"...this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”
It is difficult to imagine any thinking Christian coming to the second chapter of Acts after a reading of any one or all of the gospels, not being astounded by the change in the Apostle Peter.
In the gospels we witness a man who, almost every time he opens his mouth, demonstrates profound cluelessness.
Even at Mount Hermon where he so eloquently declares Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, he turns around moments later and blows it by once more manifesting his ignorance of the Christ’s true mission.
We won’t touch on his failure during the Lord’s passion; we would have failed too – we did indeed fail Him.
But even at the very end of the gospels Peter is still in confusion and inner turmoil.
So when we come to this chapter and see that Luke is writing of events little more than a month after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and when we read this eloquent first sermon of the new church, we are introduced to a new Peter in terms that can only be explained as Holy Spirit baptism and divine inspiration.
Of course, we should have seen it coming if we were paying any attention at all to the words of Jesus when He said, “…when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32) and His threefold exhortation to Peter to feed His sheep there at the end of John.
Why are we so quick to see ourselves and others through our own eyes and according to the circumstances of the moment and not through the eyes of the One who knows them and us more intimately than we ever could?
We see a Christian do something un-Christ-like and want to criticize them; maybe even shut them out of fellowship, and He sees them in the process of the development of their faith. While we’re phoo-phooing He’s sanctifying.
Can you imagine Peter before a pulpit search committee today?
“Well, Mr. Peter, you can deliver a powerful sermon and you have a very commanding and charismatic personality. But the bottom line is, you denied Christ and let Him be crucified without lifting a hand to help Him. We’re sorry but your past actions disqualify you from ever pastoring a church”.
“But the Lord forgave me and commissioned me to feed His sheep!”
“Well, you can help set up tables and cook for fellowship dinners…you just can’t be in leadership”.
“But the Lord called me!” “Sorry, that’s just not good enough”.
Quite frankly, we should be equally astounded when we look back on our own lives and remind ourselves where we’ve come from. Because the same Holy Spirit who wrought such an amazing transformation in Peter has done so in the life of anyone to whom He has given life and just by virtue of the fact that it is the rebirth from above that Jesus told Nicodemus about it is an utterly new and astounding thing, whoever the recipient is.
Well, fortunately for Peter and for all of us, the Lord overrides the pettiness of men, and just 50 days after the crucifixion He fills Peter with the Holy Spirit and fire and Peter preaches a sermon that saves 3000 people.
A MAN DELIVERED OVER
I want to focus on just these two verses today because I want us to see that from the beginning, God was readying Peter to be the first to reveal a plan that had been determined in eternity past. I want us to see how magnificently Peter unveils the will and foreknowledge of God while not letting men off the hook for their culpability in recent events.
First notice that he says “…this Man…” I’m so glad he said that. Not that there aren’t plenty of passages in scripture to show the agnostics and the New Age people that Jesus had a body and was not some cosmic projection; some spirit fooling us all with a light show. But here Peter is about to talk about a physical death and a bodily resurrection and he undeniably asserts that it is a Man who has gone to the cross.
And it means much more than just ammunition to use against the heretics. This Jesus of Nazareth was the God of eternity walking in human flesh. He became identified with us in every way apart from sin so that when He fulfilled all righteousness and entered back into His glory with the Father He could stand as our Advocate, our perfected High Priest, interceding for us before the Throne.
“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16
Believer, when you pray, you pray to and in the Name of One who understands perfectly because He was a Man. Right now, before the throne of grace, the throne of mercy, stands a glorified Man to intercede for you.
Never feel that God doesn’t know your problems and your weaknesses and your struggles. He was perfected as your great High Priest through the things which He suffered and the obedience He learned as a Man.
Now it is the day of Pentecost. It is celebrated 50 days after Passover. Since Passover and Pentecost are two of the high holy days of the faith, Jews who came from all the regions around the Mediterranean for Passover would just stay in and around Jerusalem until after Pentecost before heading back home.
So Jerusalem is still at this point filled with visitors, Jews and Gentile proselytes alike. Most of the people gathered around this place where Peter was standing to preach this sermon would have first hand knowledge of the events of the crucifixion of Jesus; many of them were probably eye witnesses to it; some of them may have even had a hand in it.
Therefore considering what he’s about to say it is important to note that he addresses the crowd simply as ‘men of Israel’. He is bringing a charge against them, certainly, but he is also about to tell them the good news and in Peter’s thinking at this point it is only for the Jews. He will not be open to giving the gospel to the Gentiles until he is sent to the home of Cornelius later on.
This Man, he says, was delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.
That it was a predetermined plan of God should not have been a surprise to the Jews. In fact they should have felt chagrin at his words in light of the pride they took in their intimate knowledge of the Law and the Prophets, since God’s plan was revealed there over and over again.
They should have been embarrassed at having to have been told.
In chapter 3 of Acts Peter is giving a separate crowd another not-so-politically correct speech, where he says, “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of Life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.” Acts 3:14-15
Before I continue with this thought let me just say to you here that political correctness and the gospel cannot exist in the same realm. You cannot tell people the good news of the empty tomb until you tell them the bad news of the cross. You cannot offer them new life in Jesus until you make them understand their life without Him is death.
We do not condemn men by telling them they are sinners, we tell them they are sinners because they are condemned! And they need to see that before they can ever understand the need for a Savior; before they can ever understand that the innocent Son of God took their place. Only then can the bad news of the cross become good news for them.
In verse 18 of chapter 3 Peter said,
“But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” Acts 3:18
By the mouth of all the prophets God announced…what? ‘that His Christ would suffer’! Where did they get all this nonsense about the Messiah coming and setting Himself up as King?
Hey, guys, haven’t you been reading the prophets lately? What have you been reading and discussing? Extra-biblical rabbinical ramblings or something?
Christians, if your devotional time, your study time was food, would it be meat, or would it be candy? Would it be vegetables, or would it be cake? Would it be nutrition, or would it be poison?
Take a close look at what you’re feeding your mind with as pertains to so-called spiritual truth and help. Study your Bible! And if the materials you bring along side to help in your Bible study aren’t simply a guide to the scriptures, put them down and don’t let yourself get caught up in the speculations and traditions of men.
God spoke through all the prophets and told His plan. Over and over again. Messiah will come, Messiah will suffer. And this “He has thus fulfilled”. How did we miss that?
Now there’s something that needs to be said about this word, ‘foreknowledge’ in verse 23 of our text and I’ll let the language guys say it so I don’t confuse you or myself.
Here is just an excerpt from Berkhof’s Systematic Theology:
He says the word used here translated ‘foreknowledge’, “…(does) not denote simple intellectual foresight … the mere taking knowledge of something beforehand, but rather a selective knowledge which regards one with favor and makes one an object of love, and thus approaches the idea of foreordination.” (L.Berkhof, Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1976, 112)
Berkhof goes on later in that same work to write: “The idea that God saw in advance that Israel would reject and crucify Christ and worked that into His eternal plan is a implicit denial both of His sovereignty and omniscience.”
This was God’s predetermined plan, and was fore ordained by Him. It was foreknown by Him, not simply because He was able to look down through history and see that it would be done, but because the entire plan sprang forth from His omniscient and omnipotent will, and He brought it to pass.
They needed to know that. You and I need to know that. Your salvation was not an after-thought and it was not the result of God turning a bad situation around to make something good come of it. It was His predetermined, predestined plan and He brought it to pass in the fullness of time.
This is confirmed again, before we move on, in chapter 4 of Acts, after Peter and John are threatened and released and they go back to their companions and as one the group lifts its voice in praise. In the midst of that, in verses 27 and 28 they make this declaration:
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” Acts 4:227-28
NAILED TO A CROSS
Having just read Acts 4:27-28, we transition now to the second half of this verse of our text, verse 23, and see that while Peter has established that these things were according to God’s plan and His determined will, that doesn’t let them off the hook.
“…you nailed to a cross…” Note that he says ‘you’, after having addressed the group as ‘men of Israel’. So he’s accusing the Jews.
Then he goes on to say that they did so “…by the hands of godless men…” by that he means the Romans. All gentiles were referred to as ‘godless’, being pagan and not of the commonwealth of Israel.
Therefore in this statement Peter has put the burden of this act on all men, Jew and Gentile alike.
Now here is where someone asks, then how can God blame those who did the physical act, when it was according to His will and the Bible even says things like “He has thus fulfilled” and “Your purpose predestined to occur”?
And here is the answer. God created man a moral being. He placed within every man a consciousness of right and wrong. When men suppress that knowledge within themselves to do wrong, they are going against that inherent, God-given awareness to follow their own evil will.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” Rom 1:18
But, you might object, how are the gentiles also guilty when it was the Jews who had the Law and the Prophets and should have known better, and it was the Jews who instigated the mock trials and demanded His death?
Back to Romans. “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts..”
And every time a godless man has a choice to do right or do wrong and chooses right, he condemns every other man who chooses wrong because he proves that the general knowledge of such is in every man.
That’s why Judas went back and threw down the silver; that’s why Pilate washed his hands! Men know they are guilty for wrong; they know they’re guilty while they’re doing it; they know they’re guilty while they’re planning it!
All the wide-eyed innocent looks and defensive sputtering later do not change that.
No one was innocent that day, no one is innocent of the Messiah’s blood on any day, from the decision to bite into the forbidden fruit until now and tomorrow and every tomorrow after that until the plan of redemption is completed in glory.
God can hold all men accountable even for the carrying out of that which He Himself predetermined and foreordained, for one simple reason. HE is GOD!
Let’s have done with putting up with all the faithless, rebellious, God-hating questions of the heathen who want to wag their tongues and bring some trumped up ridiculous charge against Him as though they have any knowledge or wisdom whatsoever. God is God and because He is God and because of all that He is as God, He needn’t explain Himself to any of us silly pathetic little worms.
Did God plan this? Yes! In His infinite, amazing love and grace and justice and righteousness and mercy, yes. He planned it.
Is He just in holding those accountable who are responsible for it? Yes. Nuff said.
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” Ps 51:3-4
RAISED UP AGAIN
Well, Peter isn’t done, is he?
“And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” Vs 24
In Romans Paul tells us that sin reigned in death. Death was sin’s reign. But it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. Impossible? Why? Because there was no sin in Him.
Who put Jesus on the cross? Was it the Jews for envy? Was it Judas for spite? Was it the Romans out of fear?
It was GOD; for LOVE!
Were men accountable? Yes indeed. Both the godless and the Godly.
Those with the Law and those without the written Law.
The pagan on the street and the most pious of the church!
And God raise Him up again.
I want you to notice that Peter didn’t say “But”. He didn’t say “But God raised Him up again”, because that would have sounded like it was a reaction to their action.
“You took God by surprise, but…” NO, NO!
AND God raised Him up again because that too was a part of the predetermined plan and foreordination of God from eternity past.
“That Word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth”!
Peter finally understood, didn’t he? Was this Holy Spirit inspiration?
Listen. Where he says, “…putting an end to the agony of death…” in verse 24, the language guys tell me that a more literal translation is “birth pangs”.
God raised Him up again, putting an end to the birth pangs of death. Why a term like ‘birth’, in relation to ‘death’? Is this a play on words? It is an attempt by Peter to wax eloquent?
No, Christian, listen.
“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;” Romans 8:29
His going down into death was so that He could come up again as though born anew from the grave, glorified, the firstborn of all who believe.
“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” Jn 10:17-18
It was all in the plan! And you know what? You were in the plan!
“For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.” I Peter 1:20
Listen:
“But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, 12 saying, “I WILL PROCLAIM YOUR NAME TO MY BRETHREN, IN THE MIDST OF THE CONGREGATION I WILL SING YOUR PRAISE.” 13 And again, “I WILL PUT MY TRUST IN HIM.” And again, “BEHOLD, I AND THE CHILDREN WHOM GOD HAS GIVEN ME.” 14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Hebrews 2:9-15
Is this great stuff, or what? Truly, the greatest story ever told!
Who would make this up? Who but God Himself would have designed this plan?
If men had written this story, they might have had God become a Man and then had evil and jealous men attack and kill Him. But they never would have imagined it the way it was planned and the way it came to pass.
God delivered Him over. You nailed Him to a cross using godless hands. God raised Him up out of death’s womb.
Because God is in the business of bringing forth life out of death.
“Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” Acts 2:38-39
That’s you.
