Acts 3:17–26

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

God has fulfilled His word through Moses the prophet. Moses in no way took the place of being Israel's deliverer. He was only a witness to it, a partial display of God's power at the time, but looking on to the great Prophet and Deliverer who was coming. Now He had come.

The prophets of idolatry were deluded. In contrast, the Lord would raise up a prophet like Moses — but infinitely greater than Moses — from among Israel. Israel must listen to Him. Moses was about to die. But God remembered Israel's fear at Sinai. They were terrified at the thought of hearing God Himself speak, and had asked for someone to stand between them and God. So the Prophet spoken of is the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

Peter's use of these words in Acts 3 makes it clear that the One in mind is Christ Himself. In Deuteronomy 18 the stress seems to fall on the precious fact of Christ's humanity — "a prophet like me from your brothers." Perhaps the outstanding feature in Moses was the closeness he enjoyed with God, and his freedom in going into the Lord's presence. The words "like me" remind us of the perfect communion between the Lord Jesus as Man and the Father.

Peter quotes Moses: God would raise up a prophet from the Jewish nation, similar to Moses. But He would speak with such authority that no one could ignore His words... This could apply to no one but Christ. Leaders in Israel knew that Scripture. They had asked John the Baptist whether he was that prophet. But John testified that the Lord Jesus was far greater than he, and the evidence of Christ's own life and ministry was clear for all to see... In fact, Israel knows that neither before nor since has there been such a prophet.

The theory of Aben Ezra and others, that Joshua is meant, cannot stand. Joshua only added to Moses' work, and in little more than one direction. He does not stand out in any adequate way as the prophet raised up from his brothers like Moses. So some of the most distinguished Jewish teachers tried to read this one unique prophet as a whole line of prophets! That reading fits neither the language nor the facts of their history... The place of mediator, whose words must be heard on pain of death, points to what marked Moses out. In the highest degree it is true of no one but the Messiah.

Moses had predicted the coming of a prophet — a man like himself, to whom the nation must listen or be destroyed. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. Though He is the Eternal Son, He stooped to become Man among us — as truly human as Moses or anyone else. He was no mere explainer of Moses' law. He announced a new and more glorious order of things altogether. The words themselves show it: "You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you."

The Prophet is Christ. He has come. Men have heard His voice with their own ears, and we may still hear His voice in Holy Scripture. Here is one of His sayings: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." What words are these! How divinely suited they are to meet every need of the human heart!

God has fulfilled His word through Moses the prophet. Moses never took the place of Israel's deliverer. He was only a witness to it — a partial picture of God's power at that time, pointing on to the great Prophet and Deliverer who was coming. Now He had come. So Peter set before them the arrival of the One who came to bless, His rejection among them, and how terrible a thing it is to treat that lightly. Whoever would not bow to Him was to be cut off — by the declaration of their own Moses.

So by refusing to listen to Christ, they were guilty of direct disobedience to Moses. The lawgiver would be their accuser. The people who claimed to be Moses' disciples, so eager (as they imagined) for his honour, would find themselves accused before God by him!

Moses had declared that Jehovah would raise up for them a Prophet like himself. He firmly affirms this Prophet's authority. He is not a mere explainer of what had been spoken before. He is the Originator of a new order of things, as Moses was, and so must go beyond what Moses had begun... Had Moses been enough, there would have been no need for another. But the law was bound to fail to bring people near to God. There must be, then, another Prophet and a different message. If people hear Him, the way to God that is otherwise closed opens for the one who receives His message. If they do not hear Him, there is indeed no remedy: "every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people."

Israel boasted in their great "Shema," where the prophet Moses called them back to the privilege and responsibility of what the law revealed... But Israel was the "deaf servant" of Jehovah. Now God had raised up another Prophet, and of Him it was written, "You shall listen to Him in everything He says to you"... Moses had charged the people, "Hear, O Israel." Now One greater than Moses cried, "Who has ears to hear, let him hear." What if they did not hear? For those who refused to listen, that old prophecy held a warning just as serious: "whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him."

The first of these words occurs only once (Acts 3:23). The second appears four times — three of them about the destruction of the ungodly. Liddell and Scott give exolothreuo as "to destroy utterly," and olethros as "ruin, destruction, death."

See how serious the issues are that hang on hearing the voice of this Prophet... Everything depends, he says, on how you hear Him. To hear Jesus is to secure salvation. To deafen the ear and harden the heart against Him is to seal the soul's eternal doom.

There was, however, a word for them in the present. The One who had been among them was truly the Prophet like Moses, to whom all were to listen. So a present responsibility rested on them while they waited for the future. For if that Prophet had come — and Jesus Christ was that Prophet — then all people were bound to listen to Him, or judgment would overtake the rebellious.

Why "from Samuel"? Where was the great fitness in that? What moral reason led the Spirit of God to tie prophecy to Samuel's place? The people had failed completely long before. The priests were now just as plainly a failure... What remained to be done? No one is holy like the LORD; He is the One who never fails. But how does He act? Samuel and the prophets after him are the turning point. There the announcement of His Anointed as king first begins to dawn on Israel.

He was the first of the "successional prophets" (Acts 13:20; 3:24). Yet Moses, and even Abraham, were prophets before him (Psalm 105:15; Deuteronomy 18:18).

Prophecy is a special intervention, and it applied to their case of failure. So when Shiloh fell and the ark was captured, God raised up Samuel. That is why the Lord counts the prophets "from Samuel and those who came after him."... But while they showed the people their sins, they kept pointing to the Messiah, the great Deliverer... Prophecy judges the people in their responsibility. It also announces the sovereign purpose of God.

Here Peter is still urging them to repent. If they do, he pledges the return of Christ to bring in the predicted time of peace and blessing. For Jesus was clearly the Prophet raised up, like Moses but far greater, as Moses himself testified in Deuteronomy 18:15. No one could refuse His words and escape; to refuse them was to bring on his own destruction.

Again and again we gather that all the prophets bore witness to the sufferings of Christ. They spoke of the present interval of testimony to Him, rejected and glorified, under the title of "These days," and of the future glory as "Times of refreshing."

All the prophets from Samuel onward had pointed to His day. Israel was privileged indeed: first the prophets in long succession, and at last the Son of God Himself speaking among them. And now, despite their killing of Him, God proposed to give Him to them a second time. So blessing — full and final — would come in, not for Israel only, but for all the nations of the earth. Alas for the hopeless evil of the human heart! The gracious offer was refused. So the world drags on, century after century, in its weary way. It feels its need of peace and rest more deeply all the time, yet never finds it. The rejected Jesus is the only true hope people have, if only they could see it.

That Jesus was this Prophet is plain. Peter goes on to say, "And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days." Everything depends, he says, on how you hear Him. Nothing could be plainer. To hear Jesus is to secure salvation. To close the ear and harden the heart against Him is to seal the soul's eternal doom.

The apostle now presses these things on his hearers. They are the rightful heirs, the sons of the prophets, and heirs of the wide-reaching covenant of promise. That covenant was given before the Law, and the law's weakness never crippled it. In Abraham's Seed all the families of the earth would indeed find the blessing.

Now Peter appeals to the people as children of the prophets, and as children of the covenant God made first with Abraham. He does not speak of the covenant of law given by Moses, but of God's unconditional covenant of promise to Abraham and his seed. That promise finds its answer only in Christ, the one seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16). Through Him alone blessing could come, and will yet come, to all the families of the earth.

The apostle Peter, speaking to unconverted Jews, calls them sons of the prophets and sons of the covenant God made with their fathers, the covenant that promised Abraham blessing for all the families of the earth. He spoke during the time of the church, and in that sense his words belonged to it. But in that time, in any spiritual or moral or real sense, are unconverted Jews the seed of Abraham in whom all the families of the earth are to be blessed? Whom does Paul call the seed of Abraham in whom the nations are to be blessed? "It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many, but referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ."

No one is a Christian by nature. He may be born of Christian parents, brought up under Christian discipline, and hold to Christian ordinances. But unless he is born of God, all such outward privileges are worth nothing to him. Here is the real point, and how few ask themselves — am I in Christ? Now the Jew had natural hereditary privileges. He was born a Jew, and the Jews were "children of the kingdom," "children of the prophets," "children of the covenant"; but they were cast out.

Is it not clear that here is God's distinct offer, through His servant, to make good all that was promised to Israel? But they refused, and His offer lapsed entirely for the time. … After that no one presented the word of the Lord in that way again, and no later offer came to Israel on any such ground. Yet the covenant of grace is not gone for ever. It will reappear, under the returning Son of man, for both houses of Israel.

The promise was unconditional and absolute. God gives it as the revelation of a purpose He will carry out. He addresses it to Abraham, so as to fix the person in whom it was to be fulfilled. God steps in to bless, and He makes clear that the blessing rests on His own faithfulness alone. He blesses because He is pleased to bless. Notice too that the promise reaches out to the whole world. "In you shall all the nations be blessed." Its reach is universal, its character absolute, and its fulfilment rests on the faithfulness of God alone.

We may need a caution here about what that raising up means. It does not point to the Resurrection. It points to the Lord's first coming to earth, in line with the words just quoted from Deuteronomy 18:18: "I will raise up for them a prophet like you," and so on.

Here the word is no longer the ambiguous anestesen, but the more definite egeiren. It does not just mean raising Him up as a living Messiah on earth, as in Acts 3:22, 26; Acts 7:37; Acts 13:33. It means waking Him up after death.

In Acts 3:18, 26, as in Acts 4:27, 30, the Revisers rightly give, not Son or Child, but "servant," referring to Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 52:13; Isaiah 53:11.

The burden in Acts is that the Jews rejected Christ whom God raised up… but we do not find grace coming down in its completeness… Peter does not even go so far as to call Him the Son of God. When Peter speaks here, the word is really "servant" in that passage.

If we needed any further encouragement, here it is: the ambassadors were to "begin at Jerusalem" — the guiltiest spot on the face of the earth. They were to make the earliest offer of pardon to the very murderers of the Son of God. Peter does exactly that in this verse, in words of wonderful and surpassing grace.

What a fitting vessel Peter was for the grace of God to flow out through, since he had tasted it so sweetly and fully himself! How his heart must have glowed as he closed his sermon to these very people who had denied and crucified the Lord… Here was the announcement of repentance and forgiveness of sins that was to go out to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. God is the source of all blessing. Jesus is the One by whom it reaches men, and the effect of it is to turn men from their iniquities.

In the last verse of the chapter he added this: whatever their response, God had raised up Jesus to bless them by turning them from their sins. We all need two things. First, the judicial blotting out of our sins. Second, to be turned away from our sins, so that they lose their power over us.

The blood of Christ has precious power. Even so, no soul is ever really blessed except through the judgment of sin — of self — in the conscience.

Peter presents Him as the exalted Man. To my mind Peter presented Him this way to the nation, not to a small faithful group inside it, as we read in Acts 3:26… But they rejected the message Stephen brought them, and they killed him, and that closed this ministry.