Acts 2:14-36

Acts 2:14-36

The first Gospel Sermon

There are four links in St. Peter's chain of evidence. The first two, lying within the knowledge of his hearers, are briefly handled; the last two, being facts lying outside their observation, are confirmed at length by Scripture and living testimony.

I. God's hand first appeared in the public ministry of Jesus by the miracles which He had wrought. On these proofs the preacher had no need to dwell. They were known to all.

II. But now came the stumbling block with the audience. This Man of Nazareth, the fame of whose words had filled Palestine, had been by the national rulers solemnly adjudged a cheat and a blasphemer; and the people in a fickle hour had turned upon their former favourite, and demanded His blood. Nakedly Peter recalls the harsh and horrid deeds of seven weeks before, and bluntly charges them on the crowd before him, so that each man's share in that Friday's work might rise up out of memory before his soul and tear his conscience with remorse and shame. Only his proof of the Messiahship of the Crucified is still far too incomplete to justify his dwelling on so irritating a theme, and therefore, without giving time for pause, or even breaking off his sentence, he goes on to announce

III. That novel and astounding fact of resurrection, by which God had set His seal for ever beyond all cavil to the innocence and the claims and sonship of the Lord Jesus, "whom God raised up." What any devout and thoughtful Jew ought to have been looking for, as the chief mark of Messiah when He came, as God's crowning attestation to David's Son, could not be a thing incredible when at last affirmed of a Man who declared to the death that He was Messiah. If Jesus should be after all what He said He was, God must have raised Him up; but God had raised Him up, "whereof," adds the preacher, "we all are witnesses."

IV. One more proof, and only one, remained. David had not ascended into heaven to sit there in the seat of supreme, celestial monarchy and thence subdue all earthly foes; but Peter was prepared to say that Jesus had. In the change which the anointing Holy Ghost had wrought, the disciples were living proofs that their Master, though refused, baffled, slain on earth, had been exalted and enthroned in heaven, and had received of the Father what He had now sent down to them the promise of the Holy Ghost. Pentecost itself is the supreme demonstration of Peter's thesis that Jesus is the Christ; for on Jesus' friends, and. on none else, has come what prophets promised and the just have waited for.

J. Oswald Dykes, From Jerusalem to Antioch, p. 63.

References: Acts 2:14-17 . Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 126. Acts 2:16 . C. Molyneux, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 353.Acts 2:16-18 . W. Ince, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 243.Acts 2:17 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 816; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 31; E. Conder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 241.Acts 2:17-21 . Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 167. Acts 2:22 . W. M. Taylor, The Gospel Miracles, p. 3.