And now, brethren, I know that ye did it in ignorance, as also your rulers;
The healing of the lame man has drawn a crowd. Peter has just charged them to their face with crucifying the Lord Jesus. Then the tone turns. He calls them brothers and says they acted in ignorance. Does ignorance make a crime smaller? And why would God say it at all?
This is no compliment. The people who should have known their Messiah understood Him least.
In one way this might make the degraded condition of God's ancient people worse; for how did they and their rulers come to be so ignorant? They knew neither the Scripture nor the power of God. They valued neither grace nor truth. They saw works and heard words such as no one had ever known before. Yet they were more stupid than the nations around them, duller than their own beasts of burden. But He who suffered for them on the cross prayed to His Father to forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing. And now the Holy Spirit, through the apostle, assures them that this was so, as a plea for divine compassion.
Writers tie this verse back to what Jesus prayed on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Peter is not guessing at their motives. He is announcing a verdict.
After such a total condemnation of Israel we might have thought it was all over with that nation, and that God would step in to destroy them. But no. Through Peter, God made this known to the nation of Israel: because His Son had interceded for them on the cross, He was treating their terrible sin as a sin of ignorance and not as a wilful sin.
Israel's own law separated the killer who planned it from the one who did not. It gave the second man somewhere to run. Writers place the killing of Jesus in that second class.
What amazing grace this is! To our poor minds it looks as though they committed that terrible sin with open eyes! Peter took the same line as his Master did on the cross. Under the law the Lord drew a distinction between a manslayer and a murderer. For the murderer there was to be no mercy; for the manslayer there was safety in the cities of refuge (Num. 35). In grace God is pleased to regard Israel — the slayer of Jesus — as a manslayer. So there is still mercy for that blood-stained nation.
The law also appointed a sacrifice for sins done in ignorance. The timing is striking.
For sins of ignorance a sacrifice was available for Jews (Leviticus 5:14). In fact, their Messiah accomplished that sacrifice at the very time they were guilty of crucifying Him.
Being ignorant did not make them safe. It left them needing mercy, and that mercy needed Christ's prayer.
They were ignorant of what they were doing, and that is why He prayed for them. Yet their ignorance was no valid plea for acquittal in God's sight, so the Lord's intercession was needed. God does show mercy to those whose grave sins are done in ignorance of what pleases Him. Look at Paul. He thought he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. "I received mercy," he writes, "because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief." God could be gracious, but He could not gloss over his wrongdoing. The same is true of those who crucified His Son.
Peter has just made an accusation. Now the same sermon turns into comfort.
He has pressed their terrible sin home on the consciences of his hearers. Now he applies the healing, soothing balm of the gospel, in words of wonderful power and sweetness: "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled." Nothing can exceed the grace of this. It recalls Joseph's words to his troubled brothers: "It was not you that sent me here, but God."
God counted the sin as done in ignorance, so the sentence did not fall at once. Something far larger came instead.
They had indeed committed an unmatched crime in crucifying the Lord Jesus... But the vinedresser had pleaded for the barren fig tree (Luke 13:8). Their ignorance, pleaded by the Redeemer on the cross, is exactly what the Holy Spirit admits through Peter here. In answer to the intercession of Jesus they were forgiven so far as this: judgment did not fall at once, and full, free, absolute forgiveness was proclaimed to them on condition of their repentance.
- Charge. Peter first fixes the guilt for an unmatched crime: the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. He names the crime first, the ignorance second.
- Plea. The word "ignorance" is not their excuse. It is God honouring Christ's prayer, treating the nation's sin as a sin of ignorance and not a wilful one.
- Provision. Ignorance never acquits; it qualifies for mercy. The law gave the manslayer a city of refuge and the ignorant sinner a sacrifice — and their Messiah was making that sacrifice as they killed Him.
- Offer. Judgment did not fall at once, so Peter could proclaim full forgiveness to them, on one condition: repentance.
- Reach. Paul received mercy because he had acted in ignorance and unbelief. The same door stands open to anyone whose worst sin was done blindly.
but God has thus fulfilled what he had announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer.
Peter has just charged the crowd with crucifying their Messiah. Now he tells them God had announced that suffering long in advance — so what becomes of their guilt, and what does it open up for them?
Peter's answer starts with the prophets.
Again, as in his first sermon, Peter appeals to the Scriptures. What his hearers had done had not taken God by surprise, for He had before shown by the mouth of all His prophets that Christ should suffer. And He had fulfilled His word as to this, as He will fulfil every other word that He has spoken.
Commentators point to one gap in how the crowd read the prophets.
There was one thing they all seemed to fail to grasp about Christ: the necessity of His sufferings. It was foretold that the Christ would be the centre of all the coming glory. But it was also foretold — and here is where the difficulty came, a difficulty for thoughtful Jews even today — that "the Christ must suffer." They might believe all those glowing prophecies about Him, the throne, the dominion and the glory. But the word that He would be wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquities they seemed unable to connect with the Messiah, the Christ who is yet to reign in glory.
Verse 18 follows straight on from Peter's word about their ignorance. That ignorance cuts two ways at once.
Then the apostle explains how they could do so dreadful a deed… In one way this might make the degraded condition of God's ancient people worse. How did they and their rulers come to be so ignorant? They knew neither the Scripture nor the power of God… But He who suffered for them on the cross prayed to His Father to forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing. Now the Holy Spirit through the apostle assures them that this was so, as a plea for divine compassion. That His Christ should suffer was no afterthought of God. He predicted it by all the prophets, and He fulfilled it. So the people must learn their blind wickedness; and so God would show His mercy, He who gave Christ as a propitiation for their offences.
Propitiation means a sacrifice that satisfies God about sin — here, the death they themselves brought about.
God's law drew a line between murder and a killing done without knowing.
Verse 17 shows that God was willing to treat their dreadful crime as a sin of ignorance. It was manslaughter, for which the law provides a city of refuge, and not murder. This was a direct answer to the prayer on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." By their sinful act God had accomplished His purpose about the suffering of Christ. So there was still an offer of mercy for them as a nation. Peter went on to make that offer. Everything hinged upon their repentance and conversion.
Under the law of Moses, a killer who did not mean to kill could flee to such a city and live. The timing of God's remedy is striking:
For sins of ignorance a sacrifice was available for Jews (Leviticus 5:14). In fact, that sacrifice was accomplished by their Messiah at the very time they were guilty of crucifying Him. God had declared this beforehand by His prophets. What they needed, then, was faith in this gracious Substitute, the one sacrifice to take away their sins.
Saying God announced it beforehand is not saying the men who did it were only playing a part written for them.
No doubt the purpose of God stands… But should this weaken our moral judgment of creature wickedness? Does it deny that Satan and man are responsible for all they do against Him, or that both must be punished for it? So Peter charges the men of Israel with the guilt of crucifying the Messiah… The holy and perfect word of God puts everything in its place, not one side only but both. God has His definite plan and foreknowledge. The Jews played their evil part, the Gentiles theirs… but in that very same act they fulfilled the prophets. That act gave occasion for God to display His holiest judgment and to accomplish the work of His grace.
- Foretold — God announced the sufferings of Christ through all the prophets. The cross took Him by no surprise, and it proves He keeps every word He speaks.
- Missed — a glorious Messiah they could accept; a wounded, bruised one they could not. That blind spot in their reading of the prophets became their crime.
- Fulfilled — God announced it and God accomplished it. Fulfilled prophecy never cancels guilt; both sides stand together, man's evil and God's plan.
- Covered — God treated the deed as done in ignorance, answering the Lord's prayer from the cross. That left them a refuge instead of a sentence.
- Offered — mercy still stood open to the nation, for God gave Christ as a propitiation for their offences. Everything hinged on their repentance.
Repent therefore and be converted, for the blotting out of your sins, so that times of refreshing may come from [the] presence of the Lord,
Peter speaks these words in Solomon's porch, to a crowd from the nation that had just crucified Jesus. His call ties a change in the hearers to a change in the world's future.
The verse gives one appeal in two words, and writers keep them distinct. Repentance is what the mind does; conversion is what the will does.
It is literally an after-thought, or changed thought. It is a judgment the mind forms on reflection, after it has already held another one. In Scripture it usually means the judgment I form in God's sight about my own past conduct and feelings... Conversion itself may follow repentance. By conversion I mean the full, deliberate turning of the heart to God. "Repent," says Peter, "and be converted." Conversion is the turning of the will to God.
The appeal in Acts 2 and the appeal here are not aimed at the same target. One gathered people out of the nation. This one puts a proposal to the nation itself.
Peter made a very remarkable proposal to Israel that day in Solomon's porch. In Acts 2 his appeal was to individuals, and those who responded at once stood apart from "this crooked generation." In Acts 3 the same preacher appealed to the nation as such... The heavens had received Him until the times of the restoring of all things. Now it was for Israel to say whether that time of universal blessing should begin at once.
After such a crime, an offer of blotted-out sins seems impossible. Commentators trace it back to what Jesus prayed on the cross.
Yet Israel is not at once set aside; on the contrary, "to the Jew first" the message of grace is proclaimed. Not only as individuals, but as a nation too... So, at the cross, the Lord intercedes: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Peter then proclaims to them that God accepted that prayer: "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers."
Some older translations link the two halves of the verse with the word "when." One writer works from a rendering that reads "so that," and draws out what that changes.
The verse ends with a promise, however. It does not say "when," but "so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and He may send Jesus Christ, who was foreordained for you." Jesus had returned on high because the Jewish nation rejected Him. Yet the nation could still repent and turn to Him. If it did, God was ready to send Him back and bring in the times of kingdom refreshing. God made this promise in complete good faith. Yet He also knew that the nation as such would not change its mind about Christ. However rebellious Israel was, God would give them full opportunity to repent.
The blotting out is God's act, but it is not detached from what happens inside a person. One writer draws out both the ground of the pardon and the road to it.
They judge themselves before God and acknowledge their sins. Then divine grace blots those sins out, in the blood of their own Messiah. There is no other way. But oh, how moving beyond words for them above all people! But again, the power of the blood of Christ is precious. Yet no soul ever receives real blessing apart from the judgment of sin — of self — in the conscience.
The phrase is not vague comfort. It names a coming era, and it comes in a fixed order with the restoring of all things.
The times of refreshing would seem to be the gracious prelude to that great climax, "the times of restoration" of all things. Then righteousness shall reign. It would seem also that repentance and conversion of sinners will hasten the times of refreshing.
- Repent — a changed judgment of yourself, formed in God's sight. The mind reverses its verdict on your own past.
- Turn — conversion adds the will to the mind: the deliberate turning of the heart to God, which is why Peter says both.
- Blotted out — the pardon rests on the blood of the Messiah they rejected. It reaches a person through self-judgment, never around it.
- Refreshing — repentance does not just precede blessing; it aims at it: "so that," not "when."
- Restoration — Peter put his proposal to the nation. The world's wider blessing still waits on Israel's repentance, and on God sending Jesus back from heaven.
and he may send Jesus Christ, who was foreordained for you,
Peter's second sermon follows the healing of the lame man at the temple gate. It ends with an offer: if the nation turns back, God will send Jesus to them again. Two questions follow. What is this "refreshing"? And was the offer real?
Writers note a shift between Peter's first sermon and this one. In Acts 2 people were called out of a guilty generation one by one; here the nation itself is addressed.
A very remarkable offer was made to Israel that day in Solomon's porch. In Acts 2 Peter appealed to people one by one, and those who responded were at once separated from "this crooked generation." In Acts 3 the same preacher appealed to the nation as a whole. He called on the people to repent and turn to God. He promised them that if they did, their sins would be blotted out, and times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord. What is more, God would send Jesus back... Note carefully that the world's blessing waits for Israel's repentance. While that nation stays in unbelief, Jesus remains in the heavens, and the evil rule of the devil goes on.
Older translations read "when the times of refreshing shall come." Commentators press for "so that": repentance brings the refreshing. The ESV agrees.
It is clear that the apostle calls on the Jews to repent and turn to God, so that their sins might be blotted out. And this is so that (not when) the times of refreshing might come from the presence of the Lord, and He might send Jesus Christ... We do not doubt that Peter then saw the repentance of Israel as possible, if not likely. The passage itself shows that, if they repented, Jesus would certainly be sent from heaven without delay.
If the offer was real, why did nothing come of it?
Jesus had returned on high because the Jewish nation rejected Him. Yet if the nation itself would repent and turn to Him, God was ready to send Him back to bring in the times of kingdom refreshing. Of course, this promise was given in perfectly good faith, yet at the same time God knew that the nation as such would not change their mind concerning Christ. However rebellious Israel was, God would give them full opportunity to repent.
Another writer draws the same line between what we owe God and what God has planned.
God knows beforehand how people will receive the testimony, and He acts in that knowledge. Our responsibility is quite another thing. Christ presented Himself as Messiah to the Jews to confirm the promises, and they were bound to receive Him. Yet His rejection became the basis on which God accomplished all His purposes.
The wording marks Jesus out as the One already designated for this people — the very Man they had driven away is the One God holds in reserve for them.
Verses 19, 20 are given accurately: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send the Christ who has been appointed for you, even Jesus."
Some read the refreshing as a fresh outpouring of the Spirit. Commentators answer that the Spirit had already come — it was the Spirit speaking through Peter who pointed forward to something else.
It is impossible to apply this passage to the Holy Spirit. He had already come down at that time, and had said through the apostle, "whom heaven must receive until the times of restoring all things." And in truth, the Holy Spirit has not restored all things.
The timing of Peter's words is itself the argument. Pentecost was the high point of the Spirit's power, and Peter spoke at that very moment.
This was the exact moment the Holy Spirit seized, through the apostle Peter, to declare as strongly as possible that these times are still future. A further mighty change must still take place. It will not come by fresh or repeated missions of the Holy Spirit on Christians or for Christian purposes, but by sending Jesus — that Jesus who has gone away to heaven.
Christ is sent to repair, not to wipe out. Writers also mark the limits of that repair.
Christ will be sent, according to these testimonies, not for the destruction, but for the restoring of all things.
Some have pressed the apostle's words to make them include even the unpardoned dead. The restoration does not go beyond what "God has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets." No prophet tells us to look for the restoring to God's favour of men who have died in their sins.
The offer stood open until Stephen. His death was the reply.
Jesus was still "standing" in glory, ready to fulfil what Peter had said in Acts 3:20, if only they had repented. They did not repent, but gave a violent refusal by stoning Stephen and sending him after his Master.
- Offer. Peter addresses the nation as a whole and lays before it a return of the very Messiah it had rejected.
- Condition. The sense is "so that," not "when." Repentance comes first. Then the refreshing, and Jesus sent without delay.
- Person. The refreshing is not a further work of the Spirit, who had already come; it waits on Christ being sent from heaven.
- Scope. He comes to restore, not to destroy. But the restoring reaches only as far as the prophets spoke. It does not reach those who died in their sins.
- Result. Israel refused, and Stephen's death sealed the refusal. The times are put off, not cancelled. They wait for Jesus to be sent.
whom heaven indeed must receive till [the] times of [the] restoring of all things, of which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since time began.
Peter is speaking in the temple, just after the healing of a lame man. He tells the crowd where Jesus is now, how long heaven will keep Him, and what will end that stay.
Peter's appeal here is not to individuals but to Israel as a nation. The world's future hangs on their answer.
A very remarkable overture was made to Israel that day in Solomon's porch. In Acts 2 Peter's appeal was to individuals. Those who responded were at once detached from "this crooked generation." In Acts 3 the same preacher's appeal was to the nation as such. He called on the people to repent and turn back to God. He promised that if they did, their sins would be blotted out, and that times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord. What is more, God would send back Jesus. The heavens had received Him until the times of the restoration of all things. Now it was for Israel to say whether that time of universal blessing should begin at once.
Older translations read "restitution" where the ESV has "restoring." Which period does Peter mean? The test is what all the prophets actually spoke about.
Has God spoken of the final judgment at the end of the world by the mouth of all His holy prophets? No. Certainly all the holy prophets of the old covenant have not spoken of it. What times, then, have they all spoken of? Plainly the millennial times — the times when all the nations of the earth will be brought under the Messiah's rule. The word translated "restitution" means restoring what has fallen into disorder, brokenness, and confusion.
Christ's absence from earth has a cause. Peter traces it to Israel.
Israel's sin had driven Him out of the world, and He was now in heaven. Earth can know no millennium of blessing while He stays away. His continuance in heaven, as Peter showed, depends on Israel's attitude toward Him. God chose that nation to be the centre of light and blessing for the earth. While it stays stubborn and unbelieving, Christ cannot return, and universal blessing cannot begin.
Some read the verse as if Christ waits in heaven while the world slowly improves. On this reading He arrives only at the end. The Greek will not allow it.
Heaven must receive Him till the times for restoring all things according to prophecy. That is, Jesus will be sent to bring in these blessed times when all things will be reconstituted — not destroyed — as the prophets of old testified. Christ will come from heaven to earth to establish millennial blessing. You would have to change the Greek completely to get the meaning "till all be accomplished." Christ is on high till the times of restoring all things come, not till all has been restored.
The phrase has been stretched to teach that everyone will finally be saved. Peter's own clause rules that out.
People have misused the term "restitution of all things" to back the idea that God will save and restore everybody in the end — even the devil himself. But the passage reads, "the restitution of all things, which God has spoken…" It is things, not persons — things He had spoken of by His prophets from the very start.
The same clause sets a second limit. It concerns people who die in their sins.
The restoration does not go beyond what "God has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets," and certainly no prophet tells us to look for the restoration to divine favour of men who have died in their sins. The prophets' standpoint was the earth. In stirring language they describe how God's power removes every scar that sin has caused. He does it so that He may once more have pleasure in the works of His hands, and that men may enjoy His mercy. The healing of the lame man was an example, strikingly illustrating Isaiah 35:5-6.
Every trust God placed in human hands has failed. The coming age answers the whole list.
Throughout the ages God has brought out before men many things that are His purpose for this world. He created Adam as head, and he sinned. He established government in Noah, and it was corrupted. He gave His law through Moses, and it was broken. He set up priesthood in Aaron, and it was perverted. He established kingly authority in David, and it collapsed. These things, and every other good thing in His purpose, will be restored in the coming age. And not only restored, but established in far greater fullness and in absolute perfection, because all will then be centred in Christ.
- Withheld — heaven keeps Christ while Israel stays unbelieving, and the earth waits with Him.
- Until — He stays above till those times begin, not till they are finished. His return opens the age; it does not close it.
- Things — God restores things, not persons. The verse gives no ground for saying every person will be saved in the end.
- Spoken — the prophets' words set the limit. The restoration reaches as far as they reach, and no further.
- Restored — headship, government, law, priesthood and kingship all broke in human hands. Christ recovers them all and perfects them.