On the day before Easter, precisely no one thought Jesus was the Messiah. Even his closest followers like Peter, who had previously declared Jesus to be Israel’s anointed king, surely now realized they had been wrong. The Messiah was supposed to fight the decisive battle that would overthrow Israel’s pagan oppressors. Jesus had instead suffered a humiliating death at the hands of the Romans. He was, by definition, a failed Messianic pretender. The Jewish court of the Sanhedrin had condemned Jesus as a deceiver, one who was leading Israel astray by claiming to be her king. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate (albeit somewhat reluctantly) had acceded to this verdict. The Roman soldiers had crucified Jesus as one who claimed to be “the king of the Jews.” When Jesus breathed his last, no one would have thought to ascribe redemptive value to his death. Yet shortly afterwards, we know that Jesus’ followers spread throughout the world, declaring the good news that he was indeed Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true lord and king. From a historical point of view, there is really only one way to account for this fact. Jesus’ followers must have been convinced that he had been raised from the dead.
The Jewish and Roman courts had condemned Jesus as guilty and worthy of death. The sentence had been carried out; the lifeless body laid in the tomb. In the language and thought world of Daniel 7, the beasts of a pagan empire had won the victory over Israel’s representative – “the son of man.” But the God of justice, the judge of all the world, had not yet spoken. As Daniel had envisioned, “thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool…The court was seated, and the books were opened.” The unjust verdict of these petty human courts is weighed and found wanting. God issues his verdict: “the son of man” will be vindicated! The life-giving power of the creator God reversed the sentence of death. By raising Jesus from the dead, God declared that Jesus really was and is the Messiah. This is the primary meaning of the resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the most central claim of Christianity. Easter is, by far, our most important celebration. Christmas and Good Friday have no significance apart from Easter. There is something deeply amiss about “the gospel” as understood by most people in the evangelical church, the gospel we laid out in blog #2. (Is Your Gospel Too Small?) The most mystifying thing is that this “gospel” makes absolutely no mention of the resurrection, nor does it make any reference to Jesus as the Messiah. But as we will see shortly, when the earliest Christians went around the world announcing the gospel, their message was always an announcement of Jesus as Messiah, marked out as such by his resurrection. Yes, they did talk about the sacrificial death of Jesus and the forgiveness that comes through his name. But the most consistent content of the gospel was the fact that Jesus the Messiah rose from the dead. I hope that if you’ve been following this blog, this makes sense to you. For in our study, we’ve discerned that the gospel is above all else a kingdom message; a royal proclamation that Jesus has been enthroned as God’s anointed king. The kingdom of God had come! That is exactly the message of the resurrection.
Let’s jump into the book of Acts and look at how the earliest Christians proclaimed the gospel. The first passage we’ll look at is Peter’s great sermon on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was, of course, the occasion when the Holy Spirit came upon the church. So Peter naturally begins by explaining this to the bewildered Jewish onlookers. He then mentions Jesus death, but moves quickly to his main topic: the resurrection. “[Jesus of Nazareth] was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Peter then expounds Psalm 16, King David’s prophecy that God would not abandon the Messiah to the grave, nor let his body see decay.
Peter reaches the penultimate part of his sermon: “God has raised Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” (Acts 2:32-33) When Peter claims that Jesus was “exalted to the right hand of God”, he’s poetically saying that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s “right hand man” so-to-speak. For Peter, the fact that God raised Jesus to life led directly to the conclusion that Jesus really was the Messiah. This connection can be easily confirmed when we arrive at the climax of Peter’s sermon – the point of all he’s been building up to: “Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” (Acts 2:36) This is, then, Peter’s explicit declaration of the gospel: by raising Jesus from the dead, God declared him to be Israel’s anointed king and the world’s true lord.
What follows is highly interesting. The people were deeply affected by Peter’s gospel, and ask, “Brothers, what shall we do?” In other words, now that we know Jesus really is the Messiah, how should we respond? Peter replies, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Please note that we’re now on slightly different ground. We’ve moved from the core content of the gospel and are now thinking about the proper response to the gospel. And the proper response to the gospel is repentance and baptism. Repentance basically means to stop acting according to your own wisdom, and start living according to God’s wisdom. Stop doing bad things and start doing good things. (That might sound childish, but lots of adults need to hear that message.) One important distinction to make about repentance: repentance is not merely feeling sorry for the bad things we’ve done. Repentance means an actual change in your behavior. Baptism is essentially a public declaration of loyalty to Jesus. Baptism and repentance go hand-in-hand. For when a person undergoes the rite of baptism, they are proclaiming their full allegiance to Jesus as Lord. Such a person is committing themselves to turning away from their old patterns of life and instead devoting themselves fully to King Jesus. Therefore, we could say that repentance is the substance of this new allegiance.
According to Peter’s sermon, when people respond properly to the gospel, they are promised two things: forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is pretty straightforward; it means that God wipes your moral slate clean. All the rotten things you’ve done and said no longer count against you. Please note this: in the common gospel understanding, pride of place is given to the forgiveness we receive through the sacrificial death of Jesus. But that’s not quite right. Forgiveness is best understood as a blessing and benefit of the reign of King Jesus. It’s vital that we not skip over the primary content of the gospel (the fact that Jesus has been enthroned as the world’s rightful king) in order to arrive at a discussion of the benefits of his reign. Things get pulled badly out of shape when we jump straight to the blessings of Jesus’ reign such as forgiveness, peace, reconciliation, joy, or assurance. The problem is that you simply can’t arrive at these benefits without properly responding to Jesus as king. All these wonderful things are indeed available to us, but only by giving our complete loyalty to Jesus and by repenting from patterns of thought, speech and behavior which are dishonoring to Jesus. We’ll have much more so say about this topic in a later blog.
The second benefit of the gospel is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the indwelling power which allows Christians to become the sort of people that God created them to be. It puts them on the path to once more becoming God’s image-bearers, which, as we’ve seen, is the key ingredient of God’s plan to restore and redeem the entire creation. I’ve noted above that forgiveness is often mistakenly elevated to the primary content of the gospel. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the opposite; it’s frequently been demoted. In fact, most Protestant Christians are quite eager to make sure that the life transforming power of the Holy Spirit is clearly separated from the gospel. If we’re going to keep our balance, we need to listen to Peter’s words and remember that forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit are key benefits of the gospel, and both are crucial for our salvation. More on that later too.
Let’s now jump back into the book of Acts chapter 3. Peter and John encounter a man “crippled from birth” begging by the temple gate. Peter heals the man “in the name of Jesus the Messiah of Nazareth.” The temple crowds are “filled with wonder and amazement” for they had seen this man day after day. This gives Peter a second chance to preach the gospel. “You handed [Jesus] over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.” (Acts 3:13-15) Peter goes on, “This is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer.” (Acts 3:18) Again, the point here is that it took the mighty power of the resurrection to prove that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. No one would walk around proclaiming that a decomposing body had conquered sin and death.
Peter next calls the crowd to respond to the gospel announcement of Jesus as Messiah. “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord”. (Acts 3: 19) We’ve noted from the Pentecost sermon both these elements before. Repentance, the proper response to the gospel, and forgiveness, one of the chief benefits of the gospel. The tight correlation here between repentance and forgiveness is repeated over and over throughout the book of Acts, and the Bible in general. Forgiveness is predicated on a change in thought and behavior.
Peter then says, “times of refreshing may come from the Lord”. What in the world does he mean by that? Well, I think he means several things all compressed into this delightfully unusual phrase. First, there is certainly refreshment that comes from forgiveness itself. Many Christians can testify to the tremendous grace that comes from being released from the shame of their sin. Second, Peter certainly intends a reference to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives us fresh power to live in a way that is pleasing to God. Third, we should not neglect to see “times of refreshing” as the covenant blessing that we’ve studied earlier. God pronounced his blessing upon humanity at creation. God again promised his blessing upon Abraham and his descendants – the people of Israel. Finally, God promised that his blessing would flow through Abraham and his family out to all the nations. We know this last theme is in the forefront of Peter’s mind because he concludes this sermon with a spectacular reference to Abraham: “You are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” (Acts 3:25-26)
Again, the headline here is that the primary content of the gospel is quite simply that Jesus is the Messiah. And the resurrection is an absolutely essential component of the gospel because it affirms this fact. But it’s also important to pay very close attention to Peter’s last words. For Peter, the gospel blessing clearly involves “turning each of you from your wicked ways.” This description goes well beyond simply the forgiveness of sins which is the sole point of most gospel presentations. In order for people to turn away from their wicked ways, they must by necessity undergo a radical change in thought, speech and behavior. It’s clear that Peter believed this change could only come about through the power of the Holy Spirit. So, forgiveness of our sins is certainly a key gospel blessing. But let’s not forget that the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit is an equally important part of the gospel. Repentance is just as much a part of the gospel as forgiveness.
