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.