Speeches in Acts - Study 03 - Peter Before Rulers

[Resource Manager]

Speeches in The Acts

 

Study 3

 

Peter before Rulers

 

THE MESSIAHSHIP OF JESUS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE MEANING OF THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST.

 

Reading: Acts 3 and 4

 

On the Monday (Study 1) we were looking at the wonderful historical accuracy that marks the writings of Luke. Yesterday (Study 2) we examined his reporting of the speech by Peter, in which we saw that his method of summarising, of presenting a précis of the speech, was marked by the same superlative quality that marked his writing as a historian. We saw, or we endeavoured to see, that by quoting part of a passage and then leaving the rest unfinished, he indicated to us that at that point, Peter proceeded to expound the scripture thus far and that he reverted to the remainder of the quotation at a later portion in his address. We saw also that by the use of a word, which was itself taken from an Old Testament quotation, he was indicating to us that Peter at that point quoted that passage, and in quoting it, would bring out its bearing upon the theme that he was presenting to them.

 

Now if we have rightly found the key which enables us to interpret Luke's method of writing his summary, we shall find that we can use the key throughout all his reporting of addresses. And so as we go forward in our examination of one speech after another, we shall be able to check whether we have rightly understood his method. And in the continued use of that key to speech after speech and finding that it always opens them up, we shall be assured that we have come to some better understanding of Luke and of his method, and understanding the man and his method the better, we shall read these addresses, not just to read them through, but to remember the allusions which he makes, remember the contents of the scriptures to which he alludes and remember that we have to expand it in our thought to something like maybe 20 times its length or more.

 

The speech of Peter at Pentecost, and the speech which has been read this afternoon are very closely related and both were spoken in Jerusalem. They both belong to the Jerusalem ministry. We shall see as we go forward in the next 2 or 3 days that Luke interpolates the speeches at given points, appropriate points, in the course of his history, because he is unfolding in this book not only the progress of Christianity as it spread geographically throughout the Roman world, but he is showing how the Gospel which was presented again and again, while it may vary in emphasis according to the needs and the circumstances, was yet basically one; that it set forth a Gospel that was a deliverance of a Divine message; that it concerned a Divine purpose; that it concerned a Divine intervention in human affairs; that God had revealed Himself in a unique way in one who was the Son of God through whom had been wrought out the way of salvation for men; and that they were, the Apostles were, commissioned to carry that message of salvation with the invitation to be reconciled to God.

 

The Jews of course, were looking for the Messiah; they knew much of the Old Testament writings. The burden of the argument of the Apostles in the earlier parts of the Acts of the Apostles, was to show that the message of the Old Testament prophets presented the Messiah in a twofold role, that not only was the Messiah one who would be a glorious King reigning over the restored tribes of Israel, but that the prophets who predicted so mighty a ruler also, and in the context of the same prediction, indicated that he would suffer. In other words, and it is perhaps necessary for us to realize this, the Messiahship of Jesus was but a part of His purpose. We very often begin when we are proclaiming the truth by preaching concerning the second coming of Jesus and the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth, but that is not the finality, it is only the final instrumentality by which God will bring to the effective issue, the purpose that He has in Jesus Christ. And the Apostles had to show that Messiah's reign upon earth was not an end such as the natural Jew was liable to think it, but that it was only a part of a larger purpose concerning the Messiah. In other words, the Kingdom that is coming must be seen not as a social development among men, but as a part of a Divine scheme of redemption rooted in the work of Jesus Christ, but carried forward to its final triumph in the reign of Christ upon earth. And so the Messiahship of Jesus has to be seen in the framework of the larger purpose of God concerning him as the saviour of men and his Kingship arises out of his saviourhood because it is a carrying forward of his redemptive work.

 

Now yesterday, there was a reference to 'the name' of Jesus Christ. First, in concluding the quotation from Joel it was written,

 

Acts 2:21,

"It shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." And, when they were pricked in their hearts and asked what they should do, v38 Peter said unto them, "Repent and be baptised everyone of you, in (or into) the name of Jesus Christ."

 

And the name of the Lord in which there was salvation, ("they that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved",) is set forth as historically developed in the name of Jesus Christ. Now this introduces us to the peculiar use of the word 'name' in the scriptures. We read of the Name' of God, we read that the apostles were to go into all the world baptising all nations, baptising them into 'the Name', 'the Name' of the Father, of the Son and the Holy Spirit. That command was interpreted as being equal to baptising them into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ or into the name of Jesus Christ, and Paul even puts it as being "baptised into Christ". Now they are only baptised into one system of means whereby redemption was possible, so it is quite clear that 'the name of the Lord Jesus' or the 'the name of Christ' or 'into Christ', are all in some way equivalent to baptism into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

[Resource Manager]

Now a name is that by which a person is known. We know Brother Parkin by his name; you know me by my name, but this is a mere appellative which distinguishes us for convenience of record. There is nothing particular about the name itself in relation to the individuals. I might as well have been called Peter as well as John and it wouldn't have made any difference, but Biblical names when Divinely appointed are expressive of a purpose or a fulfillment of a purpose as the case may be. The name itself has significance.

 

Now God has given to himself a Name, and that Name is not a matter of letters. It is a purpose by which God is known. But the letters by which God chooses to describe Himself are themselves, in the meaning of them, expressive of that purpose; they are an enshrinement, a memorial of the purpose that God will accomplish.

 

Now we read in the section which has already been read to you of this name, let us pick up the verses. V6, Peter said to this lame man,

 

"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and walk"

V16,

"And his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong whom you now see. Yea, the faith which is by him, have given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all."

 

Chapter 4 continues this theme, because it continues the discussion on the preaching of Peter when he was arraigned before the authorities, and then Peter asks the question, Chapter 4:7. When they had set them in the midst (that is of Israel's rulers) they asked,

 

"By what power or by what name have ye done this?"

V 10,

"be it known unto you all and unto all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man stand here before you all."

And then v12,

"Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."

 

Now what is this name given under heaven whereby we might be saved? What is the meaning of this usage of the word 'name' in these addresses that we have here? Well, now we have the answer, when we come to analyse the recorded speech of Peter in this 3rd Chapter.

 

Now I shall want your close attention and if you find that the theme develops with some complexity, please remember that we are being called upon to lift ourselves up to a comprehension of Divine things, and that Peter stood up and spoke these words and elaborated the theme as we are going to try and do it, and he expected his hearers to follow. So please think here; put on your mettle, gird up the loins of your minds, as we said before, and let us try to rise to the higher understanding of the Divine things that are revealed so wonderfully in the word of God. V12, then and onwards,

 

"Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we have made this man to walk. The God of Abram and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers that glorified his son Jesus whom ye delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go."

 

The God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob. By the use of those terms, Luke is indicating to us, that he was quoting from the book of Exodus. We turn to Exodus chapter 3, where we find the phrase; v6 The angel, as God's representative is speaking,

 

"Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob."

 

So Peter is referring back to the Divine manifestation at the bush, and when Moses asked, being commissioned to go down into Egypt; what is the name of the one who is sending me V13, Moses said unto God, "Behold when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers". You notice in Acts 13, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob the God of our fathers there's your expression, the God of your fathers has sent me unto you and they shall say to me "What is his name" or "what shall I say unto them?", and God said unto Moses, "I will be who I will be" and he said, "thou shalt say unto the children of Israel He who will be, hath sent me unto you."

 

And God said moreover unto Moses,

 

"Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you, this is My Name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations. "

 

So here then, God gave to Himself a Name and it was a Name which was defined as meaning, I will be who or what I will be. And the verbal noun derived from that statement is, He who will be hath sent me.

[Resource Manager]

Now what will God be? What will God be? There are some deep and philosophic truths bound up with some of the fundamental revelations of God. It was axiomatic with Israel, that God was one. As the Shmar declared, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." But Paul asked the question in the closing verses of the 3rd chapter of the letter to the Romans following the Revised Version. "Is God the God of the Jews only and not of the Gentiles?" In other words, have the Jews one God and the Gentiles another God? Oh!, said Paul, if as we Jews believe, God is one, and there is only one God, then God must be the God of the Jews and the God of the Gentiles. But, moreover, if God is one, it must of necessity follow that God is harmonious in Himself. There is no duality, there is no discord, there is no disharmony and therefore God must have one method, one principle of working with men. And so the apostle says, it is through faith in His promises that Israel must be saved and it is through a similar faith, in the faith, the 'system of truth', now brought to the Gentiles, that men must be saved. And the apostle draws out from the foundation fact, that God is one, that therefore the one God who is the Holy One of Israel must be God of Gentile as well as Jew, and that He must have one method of dealing with mankind.

 

But we must go further than that. If God is one, then it must follow, that for God to accomplish and realize His purpose at last, everything must be in harmony with Himself. Now he made man and gave him freedom to choose. He set up his own will in defiance of the will of God and introduced disharmony. It was a challenge to the supremacy of God. It was introducing into God's world a duality, in which there was the will of God and the will of man. And God could only maintain His supremacy by exercising His right and passing sentence of death upon the rebel. But if He had just stayed there, His purpose in placing man upon the earth would have been thwarted and therefore God must prove Himself to be a God who in the exercise of His supremacy, despite the frustrating effects of mans rebellion, must show Himself to be a Saviour.

 

And so God must, to realize His purpose, at last eliminate from His universe that which is discordant. He must at last, bring all things that survive into harmony with Himself. And at last, in the very significant phrase of Paul, "God will be all in all" that is to say, all that God is, will be realized in all men and everything will be in perfect harmony with God. But, when God is all and in all then God will have become all that he intended should be. And since all that lived will of its own voluntary choice have sought to come into harmony with God it will have become God in manifestation, in those who were redeemed.

 

Now, 'a name' as we said is expressive of a Divine purpose and the name that God chose to give Himself, 'I will be' or 'I will become', means that God would become all that He was Himself, in those who at last attained to the Divine redemption. Now these are necessary corollaries from the fact that God exists, that He is one, that he has made man and that he has a purpose with men. And we might spend a week of afternoons tracing through the scriptures the enunciation of these truths that we have tried to summarise in these few words. But if we want the crispest and shortest expression of them, they are in the Name that God gave to Himself. 'I will become.'

 

And in course of time a baby was born, who was the Son of God. And it was necessary that that child should be the Son of God, for the working out of this salvation. For man can not save himself, God must save and the challenge of the prophets was, that part of the folly of idolatry was that men would worship a god that could not save. But in contrast to it, God says, "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth for I am God, and there is none else."

 

And so God is a Saviour. And, in order that He might be a Saviour, He must raise up one of the race, who might so uphold the Divine principles which had been challenged when man transgressed God's law, that there would be provided such a recognition of God's righteousness, that God could say, My righteousness has been declared and because of the holiness and righteousness of this man, he must be raised from the dead as the conqueror of death. But it was God who provided the man; it was God who said, "I will uphold him in the hollow of mine hand." It was God who in the words of Jesus, prophetically expressed, 'was near that justified' Jesus, justified him in his own right and of his own title, because of the sinlessness of his character. He must be born in the channel of human life with its weakness and frustration, with its mortality, in order that he might as part of that, by the voluntary surrender of his life, show that God was right in the upholding of His supremacy in passing the sentence of death upon the race.

 

And the moral principles of God's working with men were thus manifested in Jesus and upheld. But it could be said when Jesus was born, that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And the glory that was manifested in Jesus was the glory of the Father, for in him was the fullness of the embodiment of the Divine character. He was 'full of grace and truth.' And those words there, 'grace and truth,' themselves go back to the enunciation of the Name of God in the book of Exodus.

 

"Show me thy glory," said Moses, and God answered, "I will cause all My glory to pass before thee and will declare My Name." And when God declared His name, He pronounced those principles upon which He was operating in dealing with men, 'longsuffering and gracious, abundant in mercy and truth, not sparing the guilty, but forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.'

 

There, are elaborated the very principles of God in His relation to men. But they were seen, revealed in Jesus. For John goes back to Exodus when he says, "He was full of grace and truth." But when Jesus was born it could be said, "the word was made flesh" and "God was manifest in flesh" and to that extent, at that point, He who had said, "I will be,” can now say, I have become.'

[Resource Manager]

When 'the word made flesh' was raised from the dead, and made after the power of an endless life and there was revealed to men 'the word of life' as John describes it in the opening verses of his first epistle, "the word of life which they had seen, and handled and their eyes had looked upon", then God could say, that not only had 'He become flesh, for a saving name'; not only had God been 'manifest in flesh', but now God was 'manifest in one, justified in spirit and made after the power of an endless life.' And in Christ exalted we have the extension of the moral harmony that had existed between Jesus and God throughout his life, extended to its logical conclusion to its inevitable end, in the complete and perfect harmony between Jesus and God, in character and in nature. And Jesus enunciates the fact, that his purpose was to be 'one with the Father', in the context of which he says, "I have declared Thy Name", and he says concerning those who believe, "I pray that they may be one even as we are one." And that teaching of Jesus in the 17th chapter of John in that sublime prayer, is but the carrying out, in exhortational form, the very underlying principles of the fact that God is one.

 

Because God is one, at last all must be one with him that survive, and all that is contrary to Him must be ultimately swept away. And Peter says, "by what Name have I done this?" He says the Name of God has been revealed in human life, in Jesus of Nazareth. The God of Abram, the God of Isaac, hath glorified His son, Jesus, whom ye delivered up. And Peter must have taken hold of this doctrine of 'the name' by the double allusion to it, and pointed out that God had enunciated His purpose to become, and he had become, in human life, that Jesus was God revealed. He had declared Him, as John declares in his gospel. He was, said Peter, 'the servant', the servant of whom Isaiah had spoken.

 

For the word 'son', (hath glorified his 'son' Jesus), the word 'son' there is the translation of a word which means 'boy' and was used in the sense in which the Negro was spoken of as 'a boy', and it meant a servant. The idiom, the Greek idiom, was just that which corresponded to the American description of a slaveboy, as being, we will call 'the boy' it may be a man of 40 or 50 but he is still the boy, he is the servant. And so here the word 'son' is servant, it is son used in that sense, and it goes back to those servant prophecies 'Behold my servant' that begins in the 42nd chapter onwards to the 53rd chapter where we have the servant of the Lord despised and rejected of men, but at last seeing the travail of his soul, exalted and glorified and the earnest of it was, that Jesus had been raised from the dead and glorified.

 

Acts 3:13,

"The God of our fathers has glorified His servant Jesus whom ye delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate.”

 

Who had they denied? Peter said, "Just look at him whom you've denied.”

 

Acts 3:14,15,

“Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the prince of Life whom God had raised from the dead whereof we are witnesses."

 

The Holy One and the Just One were acknowledged Messianic titles, but while they were Messianic titles they also indicated the essential quality and character of him who would be the Messiah. And these go back to the prophecies concerning the Messiah: "I will raise up unto David a righteous branch," a man who had the quality of righteousness is essentially Himself, and so he was 'the Righteous One', 'the Just One' who shall live by faith of the 2nd chapter of Habbakuk, who stands in contrast to 'the head of the nations' that comes against the Holy Land in the last days and who is challenged by the Just One, the Righteous One, who is living eternally by his faith. And you get the clash portrayed by Habbakuk between the Divine head, whom God has appointed to be ruler, and the heading up of human pride and human scheme in the northern invader that comes against the land. But the Divinely appointed ruler lives and is there living eternally as the Just One who lives by faith.

 

These phrases in the Old Testament both in the major prophets and in the minor prophets were used and expanded as the meaning of them was wrought out in the apostolic testimony. They had killed the prince of life, or the leader of life or the author of life whichever you care to adopt. But because he's the leader of life, he is the one who has led the way, for the leader must be a part of those whom he leads, one with them, a member of the group, the head of the group but still one with them and going through all that they go through, and coming out of it. And therefore he was one with us essentially and yet he's led the way and opened the way out of death to life and we lead others to it.

[Resource Manager]

In other words paraphrasing these two verses, Peter says, 'the one to whom belongs these descriptions the Holy One and the Just One, whom you Jews recognize to have reference to the Messiah, is the one in whom is realized all that the words mean of holiness and of righteousness, and these are the qualities that belong to the Messiah because in him, God has manifested one who will be the leader to life; who, born amidst the evil common to all of us and yet never yielded to its temptations and who therefore is himself, the life of God revealed. And thus God has manifested Himself and His Name, is set before you in this testimony concerning Jesus for the Name in the fullness of its definition, is the name of the Father, the One who would become, who, by the operation of His power, would beget a son; and so it is the Name which has been evolved historically, as the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, because Divine power revealed in the Holy Spirit was the operative agency in causing Jesus to come into being, and the fullness of it is brought together in that expression. And there is revealed the name of salvation, and it is the name of salvation because it is the Divine purpose in which He will bring men to harmony with Himself, where He will be revealed in them and so they will be saved.

 

And so, says Peter in v16, "And his name", his name, can't you see brethren and sisters what a significance there is in this language, 'and his name', and it sums up all these thoughts for the Name of God is that by which God is known and is known by the purpose which He executed and so His Name, "through faith in His Name hath made this man strong."

 

And there was a dramatic revelation in the miracle; the miracles of the gospels and of the Acts were object lessons. They were illustrations of Divine power in Jesus; they were attestations that God was with him, but they were also of that character, that showed that Jesus was the one foretold in the Old Testament. it was written in the days of the Messiah, 'the deaf would hear, the blind would see, the lame man would leap as a hart.' In fact the very word used to describe that in Isaiah in the Septuagint version is used in the New Testament of the miracle of healing the lame man, linking the two together. And so, since these things were characteristics of the Messiah's age, by the performance of them, Jesus was making a tacit claim to be the Messiah. John said, "Art thou he that should come or look we for another". In that same hour, says the record, Jesus gave sight to blind, hearing to the deaf, he raised the dead and he said, "Go tell John what things ye see." And there is the answer to the question, "Are you the Messiah that is coming?" He was doing the Messiah's work that will be done in all its fullness in the age to come, and by doing them then, he was making claim to be the Messiah. Just as he did when he assumed the role that had been foretold by the Prophet Zechariah: 'that thy King should come unto thee riding upon an :gagged:', and the people were quick to see the significance of his claim when on that Palm Sunday he entered into the city in the role designated by the prophet as being that in which the Messiah would come. And the people quickly responding to what he had done and recognizing what was implicit in his action, strewed palms in the way and shouted in the words that the prophets had said they would use when Messiah came, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord". And now says Peter, you've seen this man made sound, and this is by his name, and this is an illustration of the saving power of the name of Jesus, it is an illustration of that perfection of health to which men will come when at last, through the forgiveness of sins, they attain to the great salvation that is the Divine purpose.

 

And so says Peter, you feel dismayed that you've killed such an One, I know but through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers, but you have fulfilled the Divine purpose, it was according to what God had written through the prophets, the things which God had both showed before that His Christ, His Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. And the assertion as we said yesterday wouldn't be sufficient; he would recapitulate some of those testimonies which spoke of the sufferings of Christ which were associated also with the glory of the Christ, prophecies of which Peter himself later in his epistles says; "that the prophets search what or what manner of time that spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified before hand the sufferings of the Christ and the glory which would follow."

 

But how can they become constituents of the name themselves. The appeal is made, "repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, that so times of refreshing", and times of refreshing was part of their common speech as descriptive of the Messiah's day. It says, "repent therefore and be converted", prepare yourselves for the coming of that day when Messiah shall come, bringing the times of enlargement for the nation and the times of blessing, when these will come from God where Jesus is, when "He will send Jesus Christ whom the heavens must receive until the times of restoration of all things."

 

And so he is weaving together the evidence, that the Jesus whom he was speaking about, in whom God had manifested Himself, who'd been the revelation in human life of God, who had ascended to God's right hand; it was he who would bring those expected times of blessing for which they were looking and of which God had spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. But Peter says, when this time comes, it will inaugurate a new Covenant for Israel, not the old Covenant. And he reminds them that Moses was the mediator of the old Covenant, 'a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto me.'

 

So he says there has to be inaugurated 'a new order', a 'new covenant', 'one like unto Moses', fulfilling as Moses did, a Mediatorship, acting as the one who would introduce and make sure a new covenant for Israel. But what covenant is it? Now I want you to notice the application of the rule which I think you will now see is pretty well established by which Luke, in this very intriguing and interesting and skillful way of his, brings out in this précis as we call it, what Peter did elaborately. "It shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.”

 

As you read it, perhaps think, that that expression 'shall be destroyed from among the people', belongs to the quotation in Deuteronomy 18 but it doesn't. God there, says, "I will require it of him," but the expression, 'shall be destroyed from among the people', comes from God's terms in the Abrahamic Covenant.

 

Genesis 17:9,14. (v9)

"God said unto Abram thou shalt keep my Covenant, therefore, thou and thy seed after thee and their generations, every child shall be circumcised.”

(v14)

"And the uncircumcised manchild of whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people.”

 

So it is a failure to comply with the Abrahamic covenant to which Peter refers, and he says, any man that isn't incorporated in this new Covenant, that 'the one like unto the prophet Moses' will introduce, shall be cut off from among the people. In other words Peter takes them to the Abrahamic covenant, which will be fulfilled in the restoration of all things and in the coming of this time of refreshing to which he has spoken. And he says this is the theme of all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after.

[Resource Manager]

And now we can test again our interpretation; if that 23rd verse has indeed taken their thought to the Abrahamic covenant with its new Mediatorship in Jesus Christ. If we are right there, then we can see the sequence of thought in the last two verses of this 3rd chapter. "Ye are the children of the prophets', and that's an idiomatic 'sons'; idiomatic as meaning 'of the same race'; "ye are of the race of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our father saying unto Abraham ..." Don't you see how Peter's thought has moved on, 'the times of refreshing' but it’s under a new covenant and it's under the Abrahamic covenant and it has a new Mediatorship and he says you're in the line, the line to which it belongs. You're in the race of this covenant blessing which God made with our fathers saying unto Abraham in thy seed shall all the children of the earth be blessed.

 

And now I want to suggest an enlargement of an interpretation common among us as a community. I think it is general, that when a lecture is given concerning the age to come, we speak of the promises made to Abraham and we say all nations are going to be blessed under Christ. And if we say what are the blessings? we begin by saying: they'll have houses fit to live in, there will be a freedom from want and a freedom from anxiety and we should describe all the economic advantages that we think will obtain in the age to come and we're dealing only with the super structure and we're not dealing with the foundation fact. Observe Peter's interpretation,

 

"In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed, unto you first, God having raised up His servant Jesus, sent him to bless you."

 

Bless you? What is the blessing? "He sent him to bless you", what is the blessing? In turning away everyone of you from your iniquities. What is the blessing of all nations? Paul says in Romans 4. Let us take Abram as a classical illustration and determine from him and what is written concerning him, the basis of a man’s standing before God. Was it upon the basis of the flesh? "If it was", says Paul, "then Abraham had whereof to glory but what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, even as David describeth the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works saying, blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered."

 

What is blessedness? the forgiveness of sins 'the being accounted righteous before God', and the fundamental thing of the Abrahamic covenant is that it is a declaration of a Divine means whereby men and women can be esteemed by God as righteous through the forgiveness of their sins. But the other side of the shield: if sins are forgiven, and forgiven by God in this arrangement it is impossible for men and women with sins forgiven to continue in sin it would be a denial of all that they'd accepted in this blessedness. And so while Paul puts the one side of the shield and emphasizes that the blessedness is the forgiveness of sins, Peter puts the other side, "that he is blessing you in turning you away, everyone of you from his iniquities."

 

Why is God doing that? He is doing it in order that men may be brought into harmony with Himself and incorporated in His Name. Now,. in the blessedness of fellowship with Him, but at last, in the fulness of the revelation when God is revealed in the nature that He now has, becoming the nature, in the nature that God has, becoming the nature of those who are His redeemed. But just as Isaiah said, "God is one who is never weary and who never faints," so they that wait upon the Lord will be themselves so assimilated to the Divine in its energy and in its power, that 'they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint,' because the energy that belongs to the Divine will have been given unto them.

 

There's no other name given under heaven, there's no other system of salvation than this and I think we will agree, that as we strive to rise up to the heights of the wonder of the grace of God as revealed here, that we're highly privileged to know it and what a wonderful testimony the apostles made don't let us be afraid of putting forward in our testimony something of the fulness of the grace of God and the wonder of His purpose. We can do it with sustained logical power just as Peter did, in these speeches of his that we have considered. For God who is one, is in perfect harmony in every way with Himself and therefore there is nothing illogical or inconsistent or incongruous about Him and the presentation of His truths should similarly have those characteristics.

[Resource Manager]

Question: Brother Carter, an individual whose mind is illuminated with the truth and in repentant state of mind applies for immersion. Is he or she baptised in the name of Jesus, or for the name of Jesus?

 

Answer: Into, into the name as an expression of the purpose of God, incorporated in the purpose of God which is embodied in this in Jesus, who was a manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit in being Divinely begotten and Divinely exalted. Substitute purpose for name, it isn’t adequate at all, but it puts you on the way to the thinking you see. You see how the Name is used, we read it don’t we, we never stop to think what it means, by the name of Jesus this is done. We don’t stop to think, I don’t mean to say that, but many a time I’ve read it and not stopped to think.

 

Question: This condensation of speech as recorded by Luke, is it peculiar only to the Acts of the Apostles, or is it also represented in all the speeches in Mark or the Gospels as well?

 

Answer: Particularly in the Book of Acts. The presentation of the gospel in Acts is in the form, the logical form that characterises the western mode of thinking, particularly, those from Libya, Crete and Arabia and all parts of the world where men habituated to the western modes of reasoning. The eastern mode, as Brother Turner was telling us in his address, is characterised by gathering up to a pin-point aphorism. But there are some of the speeches of Jesus that can be developed and must be developed to understand them by this process that I have put before you, but not all of them, for instance the beatitudes. They are just like a star that is shining in all it’s brightness. It is related to other stars, and you can see the relationship between them, but there is no ‘therefore’ or ‘wherefore’, such as there are in Paul’s writings.

 

Question: (first part of question only) Did he do that so that individuals could find out, or work out for themselves, about working out the details?

 

Answer: I think Peter spoke probably a couple of hours and we’ve got this wonderful summary, it’s first class précis writing, you see. I suppose here, an examination in literature will have one of the questions on précis work. There’s a sheet of foolscap with some recording. You’ve got to condense that to 500 words, but leave out nothing that is essential, you see. Now that is what is done here, but it is done so cleverly, so wonderfully, that by catching up his hints we can follow it out. Do you see the case I am putting forward is established.

 

Question: Answer: Well, the men came to a knowledge, the 3000 who were baptised, came to a knowledge of salvation, and it wasn’t by a summary speech like that, was it? And our own addresses, I’ve worked against time to cram in what I’ve wanted to say, and I’ve been 50 minutes.

 

Question: … read between the lines …

 

Answer: I will illustrate this method, the logical connection between some of the speeches of Jesus. But they were authoritative, you see. Here is the difference, Jesus didn’t speak as the scribes. They marveled that he spoke as one with authority, and he speaks in his own person, and he doesn’t establish his case by reference to the Old Testament. There was a Divine authoritative voice in Jesus such as had never been heard among men. The prophets said, “Thus saith the LORD”. Jesus said, “I say unto you”, you see, and therefore there had not to be a development of a reasoned argument in his case with the proving of his point by an accepted canon.

 

Question: Danger in looking for something that is inferred.

 

Answer: Yes, remember that these were records of speeches. If the presentation of the case is broken down, I’ll be ready to say, “Yes, it’s broken down”.

 

Question: Answer: Yes, I agree, it’s the beauty of the theme that matters. My point is this, that I want us to see that in Luke’s history, the fact that his history is accurate, so his speeches are compared in their presentation, but all the cogency is there of that presentation of some tremendously interesting and beautiful things.

 

Question: Answer: No, there is a gift of tongues, and of ministrations, and of healing, and so on, and the Apostle says in the 13th chapter of the letter to the Corinthians, and it is interposed in the middle of a discussion of the spirit gifts in chapters 12 and 14, rather than striving for the spectacular gifts, let me show you something altogether better, I show you a more excellent way. Whether there be prophecies, they shall cease, whether there be tongues, they shall vanish away, but now abideth faith and hope, and these are the essential things, and the crowning of them is love. Faith and hope belong to the present, and yet while faith and hope persist to the present, tongues have ceased, and healings have passed away. The whole part of the 1st Century presentation of authorising the message that was given thoroughly, until the canon of scripture was completed, and then it vanished away. But faith and hope is with us yet.

 

Speeches in Acts Study 3 John Carter Transcript.pdf