peter credits another Psalm to David too, and so does the Book of Psalms. It had foretold this: "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool." David's Lord was to sit at Jehovah's right hand. David's Lord had done that. The proof of it was there in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which had taken place that day.
David called the Messiah "my Lord," though the Messiah was also David's son. Jesus Himself put that puzzle to the Pharisees.
The Lord drew attention to this Psalm (Matthew 22; Mark 12; Luke 20), and clearly asserted that it was about the Messiah. He asked the Pharisees whose son the Christ was, and pointed to David's words calling the Messiah "My Lord." By this He showed that, though David's son, He must be greater than the son of Jesse, King of Israel. And His sitting at Jehovah's right hand proclaimed in the clearest way that, though a man, He would also be God.
The word "until" sets a limit. The place Christ holds now is high, but a change still lies ahead.
But another day was to dawn, and we are introduced to it as soon as we begin to read Psalm 110... now He speaks to Him in resurrection, saying, "Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool." Jehovah acknowledges Him as Lord and places Him at His right hand — but it is "until…" There is a prospect before Him. The seat He is to occupy is high and exalted, yet it is provisional, until that prospect becomes reality. The day of His poverty is over. The day of His patience is begun.
One writer marks off two stages. God placing the enemies under Christ's feet is one thing; Christ crushing them Himself is another.
We have, then, two entirely distinct and contrasted periods. In the first, Christ sits at the right hand of God. He holds the acknowledged title of universal supremacy, but He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool. During this period, God bears with the enemies in patient grace, and gathers the co-heirs who are to sit with Him on His throne. This period fills the gap between the resurrection of Christ, the firstfruits, and the resurrection of those who are Christ's at His coming. The other period starts when Jehovah makes Christ's enemies His footstool. Then He begins to crush them by His power, and to subject all things to Himself in actual fact.
The waiting is not empty time. Sinners gain from it.
But God said to Christ, "Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool." And the Lord Jesus Christ, rejected by man, is sitting at God's right hand as Man. He waits there until His enemies are made His footstool. Patient grace is working meanwhile to call sinners to a knowledge of the salvation which He has worked out.
Peter did not quote this psalm as mere information. He left his hearers with two options, and both involve those feet.
The words declare His Deity, for they tell us that He was David's Lord. They also proclaim His exaltation, which followed His humiliation and rejection by men. Peter takes them up in this way in his powerful appeal to the nation at Pentecost. He set two ways before his hearers. One was surrender to Him whom God had set at His right hand. Refusing that, the other was to be crushed beneath His victorious feet. And it must be one or the other for every soul of man.
- Proof. David's Lord was to sit at Jehovah's right hand, and He had done it; the Spirit poured out that day was the visible evidence.
- Person. A son of David addressed as "my Lord," and seated at Jehovah's side, is a man who is also God.
- Provisional. The word "until" marks the seat as temporary: the day of His poverty is over, the day of His patience has begun.
- Purpose. While He waits, patient grace calls sinners and gathers the co-heirs who will share His throne.
- Parting of ways. The feet that will crush the enemies are the feet a person may surrender to now. Every hearer lands on one side or the other.
Let the whole house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him, this Jesus whom *ye* have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Peter ends his sermon with one blunt conclusion: the man his hearers executed now holds the highest place God can give. That raises two questions — how was Jesus "made" Lord and Christ if He was already both, and what happens now to the people who crucified Him?
The word does not describe Jesus becoming something He was not. It describes a public appointment.
Being "made" Lord and Christ is quite consistent with His having been both during His time on earth. These things were always His, but now He was officially installed as such, as the risen and glorified Man. Wonderful news for us; but terrible news for those who had been guilty of His crucifixion. It simply guaranteed their dreadful damnation, if they persisted on their course.
This verse has been misread as if God turned Jesus into God. One writer calls that a serious error:
Think of a professed commentator like Dr. C. Wordsworth. He committed himself, and the Dictionary of the Bible with him, to the astonishing error that God made Jesus to be Jehovah! He refers to Acts 2:36, which is about official glory, not about the Deity of Jesus or His being Jehovah.
"Lord" carries authority — but writers point out it carries something warmer as well.
But there is more in the title "Lord" than authority. He has been put into that place of power to give out the grace of God to men. That is a very important side to this great title. In Acts and in Romans you will find salvation tied again and again to Him as Lord. "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31)… The Lord Jesus Christ is on the throne of God to give out to men the grace of God.
"Christ" means God's Anointed. His rejection did not shrink that title; it widened it.
Jesus is Lord in a new way. He was always Lord, because of who He is in His Person: God the Son. But now, as Man, He has been made Lord of all… On earth He was the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, God's Anointed. But Israel refused Him, and put their Messiah on a cross. At God's right hand He is God's Anointed, not only in relation to Israel, but as Head over all things.
The verse opens with a conclusion, because everything before it has been evidence. Peter has just quoted David's words about a Lord seated at God's right hand, and the whole nation is told to know the result for certain.
This can refer to no one but the Lord Jesus, who is therefore David's Lord. Prophecy speaks of Him not as taking His throne at once, but as seated at God's right hand for a set time, before God would put His enemies under His feet. For those who have faith this is plain to see. The conclusion is triumphant and inescapable… Israel had rejected Him. But God has raised a solemn issue with them by raising Him from the dead and giving Him the highest place of glory and honour.
Peter does not soften the last three words. He makes them the point of contact with the conscience.
Their eyes were opened and what did they discover? That they were actually against God Himself — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And about what were they at odds with Him? About the law? No. About the prophets? No. About the rites and ceremonies, the statutes and institutions of the law of Moses? No. All this was true and bad enough. But there was something far beyond all this. Their guilt had reached its peak in the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
Peter's conclusion leaves no middle ground.
Peter takes up these words in his appeal to the nation at Pentecost, and his appeal was most powerful. He set two ways open to his hearers. The first was to surrender to Him whom God had set at His right hand. The other, for those who refused that, was to be crushed beneath His victorious feet. And it must be one or the other for every soul of man.
What followed shows which way that day went:
This solemn appeal to conscience rested on Scripture testimonies that were direct and undeniable. Its effect was both instant and lasting. The truth of God searched His people and spared them nothing. His grace met them in sovereign goodness, and established them in the Christ Whom they had so blindly and wickedly rejected.
- Installed, not upgraded. Jesus was always Lord and always the Christ. At God's right hand God installed Him publicly in those titles as the risen Man.
- Lord means authority — and supply. He holds supreme rights over us, and from that same throne He gives out the grace of God to men.
- Christ means wider, not smaller. Israel nailed their Messiah to a cross; God answered by making Him God's Anointed as Head over all things.
- The proof is a Psalm. David called someone else his Lord, seated at God's right hand — and that can be no one but Jesus.
- Two roads only. Surrender to the exalted One, or be crushed beneath His feet. The same word that spared Israel nothing also met them in grace.
And having heard [it] they were pricked in heart, and said to Peter and the other apostles, What shall we do, brethren?
Peter had just told this crowd that the Jesus they killed is the One God raised and exalted. This verse is their reaction, and it shapes what Peter says next.
Their response shows the Holy Spirit at work in the hearers, not only through the preacher.
Peter testified about the One whom they had refused and killed, but whom God had exalted. That testimony had the most powerful effect: "They were pricked in their heart." That is, they were convicted. You have there the very first effect of the action of the Holy Spirit on the souls of men. The Spirit convicted them of their sins and reached their consciences. These men stood face to face with their guilt. The Lord put them on trial, so to speak, and brought them into the presence of God. He did not only charge their sin on them; He made them conscious of what that sin was. There was a clear break between them and God.
A response on this scale invites an obvious explanation: a gifted speaker, or an impressive movement to join.
Three thousand were added to their number — many times the size of the original company. This addition did not come from Peter's striking eloquence. It did not come from anything powerful or attractive in the company of those who professed the Lord Jesus Christ. It came entirely from the power of the Holy Spirit.
The same sermon can wound two ways. Older translations say these hearers were "pricked in heart." One writer sets that beside a later scene in Acts, where hearers were "cut to the heart" and stoned Stephen.
When the gospel went out, many were pricked in their hearts. This was not like some in Acts 7:54 who were "cut to the heart" — there the flesh was cut, and they stoned Stephen. Here they were pricked in their heart, in their affections, and were brought down in repentance. They ask at once, "What shall we do?"
Being cut to the heart could look like a wave of emotion or a change of opinion. One writer shows it was neither.
It was a real work of God in the conscience. They were not merely persuaded, but pricked in heart. There was submission to His person whom they had just crucified, and this through faith in God's word. This was not mere remorse. It was not just a change of mind either. It was real judgment of self before God. They now took His side against themselves and against their own unbelieving evil in the past. And they cast themselves on Him whom they had so bitterly despised to their own ruin.
These are the people who had shouted for His crucifixion. Their question shows how far they have moved.
Their sin was set before the people. They were pricked to the heart, and said to Peter, What shall we do? The loud, unruly will was gone: no more "Crucify Him, crucify Him." Sin has done its act, and can never undo it. The folly of it comes home to the heart with distress. "What shall we do?" They are turned; they have come to distress and godly sorrow.
They address the apostles as "Brothers." Older translations expand this to "Men and brethren." The word carried more than family ties.
Besides its literal meaning, the word was used for people linked together morally or as a nation. It was also used for those who made up the Jewish nation. Acts 2:29, 37 (where the expression "Men and brethren" should be translated simply "Brethren").
A conscience awake is real. But one writer warns against reading more into this verse than it says.
These people were pricked in their heart and said to the apostles, "What shall we do?" It would not be scriptural to say they were already saved. For that would set aside what Scripture means by being saved in the full sense of the word.
Peter does not leave the question hanging. His answer has two steps.
Where conscience is seriously affected, the answer is near at hand. First they are to repent. That points to the way they had treated their own Messiah. Then they are to be baptized, which publicly reverses their public rejection of Him.
- Word. Peter told them what they did to Jesus and what God did with Him; the Spirit made those words land.
- Wound. The word wounded them into repentance, unlike the crowd who were cut to the heart and stoned Stephen.
- Weight. This was conscience, not feeling. They judged themselves before God and took His side against themselves.
- Will. The crowd that once shouted "Crucify Him" now asks what to do; the will that shouted for His death had broken.
- Way out. Conviction is not yet salvation. But the answer is close: repent, and be baptized — publicly undoing their public rejection of Him.
And Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Peter has just told the crowd at Pentecost that the Jesus they crucified is Lord and Christ, and they cry back, "Brothers, what shall we do?" His answer names four things — repentance, baptism, forgiveness, and the Spirit — and how they fit together is the question.
Peter preached Christ, and then he called for repentance. One writer puts that demand and its result side by side:
Listen to Peter's address on the day of Pentecost, at the opening of the book of Acts. It was the most fruitful sermon ever preached in this world. It ended with the glorious result of three thousand souls! And what did Peter preach? He preached Christ, and he called on men to repent. Yes, the great apostle to the Jewish people insisted on repentance — judging yourself — real sorrow of heart before God.
Repentance is more than regret, and baptism was the public test of it. It also reversed what these same voices had shouted weeks earlier:
"Repent" — a good word… What is repentance? It is judging yourself… Why be baptized? That would test the reality of their repentance, if it existed. Go, and publicly own His name in the waters of baptism, as seven weeks ago, in Pilate's hall, your voice was heard crying, "Away with him, crucify him."
This order is not the order found elsewhere in Acts. One writer explains why:
Baptism before remission! This is not God's usual order, but the very reverse. When Peter proclaimed Jesus to Cornelius and his friends, they first received the remission of their sins, then the Holy Spirit, and after that baptism was granted to them (Acts 10:43-48). God departed from the usual order on the Day of Pentecost for a very important reason. Only seven weeks earlier these people had been guilty of the murder of the Son of God… Their baptism put them outside "the crooked generation." God's judgment was about to fall on that generation through the Romans.
That separation is the point. Baptism marked a break from that nation. It did not buy salvation:
Baptism saves in a similar way, not for eternity but from a world that rejects the Lord Jesus Christ… By being baptized they publicly dissociated themselves from their own nation, which had rejected the Messiah. Of course, baptism is a symbol of burial with Christ in His death (Romans 6:4). So baptism saves outwardly, but it is only a picture of what saves for eternity — the precious sacrifice of Christ. That sacrifice becomes yours only through faith in Him.
The words read like a formula, and people have built far too much on them:
Peter's words, wrongly interpreted, have led to much confusion. People have built doctrines on these words, especially about water baptism. Those doctrines are taught nowhere else in the Bible, and they contradict the gospel… Remember that Peter was speaking to people who had openly rejected Jesus. So they had to admit their wrong in public. They had to own Him openly as Messiah — the one they had disowned when they handed Him over to lawless men.
The gift Peter promises is not a power but a Person:
The great point of the passage is the personal coming of the Spirit. The power to speak in unknown tongues, the power to do miracles, and the power to preach were only the signs and effects of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Receiving Him personally is the grand thing in Acts 2. The gift itself is infinitely greater than any effect it could produce.
Peter offered that gift to "every one of you." One writer notes the phrase:
There was no discrimination now.
One writer traces the order seen after Pentecost:
They heard of forgiveness of sins through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They believed on Him. They received forgiveness. At once, without a moment's delay, God gave each of them the Holy Spirit… Paul's teaching in Ephesians agrees perfectly with what happened at Caesarea, where Cornelius heard the gospel: "In him, when you believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
- Pierced — Peter preached Christ, then called for repentance, and three thousand were reached.
- Judged — repentance means judging yourself, not just feeling sorry. Baptism was the public test of whether it was real.
- Severed — their baptism cut them off from a nation under judgment. It saves outwardly, as a picture of the sacrifice that saves for eternity.
- Guarded — Peter spoke to people who had publicly rejected Jesus. His words are not a rule that water baptism buys salvation.
- Given — the promise ends in a Person, not a power. It was offered to "every one," and God still gives Him to all who believe the gospel.
For to you is the promise and to your children, and to all who [are] afar off, as many as [the] Lord our God may call.
Peter has just called the crowd to repent and be baptized. Now he tells them how far the promise of the Spirit reaches. He names three groups — the hearers, their children, and those far off. Then one clause decides who among them receives it.
The promise Peter points to is not vague goodwill. It is the specific blessing the crowd had just watched fall on the disciples, and it comes bundled with forgiveness.
Peter pointed to repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ as the way to remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. As he points out in verse 39, the promise in Joel is to repentant Israel, to their children, and even to distant Gentiles. So the first Christian sermon already has in view the spread of gospel blessing to Gentiles. Remission of sins and the gift of the Spirit carry with them all Christian blessings.
This gift is one thing. New birth is another, and so are the various abilities the Spirit hands out.
The gift of the Holy Spirit spoken of here is the special and lasting privilege of the Christian and the church. It is as distinct from new birth by the Spirit as it is from the gifts we read so much about in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles.
The people standing in front of Peter had, weeks earlier, pressed Pilate to crucify Jesus by calling down the consequences on themselves and their offspring. Peter now addresses exactly that.
To win over the wavering governor Pilate, the people had lightly said, "His blood be on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:25). Now the proclamation cancelled that vow for the repentant Jews and their children. They were admitted to a place of privilege on earth — the house of God. The promise was to the very people who had so blatantly abused God's approach to man in Christ.
"Far off" is not about geography. Israel held a nearness to God that other nations did not have. Peter's phrase marks those left outside — and in Christ that distance is gone.
In God's arrangements the Jews were near, as Peter declares (Acts 2:39), and Paul also (Ephesians 2:13). The Gentiles were far off. Now, for those of the latter who are in Christ, that difference is abolished for ever by the blood of Christ. For them there is now no privileged nation that shuts them out for ever. There is a privileged people, but everyone in Christ makes it up.
So two groups once kept apart now enter one new place by one way.
The Church — the dwelling place of God — has now been built, and the gift of grace is proclaimed to both Jews and Gentiles. God declared the way by which the Jew and the Gentile, in His sovereign grace, could pass out of the two outer circles into that new sphere formed that day. Both of those circles lay in the kingdom of darkness, where Satan reigned. In that new sphere the Spirit of God acted and dwelt.
Peter said more than he had grasped. His own later reluctance shows it.
His words seem to carry a sense beyond Israel: how far he entered into their force himself, perhaps none of us can say. We know that afterwards, when Peter was called to go to the Gentiles, he found it difficult. It is hard to suppose, then, that he fully understood his own words. However that may be, the words were according to God, whether or not Peter fully appreciated them when he spoke them.
The last clause decides it all. It leaves no one a claim, near or far.
The apostle closes by assuring them of Israel's share in the blessing. That blessing had a wider range, as Joel had declared about the day he spoke of. The promise, he tells them, is for you and for your children; but beyond these, for all that are far off — the Gentiles. Yet it is not a claim anyone holds. Even Israel could have no claim. Everything depended entirely on the call of God's grace — the call of "the Lord," that is, Jehovah, our God.
Because the call is God's, no human resistance can block it. Peter learned this in the house of Cornelius, a Gentile officer who believed.
The details of the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10 and 11 show the ability of God to bring this about. Neither the prejudice of the Jew nor Peter's hesitation could stop God pouring out the gift of the Spirit on the nations.
- Promise — God promises forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit, and with them every Christian blessing.
- Pardon — He offers it first to the very crowd that had called Christ's blood down on themselves and their children.
- Reach — "Far off" names those outside Israel's privileged place. In Christ that distance is gone for good.
- Beyond him — Peter announced a scope wider than he yet understood; the words were still God's words.
- Call — Nobody, Jew or Gentile, holds a claim. The whole promise rests on God calling — and when He calls, no prejudice can stop Him.
And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation.
The scene is Pentecost, and this verse is only a summary of how Peter closed his preaching. His last words raise two questions: what is the danger, and how can a person save himself?
Luke records the closing appeal, but tells us plainly that Peter kept going.
Then Peter urged them, solemnly and earnestly, to save themselves from that crooked generation. But here the historian has not reported everything Peter said. He spoke many other words of the same urging kind, and they have found no place in inspired Scripture.
What kind of words were they?
These "many other words" meant, I take it, good, sound, plain preaching, which had most blessed results. Peter was in splendid form that day, because he was full of the Holy Spirit.
Out of everything Peter said, the Holy Spirit kept this one line. Some translations put it, "Be saved from this perverse generation," as the quote below does. The line points to more than pardon for people one by one.
This was by no means all the apostle urged on that memorable day. But out of many more and different words, it was enough for the Holy Spirit to recall the exhortation, "Be saved from this perverse generation." For now God was about to separate as well as to forgive and deliver. At the very least, the salvation goes beyond guilt and sin. He would set them apart from that perverse generation, which was hurrying on to its quick ruin. It was rejecting the gospel, as it had rejected the Messiah Himself. Out of that set-apart people, now proved utterly crooked and rebellious, He would have His own saved, for His own glory and in a new way… For we too, though Gentiles by birth, belong to this new family of God and new testimony of Christ.
"This generation" is not a date on a calendar. It is the nation that had killed its own Messiah, and some of Peter's hearers had helped. A city of refuge was a town where someone guilty of a death could flee and be safe.
"Save yourselves from this crooked generation" was a call to cut themselves off from the nation that had killed its Messiah. It was a call to get into the city of refuge. In practice the Church of God became "the city of refuge" for every Jew who had stained his hand with his brother's blood — for everyone who had helped to kill the Lord.
So how was the break made? Baptism was the public act by which a repentant Jew stepped out of the doomed company.
The particular point Peter makes, both in his sermon and in his letter, is that baptism cut the link between the repentant, believing Jews and the unrepentant, unbelieving mass of that nation. That lies on the surface of Acts 2, and we believe it is involved in 1 Peter 3:21, for his letter was written to believing Jews. He tells them that baptism corresponds to the waters of the flood, which long ago cut the link between believing Noah and his household and the godless world… They suffered much from that godless mass. But they were saved from its fate, whether in this life, at the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the world to come.
Can a person save his own soul? The salvation in view here is of another kind.
In this verse the Jews were urged to save themselves from "this crooked generation." In being baptized they were saving themselves (not saving their souls) from a generation that had rejected the Lord Jesus.
The command still lands on a hearer today, and it is not a call to self-rescue.
Peter then adds, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." But you say, "How can I save myself?" By coming to Jesus, the living Saviour, and clearing out of the world that is under judgment. "You are in the wrong company today," Peter is saying in effect; "come out from among them."
Peter had three thousand anxious hearers in front of him. Notice the direction he pointed them.
When three thousand Jews became anxious enquirers, Peter said nothing about conquering the Jewish nation for Christ; he urged them in the opposite direction, saying, "Save yourselves FROM this crooked generation."
- Warned. Peter pleaded and testified far longer than Luke records. The Spirit kept this one sentence for us.
- Named. The danger is a generation, not just personal guilt — the company that had rejected its Messiah and was hurrying on to ruin.
- Separated. God was about to separate as well as forgive; this salvation goes beyond the question of guilt and sin.
- Marked. Baptism cut the link, as the flood cut Noah's household off from the ungodly world; it saved them from that generation's fate, not their souls.
- Gathered. The way out led into a refuge — coming to a living Saviour and clearing out of a world under judgment. Gentiles belong to this new family too.