“Jesus: Approved by God” Acts 2:22-24
We have been looking at the day of Pentecost, the day that THE CHURCH was baptized with the Holy Spirit and placed into union with one another and with Christ. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and became a powerful force for the spreading of the Gospel: evangelism. They began to speak the wonderful works of God in languages they didn’t know, but they were languages that the people there spoke. There was a supernatural hurricane-like sound, like a hurricane, which drew the crowd together where the believers were. The people were hearing their own language, and the content was the wonderful works of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, the TESTIMONY OF THE WORD AND Holy SPIRIT.
LIFE OF JESUS
Go to Acts 2: 22, "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know”-- His first line of evidence that Jesus is the Messiah sent FROM God is that God has attested to that FACT through miracles, wonders, and signs performed by Jesus. The Life of Jesus demonstrates the approval of Almighty God. The miracles of Jesus were mighty works of God: These supernatural wonders and signs pointed to none other than DIVINE power. They were startling, shocking, stunning, and unexplainable. Christ’s Life approved JESUS and His claims as being validated BY God Himself. The voice from HEAVEN ITSELF at Jesus’ baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration: "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!"
Could there be any doubt about this, Peter says: “As you yourselves also know.” Peter says: All these miracles were done right before your eyes. It is the WORST kind of sin, to have all the evidence of God in front of you, and then reject it….The life of Christ, His ministry life, his miracles provide the clearest evidence that HE is God’s Messiah, and He is Deity. It is evidence. HIS LIFE IS THE proclamation. Those who killed Him and also reject Him sin against the light which God provides, they reject the Word, the revelation from God, and so they reject the truth.
DEATH OF JESUS
Secondly, look at verse 23: “Him, (This very Jesus) being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” The very person whom God, the Father, delighted to honor, whom God accredited or exhibited, you have dishonored and killed. Jesus from the town of Nazareth (people said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”) was delivered over into the hands of executioners by the predetermined purpose and foreknowledge of God.”
Jesus Christ was delivered to death “by the predetermined PLAN and foreknowledge of God.” Plan is the word “counsel,” meaning design, purpose, will. It’s a predetermined plan: God set the boundaries and design beforetime: Christ was delivered to death because God planned it and ordained it. This gets repeated in Acts 4:26-28 by Peter: “The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.' (from ps. 2) "For truly against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.”
The delivery of Jesus to execution was planned by God, not only by HIS predetermined plan, but also by HIS foreknowledge. Did God make this decree because He looked down history and KNEW this was going to happen so He predicted it? Not at all! It says He was delivered BY MEANS OF the foreknowledge of God: the foreknowledge of God is something God uses as an instrument to accomplish His predetermined plan! Certainly, God knows everything before it happens, but that’s not what this is saying. God performs an act by His foreknowledge, by the ALMIGHTY WILL OF God, in order to give Jesus over to His enemies. Foreknowledge is God’s act of foreordination. Christ was delivered over by the predetermined plan and ordination of God. That is, by a decision that God had made in eternity past.
Look how Peter uses this word in 1 Peter 1:1-2: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.” If it only means PRE-knowledge, then believers are not really ELECT or CHOSEN. FOREKNOWLEDGE is the means by which God chooses who will be saved. He makes a choice because He’s predetermined an end. So, the predetermined end is that Christ died. And so, He chooses to deliver Him over to that predetermined end.
Look at 1 Peter 1: 20-21: “He (Jesus, the LAMB) indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” Foreknown or ordained before the foundation of the world It’s the same word as we see in Peter’s sermon in Acts, the same word.
Look at Romans1:2, “God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Well, what do you mean by that? Same word. The whole section of Romans 9-11, is about election. God specifically choosing, and God saying, “I AM NOT TO be questioned, because I AM GOD. If you diminish this understanding, you are trying to make me in YOUR IMAGE.”
Edgar James writes, “To say that God made a decision based on pre-knowledge would mean that there was a time of indecision.” This would be contrary to God’s nature, and to biblical fact that the decree is eternal. The decree that he made concerning Christ and the redeemed is an eternal decree. There was never a time of decision, when God had to gather information which He didn’t have: HE ORDAINs what will happen!
Why is this important? The question they all had was: How can Jesus be the Messiah if He let Himself be executed at the hands of the Romans? How could He have been the Messiah if He was rejected by the leaders of His own nation? So, Peter is saying: This was God’s decision eternally and there never was a time when God looked and saw something that was new information, or that He was somehow influenced by anything other than HIS DIVINE PURPOSEFUL PLAN concerning the Messiah. Remember what the people said when Jesus was on the Cross? If You’re the Messiah, come down. You can’t possibly be the Messiah and be up there, dying and rejected by your nation. You’re supposed to overthrow and establish your kingdom here.
So ACTS proves that Christ’s death was God’s plan. In Acts 3:17-18, Peter is preaching and says: “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” If they had known God’s word in Zech. 12, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, they would have known it was God’s plan but that doesn’t lessen their guilt, nor ours.
Look again at Acts 2:23. “Him, (This very Jesus) being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;” It was eternal God’s plan that it was done THIS WAY but it did not lessen their guilt at all. Jesus’ blood was still on their hands. What they did was NOT noble but godless wickedness, accomplished by wicked and sin-filled men; men who were guilty. Every person ever BORN is guilty. Every person has a responsibility to turn to God in Repentance; He is our only hope.
This highlights divine sovereignty and human responsibility and accountability.The fact that we’ve been chosen, called, and regenerated is nothing less than a mighty miracle of God, and at the same time, God ordains the means as well as the ends of human events without violating human freedom, accountability and responsibility. We’re totally responsible what we choose to do and how we act. We are responsible and held accountable for the sin of unbelief. The Jews could not pass their guilt to the Romans; they had asked the Romans to kill Jesus and they were accountable for Jesus’ death. Peter is saying: You KILLED this Jesus.
Listen to Jesus in Luke 22:21, speaking about Judas: “Behold, the hand of the one betraying Me is with Mine on the table…For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined.” That’s the divine side; now listen to the human side: “But woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” It is true that it is all the plan of God but it is equally true that all the guilt resides in the hands of the perpetrators who had personally, intentionally, and viciously rejected and killed Jesus; it was their darkest of sins and they were guilty. People who reject the Biblical Jesus are still guilty, but God’s Grace in Christ STILL saves people today who turn to Him by faith.
The Resurrection of Jesus
Look at verse 24: “whom God raised up, having loosed (destroyed!) the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” The Power of God raised Him up from the dead. Romans 4:23-25 says God is the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead: “The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone (Abraham), 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness --for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Christ’s payment has been applied to our penalty account, to all who believe in Him.)
What a PROMISE and COMFORT for those who believe in the Jesus, who entrust their lives to Him! What an empowerment for us to LIVE for Jesus! “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Remember how, when Lazarus was raised from the dead, people had to indo the burial clothes: Jesus came out of the grave and left BEHIND the things that had bound Him.
Death couldn’t hold Him. Why was it impossible? His Divine power was greater than the power of death because He IS LIFE; IN HIM WAS LIFE. He is the source of life; Jesus said, “Destroy this body, and in three days I’ll raise it up again.” Death could not hold Jesus because of divine purpose, divine promise and divine power. God’s Power! The Same power demonstrated in Jesus’ Life is demonstrated in His Resurrection. God had already determined that He Christ would be raised from the dead, and His resurrection would be the first fruits, the prototype, for the bodies of all who will be raised.
We are freed from the birth pains of death: that’s what it says literally in verse 24-The pains of child birth are the worst pains that a woman can experience as a result of sin’s curse, yet she is participating in bringing forth a new life that can bring joy and glory to God. (look at Gen 3) We are free, NOT from the physical pains of death. Many still suffer from the physical failures and pains associated with death, but we KNOW that our deaths will produce a life which is sin-free and DEATH-FREE. We have been granted ETERNAL LIFE IN CHRIST. OUR WORKS do not guarantee that life, HIS LIFE guarantees it!
Listen to Paul’s explanation in 1 Thessalonians 5: 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5 You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.” (We are not dead but ALIVE IN CHRIST! Believers are not children of the night or darkness.
Romans 8:11: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” Being IN CHRIST, we also are freed from the power of death to serve the Savior with power and confidence: We are loosed to LIVE NOW for Him, and the promise to us for eternity WITH HIM is guaranteed…because God has promised it IN CHRIST. Our Lord Jesus has been approved by God in His life, His Death, and His Resurrection. His Works have been credited to us, approved by God on account of Jesus. Our approval is IN HIM ALONE, in the miracle of His Grace applied to hearts and lives, for His Glory.
1. JESUS, Attested by God in His Life:
a. The Life and Power OF God were displayed in Christ.
b. Christ’s Life approved Him and His claims as being validated BY God Himself.
2. JESUS, Attested by God in His Death: YOU killed Him. (Acts 4:26-28, 1 Peter 1:1-2, 20-21, Romans1:2, Acts 3:17-18, Zech. 12, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Luke 22:21)
a. Jesus was “delivered by the predetermined PLAN and foreknowledge of God.”
b. The Role of Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility in His Death.
3. JESUS, Attested by God in His Resurrection: (Rom 4:23-25, 8:11, 1 Thess 5: 2-6)
a. Death could not hold Jesus because of God’s Divine purpose, promise and power.
b. Death will not hold believers IN CHRIST because GOD raised HIM.
