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.
Those then who had accepted his word were baptised; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls.
One sermon at Pentecost, and a small group of disciples became a crowd of three thousand. The verse raises three questions: what it means to receive the word, what the baptism meant, and who did the adding.
The ESV reads "those who received his word." Older English Bibles added the word "gladly." The oldest manuscripts do not have it, and that missing word says something about how these people heard.
'Gladly' is the reading of the Received Text. Textual scholars reject it on plenty of evidence, because the oldest and best manuscripts do not have it... The gospel may be precious and comforting, but deep seriousness would mark souls who had only just repented, and for reasons that searched them to the bottom. A 'glad' reception would fit better with a revival movement and its usually shallow results. The work at Pentecost was both deep and wide. Three thousand souls in one day was no small catch, and it was in every way fitted to prove that a Divine person had just come in grace as well as in power, both to save and to gather.
Peter had just told them to save themselves from this crooked generation. Baptism was how they did it — a public cutting of ties.
They were a separate company. Baptism, as we all know, presents the idea of separation. In that day, and in this day, there is the great world system, ruled by the power of evil and the will of men. But God also formed a new circle, and the Holy Spirit lived in that circle... Baptism took the converts out of this world's circle and brought them into the Christian circle. Baptism is the figure of death. In effect they said, "We are dead to the world we once lived in. We have left it so that we could come into that new circle of life and love where God dwells."
For these hearers the break was sharper still. They were Jews, and their nation had rejected its Messiah.
The Jews as a nation were like a sinking ship. To be baptized was to cut your last link with them, and that meant salvation from their national doom. So Peter said in Acts 2:40, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."
The word translated "souls" here is not a technical term. It has more than one sense, and here it counts people.
First, the word psuche clearly means "life," as in Matthew 2:20... Next, it stands for the general fact of conscious feeling and existence — the activity of the inner man — without saying where it comes from or what it is... And it stands for persons, as in Acts 2:41, 43 and 7:14.
The verse says they "were added" but never says who added them. The end of the chapter answers that. There the older translations read "such as should be saved," where the ESV has "those who were being saved."
The last verse of the chapter tells us who added them and what they were added to. The Lord Himself added them, and He added them to the Church... The closing words, "such as should be saved," do not mean that they were unbelievers, or that He added them so that they might be saved. The nation had rejected Christ and was heading for judgment. Those who believed and were baptized would be saved from that judgment... This matters greatly, because Catholicism, and those who follow it, tie salvation to belonging to the Church, instead of making the Church the Assembly of those who are saved.
They joined a company that already existed, and the adding did not stop that day.
The same day three thousand souls received Peter's word of testimony and were added to this company already formed (Acts 2:41). And it became a daily event that the Lord was adding together such as should be saved (Acts 2:47).
The number three thousand had appeared before in Israel's story, on the day the law came down.
Moses brought down the law, carved on stone tablets, only to find it already broken. That day three thousand men died by Levi's sword. Three thousand law-breakers were thrown into eternity unblessed (Ex. 32:28). The Holy Spirit came down to bear witness to a Saviour who had gone up to heaven. That day three thousand souls were brought to that Saviour, and He blessed and saved them. Three thousand took their stand for the Lord. They had judged themselves, believed the truth, and received forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit as the seal of their faith.
- Received — they took the word in with deep seriousness, not surface excitement; "gladly" is missing from the oldest manuscripts.
- Baptized — the sign of death and separation, a public break with the world and with a nation heading for judgment.
- Souls — the word here means persons; three thousand real people, counted one by one.
- Added — no man enrolled them; the Lord Himself added them to a company He had already formed.
- Reversed — under the law three thousand died the day it was broken; at Pentecost three thousand were saved the day the Spirit came.