Witness Begets Witnesses (05/17/26)

Our passage begins with the reiterated point that Jesus was raised back to life, observing that this transpired not at the hands of any man, but was instead God’s direct doing.  This was an almost unbelievable claim at the time, and has only become more unbelievable for modern man.  However, those hearing this message from Peter directly had a slight advantage in the acceptance department.  They would know of Lazarus, whom Jesus had called forth from the grave.  All Jerusalem, it seems, knew about that event.  Even if they had not had firsthand experience of the man, they would have heard.  It was big enough news that the Sanhedrin had felt it necessary to figure out how to respond.  It was also in many ways the final catalyst to action for them, sealing them on their course to destroy Jesus.  But still, the idea of dead men restored to life, particularly when they could not be produced to stand before you themselves, was a bit much to swallow.  And so, we hear Peter add the point that every one of those upstairs with him were witnesses to the fact.

What does it mean to be a witness?  Or perhaps I should qualify that slightly and say to be an effective witness?  Well, it should be evident that a witness must in fact have knowledge of the matter to which he would testify.  One does not go to court to offer opinions.  You cannot further your case on the basis of feelings.  Testimony must consist in facts, and to be able to testify as to the facts, one must have knowledge of the facts.  In the main, this means having firsthand, experimental, or experiential knowledge of that to which you testify.  Secondhand testimony might help in getting the investigator interested in pursuing the case, but it will not suffice to come before the judge.  Hearsay won’t cut it.  My buddy at work told me won’t cut it.  My wife says won’t cut it.  It needs to be firsthand experience, and that’s precisely what the Apostles were claiming.

Here in Luke’s account, we are receiving what is likely an abbreviated form of Peter’s speech.  But turn to his letters.  “We didn’t come to you with clever tales.  We didn’t make up myths about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His coming.  We were eyewitnesses of His majesty!” (2Pe 1:16).  There, of course, Peter has the Transfiguration foremost in his thoughts, and how could he not?  To have seen Jesus aglow on that mountaintop, so pure that nothing on earth could approach Him in purity had to be thoroughly transformative.  Yes, he would still have his less stellar moments, just like we do.  But this changed everything, and the change could not be undone.

Or take John.  I have loved his opening remarks in his first epistle since I encountered them in my first serious effort at study.  “What was from the beginning; what we have heard, seen with our eyes, touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life manifested before us.  We have seen, and we bear witness to you, proclaiming eternal life.  He was with the Father and manifested to us, and what we have seen and heard we declare to you as well, so that you may have fellowship with us; fellowship with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ” (1Jn 1:1-3).  John had length of years in which to contemplate what they had experienced, these Apostles.  He had delved deep into the meaning of it all.  But the meaning of it all was less than nothing apart from the reality.  He, too, had been on that mountaintop to see Jesus in His glory.  But where he turns to establish witness is His Life.  We touched Him!  This, I think, has to find reference in those encounters with Jesus between His resurrection and His ascension.  This is real history!  That’s the message.  This is real!  It really happened.  He really died, and He really lives.  Apart from this, there is no Christianity.  Apart from this, as Paul would insist to the Corinthians, our whole message is a lie, and we are still without hope in this world (1Co 15:15).  This is the bit that was a non-starter for Jews and pure nonsense to the Greeks (1Co 1:23-24).  Unless God calls.  Unless the Holy Spirit comes forth to render hearts receptive.

Okay.  We’re going to come back to these most central, most unbelievable claims of Christian faith.  Here, I want to turn instead to where it leads, this claim to being firsthand witnesses.  You see, Peter immediately applies it to the case of those outside listening.  You just experienced it, folks!  You saw and heard the fulfilling of the promised Holy Spirit.  We already spoke of Joel’s foretelling of the event.  You know how long we have hungered for a word from God.  How long will He remain silent?  Oh, but He hasn’t!  And now, you yourselves are firsthand witnesses not merely to my words.  My words are nothing.  No!  You are firsthand witnesses of the Holy Spirit present and active among us.  You have firsthand knowledge of God’s activity.  You can testify.  Indeed, if called upon, you must.  We testify of what we have seen and heard, now you are obliged to do the same.

Now, admittedly, Peter does not go down the path of declaring obligation in this regard.  But it is more or less implied, I think.  We are witnesses.  We speak of what we saw and heard and experienced.  You have now seen and heard and experienced.  To refuse to speak now would be a sort of false witness, would it not?

And what of Joel?  He may not have testified of firsthand experience; although as speaking under God’s inspiration, he certainly had experience of God speaking what He spoke.  And what he spoke was a promise.  Zhodiates speaks to the significance of this term, promise.  The particular word which Peter uses here is a term applied almost exclusively to God.  If I remember correctly, it is only once used in regard to a promise made by man.  And now, add this point:  Such a promise, being declared, is deemed legally binding.  We might say that God is obligating Himself to the stated case.  He said it, and so it shall be.  That’s not to say it shall be in the form we supposed, or on the schedule we would desire, but it shall be.  Nobody and nothing in all that exists can bind God to anything.  But He chose to bind Himself to this.  That’s pretty much the whole deal with covenants generally.  Here is my legally binding promise as to how I shall deal with you.  Of course, with covenants, there are also binding promises you are making in how you deal with Him.  And when the covenant involves God, well, that’s a whole separate discussion deserving of full pursuit.  But simply observe that both with Abraham and with Moses, God effectively took the whole covenant upon Himself; the responsibility for both parties.  That is extraordinary.

But for our purpose here, let’s stick with the promise before us.  God has chosen to bind Himself to this declaration.  He will pour out His Spirit, and to such extent as Joel had indicated.  There will be no categorical exclusions as to who may receive.  And that will certainly find emphasis later, as the gospel moves out from Israel into the nations.  No exclusions.  That is not to suggest that universalism has the right of it, and everybody gets saved.  Clearly not.  Pretty much the whole movement of the Sanhedrin foundered on the basis of rejection.  By and large, the remnants of the Pharisees still do, for they continue to lean not on Christ but on self-realized compliance, a compliance that can never suffice and never could.  No, there can be no doubt but that the vast majority go to their graves with no real expectation of redemption, and no hope.  But God has poured out the Holy Spirit.  He has kept His word.  He always does.  And, to return to my theme in this part of my notes, those present to hear Peter are now witnesses to that fact.  It cannot be denied.  You have seen it!  You have heard it!  You are now obligated by that reality to respond.

Now, let us move it forward.  Being obligated by mere experience, what shall we say if we are among those upon whom the Spirit has been poured?  What shall we say if indeed our hearts have been rendered receptive to the Word implanted?  If these were obligated by the experience, how much more we?  And the question which they would ask in response, we, too, ought to be asking.  “What shall we do?”  That’s a question from the next part of our narrative, but let me just say, it’s not a question pertaining solely to that moment when salvation has come.  Repent and be baptized!  Well, yes, but then what?

Come back to that matter of being a witness.  Every one of us who has discovered themselves the recipient of faith has become a witness to this same thing, this same pouring out of the Holy Spirit.  To come to faith is to know in the most intimately experiential way possible the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  We may not immediately understand it as such.  Like the Apostles, it may take time for us to fully apprehend what just happened.  But we shall apprehend.  We are witness to the wonder of God’s promise. 

Let me stress one more point in regard to that promise.  God has obliged Himself, as I observed, but that does not somehow place Him under your power as if you could demand what is promised.  No, what is promised remains, “a gift graciously given.”  It is not the result of negotiations.  It’s not anything in which you have a say.  It is something you can but receive, and that gladly, humbly, gratefully.

But having received, what will you do?  What must you do?  You have been made a witness.  Surely, then, you must testify!  Surely I must testify.  We are called to be ready, in season and out, to declare God’s word as we reprove, rebuke, exhort, and instruct (2Ti 4:2).  That’s not just for the pastoral profession.  For we are all of us made pastors in this regard.  Be not merely ready, but awaiting opportunity to explain to any who might ask why you are so hopeful, and what exactly this hope is that is in you (1Pe 3:15).  Testify!  That’s what it means to be a witness, and to be a witness is what it means to be a Christian.  Go!  Make disciples.  Teach them.  Testify.  Testify by life and word alike.  Don’t hide it away, but proclaim glad allegiance to the One who saved your soul.  This ought to be perhaps the most disconcerting word we ever heard from Jesus.  “Whoever is ashamed of Me in his generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in glory with the angels” (Mk 8:38).  Fear not, but testify!  Don’t worry about rejection.  It’s assured anyway.  But who would you prefer rejected you, your neighbor or your God?

Lord and Christ (05/18/26-05/19/26)

This is a point that has come of repeatedly in recent conversations with my brothers at church, and it bears noting here, as Peter does so.  God has made Him, this Jesus, both Lord and Christ.  And this being the case, we, should we desire to truly be accounted Christians, must acknowledge Him as such.  That, after all, is Peter’s point and purpose here, though I will save the exploration of that part until later.  Jesus is both Lord and Christ, for God has made Him so.  And that thought could send us off down avenues of unanswerable mystery, insomuch as Jesus is God.  Yes, we understand that the Father and the Son are distinct as persons, yet they are One.  And that, though we recognize the words involved, defies us to truly apprehend.  No matter how fully we insist on that truth, and we must, for it is truth, yet it is beyond us to even begin to explain how this can be.  We try.  But every attempt leads down heretical pathways which we do not wish to travel.  The Lord our God is One.  It is written, and it cannot be otherwise.  Yet, God speaks of counsel amongst His persons, and we see repeatedly in Scripture the three Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, operating distinctly and yet as one.

So be it.  Here we are dealing with two titles, two offices, assigned to Jesus, the Son of God; the Second Person of the Trinity.  He is both Lord and Christ.  And I cannot help but notice that of the two, it is His Lordship that is set as primary.  The development of that second title, Christ, is often commented upon.  The term is of long standing, especially as we trace it back to the Hebrew idea of Messiah.  Here is one who has been anointed for office, or anointed for salvific purpose.  Jesus is not the only one of whom this is said.  For its most fundamental aspect is that of the anointing, and oh, how that concept takes hold of us in certain corners of the Christian realm!  I have an anointing!  God has anointed me!  Now, Jesus could say that with full assurance, and He did so, as He quoted Isaiah at the outset of His ministry.  “God has anointed me to preach good news” (Lk 4:18).  Given a quick search, I find but one other who was so bold as to declare themselves anointed, and that is David.  But he spoke of himself only in regard to the decision of the house of Judah (2Sa 2:7).  They anointed him as king.  He knew he had a higher anointing, for Samuel had long ago anointed him king on the basis of God’s own choice.  Yet, he does not push the claim.  Jesus did.  “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4:21).

I bring this up simply because I recall many a proud believer insisting on their anointing for this or that position, and doing so in such fashion as tried the limits of patience.  I had this spoken over me, therefore you must give way.  Well!  It’s a handy way to cut discussion short, I suppose, but for most, it’s a rather unproven and untestable claim.  Has He really?  Who can say?  Even Jesus faced that problem, though I dare say He gave more than sufficient evidence to establish the validity of His claim.  And we, too, must take care not to jump straight from blind acceptance of any such claim to equally blind rejection of any such claim.  But the claim requires testing, doesn’t it?  Show me by your actions, not your words.  And this, I would suggest, David did as well.

Okay, so Jesus is the Christ, and we need to stress the article here.  He is not just a Christ, another Messiah figure who, in the end, will disappoint being but human, fallible, and at the very least, temporal – temporary.  We go back into the book of Judges, and we could account any one of those appointed as judges to be a sort of savior figure.  They were appointed because Israel was deep in it, and needed rescue.  God, ever merciful, supplied a rescuer even though His people had yet again demonstrated that they were hardly deserving of rescue.  And He continued this trend in Jesus.  Indeed, we must recognize that He culminated this trend in Jesus.  All those others, in their broken, fallible way, had been but pointers to Him.  He is the Christ, the Messiah.

Of course, at the time of His coming, the people of God had so long waited for Him that they had developed a whole mythos about His person and His office.  They had, after all, their own interests in the matter.  They heard Deliverer, and knew what they wanted deliverance from.  They wanted to be delivered from their powerlessness.  They wanted to be delivered back into their romanticized recollections of dynastic power such as David and Solomon had established for the people.  They wanted to be significant in the world about them, rather than pawns of stronger men.  They wanted a hero, not a Savior.  They didn’t even recognize the reality of their true need.  And so, the Messiah came, and so, coming to His own, He was rejected (Jn 1:11).  He was not to their taste.  He didn’t come in force to claim His throne from Rome, tossing out the hated oppressor of Israel.  And so, Israel hated Him, and in fact handed Him over to their enemy.  Why?  Because even in this, they were powerless to act on their anger, lest it be the death of them; as in fact, it was.

This role of Messiah was not to be one of dominion, but rather one of mediation.  In retrospect, this should rightly have been expected, for the first to be anointed was the high priest, Aaron, anointed to office in order that he might mediate between God and God’s people.  For they had encountered Him that once at Mount Sinai, and could not bear so direct an encounter again.  No, but let Him speak to us through an intermediary!  It’s all well and good for Moses, but for us?  Pass, thanks.  Just let us know what He said.  And Jesus is the promised Deliverer.  Only, it wasn’t from Rome that they needed deliverance, but from sin.  He comes to us in this same role, this same eternal office.  For we remain subjected to that same cruel master, sin.  Or we did.  But the truth is, per His declaration, that we have been delivered from that bondage.  He delivered us by Himself being delivered over.  There is a rather ultimate irony in that, isn’t  there?

He was delivered up because of our transgressions, says Paul (Ro 4:25).  But not only that.  He was raised because of our justification.  He was delivered up, then, that we might be delivered.  And He who delivered Him up, which as Peter has insisted in this message was God by His foreordained plan and purpose decreeing it must be so, did so for us; for all of us!  And, as Paul continues, this being the case, how will He not also with Messiah freely give us all things? (Ro 8:32).  Because this is so, you have died to sin.  This was sin’s big hold on you.  Live for today, because you’ve already signed your own death warrant by your sins.  You’re hopeless, so far as eternity goes.  That was and is the message of the flesh.  Why do you suppose there is so much effort put into elongating life?  What comes after is too terrible to contemplate if you have not received the redemption so freely offered in Christ.  Best, then, to hold it off as long as you can, even in so hopeless and sorry a state as trusting oneself to digital form, as some seek to do in our day.  But even machines die.  Nothing, apart from God, is forever.  Not even death.  Not even sin.  At least, not for those whom the Savior has saved.

But if we stop there, rejoicing in salvation as we ought, and hold Jesus up solely as our Savior, our Deliverer, we fall short.  We are likely to find ourselves returning to old habits, old sins, without any particular concern for eternity.  After all, He’ll just save us again, right?  NO!  Far be it from us!  How I love that favored response of Paul’s.  And yet, though our spirit cries out together with him in strongest rejection of the very idea, we find over and over again that our actions betray us.  We are not alone in this by any stretch.  Yet, that does nothing to slave the gross error of our actions.  Oh yes, we have continuing, nigh on continuous need of a Savior.  But let us never sink to presuming upon His grace.  And how to combat that tendency in ourselves?  Recall that He is first and foremost Lord.  There is the name which his above all names, the Authority which supersedes all other claims to authority.

I’m going to save further pursuit of this other part of our confession for tomorrow, for while I would love to speed up these studies of mine somewhat, I do not wish to rush past this point.  It needs more attention.  I need to give it more attention, and don’t wish to feel rushed by the clock when I do so.

God has made Him Lord, this Jesus.  But what does that mean?  It is the claim established by His ascension to sit at God’s right hand.  He is seated in the place of rule, and His rule is absolute.  That is to say there is nothing in all existence which is beyond the scope of His reign.  He is, being God, the ruler of the universe.  And if you are of a mind to pursue thoughts of a multiverse, He is ruler of every universe among them.  Other things may vary from one to the next, but He does not.  And then, Jesus the Man, exalted to heaven, obtains as our federal head a ‘special ownership’ over mankind, as Thayer offers the phrase.

It is not a terminology we take kindly to and indeed, become particularly sensitive to in modern culture, but He is rightly our Master, and we His slaves.  Now, we must shed a bit of our modern sensibilities and recognize that to be one’s slave was not necessarily a reason for shame in that setting, and this would be particularly the case were one the slave or servant of royalty.  It need not indicate forced subjection, but could well be a service entered into voluntarily, and even gladly.  After all, to serve one in power is to share in some degree in that power, or at the least, to have access to it.  To serve the emperor was to have his favor, perhaps his ear.  It leant a certain security to the servant.  Do him wrong, and it would go poorly for you.  Treat him favorably and it might help your case with the Boss.

To recognize Jesus as Lord, then, to acknowledge Him as such, is to subject oneself to Him.  It is to declare that He has not just the final say, but the total say over the course of your life, over the things you do and say.  He has the right and the power to decide, and that right and power extend into every last bit of our lives.  Ours is to heed and to obey.  I recall that description of a servant, particularly I think a royal servant; that such a one would learn the ways of his Lord, every nuance, such that he would know his Master’s thinking and desire even before a word was said, such that when command was given, he was already primed and on it.  There’s an attentiveness involved, both as observing and learning the ways of His Lordship, and as positioning oneself to meet His command.

What do you suppose is the purpose of our going off to church every week?  What is the purpose of sitting down of a morning to receive His word?  What is the intent of the call to pray continually throughout the day?  These are the means by which we learn His ways, by which we come to discern His desires, and by which we receive His instructions so as to act upon them.  If we have heard from the Lord, well, it may be by dream or vision or voices in the night.  It happens.  But it is primarily by familiarity with what He has caused to be written; a familiarity that has rendered it the very warp and weave of of our being.  What does He say?  Write these things on your forehead.  Mark the walls of your house with them.  Keep My Word ever before you.  It’s not a matter of interior decoration.  It’s not about making yourself conspicuous, though I must say, that gold medallion on the high priest’s forehead, declaring him, “holy unto the Lord,” assuredly did so.  But it’s not about appearance.  It’s about keeping God’s instruction before your mind’s eye.  It’s about doing everything you can do to retain awareness of His Lordship so as to honor it fully by your response.

To Christ, to this Jesus, God has assigned a ‘cosmic dominion.’  I forget where I drew that from, I think the DBI.  This dominion, as they explain, is fully realized in Christ in that He is head of the Church, and is already the victorious Messiah.  It did not look that way as events unfolded.  It did not look that way to those who demanded that Pilate put Him to death and release Barabbas instead.  Such a perverse act, and so ironic.  Release the son of man, not the Son of Man.  And here, too, those upstairs could declare, “We are all witnesses.”  It is striking, as I dwell on this closing part of Peter’s message, just how ominous it would be in such close proximity to that event.  And he has repeated the charge.  You did this!  You did this, and it didn’t stick.  You did this, but God overrode your decision.  Yes, you caused His death, whom God had appointed for your salvation.  But God appointed!  What can your tantrum achieve against that?  No, but He raised Jesus from death.  Death could not hold Him, had no power against Him, for He was sinless even to the end.  And you can discern that what we are telling you is in fact true because you have now witnessed the result.  You have seen, you have heard.  The Holy Spirit has been poured out as it was written.  Well, now!  Consider that it was also written, by this same David we’ve been discussing, that “Yahweh said to my Adonai, ‘sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies as a footstool for your feet.’”

Think about that in this setting, and with the point to which Peter immediately proceeds.  God almighty said to my Lord.  We tend to stop at that point, focused on the testimony to His deity.  But the promise that attaches to this, “until I make Your enemies as a footstool for your feet.”  You did this!  How could those who had been the immediate cause of His death be other than His enemies?  And if Yahweh has said, “I will make them a footstool for your feet,” well, what chance do you have?  What remains but to be crushed by the full power of heaven?  You thought you needed deliverance from Rome!

Well, let us pause.  Had Peter only spoken of this, that He had fulfilled the prophecy of Lordship, and was now the firm Ruler of all things, positioned to subdue or destroy every enemy, these men would be crushed.  There could be but two responses, despair or disbelief.  And disbelief, while a common enough response to so terrible a prospect, changes nothing.  The outcome proceeds unaltered by your refusal to recognize it.  All that would be left for those listening is the agonizing realization of their crimes.  “What have we done?”  When I put that idea forward in my contemplation of “You Were There,” I phrased it, “My God, what have we done?”  But it is against God that it was done.  Who, then, could dare to call Him, “My God,” in that case?  No, full dominion is His, and full victory over His every enemy assured.

It may not look like that in the present, though to my eye, there is evidence of it coming to pass.  I am not, however, inclined to try and read the future.  I merely see what’s happening around me, and recognize God’s hand in it.  Things hidden are being revealed.  Things long gone after the course of evil are being either corrected or eradicated.  There is change in the air.  And God being ruler of all, I must of necessity acknowledge that His hand is in it.  I must acknowledge, though in a different respect, that His hand has been in it all along, even in those developments which are now being exposed and repaired.  And yet, not as author of sin, nor as sin’s cause.  By no means!  But in pursuit of His purposes, He has long opted to let men pursue theirs, perverse as those purposes have been.  Just as with Canaan of old, time was given for sin to fill its criminality to the full.  Time is also given that those who see the ugly truth might repent and come to Him even yet.  His enemies need not be crushed underfoot to be defeated.  Let them become glad and willing subjects and the same end is served as regards our Lord.  Yet the outcome is far to be preferred for His subject.

This is the result of His combined office.  He is not just Lord with no deliverance.  He is not just a Savior who rescues and departs, leaving us to ourselves once more.  No, he is both Lord and Christ.  We need not abide in despair.  We are handed hope, and it is He Himself who hands it to us.  “Come to Me,” He says, “and I will give you rest.”  Come to Him, and this burden of guilt, this despairing recognition of an inevitable perishing can be lifted from your shoulders.  But you cannot truly come to Him, cannot truly submit yourself to His beneficent rule, until you see that burden you bear, acknowledge it, acknowledge the justice of it, and cry out to Him for mercy.  The Good News is that He is faithful to forgive those who do so.

He is not just the Ruler with a rod of iron, though He is that.  He is also the Mediator of God’s blessing.  “To which you are now all witnesses.”  You’ve seen it.  You’ve heard these unlearned men proclaim God’s word in power, the power and instruction of the Holy Spirit poured out according to His promise long ago.  You now know the reality of the case.  Now, a choice must be made, and we can’t make it for you.  God has made this Jesus the mediator of His blessings.  He has also made this Jesus judge over all the earth.  In which role would you prefer to encounter Him?  For you will encounter Him.  Your belief or unbelief will not alter that; only the outcome.

Jesus is Lord.  For us who believe, it remains incumbent upon us to live out our acknowledgement of that.  Here it in Peter’s invitation.  “Let all the house of Israel know this for certain.”  This is a demand for acknowledging the evidence.  You are witnesses.  Testify!  But it is more than that.  It is a call to approving acknowledgement.  I see, however, that I am getting ahead of myself with that, so I will leave it here.  If you call Him Lord, then respond to Him as Lord.  It will do no good to assign the title, but refuse Him when He commands.  It will do no good to appeal to Him as Deliverer and then disregard the instructions by which He leads to deliverance.

I think of Naaman, so offended by the prophet’s instructions (2Ki 5).  Here he had been told of this powerful man of God, had come seeking a cure for his condition, and all that was given him was the call to go wash in the river Jordan.  It was offensive.  Where was the miracle?  Where was power from heaven?  Wash in this river?  I could have washed at home and saved myself the journey.  What’s the point?  The point is obedience.  The point is to acknowledge the lordship of our Lord.  God says do, you do.  You don’t look for reason to comply.  You comply.

Think of that centurion who encountered Jesus in a moment of great need.  “I, too, am a man in authority.  I say go, and my servant goes, I say come, and he comes” (Mt 8:9).  How telling that little word, ‘too.’  He recognized the Lordship of Jesus, in spite of His quite humble appearance.  Recall Isaiah’s description.  Nothing about Him insisted we perceive His position.  Nothing about Him shouted out, “Here is your King.”  But here He was.  Here He is.  And we, like the centurion must conclude that if He says “Go!” we must go.  If He says, “Come!” we must come.  If He says, “Do this!” we don’t look inward to see if it makes sense or fits our sensibilities.  We do it.  It may not make sense.  It may require us to undertake actions not really to our liking.  I can’t imagine Paul was looking forward to the beatings he suffered for proclaiming the Gospel.  I can’t imagine Peter was particularly thrilled to meet with his own crucifixion.  Yes, there was honor in suffering for Christ.  There still is.  But that’s rather different than counting it an enticing prospect.  The enticing nature of the prospect or the lack thereof don’t enter into it.  He has commanded.  Comply.  You have declared your allegiance, your glad submission.  Submit, then.  Stop trying to bargain.  Stop putting it off.  He is Lord.  You are not.  Act like you know that.

Resurrection and Exaltation (05/20/26)

I don’t suppose it’s possible to miss just how central the real death, real resurrection, and real ascension of Jesus are to the Christian faith.  It is a point brought home over and over again.  I don’t think you can find a single example of the Gospel being declared that does not, at minimum, make note of His resurrection.  Whether it’s Peter, or Stephen, or Paul speaking, the testimony of Acts seems to me confirmed on this point.  Indeed, Luke makes it an outright declaration, nothing that, “With great power, the Apostles were testifying of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all” (Ac 4:33).  I find it rather telling that Luke speaks only of the resurrection in that summation.  Of course, we have Paul’s firm assertion to the Corinthians.  “I was determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucified” (1Co 2:2).

Obviously, Paul’s preaching did not leave off on that point.  Indeed, the sole reason he had come to Christian faith was his own encounter with Christ resurrected, an account which was clearly central to his witness.  We see it recounted multiple times in Acts, and if I recall correctly, in Galatians as well.  To stop with only the crucifixion would avail nothing.  There is no good news in that, even if one insists on Jesus’ innocence.  An innocent man died the most ignominious death.  Yes, it’s tragic, but sometimes such things happen.  It certainly doesn’t have any direct impact on my life.  I can feel sorry for him, I suppose, but what will that accomplish for me or for him?  Nothing.  But, when this is discovered to be alive?  When so many have had direct, personal encounter with Him alive?  This must be dealt with one way or another.  Either we must devise means by which to convince ourselves that in spite of the numbers witnessing to the event, it didn’t really happen after all, or we must come to terms with the significance of that most unbelievable event.

You know, we all hear of cases where somebody has been declared dead only to be proven still alive.  We have likely heard of cases where one was even interred, but made his continued existence known somehow, and was released.  Stepping back into the moment into which Peter is speaking, everybody outside was almost certainly aware of the case of Lazarus, who had been in the grave as long as had Jesus, and yet had thereafter been walking and talking on the streets of Jerusalem.  But there’s a distinction which stands out.  They had not suffered the cruel torment of the cross, they had not had a spear thrust into their side to both confirm and ensure that they were well and truly dead.  This Jesus did undergo those events, and that before myriad witnesses.  It was clear to all that yes, this man was quite thoroughly dead, surprisingly so, really.  For crucifixion was designed to drag out the suffering.

Yet, to come to more distant parts with that message!  As Paul observed, to the Jews this was a stumbling block, and utterly unacceptable thing.  And to the Greeks?  Utter foolishness (1Co 1:23).  That had, after all, been the response in Athens.  And yet, the message remains unchanged.  Jesus died, but God raise Him up.  This was something more, though, than cheating death.  This was in fact taking death into submission under Life.  Death had had the upper hand for too long.  In the minds of most, it still does.  Even among Christians, the idea of death remains a cause of trembling.  Death remains a matter to be avoided at all cost.  But it need not be.  I’m not suggesting we shift over to being a suicide cult.  That is not the way, for life is precious in the sight of the Lord of Life.  But life is something far more than this physical plant.  Life transcends this physical plant.  Life is in fact eternal.  Of course, for those who are perishing, death is likewise eternal.  It is not an off switch on the soul, but rather a marked absence from the divine influence of God.  The damned will continue in existence, but as John directs our thinking, it shall be in the experience of the second death in the lake of fire reserved for the devil and his cohort.

And so, the message of the Gospel must make plain that Jesus both died and rose again.  But this, too, would be but a novelty were it not for the third matter; that He not only lived, but ascended into heaven.  And even there, it’s not really enough yet.  I mean, we have the record of Elijah taken up into heaven as well, and that is no more myth than this is.  And we might also include Enoch as another example, though his case is a bit less clear.  He simply ‘was no more,’ but the implication would be that he bypassed the grave and took the direct route home.  But having ascended, Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God.  Now, that’s a distinctly unique outcome.  God does not share His throne.  And yet, here is Jesus sat upon it together with Him.  Of course, Jesus is God, yet we also know that where both names are used, the implication is that of Father and Son, two distinct Persons in the singularity of the Godhead.

So, why the focus on His death and resurrection?  There is, first and foremost, a theological necessity to it.  Here is the once for all sacrifice for sin.  Here is the true font of salvation, to which the Mosaic system had pointed in symbolic form.  David recognized this.  “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired.  You have opened my ears to hear this.  Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required” (Ps 40:6-8).  And then comes the kicker.  “Then I said, ‘Behold, I come!  In the scroll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do Your will, O my God!  Your Law is within my heart.”  David could speak thus earnestly of himself, and yet, he would be the first to confess that he had done so quite imperfectly.  How could he not, when he spent years with a wife whose name, the pious Jew of later years would not even deign to pronounce.  She was the original, “she who must not be named.”  Why?  Honestly, it was David’s sin, not hers.  But there it was.  But I digress.  There would come the One of whom it was written in the scroll of the book, and He did delight to do God’s will, solely and entirely.  And it was this Jesus who was put to death by sinful man; His perfect purity too strong an accusation to bear, His gift too costly to accept.

But He died, and death, as we well understand, is the due punishment and result of sin.  Yet, He was sinless, and God is Just.  How can this then be permitted to stand?  God made a way!  A way to be both just and forgiving.  The due penalty for sin is paid, and paid in the blood not of goats and bulls, but in the eternal, infinite blood of Christ.  It required, as Anshelm declared, the death of a man, for only a man could stand in the place of federal representation for man.  It required the blood of God because only thus was it eternal and infinite, thereby sufficient to the salvation of all who shall be saved.  Were it God’s intention, it could most certainly suffice to atone for the sins of every last man or woman ever to be born.  If, however, He determines that it shall apply solely to those whom He has foreordained, predestined, this in no wise reduces the efficacy of that eternal sacrifice.  It simply leaves Him in charge of its application, which I should think was a given anyway.  Forgive me, but I cannot conceive of a God worth following whose will could be so easily thwarted by the will of man.  To posit such a thing, whether consciously or not, is to posit that man is in fact God, and God but a handy power up.  And that, I would insist, brings us right back to original sin.  “You will be like God.”

Okay, so Jesus lived a perfect life of perfect obedience to the perfect law of God.  He died a truly ignominious death, a very real death, confirmed and testified to by believer and unbeliever alike.  The guard who thrust in the spear was not a believer prior to that act, certainly, though what resulted thereafter, who can say?  Pilate, while there are theories of his later conversion, does not appear to have been a believer.  He’s just trying to keep the natives from getting too restless so as not to suffer loss of office or life himself.  He was, however, witness to the innocence of this One he caused to be crucified, as were, in fact, all involved, and all who looked on.  His record was too well known to posit innocent mistake on any man’s part.  But risen from the grave, He was furthermore received into heaven, taken up on a cloud while some five hundred or more witnesses looked on.  And, as Paul notes in one of his epistles, most of those witnesses were still extent at the time of writing.  Those who doubted the veracity of his claim could look them up, hear it from them for themselves. 

How critical it is to hear the full power of this!  How careful these earliest witnesses were to make sure we heard.  “He is the one God exalted to His right hand as Prince and Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Ac 5:31).  This is Peter again, and while the specific terms have shifted, he’s right back to making that point that this Jesus, God has made both Lord and Christ, Prince and Savior.  Later, he would write of Jesus that, “He is at God’s right hand, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him” (1Pe 3:22).  You will note my points of emphasis.  That moment when He departed the grave was the moment when death was well and truly defeated, and many of those held bound in death released.  As Paul writes, “Therefore it is written, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and gave gifts to men” (Eph 4:8 quoting Ps 68:18).  Mind you, the Psalm itself reads, “You have received gifts among men, even among the rebellious also.”  But somehow this is Paul rightly dividing the Word.

He IS at God’s right hand.  He IS seated in authority, and all power has been given to Him.  He told us that Himself.  “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Mt 28:18).  Yes, there remains the full realization and scope of His kingdom to be revealed at His return, but it is already finished.  Perhaps we can put that down to the effect of dwelling outside of time, where past, present, and future don’t really apply as categories.  Perhaps.  Or perhaps, even in the current temporal flow this holds.  Angels, authorities, and powers have been subjected to Him.  All authority has been given to Him.  The continued rebellion of man and the continued machinations of devils don’t alter the fact, anymore than those who run about whining, “Not my president,” alter that fact that he is, in fact their president.

So, we come to this.  God has highly exalted Him, bestowing on Him the name which is above every name (Php 2:9).  That name is Lord.  That name is Authority above all other authorities.  All other authorities must, in the end, be recognized as delegated, and that includes Satan, who, while he remains able to roam the earth and cause trouble, is well and truly bound by the bonds of Christ, permitted to go only thus far and no further.  And of Him, Paul declares that God has fixed a day in which He, God, will judge the world in righteousness through the Man Christ Jesus, whom He appointed.  His resurrection is God’s furnished proof of that appointing (Ac 17:31).  His death was our penalty paid.  His resurrection was payment accepted.  His ascension, though!  That’s something else entirely.  That is the Judge ascending His throne, the King seated and in power.  He is Lord!

And in all this, there is something we must recognize.  As critical as this is for our own wellbeing, and necessary for our experience of real life worthy of being called life, it’s not about us.  It is about His glory made manifest.  I am struck by the words said through Ezekiel to those in exile.  “It is not for your sake that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went” (Eze 36:22).  It is striking because it still holds true.  It’s not because of the wondrous fidelity of the Church, nor for the glory of the Church that God acts.  It’s not to magnify the Christian, but to make manifest His own glory.  And it is needful for the same reason; that we so often sully His name by our example.  We, though we have believed, have still very great cause to ask, as those listening to Peter’s message asked, “What must we do?”  How can we make this right?  Well, I mean, we can’t.  But we can repent, truly repent.  We can seek to learn from Him the ways that will produce in us a better testimony.  We can avail ourselves of the means of grace which He supplies.  We can check ourselves in the mirror of His Word, and finding blemishes, accept His correction.  We can in fact come to possess a gentle, quiet spirit such as is precious in His sight (1Pe 3:4).  But it won’t come without effort, even as it won’t come apart from His Spirit acting upon us to make it so.

That it depends on Him does not absolve us of responsibility.  And that shall be the subject for tomorrow, Lord willing.

Personal Responsibility (05/21/26)

What Peter has preached leaves his hearers at crisis point.  He has made his case, and made it well, drawing from the Scriptures familiar to all those listening.  As well, by the Holy Spirit, they have been made witnesses to God’s authoring of what they have just experienced.  So, he draws his message to a close with a call for response.  “Let all Israel know for certain…”  Here, the knowing which is commanded is that of ginosko, experiential knowledge.  And of course, as he has made plain, they do have experiential knowledge.  They just experienced the power of God in action in the Spirit poured out upon His witnesses.  They have been, as I have said previously, made witnesses themselves.  And Peter has taken pains to show that what they experienced is in fact of God, as He spoke of it through one of the earliest prophets, Joel.

This leads me to a particular aspect of this ginosko form of knowing which Zhodiates supplies in his discussion of the term.  There is awareness, certainly, and that could hardly be avoided.  And with awareness, there is a certain necessity of acknowledging what has come to one’s awareness.  Until recent years, I would have said it was impossible that one should not acknowledge such powerful evidence experienced so directly.  But I see all around me those who blithely deny what their own eyes see and their own ears hear.  Still, mere acknowledgement, acceptance of the evidence, won’t fully supply what is commanded here.  There is a final piece required by this instruction, and that is acknowledging the evident ‘with approbation,’ with glad approval.  It’s not enough to be aware of events.  It’s not enough to nod and accept that what has been seen was real, that what news one has received is in fact accurate.  If it is not received gladly, with approval, it is not yet absorbed as experiential knowledge.  It’s just data.

Peter doesn’t leave it at this.  I suppose, had he just said, “let all Israel know,” there would have been room permitted to stop short of that glad approval, to simply file away memories of the event and get back to what one had been doing.  But he adds an adverb to the call, and in fact sets it in the place of emphasis.  Know this ‘for certain.’  Know this as assured, uncontestable fact.  Know this, to borrow from Thayer a bit, beyond all possibility of escape.  It cannot be denied.  It cannot be dismissed.  You are left with but two options, glad approval of what you have now witnessed for yourself and of the implications just explained to you, or reject the clearly evident in rebellious insistence on your present course.  This is the crisis point.  It is the crisis point that comes about with every proclamation of the gospel.  But for these standing outside the place where the Holy Spirit had just been so clearly, evidently active; for those who have now listened to these uneducated Galileans proclaiming clear and well-reasoned theological truth, and that, in many languages?  To borrow Paul’s later description, you are without excuse (Ro 1:20).  If the unreached are without excuse because creation itself testifies of its Maker, you who have dwelt under the Law and the Prophets are most certainly so, and you specifically, who have witnessed that of which others have only read?  You more than any are now responsible for the knowledge with which you have just been gifted.

Accept it gladly and with full confidence!  God has made this man both Lord and Messiah.  There should be no doubt of that in your minds now.  How could there be?  You have seen the power of God poured out, and why?  Because this Jesus ascended to take to the throne aside His Father!  This Jesus – the one you crucified!

Can you imagine?  This you are called to accept gladly?  But if He is in fact in this place of power and authority, and I know I cannot evade the charge of having part in His crucifixion, how can I be glad?  I am a dead man walking!  My doom must be certain.  It’s not the first time Peter has made this point and driven it home.  It was there at the start.  This man, Jesus the Nazarene, was delivered up (Ac 2:23).  You know that.  You were there.  But get this:  It came about by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God!  His purposes were not thwarted, they were fulfilled when you nailed Him to a cross.  No, your hands did not do the deed.  You thought perhaps that left you with plausible deniability, because you left it to others, to godless men, to do it for you.  But that changes nothing.  You did it.  But God planned it.  Your guilt remains unchanged, but so does His purposed result.  You crucified Him, but God exalted Him.  He lives and He reigns.

How does one accept this?  You can, I would hope, understand their consternation.  Hard enough to accept a dead man walking.  Harder still to learn your victim is now your king; to discover the victim of your injustice made your judge.  What hope can there be for you?  What gladness can remain?

It is telling to me how clearly this message exposed the dire condition of those listening.  Such a message would have trouble finding a pulpit from which to be declared these days.  Such a message would be deemed off-putting.  And it was.  Yet, it is precisely this clarity of message which led to the greatest moves of God.  I know I use the example probably too often, but only because it is so powerful an example, but come once again to Jonathan Edwards, out there in western Massachusetts, reading out his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” without fanfare, without affectation, without prior advertisement.  His church did not have an outreach program.  They had a worship service.  They did not, so far as I know, have an evangelism team.  It’s not clear they even had a mind to reach the lost of their own town.  And yet, the lost came wandering in.  We read of men just coming in of their own accord, drawn not by programs and slogans, nor even by the reputation of this great man.  After all, we are given to know that his delivery was not particularly skillful.  He didn’t work the room.  He read deadpan, without inflection, simply reading forth what he had written as God had provided the message.  And they fell under the conviction of that message, weeping openly and asking, as those outside listening to Peter, “What shall I do?”  If I am in such dire peril, where is the path to safety?  Where is hope?

It seems to me that we have largely lost this aspect of the Gospel message.  We are afraid of rejection, should we make it clear to any man just how dire his straits truly are.  We figure nobody will listen.  Newcomers won’t return.  We don’t want to be mistaken for one of those hell and brimstone preachers!  Nobody wants that.  No, no.  Most prefer to have their ears tickled, to have Jesus reduced to a self-help program, maybe a life coach.  But that’s not Who He Is.  He is Lord.  He is Him to whom the only response can be, “Sir, yes Sir.”  But praise be to God, He is not only Lord.  He is also Messiah.  He is the appointed Mediator, who has atoned for your sins as for mine.  You are not consigned to your fate.  Only repent and believe.  Only change your course, and come onto the Way that leads to salvation.  For He came not to condemn but to save.  Condemnation, should it come about, shall be your choice.  This Jesus, whom you nailed to a cross, spoke from that cross.  You may have heard Him.  He said, “Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).  There is hope.  But you must receive Him gladly, this Jesus you sought to destroy.

We who have come later are no less guilty for His death.  His death would have been just as necessary were it only my sins that needed atonement.  Eternal guilt, after all, remains just as eternal applied to one as it does to many.  My sins alone carry a penalty beyond me, or any man, to remit.  Your sins, even were my record clean, would likewise demand a remittance beyond possibility of remitting.  We cannot afford our judgment, and that being the case, can only expect to be locked up in debtors prison for all eternity.  That is our condition.

But into our condition steps this Jesus.  This Jesus, whose pain and suffering have been increased by your sins and mine.  And He comes not with judgment and condemnation, but with hope.  He has paid your penalty.  The required death has been supplied on your behalf, and life is now held out to you.  What is required of you in return?  Believe Him!  Believe that He is indeed alive, that He did indeed die on that cross.  Believe He is God.  He has proved it, after all.  But it’s more than acceding to the fact.  It’s more, even, than gladly accepting His right over you as Lord.  It’s trusting Him, knowing He is good, knowing He is Who He Is, that what He has shown you of Himself is His real self.  Trusting Him, walk now in the assurance that He has the course of your life well in hand.  Whatever may come to pass, it is well with your soul for your soul is loved by Him.

This is by no means permit to simply get on with life as you have been living it.  Change is needful, because change is commanded.  He is Lord.  He speaks and you do.  He leads by example, and His example you seek to emulate.  He is Lord and you are His foresworn servant.  Yours is to be attentive to His every word, His every action, so as to be ever ready to respond as He desires.  Yours is to recognize as Paul did that it is no longer you who lives, but Christ in you.  You are now made a temple of the living God, and assuredly, this must change you.  It must render you responsible for the condition of your temple, to keep it holy.

Lord, help me to heed this which You have given me to write.  Yes, I am responsible.  I killed You every bit as much as they.  It was for my sins You suffered.  It still is, for I know too well that my sins continue to accrue.  How can I?  I know my love for You is real, and yet it is never, it seems, enough to hold me firm to the path.  How swiftly I stray.  How readily former ways reassert.  Oh, Jesus, how are You able to put up with me?  And yet, I know You do.  And I thank You gladly that it is so.  But help me, my Lord, my Savior, to walk more deliberately the Way You have appointed for me.  It’s been a year of change here, as You well know, and some of that change is difficult, much of it is, to be honest.  I am at peace with leaving the Africa mission to others this year, but I cannot say I am without regret that it must be so.  But do Thou guide me into whatever it may be You have next for me to do.  Let me not just draw inward and apart.  That is not the way.  Fill me with Your grace.  Teach me how to respond rightly to those who come with aberrant understanding.  And let me remain teachable where my own understanding is in error.  I have so far yet to grow.  Thank You, that I can entrust my growth to You, but do please keep me from becoming complacent.  I am Yours.  Thank You for that.  I am Yours.