‘Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.’ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.’ With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Acts 2:36-41 NIVUK
Quite a few years ago, when I returned from being a missionary in Romania, I found myself doing something for which I needed to repent.
I had been a preacher in Romania. I had preached in churches across the country. Then I came home.
And suddenly I wasn’t. Instead, I was a projectionist: projecting song words, announcements and sermon notes into screens in church.
I think you can imagine how I reacted to that.
On the outside, I was doing the best I could to be ‘invisible’ and not do anything silly or out of time so the projection went well.
On the inside, however, my reactions were not good. My inner voice constantly critiqued the preachers in the pulpit instead of me:
‘Come on! I could do better than this! His delivery is so poor! Where is his structure? Where are his points? What is he trying to say?’
‘Why aren’t I up there instead of him?’
I was in the wrong. Completely.
I should have been in church to hear the voice of God. Instead, I was making myself feel superior by criticising the preacher.
That can never be right.
The message of repentance is often criticised today, but those who criticise are doing what I did: standing in judgement on the messenger and not seeking to hear the voice of God.
It’s because of this that they are not saved.
These verses come during the most dramatic moment in the life of the Early Church:
Its birth.
And what a birth it is!
These days in America, families go to incredible lengths to announce the gender of their yet-to-be-born child. One explosive gender reveal sparked a forest fire that burned 23,000 acres of forest in San Bernadino, California.
Yet even these crazy displays of wanton attention-seeking cannot close to the special effects God sent at Pentecost. Acts 2:1-13 is something any film producer would love to recreate.
This is followed up by an incredible sermon from a man who, just fifty days or so previously, had denied his Lord. Now this same man is standing outside the upper room, preaching the message of repentance and the Gospel to a quizzical, but still hostile, crowd!
What a turnaround!
That itself tells us a lot about the power of God to utterly change, transform and convert a repentant soul.
But what happened there tells us so much more.
Firstly, let’s look at what they heard.
They heard one of the most remarkable sermons in Biblical history – in Acts 2:14-36. Peter’s communication strategy here is absolutely brilliant – like every good preacher should do nowadays. He does three things very, very well:
· He understands his audience. He senses their confusion and struggles with what has happened and uses that as his ‘way in’.
· He takes then on a journey. He leads them through verse after verse to explain and justify what was happening, why it was happening and who Jesus was.
· He brings them to his destination. He finishes his sermon with a huge conclusion leaving them in no doubt about his message.
But what was that message?
It’s so simple: God sent Jesus to be their Messiah, they had killed Him, God had raised Him up.
In essence, this is the Gospel.
But let’s expand a little on those three elements.
Verse 22 tells us that Jesus was a man approved or recommended or accredited by God, and that they should have seen this in the miracles He had performed. This was a pilgrim crowd. Most of them would have come from Jerusalem, Judaea or Galilee. They would have known about Jesus’ miracles. They quite possibly would have seen them for themselves.
In other words, they should have realised and known who Jesus was.
Verse 23 tells us that they had killed Him.
Now, some sensitive souls might accuse of anti-Semitism here. After all, the audience of this sermon were largely Jews. But Peter is not accusing Jews in general of killing Jesus. That would be nonsensical. He himself was a Jew.
No, he is accusing these particular Jews of being responsible for it, because fifty-two days earlier, they had been responsible. That was, and is, an indisputable historical fact.
Accusing someone of being responsible for the death of another is a pretty big deal. The Jewish leaders did not react at all well to this (Acts 5:28). Even more so if the One they killed was the Messiah they had sought after for centuries.
But do you know what? Tough. When it’s the truth, it’s the truth.
But again, every Jew is not guilty of murdering Jesus, in just the same way that not every white person is guilty of slavery, and not every Western man is a pervert, and not every Roma person is a thief. To believe so is nothing short of racism – purely and simply.
However, there is a way in which not just every Jew but every human being is guilty of Jesus Christ’s death. And again, the facts are indisputable. And no less uncomfortable:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Romans 5:6 NIVUK
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 NIVUK
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:3 NIVUK
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
1 Peter 3:18 NIVUK
You see, every Christian knows that Jesus Christ died for them. However, He died because we were unrighteous, we were sinners, we were ungodly. If we had been righteous, holy and godly, Jesus Christ would not have needed to die for us. So in a very real way, we are as responsible for His death as the Roman soldiers who hammered those nails into His hands and His feet. And the decisions we make that lead us far from His will are as guilt-causing as the decision to mock Him, strip Him and beat Him.
No, every Jew is not responsible for His death, but every human being is.
So the accusation in verse 23 is just as true of us as it was of the Jews of Peter’s day. And just as painful. And just as controversial.
But of course, Jesus didn’t stay dead. As Peter explains in verse 24, God raised Him from the dead. Jesus was victorious over the grave. Death no longer holds any fear for us.
So the essence of the Gospel message Peter preached is so simple: Jesus is the Messiah, our sin killed Him, God raised Him from the dead.
But more than that: God raised Him up to His right hand (Acts 2:33). And this proves irrefutably that Jesus is the Messiah.
So let’s move on from what they heard to how they felt.
We should think about this carefully. Peter has accused these Jewish people of having waited centuries for their Messiah, killing Him and then looking on as He is raised to God’s right hand. There are fewer ways of missing the mark more striking than this.
He is also preaching at a time when Jerusalem would have been packed with pilgrims from across the Jewish world. Many of them would have known about Jesus and may even have been there fifty days earlier when He was crucified. The signs, the wonders and the news about the Resurrection would have spread like wildfire. That could be why Peter spends so little time trying to argue that they are true. Why would he if they were already known?
There is no direct translation of the Greek word used to describe their reactions. There are also few English words that would do it justice. We are not looking here at a crowd of people who feel a little apologetic. Not even close. Neither are we talking about people whose consciences were giving them a bad time. This is way more than that.
This word talks of people whose minds are pained, who are stunned and shocked. It is an altogether violent word. This message has affected them profoundly. It’s as if the realisation has spread over them that their sin is grievous and there is no way they can make up for it.
This really, really hurts, and is very serious.
This is something we must realise. Conversion doesn’t happen just because someone feels sorry for what they have done. It happens because they are horrified at the seriousness of their sin and realise that there is nothing they could do that could ever make amends for it.
That is true and heartfelt repentance. That is what will keep us from sin. Not just regret, but deep, deep pain at the consequences of our sin for Someone we love.
So we see here what they have heard and how they felt about it, but we also see what they should do:
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.’ With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’
Acts 2:37-40 NIVUK
They should do three things:
· They should repent. This is fundamental. There is no Christianity without repentance. They had committed an awful sin. A simple apology would never cut it. That would be like stabbing someone in the back several times and then offering them a Band Aid as they bled out. Much more than being sorry was required. They had to repent. There is no way back without it.
· They should be baptised. The act of baptism was adapted from Jewish cleansing rituals. It was not a ‘spiritual bath’. It was not a ritual that washed your sins away. It was instead an outward symbol of an inward transaction. When they had been repented, they had already been made clean. Their baptism simply symbolised publicly what had already happened privately: how their old life had been buried and their new life had begin.
· They should do this ‘in Jesus Name’. That is, they should declare themselves publicly to be His followers. Repenting was not enough. The rite of baptism was not enough. They had to pledge their loyalty, and their lives, to Jesus.
And that was not an easy thing to do for them. Not one bit. Yes, the number of people who converted was very high, but in no way was this a fashionable or popular thing to do. The Jewish leaders were very hostile to this new movement. The Romans were indifferent at the time, but in turn would let loose a vicious persecution that would hound them to the ends of the known earth. It took a lot of bravery to pledge themselves to Jesus and be baptised.
And yet this was what they were being asked to do.
Right now, in the West, we are facing a hugely charged atmosphere. Caricatures of Evangelical Christianity are everywhere. Ill-intentioned people are using them to create a context where persecution of God’s people will become acceptable.
The reality is, though, that the only way to deal with our sins and shortcomings, and the only way to deal with our existential despair and angst, is to repent and return to God. They can cancel it. They can ban it. They can even outlaw it. But they cannot deny it. Because it is truer that gravity.
There is only one way to be restored to God, and that is through repentance to faith, of which baptism is the outward sign.
There is no other way.
Having seen what they heard, how they felt and what should do, we go on lastly to see what they did:
Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Acts 2:41 NIVUK
This was quite an astonishing return from one sermon. Any preacher would be more than delighted with this. There may have been a significantly larger audience listening. Jerusalem would have been packed with pilgrims at this time. But still, the church had grown very fast very quickly.
And why?
Because these people believed the essence of the Gospel – that Christ died for their sins at their hands, that He was raised by God from the dead and that He is now at the Father’s right hand in Heaven.
The Gospel message isn’t difficult to understand. It doesn’t need us to complicate it when it’s preached. And when it is preached, and preached in its purest, undiluted form, in the power of the Holy Spirit, then lives are transformed forever.
Pentecost is one of the most misunderstood events in Biblical history. Yes, it is an awesome revival. There is no doubt about that. But its purpose was not so that Christians would actively seek to replicate the experience over and over again. This was supposed to be a one-off, never to be repeated. To try to replicate it is to put ourselves in the place of Peter, who was so taken up in the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration that he wanted to build shelters for Jesus, Elijah and Moses to make it last longer (Matthew 17:4; Mark 9:5; Luke 9:33).
But that was never the purpose of the Transfiguration and it was never the purpose of Pentecost either. Just as the purpose of the Transfiguration was so that Peter, James and John would see who Jesus was and listen to Him (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35), so Pentecost had a purpose. Through all that happened during this heady moment in time, we can see what this purpose is:
The preaching of the Gospel.
The very Gospel that people nowadays wish would fall silent. The Gospel that says we all share culpability in Christ’s death, because without our sin as a race, the crucifixion would not have been necessary. But also that wonderful truth that Jesus was risen from the dead and has given us the opportunity to be saved through repentance and faith in Him.
Take that out of Christianity and you really have nothing left.
Leave it in and you really have a challenge: the challenge to decide whether it is true or false; whether you believe it or not.
My prayer is that, like those three thousand, you will repent and believe.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I thank You for this glorious Gospel message. I know I share my part in the crucifixion because You died for my sin too. I repent now of my sin and choose to believe in You. Come into my life, Lord Jesus, and help Me to live for You. Amen.
Questions
1. What was the purpose of Pentecost? How do we know this?
2. What message did these people hear? Why was this quite a controversial message?
3. How did they react to this message? How do you react?
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