Jesus is the Lord of Glory

                          

An eminent preacher once said to the great English actor Macready: "I wish you would explain to me something." "Well, what is it? I don't know that I can explain anything to a preacher." The preacher said "what is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth and I am not getting any crowd at all." Macready's answer was this: "This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction." 

In Acts 3 we read about Apostle Peter’s second sermon. Acts 3:11-12 says “while the man held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”

Historically the Israelites knew that miracles were done by power and holiness. Nicodemus was a leader of the Jews (John 3:1); he was a member of the Sanhedrin (John 7:50-51) the ruling body of the Jews. He told Jesus “Rabbi...  no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:1-2). In John 9 Jesus healed a man born blind. The Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? The man replied, “he is a prophet”(v.17)...we know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing”(John 9:28-33).

The listeners of Peter’s sermon believed that Jesus was a blasphemer and a sinner. But just as their leader Nicodemus had said, they believed that no one could perform the signs Jesus, and now his disciple Peter, were doing if God were not with them. Jesus had performed many miracles even in His last week of life (Mt 21:14). He was gone and yet a similar miracle had just taken place. What could this mean?

The crowd's dilemma was that while they acknowledged God alone as having the power to do miracles, they had denied that Jesus was God and that His followers had divine power granted by God. So they were left with no explanation for what they had just seen.  Peter said to them “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”

Peter identified himself with his listeners; he called them “fellow Israelites”. He reminded them that he was just one of them; they had a common history and similar future expectations. Their God was his God and he had expected a messiah just like them. What was happening before their eyes was what the prophets had predicted. The Messiah they were waiting for had come and gone.

Peter did not want their amazement to stop with this miracle; he directed their attention to the One who had performed the miracle. He said “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus".Peter draws a straight line from the God of Israel in the Old Testament to the healing that has now taken place. The healing was their God in action in their generation.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was a title they were all familiar with. At the burning bush encounter God addressed Moses declaring "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”( Exodus 3:6). To the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, Jesus said “have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?”(Matt. 22:31-32).

Peter addressed them as his brethren though they had been guilty of an enormous crime. The expression shows that he was not disposed to exalt himself as being more holy than them. This is a remarkable instance of tenderness in appealing to sinners. It would have been easy to reproach them but it was not the way to reach the heart. The aim was to bring them to repentance and this was to be done by tenderness, kindness and love.

Peter referred to Jesus as God’s servant. In the Old Testament , Messiah was said to be a servant. A Jew would have immediately thought of prophet Isaiah’s servant songs. The Servant Songs are four passages in the Book of Isaiah that describe a righteous servant of God. The songs are Isaiah 42:1–4, 49:1–6, 50:4–9, and 52:13–53:12. Song one is quoted by Matthew in his Gospel (Matt.12:18-21).     

Jesus was the suffering servant prophet Isaiah had prophesied about. His suffering was over and he was glorified by God. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 says “See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted... he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him ... He was despised and rejected by mankind.

We considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted…He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter... he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  Yet who of his generation protested? He was cut off from the land of the living. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death”.

Jesus was like a tender plant; he dwelt among the poor and the insignificant. He grew up in Galilee which in respect to the spiritual, political and standard of living was indeed dry ground. During his trial he never opened his mouth to defend Himself (Mark 15:2-5). He died in the company of the wicked (Luke 23:32-33).He was buried in the tomb of the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea (Matt 27:57-60).      

The glorification Peter was talking about was the resurrection and the exaltation at God's right hand. Mark 16:19 says “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God”. Calvary may have been man’s last word, but the empty tomb was God’s last word. God glorified His Son, 1 Corinthian 2:8 and  James 2:1 refer to Jesus as “the Lord of glory”.

In Acts 3:13-15 Peter says “You handed him 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). Luke records Pilate's three judgments of Jesus as not guilty and his desire to release Him (Luke 23:4, 14-16, 22).

Pilate was a pagan, Gentile ruler who did not have the understanding of God's activity that the Jews had. Yet he was convinced of Jesus’ innocence. He tried to release Jesus but the Jews would not let him. Peter repeats the word “disowned” twice in verse 13 and 14 so it’ll be indelible. They had a choice to get him released but they disowned the Holy and Righteous One.

They labelled Jesus a sinner and crucified him like a criminal. One day, Jesus went to a synagogue and there was a man possessed by a demon. He cried out at the top of his voice, “go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?...I know who you are the Holy One of God!”(Luke 4:31-34). The demons recognized Jesus as “the Holy One of God” yet even the chief priests who knew the Scriptures could not.

They killed the author of life. To every Jew, only God was the author of life.  The psalmist says, “O God…. with you is the fountain of life”( Ps. 36:7, 9). Peter referred to Jesus as “the author of life”. Jesus is the author (Col 1:16) and the Sustainer of Life (Heb 1:3).He is the life (John 14:6), the Word of Life (1 John 1:1), the Bread of Life (John 6:48) and the resurrection (John 11:25). He gives eternal life (John 10:28); Eternal life is in him (1John 5:11). Is it possible for the “created” to destroy the “creator”?

They disowned the Holy One and asked for a murderer. They killed the author of Life and set free a destroyer of life. What a strange confusion .Today, our society exalts the corrupt, pervert, criminals, and the unholy who go under different titles. We treat them like they are heroes. And, all the while we make a joke of Jesus. We live in a twisted world and have twisted minds. We exalt the evil ones and debase the holy ones.

Jesus is God and the Jews had in effect executed their God. Peter says “you killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this”. They killed the author of life but that did not destroy God’s plan, they fulfilled it. Psalm 16:10, a passage talking about Messiah’s resurrection says you will not “allow Your Holy One to see corruption”. Acts 2:24 says “God raised him from the dead...because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him”.

Peter drops the bricks of condemnation over their heads and then he says, “Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer (Acts 3: 17-18). He didn’t say, “Yet now, you filthy disgusting wretches.” He still connected to them as fellow Israelites.

If Peter's charges against his hearers were harsh (vv. 13-15), his concession that they acted "in ignorance" was tender. Peter does not stop with a hard, cold, indifferent kind of condemnation and damnation message. He becomes soft and tender in verse 17. They acted in ignorance; they didn’t know he was their Messiah. 1 Corinthians 2:8 says “None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”.

In Peter’s audience, there were varying levels of ignorance when it came to the death of Jesus. Some had attributed Jesus’ works to Satan. Other Jewish leaders, like Paul (and only God knew their hearts) were zealous for their Jewish system, but they were ignorant of Jesus’ true identity. Others were wrongly swayed by their leaders. But, while the level of spiritual ignorance may lessen the level of guilt, ignorance is no excuse when it comes to the final judgment.