Acts 3

Acts 3:1-26

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 3:1-26 Acts 3:1-10 We have dealt with the first impression produced by the Church, and have considered the first sermon preached in the light and power of the Holy Spirit. We now commence the section dealing with the first opposition (Acts 3:1-26; Acts 4:1-31). The cause of this opposition was that of a miracle wrought, the preaching of the resurrection which resulted, and the consequent hatred of the Sadducees, who were rationalists in religion. The effect of the opposition was that Peter bore a new testimony, the priests indulged in a new threatening, and the Church received a new filling of power.

Our present meditation is concerned with the miracle. This is the first miracle recorded in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. As time passed on there was a gradual decrease in physical miracles, and a corresponding increase in spiritual wonders. Our Lord never set any great value upon the physical miracles He wrought, as arguments or credentials, either for His Divinity or His mission. He distinctly said to His own disciples, “Believe Me … or else believe Me for the very works’ sake.” His supreme evidence was Himself. His supreme argument was Himself.

But in the midst of that unbelieving and superstitious and materialistic age, it was necessary that there should be material manifestations of power to arrest the attention. In proportion as the Church emerged into all her spiritual glory, she ceased to see the material miracles which were necessary in the earthly ministry of Christ. They were rendered unnecessary in view of the wider and more spacious work of spiritual testimony and power. In that fact is revealed the meaning of Christ’s word to His disciples, “Greater works than these shall ye do; because I go unto the Father.” By that word He did not mean that they would work more wonderful miracles in the material realm, for they did not do so. He meant rather that the miracle wrought in the material is never so marvellous as the miracle wrought in the spiritual realm. When He passed to the Father they were to work greater works-the wonders in the spiritual realm.

Yet the story of this miracle is very interesting, and there is no doubt that it is recorded here because it is necessary to the elucidation of what followed. The preaching which stirred up opposition was the result of this miracle. The opposition which resulted in further preaching and greater boldness, grew immediately out of this miracle. We will pass over the story three times; first to notice the simple facts; secondly, to notice the supreme facts; and finally, to suggest the symbolized facts.

The simple facts may be dismissed briefly. This is the story of a lame man healed. Luke declares that this man was a cripple from birth. That in itself is suggestive. Observe carefully the particular words made use of in the story of his healing: “Immediately his feet and his ankle-bones received strength. And leaping up, he stood, and began to walk.” Perhaps only medical men can fully appreciate the meaning of these words; they are the peculiar, technical words of a medical man.

The word translated feet, is only used by Luke, and occurs nowhere else. It indicates his discrimination between different parts of the human foot. This particular word refers to the base, or heel. The phrase ankle-bones is again a medical phrase, to be found nowhere else. The word “leaping up” describes the coming suddenly into socket of something that was out of place, the articulation of a joint. This then is a very careful medical description of what happened in connection with this man.

This then is the simple story. A man crippled, not as the result of accident, not as the result of sin in his own life, but from birth, suffering from congenital disease, was suddenly made to stand, to walk; in the exuberance of a new-found strength he suddenly leapt within the precincts of the Temple.

How was this wrought? At the word of Peter and John. How great was the gap between the second and third chapters of this book we cannot tell. Chapter two ends with the statement of the fact that the Lord added to the company of believers, by adding to Himself, day by day, those that were being saved. That statement ended the chapter of enthusiasm, the chapter of ecstasy, the chapter of a flaming vision, the chapter of song and praise and proclamation, and of crowds swept into relationship with Jesus Christ. Chapter three begins with the statement that two men, Peter and John, were going to the Temple.

They were “going up… at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.” There were three hours in the day, separate hours, at which people gathered to the Temple, and the evening hour was the hour of sacrifice, the ninth hour. The hour of prayer was half an hour after the sacrifice had been offered.

In it the incense offering was ascending and men prayed. Peter and John went to the Temple, not at the hour of sacrifice, but at the hour of prayer which followed sacrifice. As we look at these two men, going up to the Temple, no tongue of fire was resting upon their heads; there was nothing to attract attention; they were walking in the commonplace; the ecstasy of the day of Pentecost had passed. They were two men who, in the earlier years of their life, had known each other, and had been friends; who yet had probably been perpetual irritants to each other. Peter was the practical man. John was the poet. Peter was a doer of deeds. John was a dreamer of dreams.

The whole fact of their difference flames out in the last picture we have of them before the day of Pentecost. Peter, standing on the shores of the lake, after Jesus had restored him, said, “Lord, and what shall this man do?” It was the question of his perplexity about John. Peter’s prescription for all trouble was doing. He had little patience with dreaming. Yet mark the sacred and beautiful significance of the fact that beyond the Cross and Resurrection, and after Pentecost, Peter the doer and John the dreamer went into close fellowship. They had found that they were not antagonistic but complementary to each other. At the word of Peter, spoken in the comradeship of the silence of the dreamer, this man, lame from birth, walked, leapt, and praised God.

The word was spoken in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth; but it was spoken by a man who was in possession of all that the name indicated. “Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” This was no apology. Peter meant rather to boast in his Lord. True he had neither silver nor gold, but he had something far better, and in the name of Jesus of Nazareth he pronounced his commanding and powerful word.

The simple facts then are that a cripple whose life was maintained by the alms of those who passed to the Temple-a man who, had he lived in this day, would have been designated a professional beggar-was suddenly lifted, and set upon his feet, and made into an ardent worshipper in the spiritual realm, by the word of two men who used the name of Jesus.

Let us then consider the supreme facts revealed. The first grows entirely out of our clear vision of the simple facts already referred to. The supreme fact is that of the continuity of the activity of the Christ. He was still at work, and doing exactly what He had done in the days of His flesh. We cannot read this story of the healing of the man, a cripple from birth, without being reminded of the story of the life of our Lord, Who when passing through the Bethesda porches, found a man who for thirty and eight years had been in the grip of an infirmity, and healed him. The healing of that man in the Bethesda porches, humanly speaking, cost Jesus His life.

When He had healed him He told him to carry his bed, and the rulers criticized him for carrying his bed on the Sabbath day. When they found Jesus they charged Him with Sabbath breaking.

Jesus answered them, “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.” In effect He said to these men who charged Him with breaking Sabbath; I have no Sabbath, for God has no Sabbath, in the presence of human suffering! I have worked on the Sabbath Day to give this man the chance of Sabbath, such as he has never had! “For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only brake the Sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God”; and they never ceased their hatred; and their planning and plotting never ended until they had killed Him. Humanly speaking the healing of that man cost Him His life. Divinely speaking also it cost Him His life. He had healed that sinning man by the right of atonement, not then made visible to human sight, but existing in the nature of God, to be wrought out into visibility by the very Cross, which resulted from what He had done. Now said Peter, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” In the name of the One Who wrought with God to set right human limitation by dealing with human sin. So, as we see this man responding, we see the Christ continuing His work.

But if in this miracle we see the continuity of the activity of the Christ, we see also the commencement of activity through His Body, which is the Church. Peter and John were no longer isolated disciples. They were “members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones,” to use the mystic language of the New Testament writer. Peter and John were living members of the living Christ, and therefore the instruments of His will and of His power. Christ healed through these two men. Peter fastened his eyes upon this man.

Peter spoke directly to this man. “Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee.” Then he took him by the hand, and the Greek word signifies a seizing by the hand, a grip that lifted. There is not the slightest evidence in the story of any faith on the part of the man. Nearly all the commentators say that he must have exercised his faith in order to be healed, but it is not stated in the story. His healing was a direct act of the Christ, through these men. Peter looked, and through the eyes of Peter there flashed the love of the Christ. Then Peter spoke, and it was the very language of Jesus.

He also was a Man of poverty so far as this world’s goods were concerned, and now through two members of His Body He was able to say, “Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee.” Through that touch, that lifting with a strong hand, Christ was making contact with human need, through the members of His Body.

The third supreme fact then was that of the communication of life, in order to the correction of disability. What was the need so. far as the man was concerned? Leaping instead of lameness; giving praise instead of asking alms. This communication of life, equal to the accomplishment of both the wonders, was wrought by the living Christ, through the members of His Body.

We turn now to the last line of our consideration. Here as always, the miracle has a spiritual significance. He Who in the days of His flesh said, “I am the Truth,” by that declaration suggested the unification of all life in His own Person. Jesus never divided as we do, between the sacred and the secular; and the very laws by which Pie operated in the physical realm, were those by which He wrought in the spiritual. There was not a miracle He wrought but has its spiritual significance as well as its material demonstration; and what is true of the Master was true here also. The day of Pentecost as a day, as an event, as an initiation, was over.

The tongues of fire had passed out of sight. The sound of the mighty rushing wind was no more. The ecstatic, enthusiastic songs were silenced. This is the first picture of the Church as she is to be, as the result of the tongue of fire and the mighty rushing wind, and the enthusiasm. Pentecost as a flaming fire was never intended to be the continuous and normal condition of the Christian Church. The conditions after Pentecost are symbolized in these chapters of the Acts of the Apostles.

The normal for the Church of God is in the commonplaces, and among the cripples. The places of inspiration and vision are given, in order that we may translate them into virtue and victory, as we go to the world in its need.

What then are the symbolized facts? First that the Church’s opportunity is lame humanity, lame from its birth. It is waste of time to discuss how humanity came to be lame; it is lame, and that is the trouble. The Church’s opportunity is not to build schools and erect forums where we shall discuss how men were born lame. The disciples of old came to Jesus with a question, a wonderfully tempting metaphysical and psychological question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?” He dismissed their question: “Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him we must work the works of Him that sent Me.” Lame humanity is the Church’s opportunity. This is indeed a pathetic story and picture; lame humanity at the Beautiful Gate, but outside!

There at the gate, with all the mountains’ far-flung splendours encircling the city; there, where the steps went up to the Temple, he lay; but outside. That is humanity’s position, in the midst of beauty, but not of it; in the realm of things lovely and of good report, but excluded. That is the position of humanity everywhere; it sighs and sobs and is in agony at the Beautiful Gate; but it cannot get in. There is the Church’s opportunity.

What was this man doing? He was not seeking for strength to walk, but for alms. Alms are the means by which men live, in spite of disability, and without work. That is what humanity is doing everywhere. Work is never the result of sin. The result of sin is that man is trying to live on alms without work! Men are asking alms everywhere; they are paupers, at the Beautiful Gate; and that is the Church’s opportunity.

Secondly the Church’s gift is here revealed. “Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee.” What hast thou then, O Peter, to give to humanity, lame at the Beautiful Gate, excluded, begging? That which cancels disability, that which communicates ability; and ultimately, that which creates worship. First that which cancels disability. Said Peter to this man, I have nothing to give you that will help you to maintain your life while you are a cripple; but I have something to cure the crippled condition; and make you able to earn your own living. That is Christianity. Christianity has not come into the presence of the world’s wounds and woes and agony to give out doles in order to help it to bear its limitation.

Christianity comes to give men life, and put them on their feet, and so enable them to do without alms. Christianity faces a man with a gift that cancels his disability. Christianity takes hold of a man whose ankles are out of joint, and makes them articulate. That man knew more about ankles than any man in Jerusalem, for he had lain on the steps, and had seen all the people coming up to the Temple for years. A man may know much about ankles, and never know how to walk. Christianity does not come to teach a man philosophy.

It comes to give him life, to give him that which cancels his disability, and to communicate ability, and so to create worship.

If that is the Church’s gift, then what is the Church’s method? She must speak and work in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the risen Christ. We are on the other side of the story of the Cross and the Resurrection. This word was spoken in His name; but it was spoken by a man who shared His very nature. If we go to lame humanity at the Beautiful Gate in our own name, or in any other name, we may even give them some alms that will help them to bear their disability, but we shall never set them on their feet. It is in His name that the Church must go.

Again, Peter and John went in cooperation. “Look on us,” said they, as they steadfastly looked at him. Moreover there was contact. Peter took him by the hand and lifted him. “He took him by the right hand, and raised him up.” That is the final thing in the Church’s method. We must come to the man that lies at the Beautiful Gate begging alms, outside; and take him by the hand. There must be personal, immediate, direct contact. The Church standing afar off, and singing a song which she hopes will reach the dweller in the valley does but mock the need of the dweller in the valley. The Church that comes down to the side of the wounded, weary, woebegone world, and holds out the right hand, and lifts, is the Church through which the Christ is doing His own work, through which the Christ will win His ultimate victory.

Acts 3:11-26 This paragraph contains the story of how Peter explained to the crowds the meaning of the things that had happened. The scene is peculiarly Hebrew. The place was the Temple, in Solomon’s porch. The people were almost undoubtedly permanent residents in Jerusalem, a different crowd from that which had surrounded the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was a Jewish feast, and men gathered in the city from all parts. That feast was now over, the multitudes had departed to their own homes; and the company of people who ran into Solomon’s porch, gazing with wonder at the healed man, was undoubtedly a company almost exclusively of Hebrews, that is of Israelites.

This address of Peter was peculiarly Hebrew. He referred to God as “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob”; he declared that “God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets”; and toward the end of the address he spoke of the covenant which God made with “‘Your father Abraham.”

The references to Jesus were almost all borrowed from Old Testament Scripture: “The Servant of God” (not as rendered in the Authorized Version, “the Son,” but as it is accurately translated throughout this passage in the Revision, “The Servant of God”); a word which took them naturally back to the great prophecy of Isaiah: “The Holy and the Righteous One,” being two descriptions of the Old Testament, each of them having Messianic value; and finally “the Christ” which was but the Greek form of the Hebrew word Messiah, indicating the great hope of the people.

The terms in which he spoke of the hopes which Jesus had created were equally suggestive. That your sins may be blotted out,” was an immediate quotation from the great psalm of penitence; “seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” gathered up and expressed the perpetual note of hopefulness that had sung itself out in the psalms and prophecies of the ancient covenant; and when he spoke of the teaching, he referred to the fulfillment in the Person of Jesus, of the promise of Moses, that another prophet should be raised up.

The opening and closing words of the address indicate the fact that the message was peculiarly one to the Israelitish nation. He said, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this man.” The apostle meant to say that men, not of Israel, might have marvelled with greater show of reason. When we come to the close of the address, notice very carefully these words, “Unto you first God having raised up His Servant.” The thought most evidently is that he had been expressing himself throughout the whole of this explanation of the miracle, peculiarly and directly to the men of Israel.

It is necessary to emphasize this in order that we may understand this message. Whatever spiritual principles are taught, the first application was to the men of Israel. Let us first consider in broad outline the message to Israel, and secondly the teaching for ourselves, which may be deduced therefrom.

This message from the apostle to Israel falls into three parts. Beginning at the eleventh verse we have the account of the running of the people into Solomon’s porch, and the taking hold of Peter and John by this man. It is a graphic picture. It seems as though the healed man was loath to let these men go, who had been the instruments of his healing and blessing. As he laid hold of them, and the people gathered together, Peter seized the opportunity for the correction of the attitude of the people who had gathered together: “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this man? or why fasten ye your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk?” He thus asked them two questions which constituted almost a rebuke, and certainly a correction of their attitude. Then immediately, having rebuked their misapprehension of what they had seen, he began his explanation. His instruction begins at the thirteenth verse (Acts 3:13-16) and ends with the sixteenth. “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob”-commencing upon ground that was perfectly familiar to these people, taking them back to the central fact of their religion he stated two historical facts leading up, so far as they were concerned, to the healing of that man who stood in the midst of them.

Then notice the new note at verse seventeen (Acts 3:17). “And now, brethren, I know that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But the things which God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled.” From that verse to the end of the paragraph we have the apostolic appeal. First the correction of the wrong outlook of the house of Israel in the presence of the miracle; then instruction of the men of Israel concerning the real significance of the miracle and its relation to eternal things; and finally the appeal, based upon correction and instruction, to the house of Israel to repent, and to turn back again to God. Such were the main divisions of the address.

His correction consisted of two questions. The first was, “Why marvel ye at this man?” Now, why should they not marvel at this man? Was there not a reason and a cause for marvelling? Here was a man who had been for forty years incompetent, lame from birth, seeking alms at the Beautiful Gate, a familiar figure to the crowds of Jerusalem; now he was on his feet, and instead of asking alms from men, he was giving praise to God. It was a great and wonderful transformation, why should they not marvel? When the apostle said “Why marvel ye?” he was preparing the way for something which was to follow.

His choice of words was not careless: “Ye men of Israel”; . . . “The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob.” If he had only said, “the God of Abraham,” Ishmaelites might have claimed inclusion in that description. If he had said, “The God of Abraham and Isaac,” Edomites might have come within that description. He narrowed down the company to whom he spoke when he said, “The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.” Jacob became Israel, and he spoke to them as men of Israel, men who stood in fleshly and covenant relationship to Jacob, and to him as Israel, the man ruled by God. He thus reminded them of their past history. They were men of the covenant, of the Scriptures, and of the prophets. Therefore he said, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye?” You, men of such history, of such a heritage; you, men with the records of miracles stretching back through all the centuries; you, men who have seen in these last days so much of the manifestation of God’s power in setting disability right,-“Why marvel ye at this man?”

Then followed the second question: “Or why fasten ye your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk?” Their wonder in the presence of the miracle was due to their forgetfulness of their past history, and to the fact that they were out of fellowship therewith; and the explanation which they offered in their own mind as they gazed upon Peter and John, was a false explanation unworthy of that history. He charged the men of Israel with being false to their own history in wondering in the presence of the miracle they had just seen; and he charged them with being unable to interpret the secret of what they had seen. They had never understood or been true to the historical facts, in which they made their boast, or else they would have seen that the ultimate, logical result of all the things they believed, and in the fellowship of which they had lived, was represented in the man at the Beautiful Gate who was healed.

Then immediately he turned to explanation. As he began to explain he went back: “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers.” He then made a startling declaration in the ears of those who were listening. One commentator says that the miracle of the speech of Peter is a far more wonderful one than the miracle wrought in the healing of the man who lay at the Beautiful Gate. Notice the daring of Peter, and remember the fear that characterized him before Pentecost. See him now, standing in the temple in Solomon’s porch, with the crowds, residents of Jerusalem, about him. He declared “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Servant Jesus.” A parenthesis commences here, with the words, “Whom ye delivered up” and runs on to the end of the fifteenth verse.

The immediate connection of declaration is found by taking the first part of verse thirteen and linking it with verse sixteen. “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers hath glorified His Servant Jesus . . . and by faith in His name hath His name made this man strong, whom ye behold and know: yea, the faith which is through Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” Thus in effect he said: The God of Abraham, the God of your history, the God of your nationality, “the God of our fathers hath glorified His Servant Jesus,” hath lifted, exalted Him, to power. The resurrection was not mentioned, but it was implied. These men were men of Israel, with all the prejudice and the pride of men of Israel; they had looked in amazement at the healed man, feeling that what they saw was a part of this new movement of power, which they thought was outside the covenant, and therefore contrary to the purpose of God. Peter declared that they were blind and foolish, in that they did not see that this thing was part of the operation of their own God, the God Who created their nation, Who was at the centre of all their history.

In stating all this, Peter borrowed the great word of Isaiah “His Servant.” That word “Servant” may not appeal to us as it did to a Hebrew. The great prophecy of Isaiah is the prophecy of the Servant of God. We need not now discuss the question as to whether the Servant of God as seen by Isaiah was the ideal nation, or a Person. Both things are surely true. Isaiah saw the nation as a Servant; but he also saw the true principle and purpose realized in a Person in the dim and distant future. The title Servant of God was to the Hebrew a word expressing a hope, a word reminding him forevermore of the ancient prophecies.

We must get back into the atmosphere of Solomon’s porch, and of these Hebrews thronging Peter, before we begin to apprehend how startling was the thing he said. “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Servant.” These men would catch the prophetic allusion, and be ready to ask, Who is the Servant of God? Before the enquiry could be put, Peter answered in uttering that word “Jesus.” He thus claimed the fulfillment in Christ of all Messianic hope and prediction, declaring that God had glorified Him. These men might well say, and doubtless would say, Glorified Him! We saw Him die, He was crucified.

Now return to the parenthesis: “Whom ye delivered up and denied before the face of Pilate, when he had determined to release Him.” That was the historic truth. They had denied Him, and delivered Him up, and that in spite of a Gentile attempt to set Him free. Thus he was fastening the guilt upon Israel. Mark the carefulness of his word, “But ye denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life.” Here is a case when one wishes that a word might be translated differently. “Prince” is not wholly wrong; but the Greek word is the word that occurs in the Hebrew letter, when the writer speaks of the Author and Finisher of faith. We might translate here “The Author of Life.” Yet Author hardly conveys the thought. Very literally, the word means a file-leader, one who takes precedence, one who goes first.

This was a hint of what he was about to declare more fully, a hint of resurrection. Let us attempt to keep in mind the background they had of a crucified Man on the green hill, of a malefactor on Golgotha. He said to them, You killed the Holy and Righteous One; you chose the murderer, and flung out the File-Leader in the procession of life, its Author, its Prince. God replied to what you did by raising Him from the dead, and making us witnesses of that resurrection. All that is in parenthesis, but we now see it, in relation to the whole.

Then Peter said: “By faith in His name,” the name of Jesus Whom ye saw die, Whose death you brought about, Whom God raised from the dead, and Who is glorified and demonstrated the Servant of God, the long looked for Messiah; “by faith in His name,” this man has been healed. They had marvelled because they had become blind to the goings of their own God, because they were out of harmony with the processes and procedure of the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob; and consequently they had failed to be able to explain the mystery of the healed man. So that in this instructive part of the address, Peter took that man, and showed that his healing was the natural outcome of the economy in the midst of which they lived.

The rest of the address was of the nature of appeal. “And now, brethren, I know that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.” Notice the tenderness of this. One is almost inclined to say, has he not weakened his argument? Would it not have been better if he had refrained from anything like this admission? Does he not seem to take away from the guilt that he has been charging upon them? I think the answer to such enquiries is to be found in the word of Peter, “I know that in ignorance ye did it.” It does not express his opinion of the situation; it is rather his declaration of the fact that he accepted the truth of what Jesus had said, when in the very hour of His dying, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I know, said Peter, “that in ignorance ye did it, as also did your rulers.” Nevertheless he charged them with the guilt, and showed them it was by their will, and their decision on the human side, that this Man Jesus was murdered. “But the things which God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled.” In these words, over against the blunder, the calamity, the tragedy of the ignorant murder of Jesus, he set that infinite purpose of grace which triumphed over their sin, and fulfilled the very purposes of God as declared in the past, in the death and resurrection of’ Jesus.

Immediately, he made his definite appeal: “Repent ye therefore, and turn again.” Into that “therefore” we must read everything that was meant. Why should they repent and turn again? The things that follow declare the issues of repentance, but the things preceding declare the reason for repentance on the part of the house of Israel. These reasons were: that Jesus was the Servant of God; that through Jesus, God had been carrying on and carrying out His purposes; that when they procured the death of Jesus, forcing Pilate to condemn Him, they blundered, and were guilty of refusing the Holy and Righteous One; and that in spite of their blindness and sin and ignorance and blundering, God raised Him and fulfilled His purpose, the purpose of grace and the purpose of life. “Therefore,” because of their sin, and of His grace; because in the putting away of Jesus they fell out of the line of their own progressive national history, and because by the raising of Jesus, God made possible the putting away of the very sin which they committed in His murder, “therefore” they were to “repent . . . and turn again.” He thus called these people back from ignorance into light; and so back from all the sins that had grown out of ignorance, into the true line of conduct.

Peter having called these people to repentance, promised certain results. “Repent . . . and turn again; that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ Who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus; Whom the heavens must receive until the times of restoration of all things.” There can be no explanation of this save by remembering that he was talking to the house of Israel. To make it applicable to all the world, is to miss its real meaning. When he began to speak of the issues of repentance and turning again, the application was narrowed to the house of Israel. The first phase, “That your sins may be blotted out,” may have a general application. But let us follow on. What was to be the result of blotting out of sin? “That so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.” What was to be the issue of these seasons of refreshing from the Lord? “That He may send the Christ Who hath been appointed for you”-the house of Israel-“even Jesus; Whom the heavens must receive until the times of restoration of all things.” If we take these words as applicable to the house of Israel, at once the sequence is seen.

The restoration of all things is intimately associated with the coming of Christ to the house of Israel, the Messiah for them, and to them; and His coming to them waits for the repentance and turning to Him of the house of Israel. Or, to take it in the other order, when the house of Israel repents and turns to Jehovah, then the sins of the house of Israel will be blotted out; and then there will come to the house of Israel seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord; then there will come through the house of Israel the restoration of all things, and that in connection with the advent of Messiah.

We speak of it as a second advent, but it will be the first advent in which He will be received by His own people. If I am asked if I believe that what Peter expected will be so, without any hesitation, I say Yes. I do not think Israel is a lost and abandoned nation. I believe that Israel is to be found and gathered together. It is because I so believe, that I cannot accept any theory that robs Israel of its present living identity, and merges it in some other nation. Israel will yet repent and turn to Him, and He will blot out their sins. Until this time there has been no repentance of Israel; but there will be a day of repentance, and a day of turning to Him.

What, for us, is the teaching of this address, delivered so distinctly and particularly to the house of Israel? It seems to me there are three lessons as to the economy of God. First, that His ancient purposes are unchanged; secondly, that the restoration of all things waits the Advent of Jesus; and thirdly, that this will be the time of the recovery of Israel.

But what are the spiritual principles that I learn as I read this address? In that part of the address which I have described as corrective, two spiritual principles are involved; first, that wonder in the presence of the supernatural demonstrates infidelity; and secondly, that infidelity creates false explanations. The man who is attempting to get rid of the supernatural from his Bible and from his religion does not believe in God. He may have some idea of God as of a moral force, but the God of the Bible cannot be believed in by a man who wonders, and is startled in the presence of, and attempts to account for supernatural manifestations along other lines. Wonder in the presence of the supernatural always demonstrates infidelity. Granted the truth of the first verse in the Bible, and there is no difficulty with the miracles. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is the supreme miracle, and it is no miracle when God is postulated.

It was the simple activity of His power. The supernatural is that which is a little higher than man can see, a little pro founder than he can understand.

In the instructive part of this address moreover, there are spiritual principles. The patent one is that of the unutterable sin and foolishness of rejecting Jesus. The triumph of God even over such sin and folly, is seen in His raising Him from the dead, and thus making Him the Saviour of man.

Finally, the appeal emphasizes the fact that the children of privilege have responsibilities; and upon their fulfillment of such responsibilities depends the continuity and the enlargement of privilege.

If Israel be to-day a people scattered and peeled over the face of the world, the reason for the scattering and peeling for long and weary years, in which she is cast away from service, is that she became self-centered, and lived wholly alone, and forgot the surrounding nations she ought to have blessed.

Therein is a message for the Church. If our privileges are high and holy, our responsibilities are correspondingly great. As we forget our responsibilities, so surely the privileges themselves become grave-clothes that hinder and bury, rather than inspirations that drive and help.