(1) It insists that the cross was no accident. It belonged to the eternal plan of God (verse 23). Over and over again, Acts states this same thing (cf. 3:18, 4:28, 13:29). The thinking found in Acts safeguards us from two serious errors in our understanding of the death of Jesus. (a) The cross is not a kind of emergency measure flung out by God when everything else had failed. It is part of God’s very life. (b) We must never think that anything Jesus did changed the attitude of God to men and women. It was by God that Jesus was sent. We may put it in this way: the cross was a window in time allowing us to see the suffering love which is eternally in the heart of God.
(2) Acts insists that this in no way lessens the enormity of what those who crucified Jesus actually did. Every mention of the crucifixion in Acts is loaded with a feeling of shuddering horror (cf. Acts 2:23, 3:13, 4:10, 5:30). Apart from anything else, the crucifixion shows supremely how horrifyingly sin can behave.
(3) Acts is out to prove that the sufferings and death of Christ were the fulfilment of prophecy. The earliest preachers had to do that. To the Jews, the idea of a crucified Messiah was incredible. Their law said: ‘anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse’ (Deuteronomy 21:23). To orthodox Jews, the cross made it completely impossible that Jesus could be the Messiah. The early preachers answered: ‘If you would only read your Scriptures in the right way, you would see that all was foretold.’
(4) Acts stresses the resurrection as the final proof that Jesus was indeed God’s chosen one. Acts has been called the Gospel of the Resurrection. To the early Church, the resurrection was all-important. We must remember this: without the resurrection, there would have been no Christian Church at all. When the disciples preached the centrality of the resurrection, they were arguing from experience. After the cross, they were bewildered and broken; their dream had gone and their lives had been shattered. It was the resurrection which changed all that and turned them from cowards into heroes. It is one of the tragedies of the Church that so often the preaching of the resurrection is confined to Easter time. Every Sunday is the Lord’s Day, and every Lord’s Day should be kept as resurrection day. In the eastern Church on Easter Day, when two people meet, one says: ‘The Lord is risen’ and the other answers: ‘He is risen indeed!’ Christians should never forget that they live and walk with a risen Lord.
SAVE YOURSELVES
Acts 2:37–41
When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and to the other apostles: ‘Brethren, what are we to do?’ Peter said to them: ‘Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for this promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, to all those whom the Lord your God invites.’ With many other words he gave his witness and he urged them: ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ So they accepted his word and were baptized, and on that day there were added to them about 3,000 people.
THIS passage shows with crystal clarity the effect of the cross. When people realized just what they had done in crucifying Jesus, their hearts were broken. ‘I,’ said Jesus, ‘when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’ (John 12:32). Everyone has had a hand in that event. Once, a missionary told the story of Jesus in an Indian village. Afterwards, he showed the life of Christ in slides projected against the whitewashed wall of a house. When the cross appeared on the wall, one man rose from the audience and ran forward, crying: ‘Come down from that cross, Son of God. I, not you, should be hanging there.’ The cross, when we understand what happened there, must pierce our hearts.
That experience demands a reaction. ‘Repent,’ said Peter, ‘first and foremost.’ What does repentance mean? The word originally meant an afterthought. Often, a second thought shows that the first thought was wrong; and so the word came to mean a change of mind. But, if we are honest, a change of mind demands a change of action. Repentance must involve both change of mind and change of action. We may change our minds and come to see that our actions were wrong; but we may be so much in love with our old ways that we will not change them. We may change our ways but our minds remain the same, changing only because of fear or prudence. True repentance involves a change of mind and a change of action.
When repentance comes, something happens to the past. There is God’s forgiveness for what lies behind. Let us be quite clear that the consequences of sins are not wiped out. Not even God can do that. When we sin, we may well do something to ourselves and to others which cannot be undone. Let us look at it this way. When we were young and had done something bad, there was an invisible barrier between us and our mother. But when we went and said we were sorry, the old relationship was restored, and everything was right between us again. Forgiveness does not abolish the consequences of what we have done, but it puts us right with God.
When repentance comes, something happens for the future. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that power we can win battles we never thought to win and resist things which by ourselves we would have been powerless to resist.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHURCH
Acts 2:42–7
They persevered in listening to the apostles’ teaching, in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Awe was in every soul; and many signs and wonders were done by the apostles. All the believers were together, and they were in the habit of selling their goods and possessions and of distributing them among all as each had need. Daily they continued with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house they received their food with joy and in sincerity of heart; and they kept praising God and everyone liked them. Daily the Lord added to them those who were being saved.
IN this passage, we have a kind of lightning summary of the characteristics of the early Church.
(1) It was a learning Church; it persisted in listening to the apostles as they taught. One of the great perils of the Church is to look back instead of forward. Because the riches of Christ are inexhaustible, we should always be going forward. We should count it a wasted day when we do not learn something new and when we have not penetrated more deeply into the wisdom and the grace of God.
(2) It was a Church of fellowship; it had what someone has called the great quality of togetherness. Admiral Nelson explained one of his victories by saying: ‘I had the happiness to command a band of brothers.’ The Church is a real Church only when it has that kind of fellowship.
(3) It was a praying Church; these early Christians knew that they could not meet life in their own strength and that they did not need to. They always went in to God before they went out to the world; they were able to meet the problems of life because they had first met him.
(4) It was a reverent Church; in verse 43, the word which the Authorized Version correctly translates as fear has the idea of awe in it. It was said of a great Greek that he moved through this world as if it were a temple. Christians live in reverence because they know that the whole earth is the temple of the living God.
(5) It was a Church where things happened; signs and wonders were there (verse 43). If we expect great things from God and attempt great things for God, things happen. More things would happen if we believed that God and we together could make them happen.
(6) It was a sharing Church (verses 44–5); these early Christians had an intense feeling of responsibility for each other. It was said of William Morris, the nineteenth-century writer and artist, that he never saw a drunk man without having a feeling of personal responsibility for him. Real Christians cannot bear to have too much when others have too little.
(7) It was a worshipping Church (verse 46); they never forgot to visit God’s house. We must remember that ‘God knows nothing of solitary religion.’ Things can happen when we come together. God’s Spirit moves upon his worshipping people.
(8) It was a happy Church (verse 46);