Acts 3:12-26

Peter’s Second Proclamation to the People (3:12-26).

As in his first message Peter first refers back to the past, but this time it is to ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’, the ones who had received from God the promise of blessing (compare Acts 3:25). He wants the people to know that they bring no new god. Jesus’ God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the One Who delivered His people from Egypt (Exodus 3:6). Then he goes on to describe Jesus as the Servant of God referred to by Isaiah, Who had come and had been rejected by them (Isaiah 50:4-9) and had been slain (Isaiah 53:1-12), and refers to the Scriptures that have therefore now been fulfilled, declaring Him to be the Messiah, and calls on them to repent so that God may then give them the everlasting Kingly Rule of God through His Messiah Jesus. He finishes by confirming that Jesus is God’s great expected Prophet whom they must listen to, and His Servant Who can deliver them from sin. He wants it known that all that he is saying is in line with the teaching of the prophets.

But having stressed the central agreement of the content of the two speeches we must also recognise their essential differences. For the two messages take two different lines of argument and refer back to different Scriptures in order to prove different points. Unlike in Acts 2:0 there is here no attempt to prove the resurrection from Scripture. Rather the stress is on the fact of prophecies concerning Jesus’ suffering and those which promise the blessing of Abraham. Here His Messiahship is related to the Servant of God in Isaiah rather than to David who is unmentioned except by implication. However, the overall message is unquestionably the same, as we would expect if both were by Peter.

The change is apposite. In the first speech, in the light of the experience of Pentecost, the regal aspect came through. The King was on His throne. He was Lord and Messiah. But here in the light of man’s weakness and need, it is the Servant aspect that shines through, the idea of the One Who had come among men to serve. Each speech admirably fits its occasion.