The first Christian sermon Part 3

In this first Christian sermon, we see that preaching is God’s way of advancing His Kingdom. This sermon was Christ-centered, including as it did the unpacking of scripture, and with a clear, urgent call for repentance. The sermon was a bold one but with its tender moments like in verse 29, where he addresses his audience as “brothers.” We see this kind of preaching described in 2 Tim 4:1-4 “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” In all the preaching in Acts the intention is never to please but only to proclaim the gospel faithfully.

Knowing that Jesus rose from the dead inspires confidence in Him. It then inspires us to worship Him, knowing that we worship a risen Christ. Our confidence in Christ also inspires confidence in our own resurrection. Additionally, it inspires confidence in the power that aids our sanctification; we know that we will one day complete this path of sanctification and be given a glorified body just like the one Jesus now has.

In fact, if we are in Christ, then everything that is said of Christ’s resurrection can be applied to us. After all, it is only in the resurrection that our lives find a perfect parallel with His. We do not see that parallel between His physical death and ours; His death was under God’s wrath, whereas for us it will be into the Lord’s warm embrace with no sting. Neither do we see it in His ascension. But the resurrection is something that will happen to us as it happened to Him, complete with the glorification of the flesh and being free from bondage and mortality. The resurrection of Christ is the first fruits of a whole harvest, which includes us.

NATURE AND NECESSITY OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION (Acts 2:24)
NATURE: God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death. The idea behind “loosing” is that of freeing from bondage, prison, mortality, and frailty. The word “pangs” is associated with the pain of childbirth. So we see an interesting mixture of the metaphors of freedom from bondage and that of giving birth to new life.
Every moment we are careful to protect our body, because it is weak, frail, and mortal. Despite our best efforts, one day, our bodies will succumb and be buried in the ground. But even right now there is one Human Body that is free from all that frailty and mortality—the flesh of Christ Jesus. Col 1:18 also describes the resurrection as a birth: “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” He is the beginning of a family of births in the glorious resurrection of the dead. This is so unlike the world’s gospel, which proclaims that all we have is this life, which we are to live as selfishly as we can, because once it is gone there is nothing else. The Christian gospel is completely different, knowing as we do that this life is doomed and we are not to put our hope in it, for there is another one to come.
NECESSITY: The resurrection not only happened, but it could not possibly have not happened. For one, Jesus was God Incarnate. The flesh that was unified with God Himself could not just go into the grave and into nothingness. Secondly, God’s word could not fail. I Cor 15:4 states “that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” Indeed, His resurrection is foretold in scripture in Psalm 16, which Peter quotes in his sermon. If it is true that Christ was raised because God had said so, then it is equally true of us. We have been promised that we will be raised to life if we are in Christ. For instance 1 Thess 4:16 says, “And the dead in Christ will rise first.” The world’s gospel says that death is certain with no hope of resurrection. In stark contrast, as believers we know that it is more certain that we will be raised with a glorified body than it is that we will die (because the generation who are on earth when Christ returns will not die, but will be given their glorified body in a twinkling of the eye). Imagine the contentment we would have if we believed this well.

CONFIDENCE IN HIS RESURRECTION (Acts 2:25-32)
Peter quotes Psalm 16, in which people assumed that David wrote about himself and his confidence in God in the face of his own suffering. But Peter in his sermon reasons that this Psalm is not exclusively about David but is about Christ. The Psalm speaks of not being abandoned in the grave, and of the body not seeing corruption. But David had died 1000 years earlier and his body HAD seen corruption. David was speaking about Christ, when he wrote about the holy one not seeing decay. David knew he was not holy (Ps 51:5). The holy One was Jesus. The demon we read about in Mark 1:24 knew this and cried out, “I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” Even the disciples knew this to be true. (John 6:68-69). When David spoke in the first person, saying, “For you will not abandon MY soul to Hades,” he was speaking as a representative of the lineage of the Christ who would come and sit on His throne—the throne of which he, David, was currently a steward. We can see how Solomon partially fulfilled some of this prophecy (2 Samuel 7) but it was fully fulfilled by the Lord Jesus.
We know from the Gethsemane account that Christ was not looking forward to His dying, but in this Psalm, we see Christ’s heart. “therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.” Such was His attitude as He approached death. If we stop believing in the world’s gospel and believe in the gospel of Christ, this can be our attitude too. Since Christ has been raised, we will also be raised. So we can say with Paul in 2 Cor 4:16 “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” We can sing this Psalm as David sang, because this Psalm includes us, if indeed Christ has included us. For, as surely as it happened to Him it will happen to us if we are in Him.

Next week we will look at the Ascension to glory.