You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, sometimes we hear that the death of Jesus was just a political accident or historical accident. What do you think?
It does seem like a tragic accident in many respects. But when Peter talks about it in this passage today, he's going to say something completely different. He'll stand up in front of these gathered Jews, and they will be astonished at what he says today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is More Than Ink, and I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim, I guess.
Well, I'm so glad you are. We're here at our dining room table, and last week we left off in the middle of Peter's first big speech. We cut him off right in the middle of the speech. We went as far as, through his introduction, his quotation of the prophet Joel, and finished up last week with saying, where he says, and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now he's going to look right in the face of his audience and say something really bold. Really bold. Now this is Peter the fisherman, Peter the foot and mouth. He's never lacked from boldness, but he's rarely been this articulate. Yeah, that's right.
This is the guy that was cowering from the serving girls. We're going to see a changed Peter emerging. And so before you go into something like this, I mean, this is the content of the Pentecost message. The prior half that we looked at, just he explained what was going on in the Holy Spirit. But now he's going to give him some real meat, and it's really nervy what he's going to say. I mean, it's really nervy. Well, and it contains a massive thing that we regard as two very difficult things to hold in tension.
The sovereignty of God and human responsibility. We were just talking about this just yesterday. And you'll see that. So listen to this.
This is a gobsmacker, man. I'll read it for you. Okay, here we go. We're in chapter 2 of Acts, verse 22. So here he is, Peter in front of all these people, assembled for Shavuot for the Feast of Weeks. And as they're listening, he says, Men of Israel, hear these words.
Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Okay. Should we stop there for a second?
I would. I'm kind of stunned. Peter's going to race right on to the next thing, God did. Yeah, he's not slowing down. Wow, what a beginning. Does it strike you that he's twice in a single breath emphasized this Jesus? This Jesus. This Jesus, this guy. Well, that's because they were thinking about this Jesus. He was just crucified, right? And so, yeah, he's saying this Jesus, I'm not talking about, you know, there's a lot of, Jesus was a semi-common name, but we're talking about the Jesus that these guys followed. This Jesus, the Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth, you know, and a man, he says, not just, you know, claiming to be the son of God, but was attested, attested by God through what? Through mighty works, wonders, signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, like you all saw these things. Right. You saw them.
What did you make of those? That's God attested to the fact that he's his son. And that struck me just on this reading, how Peter really leans into that God was doing something. God was doing something.
Right, right. God attested this man to you. God did works through him. God, by his definite plan and foreknowledge, caused something to happen.
Right, right. We're going to see in a minute, God raised him from the dead. God sworn an oath to David.
That's right. God was very active. Yeah, and this God, when he says God, they're thinking the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Right, this God. We're talking the Jewish God.
Your God. The God of the Old Testament, yeah. So he's tying the God of the Old Testament to these wonders, these signs that they saw him.
They saw him. Well, and if you remember, they were always asking Jesus, you know, what's the source of these signs? Yeah, yeah. We know you do things that only God can do. Right, right. So he's just putting the credentials right out there. Right. So what I'm going to talk about, he says, is Jesus of Nazareth, don't make a mistake, this Jesus of Nazareth that God had actually put his stamp of approval on through the miracles and through all those attesting signs, this same guy, what happened to this guy who had such favor with God and who God acted on his behalf, what happened to him? Well, this Jesus delivered up according to the, now this is interesting, the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Right. And you killed him.
So this is where you get this fascinating, well, wait a second. Right. Was it God's plan or our mess? This was a deliberate plan on God's part? Yes. Yes, it was.
However. This is not just the plan, but the foreknowledge. Foreknowledge. I mean, it's been. It's been planned from before time. It's been in the books since the beginning. Right. This is how it's going to happen. And you all were probably thinking that this was just some train wreck that happened, you know, seven weeks ago.
No. It's something that's been planned even before you were born. But God used those who hated Jesus to get him crucified and killed at the hands of lawless men. Well, he doesn't just say God used them.
He says God, according to God's definite plan and foreknowledge, you crucified and killed him at the hands of lawless men. So he's laying the responsibility for the murder at the feet of those who are listening. On them. Yeah. On them.
Even though God knew it ahead of time and planned it. Yep. Yep. Wow. That kind of hurt your brain, doesn't it? I know.
I think they're really thinking when they hear this. Because a lot of them probably after the crucifixion of Jesus probably thought, well, you know, he was a rabble rouser. He seemed to be a nice guy. He had kind of the reputation people say today. He was a good teacher. You know, he loved people.
But you know, he probably made someone mad. And you know, they decided to get him killed. And the Romans said, yeah, whatever it takes to keep the peace. You know, Jesus had told the disciples repeatedly that he was going to Jerusalem. He was going to die. He was going to be crucified.
Yeah. He told them this in great detail. I have one of those right in front of me in Mark 9 31. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of man and they will kill him.
And when he has been killed, he will rise three days later. Right. Right. He had said it himself. Yep.
Told them ahead of time. Yep. Yep. But they didn't understand it. So they're really under the accusation because Peter's saying you killed him.
You killed him. This one who had God's favor. Right.
Right. Now that by itself is kind of a mind blower for them because if we're talking the Messiah, the Son of God, who can overpower the Messiah or the Son of God? I mean he has, from the Old Testament mentions, he has ultimate power and all authority. I mean he's not the Messiah if he can be overcome, right? That's what they're thinking. Well, except that that overlooks all of the suffering Messiah passages in the Old Testament. Right. And there's a lot of those. There's a lot of those.
And so they're really, their minds are going a million miles an hour trying to figure out how do you put these things together. If he is the Messiah, I don't know how he could be killed. I just don't understand it. But you're saying that was deliberate. Okay. But then Peter goes on.
He's not dead. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
It gets crazier. You crucified and killed him by the hands of lawless men. But in verse 24, God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. What? What kind of human being can't be held by the bonds of death? What kind of human being isn't subject to death, let alone to the permanence of it?
Well, that's the thing. What? He was subject to human death. He died, but it didn't hold. And he was resurrected. Right. It didn't hold. And the only one that can do that is someone who's outside of this creation that's God himself.
And he reverses the death and brings him back. Yeah. That just gives me chills. I know. And at this point, I think they're really way behind. They don't know what to think at this point. But some of them may have been in town during the time of the resurrection. Yeah, it's only been a few weeks. And the four days of appearances, which was the last one apparently was just 10 days ago. So if they don't know about those appearances and about the resurrection, evidences of the resurrection, I'm sure they'd turn to each other and say, did you see him? And someone might say, well, yeah, I did actually. Yeah, because Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that at one time he appeared to 500 people. Yeah.
We talked about this, I think, a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And so the point he's putting here, even for those who are leaning toward believing in the resurrection, who Jesus is as the Messiah, this is probably what's the most astonishing to them is the fact that this was the plan. This was not an accident. Right.
That's the plan. And so in order to kind of underscore the fact that it was a plan, he quotes some Old Testament. And what he picks is amazing to me. It is. He quotes David in Psalm 16. Yep, Psalm 16.
In verse 25, Peter says, �For David says concerning him, �I saw the Lord always before me, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life.
You will make me full of gladness in your presence.� Yeah. And that's the end and a half of Psalm 16. Not the whole thing, but it's the end. And that last thing is the last verse.
You'll make full of gladness with your presence. But what Peter's really zeroing in on is not being abandoned to death, to the kingdom of the dead, the realm of the dead, or seeing corruption. He's not going to rot away like human bodies do.
That's what's bizarre about it. 27, �You won't abandon my soul to Hades.� That's where you go after you die, when you're clearly dead, that's where you go. But he says, �You're not going to let me be abandoned there, and you won't see my body go through decay.� I mean, where does that happen? Right, because everybody, every body decays. However, it doesn't deny the fact that a death will happen.
Right. And that's fascinating. And in this particular Psalm 16, that's almost completely out of place because this death is going to happen, but this supernatural preservation after the death, the real death, is what he's talking about, is just astonishing here. And that's why he underscores this whole thing about, you know, God's the one that raised him from the dead. And in Psalm 16, David said that was exactly what's going to happen. And it did. So Peter's going to tell him, you know, David looked ahead and saw the resurrection of Messiah, because he says, �I saw the Lord always before me.
He's at my right hand, and I may not be shaken.� So, huh. So this was misinterpreted at the time of Jesus, and we know that because of some of the debates that went on. When the Pharisees would read Psalm 16, they think it's David talking about himself. And so some legends had grown up about the fact that David died, but, you know, his body didn't decay.
A whole bunch of crazy stuff. And Peter's going to address that. Right. So that's the common misconception right here, that this is not talking about the Messiah. This is talking about David, because David wrote this. Well, no boys, it's not about David. It's about the Messiah. And so that's where he pins it down in 29 and comments on this passage from Psalm 16.
Okay. And Peter goes on to say, �Brothers, may I say to you, with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day and day, being there for a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.� Whoa.
Let's pause there for a second, shall we? Right. So he does perfect exegesis on this passage in Psalm 16. He says, �Look, we're talking about the Messiah. We're talking about the Messiah.� Because that's the word he uses in 31, the resurrection of the Messiah, the Christ. That's the Greek way of saying Messiah. And they might not have thought about it before, but the Messiah was to suffer and to die. And there is significant scriptures in the Old Testament that should have warned them about that. But they chose not to really give as much weight to those as the kingly powerful ruling Messiah.
So here he is, he says, �So yes, he died, and he really died.� Like he really, really died. Because the issue here is the resurrection. Yeah, yeah. Right. Which is why he probably doesn't, probably one of the reasons he doesn't quote Isaiah 53.
No, exactly. The suffering servant. He's going after the resurrected.
Exactly. So that's why Psalm 16 is a real death, but a real resurrection after that. And he says, �Who's being talked about in Psalm 16? Jesus. This Jesus.� And he says it again here, �This Jesus is the one.� This Jesus.
I love that you said that. Yeah, this Jesus. And then he obsesses what God has done. God raised him up.
Right. Well, and not only is it a rumor in 32, this Jesus God raised up, not a rumor, and that we are all witnesses. Witnesses. We have seen it. We saw it with our own eyes.
We saw it with our own eyes. That's what Jesus had just said to them right before he ascended. He said, �You will be my witnesses. Just hear Jerusalem.
We'll hear it's happening.� Right. So now he's drawn two scriptures from the Old Testament. Joel 2, which is just astonishing, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. And this mysterious thing of David, Psalm 16, about this one who is going to die, but death itself will not hold the one who dies.
And how is that possible? Maybe that's about David because he was a big superstar and celebrity in the Old Testament. No, no, no. Peter says, �It's Jesus.� And we just saw it happen.
But if you were in town, you did too. So in this next statement, he's going to link together that pouring out of the Holy Spirit and another Psalm of David. One more Psalm. About the Messiah. So this Jesus, verse 32, this Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. So he's saying, �Everything you're seeing and hearing happening right now is being poured out by this Jesus.� Right, right.
Wow. And I'm sure a lot of them are thinking, �Okay, so you claim that he died and death didn't hold him and there's a resurrection and we saw him. So where is he now? Where is he now?� And what he says is, �Well, he's been exalted at the right hand of God, which is a position of great power and authority.� Right? And as a result... And this is utter blasphemy unless it's true.
That's right. And as a result, the strategy now isn't the physical Jesus you saw before. The strategy now is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit into everyone who's a believer in this Jesus. That's the new approach now. That's the new approach. He's poured out this, what you're seeing right now, what you are seeing and hearing. Remember their own languages?
Remember the jet engine sounds? What you are seeing and hearing, like right now, this is his plan from on high. This is what's going on. Yeah. So then just to cement this whole thing about, you know, so where is Jesus now?
Right. 34, he brings up Psalm 110, �David did not ascend into the heavens.� That's a nice rhetorical question. David didn't ascend into the heavens. But he himself, David himself says, �The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.� Now that is a powerful messianic statement. Everyone knew Psalm 110 was about the Messiah. Everyone expected that. It's not a surprise. Yeah, as a matter of fact, Jesus himself had directed the conversation toward that Psalm.
Yes. During the last week of his life. It is the most famous Old Testament verse in the entire New Testament. It's quoted 25 times.
Or � Wow. It is the number one verse, the number one verse. And so all throughout the entire New Testament narrative, throughout the gospels and stuff like that, it's in Hebrews, I mean, it's like everywhere. They don't want you to miss the fact that when Jesus was raised, he sat on the right hand of God until his enemies are made of footstool, which means he is total and utterly the conqueror which the kingly Messiah prophesies had always said he would be.
And the question that they would always discuss when talking about this Psalm was, �Well, who is David talking about?� Exactly. Right? Who is this second person? Exactly. The Lord. Right? That's the proper name for God.
Right. And in your study Bible, it should have that first the Lord in all capital letters because that signifies to us that that is the proper name of God. So God said to my Lord, that's Adon, my master, my king, �Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.� Well, who is God talking to? That was the question they were puzzling over. And in fact, Jesus raised this question in three parallel gospel accounts.
I mean, you can go to one of them, Matthew 22, and he raises deliberately. He brings it up. He says, �So who is he talking about here, guys? Who is he talking about?
Who is he talking about?� And they're kind of silent in the interchange. But yeah, this is a very famous verse because after the resurrection, where is Jesus? Right here in Psalm 110, he's in heaven and he's orchestrating what's happening now in the book of Acts and to today in terms of the strategy being not the physical Jesus, but the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit in all of his followers. The body of Christ is now literally millions and billions of bodies, not just one body. So I encourage you readers, go to your Psalms and read all of Psalm 110.
Yes, yes. It's only a few verses, but it's remarkable in the clarity that it says this anointed one, this one that God is speaking to is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Well, we've talked about Melchizedek before.
You can look him up and read about his place and the symbolism attached to Melchizedek. He also is very clearly presented as the final judge of everything in this Psalm. So Psalm 110 is astonishing when we apply it or when we connect it to this Jesus, that he is the designated one who sits at the right hand of the Father, who is our eternal priest, who will be the final judge of everything at the end of the age.
It's a very complete statement. Yeah, I was just thinking too, it's a central thing that Paul states when he does his open air presentation in Athens, because he says, we are all going to be judged by a man, by a man, not by some demigod, by the old kind of stupid pagan worship thing, but we're all going to be judged by a man. And who is that man, testified to the fact that he rose from the dead. And that's how he closes the entire thing, the one who rose from the dead, he's the one that will judge us all. It's all about the resurrection. It is all about the resurrection.
If the resurrection didn't happen, then none of this is true. So let me just talk about a little of this, the imagery of this, sit at my right hand. That's a throne statement, so the king sits in the center and the chief power officer, the executive officer sits at his right hand, he's the action guy for the king. The one who makes done what the king wills.
He makes everything happen and the will of the king is the same as his will and the authority and power of the king is the same as the authority and power of the king. So we're really talking about the son of God here, but it's a throne room kind of picture. And then he says, until I make your enemies your footstool. Now that's an ancient picture of when you actually won in a war, you would bring back as captives the people who survived from the bad guys. And what they would do, especially if it was a general or a king, they would bring him in parade and bring him in front of the king like here, make him kneel down in front and kneel down and then the guy who vanquished this guy who's on the throne there lifts up his feet and puts it on him like he's a footrest. And so that's the real image of the fact that this person's been vanquished. Or sometimes it'll say that he puts his feet on his neck or on his head, but it's the idea of all these enemies, the most powerful enemy in this last battle is now subject under this great power of the winning side.
And so that's the picture here. So what he's saying at this point is that, so where's Jesus? Well Jesus is off in heaven, but he's not inactive. In fact, he's waiting for something. He's waiting for one more shoe to drop.
And what is that? When all of his enemies are vanquished. And so that is actually where we are in this period of time right now. Jesus' second coming, he'll come back, but not until the entire battle is won. So we actually live in an era of a battle for the kingdom of God, where actually the battle is already won, but he's waiting for all the pegs to drop. And so that's where we are, until he makes all the enemies his footstool, until the ultimate winning happens. And so that's why you have so much mention in this particular psalm about judgment, because that judgment is the winning.
That is the winning. And the ones who are unjust, the ones who are immoral, the ones who take advantage of the people God loves, God's gonna take them to task and judge them, and then they will become his footstool. That term footstool suddenly set me thinking of Isaiah 66, when God says in verse 1, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. So it's a picture of God subjecting all creation to himself. It's the appropriate image of everything being subject to him. And there's another verse in Isaiah where he says, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So oh. Even though during the era of the battles, which is now, people will stiff arm God and say he's not in charge. Maybe he doesn't even exist. But that battle's gonna rage and they're gonna lose.
They're gonna lose. Another great picture that is in Psalm 2, another very powerful messianic psalm. Well, let's finish this last verse. So Peter's conclusion. He says, let all the house of Israel therefore, because of everything he said.
What I just said. Know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. This Jesus whom you crucified.
Oh, twist the knife at the end. So this one who God says, this is my man. This is the guy. This is the ultimate authority in the universe. This is my Messiah. You crucified him.
Now, what are you supposed to say to that as a devout Jew? Like we've been waiting for the Messiah and you mean we missed him? And we actually killed him? Is that what you're saying?
And he shows enough proof from the scriptures for them to just be smitten to the core. What you're saying is true. And we witnessed some of this.
And we saw the resurrected Jesus. And I mean, you're right. You're totally right. And now there's this point like, what do you do when you talk about the enemies as a footstool? This places them as those enemies if we're the ones that killed him.
But death couldn't hold him. What are we supposed to do? We're powerless now. Right. And that's the question they're going to ask. You've got us. Yeah. So that's exactly where they are. Which is why they're probably all thinking, oh, didn't you quote Joel too about all those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved?
Because I'm thinking it might be time to get serious about that. But let's be sure about who this Lord is that we're calling on. Yeah, that's right.
Because Jesus had said to the Pharisees at a point in John 5, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sin. Yeah. What a powerful statement. You will die in your sin. That's John 5, 24.
Yeah. And it just shakes me in the core every time I read that. It's like, you do not want to die in your sins because it's a point of demand to die once, it says in Hebrews, and after that comes judgment. You don't want to die with that sin. So the solution to that, Peter says, is to call on the name, the identity of this one. Right. Right.
Right. And again, with the battle imagery is a call to mercy. I know what I deserve and I'm appealing to you not to render to me what I deserve. It's a call for mercy. Call upon the name of the Lord. And when he says call upon the name of the Lord, again, when we see name, it means the reputation and the character of the Lord. So knowing that God is loving and merciful, we hope and gracious that even in the face of our great offense, he says right here, we killed the son of God.
What were we thinking? In the face of that offense, perhaps God in his mercy will spare us. So we call upon the name, call upon the reputation of the mercy of God, and then hope he sees fit to save us. Yeah. And if you remember, Jesus said, you know, I came to seek and save the lost. Right. But you got to know you're lost. Acknowledge that and call out to be found. Right. And that's why this whole thing that Peter just did here was a way for them to really crystallize their guilt for them to really, really embrace and say, you're right, you're right. We killed him and we missed him.
And you're right. He is the Messiah. We're convinced from the scriptures he is, but we killed him. And so now what do we do? So the whole salvation process, if you want to call it a process, always starts with us coming to a conviction about our sin and confessing it. Confess means to say the same thing God does say about it and confess about it. So next time when we come back, we're actually going to see them confess the fact that they agreed with what Peter said. We killed the Son of God. Now what are we supposed to do?
And that's what they'll ask and then he'll answer them. So we'll see you next time. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And this is More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you.
Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I'll do it. You'll do it? Oh, excellent. Okay. And here we go. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
