ix. Conclusion: Lord and King (2:36)
Speakers commonly provided a final summation (κεφάλαιον, as in Heb 8:1) of their argument, and Luke provides this in Acts 2:36. The proclamatory “Let all the house of Israel know” fits such a climax. Jesus is the “Lord” of 2:21 (Joel) by way of 2:34–35 (Ps 110). He is “Christ” as in Acts 2:31—that is, the king from David’s line, climaxing the Davidic emphasis in the sermon. As Barnabas Lindars notes, “The argument of the ‘Resurrection speech’ can be summarized in v. 36: the Resurrection proves that Jesus is both Lord, the literal fulfiller of Ps. 110, and Christ, the literal fulfiller of Ps. 16.” Peter may use ἀσφαλῶς emphatically, underlining the appropriateness of how his conclusion follows from his established premises (cf. Acts 21:34; 22:30; 25:26; Luke 1:4). Peter has narrated certain truth in his speech just as Luke has in his two-volume work (Luke 1:4).
That Jesus is Messiah (i.e., Israel’s king) and that he is Lord at God’s right hand are truth claims that demand universal allegiance; that is, they demand the response of all humanity. Israel should accept its king, but Samaritans and Gentiles should also submit to this true lordship. “King,” however, was a dangerous title in the Roman world (cf. Acts 17:7), whereas “Lord” could be construed in less political, purely religious terms.
Although Bultmann doubted that “Lord” by itself could function as a divine title, it is widely attested in extrabiblical texts in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic; given the argument it climaxes (see 2:21, 38), it surely functions as a divine title here. (See fuller discussion of this point at Acts 2:21.)
But together with the title “Christ,” it emphasizes Jesus’s kingship and hence that he fulfills Israel’s hope and that Israel must embrace him as their rightful ruler. In Hebrew idiom, one could “appoint” or “install” someone to an office (especially, to “place” them, שים, e.g., Exod 1:11; 1 Sam 8:1; or to “give” them, נתן, e.g., 1 Sam 12:13; 1 Kgs 1:48; 2:35; 2 Kgs 8:6; 2 Chr 2:11; 9:8), though the LXX rarely uses ποιέω to express this. The language of “appointing” refers to status, not ontology, and hence is appropriate for Jesus beginning only at his exaltation. This sort of “Messiah-designate-until-enthroned” Christology seems to have been an early one in the church.
Although the language (“appointed him Lord”) may not be the preferred language of later generations of Christians (a realization that might favor primitive tradition here), neither does it reflect an early tradition incorporated by Luke that remained inconsistent with the Christology articulated in the rest of the sermon. As Tannehill notes, “The connections indicated show that Acts 2:36 should not be separated from the rest of the speech as a fragment of an early adoptionist Christology that conflicts with the narrator’s views.” The Christology of Acts 2:36 seems designed, in fact, to close the sermon it follows (a “summation,” as suggested above).
In accordance with the “appropriateness” expected for speeches in ancient histories (see introduction, ), preaching Jesus as “Messiah” seems to be an appropriate emphasis in many sermons to Israel in Acts, generally missing in sermons to Gentiles (2:36; 3:18–20; 5:42; 8:5; 9:22; 17:2–3; 18:5, 28; 26:22–23).
How would Luke’s first audience understand the claim about Jesus’s being “Christ”? There was no single interpretation of messiahship in the first century, but at the heart of most messianic expectation was an ultimate Davidic ruler associated with the eschatological restoration of Israel.
The prophets had foretold an eschatological king and/or dynasty descended from David, a theme that continued in early Judaism. Because the king was the “anointed one,” Jewish people often granted the eschatological anointed king, the king par excellence, the articular title “the Messiah,” which came into the LXX regularly as “the Christ” (as “the anointed one” normally did in what we would regard as nonmessianic usages as well).
The Gospels provide the impression that Palestinian Jews in general understood the term “Messiah” and expected his coming. Given the term’s inadequacy in the Diaspora and in later Christian Christology (son of David Christology is far less prominent than wisdom, lord, and other Christologies), it is unlikely that the Gospels would have simply invented this usage. Yet our first-century evidence on the issue is disparate; some of it, especially texts directed toward Diaspora audiences, makes minimal use of the term. But this lack of use may say more about our sources than about first-century Palestinian Judaism’s messianic expectations.
Josephus’s omission of messianic data is understandable; writing for a Diaspora readership, seeking to minimize Judaism’s revolutionary involvement, he has reason to play down messiahs and messianic ideals among the people that could have political implications. Josephus may have even toned down David’s revolutionary activity and ancestry for the Messiah. He elsewhere suppresses Jewish ideas that would present them badly to the Romans and undoubtedly does the same with messiahship, “though certain of the persons whom he describes as brigands and deceivers must really have been messianic pretenders.” Yet the nature of such messiahs varied: not all such messiahs were necessarily associated with militant resistance. If the Samaritan prophet, Theudas, or the Egyptian prophet were messianic figures, they looked instead to a miraculous divine intervention to establish God’s reign.
The failed Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–35 C.E. led to Hadrian’s establishment of pagan Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem, and the Romans flayed alive R. Akiba, one of the primary sources for the Mishnaic tradition of R. Judah ha-Nasi’s academy, which edited the Mishnah. It should therefore not surprise us that the earliest rabbinic texts generally preserve a much more cautious approach to messianism, where it has not been suppressed altogether, than later texts that have returned to contemplation on biblical prophecies about the Son of David. Such skepticism is reported of R. Johanan ben Zakkai, who survived the destruction of 70 C.E.: finish what you are doing before going out to greet a messianic claimant. But even in the late second century, rabbis still reportedly hoped for the coming of the Messiah.
Other texts, however, emphasize messianic hopes. For example, the fourteenth and fifteenth benedictions of the Amidah, probably rooted in the pre-70 period, long for the restoration of David’s house. Likewise, Pss. Sol. 17:32, a pre-Christian source, declares hope in the coming king; the context envisions a warrior messiah (17:21–25). A variety of other Jewish sources from this period (4 Ezra; 2 Baruch; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) address the Messiah and often connect him with the final judgment. Both 4 Ezra 13 and the Similitudes of Enoch suggest a preexistent individual Messiah of some sort who will destroy the wicked.
The Davidic Messiah was, by the definition of the type, a future ruler ordained by God with political (not merely spiritual) rule. Nevertheless, views about this Messiah diverged widely. Qumran’s “messianic” expectation apparently encompassed two major eschatological anointed figures, a Davidic Messiah and a high priest (e.g., 1QSa II, 11–17; cf. 4Q174 1 I, 11–12). The Hasmoneans had combined priesthood and kingship in the same persons, a combination to which the Zadokite priests who founded the Qumran community strenuously objected. Thus this separatist priestly community emphasized an “anointed” priest as well as a king (cf. Zech 4:14; 6:13). Other texts less clearly connected with the Essene movement also stress the role of the future priest.
In the earliest texts associated with the sort of movement we find at Qumran, Levi and Judah probably fulfill a special role because these two tribes constituted most of Israel as the community knew it, but only a salvific figure from Judah is mentioned. The ruler would come from Judah, not from what the sectarians viewed as the corrupt priestly Hasmonean line.
After this period, however, scholars divide on the interpretation of the Qumran texts. Some contend that they support one messiah, others that they support two messiahs, and yet others that diversity of opinion existed within Qumran or its documents or that different documents portray different stages in the community’s development of eschatological thought. The Manual of Discipline (1QS IX, 11) does conjoin the expectation of a prophet with that of “the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel”; the Damascus Document, however, consistently employs the singular, lending credence to the possibility of diverse views in the texts.
“Anointed,” however, may apply to any figure for a leading office, which diminishes the conflict. One “anointed” figure is the rightful high priest (in contrast with the wicked one in the temple), and so only the other anointed figure is the eschatological king. Still, the Qumran evidence may suggest diverse approaches to messianism: the possibly single Messiah of Aaron and Israel in the Damascus Document could suggest that at some point the community’s greatest expectation was a Levitic rather than a Davidic anointed one.
The rabbinic idea of two messiahs, however, derives from different exegesis and probably arises independently from later circumstances. Sufficient OT basis existed to provide midrashic proofs for a suffering Messiah, but it is probably only after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt that the rabbinic tradition of a suffering Messiah (Messiah ben Joseph) in addition to the triumphant warrior Messiah (Messiah ben David) arose. (The proposed slain Messiah in 4Q285 5 4 has been rejected by most scholars.)
Some doubt that Jesus’s earliest followers considered him a Messiah, but this skepticism rejects, in favor of a hypothesis argued virtually from silence, all the explicit testimony that remains extant. Others suspect that Jesus drew on 2 Sam 7 and other passages that lent themselves to a messianic interpretation. Given the environment in which Jesus ministered, he had to know that his teachings about the kingdom and some of his actions would lead to speculation about his messianic character.
The earliest strands of the Jesus tradition indicate that Jesus taught that his disciples would have a role in the messianic kingdom, which would naturally imply that he attributed to himself the role of Messiah. His disciples claimed him to be Messiah; his execution as king indicates that others believed that he considered himself Messiah. It is inherently likelier that Pilate and the disciples shared a common source for this idea in Jesus than that the disciples derived it from Pilate or that Pilate received it from renegade disciples who affirmed something their teacher denied. (That Pilate did not crucify Jesus on this charge is implausible. Given the persecution that this could and did create for them, the disciples would hardly have simply invented the charge that Jesus was crucified as “king”—that is, for high treason against the emperor.) That Jesus is the common source is, in fact, what our only extant sources claim.
E. P. Sanders thus thinks that many scholars have been too cautious about assuming that Jesus believed he was a king:
Jesus taught about the kingdom; he was executed as would-be king; and his disciples, after his death, expected him to return to establish the kingdom. These points are indisputable. Almost equally indisputable is the fact that the disciples thought that they would have some role in the kingdom. We should, I think, accept the obvious: Jesus taught his disciples that he himself would play the principal role in the kingdom.
The Gospels suggest that Jesus’s view of his kingship was not the common political or military understanding but instead that his disciples and enemies may have misconstrued him. Nevertheless, Jesus and his disciples at least found in the diverse concepts of messiahship a nucleus appropriate for defining his mission. Just as Qumran adapted its messianic and eschatological vision, Jesus’s disciples would have been forced to do the same.
Why was Jesus reticent to announce his messiahship publicly during most of his ministry? Various factors explain this far better than the idea that the disciples invented his messiahship after his crucifixion or inferred it from Pilate. If Jesus knew anything at all about the political situation in Jerusalem, he would know that a public messianic claim would lead to his immediate execution; in Mark it does. Further, “self-boasting” was rejected in the Mediterranean world. Our limited information on first-century potential messianic claimants may suggest a reticence to declare their identity prematurely; most apparently felt they had to produce some evidence of their messiahship before publicly claiming kingship. Many teachers, both Greek and Jewish, also kept some esoteric or secret teachings private among a small circle and sometimes revealed it reticently even to them.
“Messiah” was a Jewish category, not a Gentile one, so the suggestion that the title was invented by later Gentile Christians can be rightly deemed hopeless. “Christ” was a natural way to translate “Messiah” in Greek and so translates “anointed one” (not just in the royal sense) regularly in the LXX. But because this term in regular Greek usage simply meant “ointment”—an image wholly unintelligible to most Greeks—Paul in the Gentile mission normally uses it as Jesus’s surname rather than as a title, in contrast to the more primitive usage in the Gospels.
The closing reference to Peter’s hearers crucifying their own king recalls the statement of responsibility in Acts 2:23 (see comment there) and invites the sort of response that follows in 2:37. The plural pronoun “you” is emphatic in 2:36, underlining the guilt of Peter’s hearers. The accusation of carrying the guilt of unjust blood is no small matter (cf. 20:26): crucifixion was such a shameful event (see the excursus on crucifixion, above) that those who could might avenge it also by crucifixion (Polyb. 1.86.4, 6). The purpose of the accusation is to summon the hearers to a response; an emphatic “you” likewise appears in the promise in Acts 2:39 for all who do turn to the Lord. Those who sought to persuade audiences could appeal to their reason (λόγος), as Peter has already done (2:22–36), or to their good character (ἦθος), or to their emotions (πάθος). Peter shames his hearers’ character but appeals to their emotions by charging them with the expected Messiah’s bloodguilt (2:23); their emotional response is evident in 2:37. Appeals to self-interest or a sense of honor or advantage were also important in persuasion, and Peter certainly provokes their interest on this count (2:37–40).
Conscience-stricken over their people’s corporate failure in rejecting and killing their own graciously God-given king, the crowd asks what to do (2:37)—that is, in order to be saved (the issue raised in 2:21). Peter summons them to repentance (“turning” to God, as in the prophets) and to call on Jesus’s name in a baptism involving such repentance. God’s promise to them, and to all those whom their repentance proleptically foreshadowed, was the Holy Spirit (2:38–39).
Like other ancient writers, Luke often employs the literary technique of interruption of speeches (7:53; 10:44; 17:32; 26:24). In Luke’s case, such interruptions help him to conceal the unrealistic conciseness required by his space constraints. Although novels sometimes employed such interruptions, they did so because of verisimilitude imitating reality; such interruptions appear in various genres. Certainly, interruptions were common in real speeches. Hecklers might interrupt speeches, often seeking to promote the heckler’s honor at the expense of the speaker’s shame (Lucian Dem. 14). See fuller comment at Acts 2:13.
The interruption here, however, is carefully positioned. Whereas in some of his speeches Luke completes only the narratio (the early narrative element), in a few he displays the full skeleton of the argument that he wishes to include at a few points. Here he allows Peter to complete the speech and even provide a brief summary; the “interruption” is actually a full response.
The crowd’s question is a familiar one in Luke-Acts (Luke 3:10; Acts 16:30), though taken from tradition at least in Luke 18:18. In each case, the question concerns what is required for salvation. The apostolic response in Acts 16:31 (not unexpectedly from Paul) is faith in the Lord Jesus; in Luke 3:11, from John the Baptist, it is divesting oneself of possessions beyond what is needed for life, to serve others’ needs. Jesus’s requirement in Luke 18:22 is also that of giving all one’s possessions to the poor; this requirement is derived from Mark 10:21, but Luke’s earlier inclusion of John’s requirement indicates that Luke intends no mere historical description of a demand for a rich ruler but an example for all followers of Jesus. Jesus’s answer to the question of Luke 10:25 (in 10:26–37) involves caring for one’s neighbor across ethnic and cultural barriers. The lifestyle of those responding to the summons here (Acts 2:44–45; cf. 4:32–35) suggests that the wording in texts such as Luke 3:11 may be hyperbole, but it also suggests that it runs against the grain of Theophilus’s and probably Luke’s milieu. This background will invest Peter’s call to repentance (Acts 2:38) with new meaning: true repentance produces a lifestyle of radical simplicity and care for others’ needs. Genuine faith in Jesus (16:31) saves, but such genuine commitment to Jesus as “the Lord” (τὸν κύριον) will entail following Jesus’s teaching (perhaps increasingly as one learns its specific content), including what Luke has reported concerning the poor.
Describing the responses of a rhetorician’s or philosopher’s audience often revealed the effectiveness of the speaker’s skill or message. When Curio’s speech won his hearers over, they showed their fervor by interrupting his speech to affirm him (Caesar C.W. 2.33). Failure to applaud or otherwise display appreciation for a speech could prove offensive (Pliny Ep. 6.17.1–4); crowds often applauded the debater they thought was winning (Lucian Z. Rants 41).
Although the very deep emotional response described here (“struck to the heart”) produces a favorable behavioral response, Luke provides two other occasions where, by contrast, the emotional response provoked deadly hostility (Acts 5:33; 7:54). Moreover, although the depicted response to Peter’s Pentecost speech favorably portrays the revivalistic origins of the Jerusalem church, it also offers a foil to the harsh response to Paul’s “Pentecost” speech in 22:22 in different times some three decades later. Luke does not present favorable responses as the invariable response to faithfulness.
Just as John, the forerunner, preached a baptism symbolizing or effecting repentance (Luke 3:3; Acts 13:24; 19:4), so now does Peter. One Jewish use of baptism in antiquity was as an act of conversion (as part of the process of conversion), although Jewish people traditionally applied this function of immersion only to Gentiles. Peter here demands a conversion no less radical, but from members of his own people who must likewise turn to Israel’s God and the divinely appointed king, Jesus.
Gentiles did not speak much of moral repentance in light of religion. Joining a new mystery cult simply supplemented one’s previous religious experience; polytheism was inclusive. Philosophers understood conversion to philosophy, but it was not, of course, a turning toward the one God of Israel.
In Acts 2:38 and 3:19, Peter preaches repentance like the OT prophets calling Israel to return (see 3:19; cf. 5:31; 8:22). In the immediate context, the people of Israel must repent for their corporate responsibility for Jesus’s death (2:23); but in its fuller Lukan context, the summons to repentance is appropriate for all humanity (e.g., 17:30; 20:21; 26:20), though, in the story world, Peter and his companions do not yet recognize this point (11:18). The biblical prophets summoned Israel to “turn” or “return” to the Lord (e.g., Isa 55:7; Jer 3:12, 14, 22; 4:1; 25:5; 26:3; Ezek 14:6; 18:21, 23, 30; Hos 14:1; Joel 2:12–13; Mal 3:7), which could even be summarized as their message (Zech 1:3–4). Individuals also needed to turn from wickedness to righteousness (Ezek 33:14–16, 19), that is, change their lifestyle, not merely indulge in guilty feelings.
Occasionally the LXX uses μετανοέω to express turning to the Lord (Jer 8:6; 38:19 LXX [31:19 ET]; Joel 2:13; perhaps Isa 46:8), though it uses ἀίοστρέφω (cf. Acts 3:26) far more frequently. The noun μετάνοια appears even more rarely (five times, all but one in the Apocrypha), though it seems to have more of a consistent association with turning from sin (esp. in later sources, Sir 44:16; Wis 11:23; 12:10, 19). Apparently, however, usage had shifted by the first century; ἀίοστρέφω appears just nine times in the NT (only twice in Luke-Acts) whereas μετάνοια and μετανοέω together appear fifty-two times, with a fairly consistent range of usage, including in Luke-Acts.
Early Judaism heavily emphasized the value of repentance, from Qumran to the rabbis to others. Israel as a whole needed to turn to God; the fifth benediction of the Amidah requests that God turn Israel to repentance. Many believed that corporate repentance could hasten the judgment. The need for repentance also applied to individuals. Although some Jewish traditions denied that the righteous like Abraham needed repentance, most acknowledged that all people have sinned and all need repentance.
For the later rabbis, repentance would atone for lighter transgressions, whereas it suspended judgment for most heavier ones until the Day of Atonement could atone for them. One should repent a day before one’s death—that is, always be ready to stand before God in the judgment. Death atoned for sin, with or without repentance, but the three most serious sins required repentance as well as death. If a person kept committing a sin after repentance, however, his or her repentance was not held to be genuine. According to some views, God received even Manasseh’s repentance (despite angelic opposition), though other rabbis denied it.
God established repentance as the way to deal with (ἐίί) sins (Wis 12:19). Repentance could lead to the hope of eternal life (1 En. 40:9). Proselytes also “repented,” turning from their former Gentile way of life; conjoined with a dramatic immersion, the model of John’s preaching (Luke 3:8), and Luke’s overall emphasis on welcoming Jews and Gentiles on the same terms, the present repentance evokes this dramatic sort of turning of life rather than merely an initial sample of periodic penitence. For Luke, repentance involved conversion and a new way of life.
In Luke-Acts “repentance” is both the content (Luke 3:3, 8; 5:32; 13:3, 5; 24:47; Acts 3:19; 5:31; 13:24; 17:30; 19:4; 20:21; 26:20; cf. 8:22) and the appropriate response (Luke 10:13; 11:32; 15:7, 10; 16:30–31; Acts 11:18) to kingdom preaching. The term is barely used otherwise. Because God’s “kingdom” was his reign (see comment on Acts 1:3, 6), those who turned to embrace his reign were accepting a new king. Just as Luke’s mention of faith in various soteriological passages in Acts (e.g., 8:12–13; 10:43; 11:17; 13:39, 48; 15:9, 11; 16:31; 26:18) informs his understanding of repentance, so repentance informs his understanding of faith: genuine faith in Jesus as Lord requires acknowledgment of his lordship and beginning to adjust to its practical demands (cf. 6:7; 20:21). Luke’s particular wording in each case may be appropriate to the speakers (see introduction, , ); the summons to “believe in the Lord Jesus” is characteristically Pauline language (see, e.g., Rom 4:24; 5:1; 10:9; though cf. also Peter in Acts 11:17; 15:11).
As noted above on 2:37, the various answers in Luke-Acts to the question of how to be saved (Acts 16:30; Luke 3:10; 18:18) infuse the content of repentance here with special meaning: both faith in Jesus as Lord (Acts 16:31) and radical sacrifice of possessions on behalf of others (Luke 3:11; 18:22). That the believers expressed repentance in these ways is clear in Acts 2:44–45, where “those who were believing” (οἱ ίιστεύοντες, present active participle, 2:44) were sacrificing (“were selling,” ἐίίίρασκον, imperfect active indicative, 2:45) their goods to meet others’ needs.
The “forgiveness of sins” is explicitly associated especially with repentance in Acts (e.g., 3:19; 5:31; 11:18). Jesus’s final recorded Lukan command to his disciples was to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’s name to all nations, starting (as they do here) from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). Early Jewish sources often emphasize God’s forgiveness and pray for it. But forgiveness normally required confession and repentance.
Scholars debate to what extent the forgiveness of sins is also associated with baptism, and the grammatical debate can become quite involved. Given the various texts surveyed above, it seems that “for forgiveness” is linked more often with repentance (though the grammar alone could not decide this), which is never missing when baptism and forgiveness are both mentioned (Luke 3:3; Acts 2:38) or even when forgiveness is mentioned without baptism. For Luke, however, baptism is not dissociated from repentance but constitutes an act of repentance; under normal circumstances, one does not separate the two (Luke 3:3; Acts 13:24; 19:4).
John’s mission was to bring Israel to forgiveness (Luke 1:77); he preaches a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (3:3) when he preaches repentance (3:8). Thus preaching repentance in Jesus’s name (ἐίὶ τῷ ὀνόματι, 24:47) is concretely expressed by summoning the repentant to baptism in Jesus’s name (ἐίὶ τῷ ὀνόματι, Acts 2:38), and baptism figuratively “washes away sins” (22:16). As in contemporary Judaism (below), a baptism of repentance was an act of conversion, though early Christians invited Jews as well as Gentiles to submit to it.
In contrast to the wicked in John’s preaching (Luke 3:7–9, 17), the repentant (in 3:3, 8, 11–14) would receive the Spirit (3:16). It seems no coincidence, then, that baptism becomes a normal prerequisite for the gift of the Spirit (though God did sometimes sovereignly vary the sequence, as in Acts 10:46–47). Jesus, the model, received the Spirit at his baptism (Luke 3:21–22), and even the expression “baptized in the Holy Spirit” suggests that it is an experience to which both John’s baptism in water (3:16) and that of the apostles (Acts 2:41; esp. 10:47) points. (Conversely, Acts 10:44–48 shows that they are ontologically distinguishable, and 10:47 that water baptism could confirm the more critical experience with the Spirit that God had already granted.) Baptism was the act of repentance by which one embraced the eschatological gift and consequent empowerment to share the apostolic mission for cross-cultural testimony. Water baptism was meant to symbolize and (ideally) accompany the gift of the Spirit, however, not to replace it, as if the act were sufficient without the experience (see 10:47; 19:5–6; esp. 8:12–17). As argued elsewhere in this section, Luke repeats the experience (8:14–17; 10:44–47; 19:6; and even the title “baptized in the Spirit” in 11:16) and expects his audience to continue to experience charismatic phenomena.
Whether Luke had a specific tradition of baptisms on Pentecost (as I believe likely; See comment on Acts 2:41) or simply inferred their occurrence, we have good reason to believe that he was correct. Baptism appears as the accepted initiatory rite in our earliest Christian sources (e.g., Rom 6:3–4; 1 Cor 1:13–17; 10:2; Gal 3:27) and was used by John the Baptist as a moral purificatory rite before the Christians adopted it (Mark 1:4; Jos. Ant. 18.117, βαίτισμῷ). Instead of assuming that this distinctive, single initiatory baptism arose independently among John’s and Jesus’s followers or that the new urban Jesus movement adapted the former’s wilderness baptism without earlier connections, it seems to make more sense to assume a connection by way of Jesus and to believe that it was practiced by the earliest disciples. What is most striking is not the activity of baptism but its use for initiation specifically into the community of Jesus’s followers, identifying them as a distinguishable sect within Judaism. That is, they practiced baptism “in the name of Jesus.”
Most Jewish groups, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, practiced purificatory immersions without requiring an initial one specific to their own order; the Essenes, however, did include a special cleansing for initiates upon entrance into their community, albeit the first of many such washings. This renders use of initiatory immersion by Jesus’s followers also plausible (though it is also confirmed by more explicit evidence). Jewish Christians, however, at some point transformed John’s baptism of Jews, rendering it, whether or not this was already John’s intent, as something like proselyte baptism. Now, however, it was applied to Jews as well as Gentiles (as in John’s baptism) and hence was probably more radical than that of the Essenes.
Luke’s audience would understand the association of baptism with repentance and conversion. Clearly John’s baptism forms the primary backdrop for early Christian baptism, including in Luke’s own account (Luke 3:3–4). Less familiar to many modern readers is the Jewish conversion baptism that informed the repentance element of John’s baptism. Before turning to a discussion of conversion baptism, however, we survey the wider context of ritual lustrations in Jewish and Gentile circles.
Ritual lustrations were common throughout the ancient world. In addition to ancient Israel, ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites practiced various ritual washings; they also appear in some genetically unrelated or distant societies. Later Mediterranean models probably also contributed to the development of Jewish purification ideas. Although some philosophers, such as the Cynics, detested the thought behind bodily purifications, other schools, such as the Pythagoreans and the Stoics, valued them as important.
Various temples had their own rules mandating ritual purity, and the Eleusinian and Isis cults used lustrations as preliminary purifications in their initiatory rites; some initiatory baths were, however, used to secure pardon from the gods (Apul. Metam. 11.23). But in contrast to some earlier scholarship, most contemporary scholars have rightly observed that such acts were simply preliminary washings and not initiatory of themselves. It is moreover noteworthy that most standard terms for purification in the Greco-Roman world (καθαρμός, καθάρσιον, κάθαρσις) are missing in the NT.
The early Jewish practice of ritual washings was widespread in Jewish Palestine long before the time of the Jesus movement, as evidence from Josephus, coins, and especially archaeology attests. Mikvaot, or standard ritual immersion pools, often included steps for descending into the pool and ascending from it, as well as a conduit for water to flow into it from an adjoining pool. One of the most pervasive Jewish features in excavations of Galilean and Judean sites, they are in evidence in the Hasmonean and Herodian periods and are found at places such as Masada and Jerusalem. They were especially common among the well-to-do who lived in upper-city Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount. (Jerusalemites may have been more concerned with ritual purity than were the provincials, “who purified themselves mainly for the festal pilgrimages.”) Wandering wilderness pietists such as Bannus frequently washed in the Jordan or other available sources of water (Jos. Life 11). Rabbinic texts include many discussions of ritual purification. The mikveh’s waters were thought to cleanse ritual impurity and so were important for priests, menstruants, and even vessels. Ritual purity was required before a festival and was achieved mainly through immersion.
Although such Jewish lustrations and their broader cultural background provide a context for John’s and early Christian baptism, however, they cannot define them. John’s baptism in the Synoptic tradition was initiatory and eschatological, a baptism of repentance in light of the coming kingdom of God. Many scholars have suggested Qumran initiatory baptism as the background for John’s and early Christian baptism, but though the sect did practice baptism as part of initiation, the initial baptism at Qumran was apparently viewed only as the first among many. Because of the cost and separation entailed in joining the Qumran sect, one could describe Qumran baptism as a repentance baptism; but again, one’s first baptism at Qumran was one among many rather than the primary line of demarcation. Qumran washings probably reflect a particularly meticulous form of early Jewish purification ritual, and the covenanters performed their washings frequently.
Although the Qumran parallel for Jews joining a particular sect in view of the coming judgment supplies a partial context for John’s wilderness baptism, it, like Jewish lustrations in general, does little to explain the fully initiatory status of a single baptism as an act of conversion to a new way of life. For this we must turn to the closest Jewish parallel to John’s and early Christian baptism, namely, proselyte baptism, a specific and extremely potent form of ritual purification.
Some scholars argue against proselyte baptism as a source for Christian baptism, but it has long had its advocates, and the opinion is increasingly shifting in the direction of recognizing it as a source, with whatever modifications. Major differences naturally distinguish John’s baptism from proselyte baptism, including the former’s public and eschatological orientation and particularly its summoning of Jews as well as Gentiles to turn to Israel’s God. Such differences are genuine and should not be underestimated in distinguishing John’s baptism from proselyte baptism. Nevertheless, John’s (and hence early Christian) baptism did not arise sui generis (which could have rendered its symbolism unintelligible), and Jewish initiatory purification of proselytes would hardly borrow an earlier Christian practice for initiating members (including both Jews and Gentiles). The appeal to Judaism’s most widespread once-for-all immersion ritual complements Qumran or other suggested background by providing key elements of the context they omit.
The conversion ritual provided a clear, symbolic line of demarcation between a proselyte’s Gentile past and Jewish present. Although Judaism employed circumcision as the primary sign of entering the covenant, both circumcision and baptism would have normally been required for new converts to Judaism. Because the Babylonian Gemara reports a debate between early Tannaim R. Joshua and R. Eliezer concerning whether baptism or circumcision by itself would suffice for a valid conversion, some scholars have held that some authorities accepted baptism without circumcision; but it is hard to think that R. Joshua could have openly diminished an explicit commandment of the Torah. Other scholars have thus preferred to follow the Palestinian recension of this tradition, where R. Eliezer allows circumcision without immersion (probably under exceptional circumstances) and R. Joshua insists that both are necessary. On either reading, the sages concurred on that occasion that both circumcision and proselyte baptism were necessary, and other texts reinforce the conclusion that proselyte baptism was a necessary part of conversion.
It is quite probable that proselyte baptism is pre-Christian. Some scholars have denied this claim, sometimes seeking to argue for the temporal priority of Christian baptism, but their denial seems difficult to maintain. The relative paucity of references to conversion in general in pre-70 rabbinic traditions, as well as baptism’s secondary place to circumcision for males, may explain the relative paucity of pre-70 references to proselyte baptism in particular. Ceremonial washings were so common and so unobjectionable in the ancient Mediterranean that one would not expect any particular washing to appear as frequently in conversion literature as circumcision, which provided a comparatively major hurdle for Gentile men to cross. Lacking explicit support from the Hebrew Scriptures (though naturally inferred from purity considerations there), it may also have been less universal than circumcision, but references show that it was well enough known to merit allusions even in the Diaspora, and such wide geographical distribution makes it improbable that it rose suddenly with our first references to it in the sources. The antiquity of Jewish proselyte baptism may be argued on several grounds:
1. The Hasmonean mikvaot and references to immersions in the Dead Sea Scrolls make the antiquity and widespread character of Jewish ritual cleansing obvious, and it is almost inconceivable that the transition from the most unclean state to a state of cleanness should not have been marked by such a washing.
2. At the end of the first century, Epictetus speaks of full converts to Judaism in the Diaspora being βεβαμμένου (perfect of βάίτω) as if this is well known, and Epictetus was undoubtedly not alone in this knowledge.
3. Mishnah Pesaḥ. 8:8 makes tebillah a matter of dispute between the first-century adherents of Beth Hillel and Beth Shammai; this point is considerably weakened, of course, if proselyte baptism was not originally in view here, but Tannaitic tradition in the Tosefta supports the antiquity of the proselyte baptism interpretation.
4. A possibly first-century Diaspora Jewish text assumes that even Gentiles know the Jewish practice of baptisms in running water when one is turning from sins.
5. Most other initiation rituals in the ancient Mediterranean (from mystery cults to Qumran) included at least ceremonial washing, even if they viewed it as merely one washing among many (see comments above).
6. Given the facts that later rabbinic Judaism was in a position of far greater power than were the early Jewish Christians in its area of geographical influence and that it usually ignored or condemned their teachings, it would be quite unlikely that it would have borrowed initiatory baptism from the Christians and hardly more likely that it would have developed and approved initiatory baptism on its own once this practice had become associated with the Jewish Christians.
Other arguments—for instance, that some definite symbol of transition was necessary for women converts—are less substantial but can supplement the case.
Apparently John’s baptism historically summoned Israelites to turn to God the same way Jewish people expected Gentile proselytes to do; like the Qumran sect but with a more radical and public symbolism, John regarded only the true remnant of Israel as prepared for the Lord (see the Q material in Matt 3:9//Luke 3:8), and sought to turn the larger community of Israel to repentance.
Baptism “in Jesus’s name” distinguishes this baptism from other Jewish immersion practices noted above, with respect to its object. For Luke, baptism in Jesus’s name does not involve a ritual formula uttered over an initiate but the new believer’s “calling on the name of the Lord” Jesus (See comment on Acts 2:21; 22:16); thus Luke employs with this phrase the verb βαίτίζω in the passive rather than the active voice, employing the active form only when the verb is without the phrase (see fuller discussion below).
Luke presents apostles acting by means of Jesus’s name, probably meaning that they were able to perform his works because he had authorized them to do so (Acts 3:6, 16; 4:7, 10, 30; 16:18; cf. 19:13, 17); all who wished to be saved must likewise be so by his name (4:12; 10:43; cf. 15:17), a point relevant to 2:21 and 2:38. Outsiders also recognized that the apostles taught in Jesus’s name (4:17–18; 5:28, 40; 9:27–28; cf. 21:13), presumably meaning that they did so explicitly as his followers (probably also relevant to the expression “baptism in Jesus’s name”). Acts also speaks of those who called on Jesus’s name (2:21; 9:21); as we shall see, this is quite relevant for “baptism in Jesus’s name.” These examples of Luke’s use of Jesus’s name employ various prepositions, but as in the case of baptism (see below), the specific prepositions are probably roughly interchangeable.
In Israel’s Scriptures, “name” often connoted reputation, so that when God acted “on account of his name,” he defended his honor, a matter readily understood in the ancient Mediterranean with its emphasis on honor and shame. “In God’s name” could signify a representative’s acting on God’s behalf (Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19–22; Jer 14:14–15), according to his command (Deut 18:5, 7), or by his help (Ps 118:10–11; Prov 18:10) or using his name for a miraculous act (2 Kgs 2:24). In prayer, which suits this context (Acts 2:21), calling on the deity’s name meant addressing him (1 Kgs 18:24–26, 32; 2 Kgs 5:11; Pss 9:2; 18:49); similarly, in 1 Chr 16:2, when David blessed the people in the Lord’s name, he apparently was calling on the Lord to bless them. That various early Jewish circles could employ “name” as a polite surrogate for pronouncing the divine name also fits this usage. (See more extensive comment regarding the “name” at Acts 3:6.)
Perhaps relevant is the Diaspora Jewish formula that God accepts those “who repent in the name of the Most High God”; Christian baptism is distinct by specifying Jesus’s name. Although this suggestion is quite possible, we cannot be sure enough that Joseph and Aseneth lacks Christian influence to stake too much on it by itself. Rabbis also later speak of genuine proselytes as converts “in the name of” (for the sake of) heaven (לשם שמים). Given the diverse strands of evidence, it seems likely (though not certain) that some Jews spoke of Gentiles converting in God’s name. In any case, Jewish people were known for “calling on the Lord’s name,” and the more specific application to Jesus would be striking. If it parallels invoking the divine name, it fits the context’s exalted, divine Christology.
Baptism “in Jesus’s name” probably simply specifies Christian baptism as distinct from various Jewish immersion rituals (whether or not some other Jewish people spoke of converts in God’s name). People being baptized “in his name” designated whose followers they would be (cf. Paul’s ironic response to Corinthian misunderstanding in 1 Cor 1:13–15, which may well presuppose baptism in Jesus’s name). The supposed conflict with the trinitarian formulation in Matt 28:19 (thought to represent a later stage or different geographic region) misses the fact that both function to identify baptism for followers of Jesus as distinct from other kinds of baptism (and possibly both link Jesus with God in some way). Although there is little direct historical support outside Matthew for that formula’s being earlier, we should note, against the common opinion of scholarship, that its affirmation of Jesus’s role, though divine, may be more subtle than Luke’s baptism solely in the name of Jesus.
Further, whatever the function of Matthew’s “baptismal formula,” Luke’s is not a phrase uttered by a supervisor over one receiving baptism. As already mentioned, although the verb βαίτίζω appears in both passive and active forms, Luke includes the formula “in the name of Jesus” only with passive uses of the verb (Acts 2:38; 8:12, 16; 10:48; 19:5); this indicates that the formula has to do with receiving rather than giving (which essentially meant preaching or supervising) baptism. Further, one who would wash away his sins by baptizing himself was to “call on the name of the Lord” while doing so (22:16). This matches the context of Acts 2: one called on the Lord’s name (2:21) by being baptized in Jesus’s name (2:38). If 2:38 fulfills Joel’s quotation (as most exegetes affirm), then what specifies that a baptism is in Jesus’s name is the recipient’s confession of faith in Jesus.
This is not to suppose that early Christians would not have cared who supervised baptisms (which were probably effectively self-dunkings). Apparently second-century Jewish teachers debated whether Samaritans could circumcise Jews (though Jews could circumcise Samaritans), because Samaritans circumcised in the name of, or for the sake of, Mount Gerizim. There is no indication that one needed to be “ordained” to oversee baptism (cf. 8:38; 9:18), but early Christians probably at least expected Christian commitment for anyone performing Christian acts, including overseeing baptism.
Luke’s particular expression varies: is one baptized ἐίί Jesus’s name (as here), εἰς his name (8:16; 19:5), or ἐν his name (10:48)? But εἰς and ἐν tended to merge in Koine, so that (in contrast to classical Greek) εἰς with the accusative no longer necessarily implied movement. Luke was probably unconcerned with the preposition; “what mattered was the name” (see 3:6, 16; 8:12).
Because Christian baptism especially evokes John’s baptism, it is likely Palestinian and early, and its widespread use among various Christian movements also suggests its antiquity. Semitic expressions behind the prepositions (see comment on Acts 8:16) suggest the same for baptizing in Jesus’s name. This, in turn, suggests that the Jesus movement used it as a line of demarcation within Judaism even from an early period and that the primary line of demarcation was faith in Jesus’s exalted status. Although we lack external data to corroborate what was said on the precise occasion Luke describes, the evidence does favor his claim that the “primitive” Jerusalem church used baptism in Jesus’s name for converts to its sect, in the process likely affirming Jesus’s lordship.
Luke recalls earlier teachings about the Spirit through his terms “gift” (cf. Luke 11:13, concerning dependent prayer) and “promise” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4; 2:33). By noting that the promise is for others, he makes the proper response for the present crowd (namely, repentance and baptism in Jesus’s name) and the gift of the Spirit received at Pentecost (Acts 1:8; 2:4, 17–18) paradigmatic for all subsequent believers. By alluding to “far-off” Gentiles by way of Isaiah’s language, Luke also reiterates the prominence of the Spirit for the Gentile mission (cf. 10:44–47).
Peter and the apostolic witnesses can preach repentance in Jesus’s name in Jerusalem precisely because they have now received God’s promise of power for this task (Luke 24:47–49). Those who receive the same gift will likewise spread God’s message (cf. Acts 2:47; 8:4).
What Luke emphasizes as included in the gift is more simply ascertained than questions of normative sequence. Complicating any attempt to create a mandatory sequence here, Luke clearly speaks of conversion (repentance and baptism) in this text; in context, he also clearly associates the gift with prophetic empowerment, which (elsewhere in Acts; cf. 4:8; 13:9; esp. discussion at Acts 8:14–17) apparently might not occur at the same moment yet was also part of the “gift” of the Spirit. Luke’s focus with regard to the gift’s content in his narrative is empowerment, not conversion, but most scholars assume that the timing of the gift here is simultaneous with conversion. Noting sequential variations in Acts’ subsequent narratives, some scholars have questioned whether this text places any emphasis on simultaneity, which is not explicit, though the gift at least appears to follow inevitably.
If Luke indicates simultaneity here, he may mean the gift here more broadly than exclusively prophetic empowerment (in my approach, his empowerment emphasis does not eradicate all other elements; Luke 3:16). But whether or not Luke implies a temporal connection here, conversion and the gift of the Spirit are inseparably connected theologically. In Paul, at least, the gift of the Spirit is, as Gordon Fee puts it, “the chief element of the Christian life, from beginning to end.” Yet this theological connection does not predetermine Luke’s subsequent narrative portrayals of prophetic-empowerment experiences, which are his more dominant focus.
Because Luke emphasizes the prophetic-empowerment dimension of the Spirit, he does not identify the experience he emphasizes with conversion at every occurrence in his narrative (see comment on Acts 1:4–5). Granted, the events of Acts 2:38 are theologically a single package; this does not mean, however, that they always occur in the exact sequence as in 2:38. That is, the sequence seems to be normal rather than normative, allowing “exceptions” (see 8:14–17; 10:44–48). (Variation was common for literary reasons, but on such a key point, given Luke’s thesis here, his variation probably reflects the historically authentic variety of early Christian experience.)
Although the “gift of the Spirit” and “giving the Spirit” are natural Lukan expressions (Luke 11:13; Acts 5:32; 8:18–20; 10:45; 11:17; 15:8, using various Greek terms), similar language appears elsewhere in early Christianity (John 3:34; 4:10; Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:17; 3:16; 1 Thess 4:8; 2 Tim 1:7; 1 John 3:24; 4:13). “Giving the Spirit” likewise fits the language of “receiving the Spirit,” both in Acts (Acts 1:8; 2:33, 38; 8:15–19; 10:47; 19:2) and elsewhere (John 7:39; 14:17; 20:22; Rom 8:15; 1 Cor 2:12; Gal 3:2, 14; cf. 2 Cor 11:4; Rev 22:17). Surveying the context of the references in Paul and (for the most part) John suggests that the expression refers to conversion, which initiates a person into a continuing life by the Spirit; by contrast, the context of the passages in Acts suggests especially prophetic empowerment (at least in Acts 1:8; 10:47; and 19:2–6). The language of “gift” might contrast with the common early Jewish expectation that the Spirit was merited only by the most pious.
Those who emphasize a parallel between Moses’s ascent to receive Torah for his people and Jesus’s ascension to receive the Spirit for his followers could find a parallel between the “gift” of the Holy Spirit here and the “gift” of the Torah. Jewish texts regularly emphasize that God “gave” the Torah to Israel and that it was God’s “gift.” A rabbinic tradition at least as early as R. Simeon ben Yohai (late second century) speaks of God’s three special gifts to Israel on account of its suffering: the Torah, the land, and the world to come. Jewish literature also portrays Wisdom as a divine gift (4Q185 1–2 II, 8–11), including in a context where God “pours out” (ἐξέχεεν) wisdom (Sir 1:9–10).
The “promise” of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 2:33) must refer to baptism in the Spirit, as it explicitly does in Acts 1:4–5. Luke’s language thus connects baptism in the Spirit (1:5), being filled with the Spirit (2:4), the promise of the Spirit, the gift of the Spirit, and receiving the Spirit (2:38–39); as in rhetoric, variation was valuable where it would not impair clarity. In the larger context of Luke’s work, “promise” also involves the eschatological inheritance of God’s people (7:17; 13:23, 32–33; 26:6–7); this aspect of the promise theme may cohere with the promise of the Spirit because the Spirit provides a foretaste guaranteeing the eschatological future. This approach would resemble Paul’s usage in Galatians, where Paul, like Luke (see comment on “afar off” here), also believed that this promise of the Spirit would apply to Abraham’s ethnically Gentile descendants (Gal 3:14; cf. Eph 1:3, 13).
Initially, the promise is to all Israel (“your children”), as in the Scriptures (cf. also Acts 3:20, 25–26). “Your children” may develop “your sons and daughters” in 2:17 (cf. Luke 13:34). But even if Israel, which holds priority, rejects the offer, it remains available for others who will desire it (Acts 13:46; 28:28). (In a sense, Israel’s temporary rejection also bought time for more Gentile conversions, since Israel’s repentance would usher in Christ’s return [3:19–20; Rom 11:25–26].)
“Afar off” (μακράν) likely alludes to Isa 57:19, as scholars often suggest, and probably refers (on the Lukan level, not that of Peter in the narrative world) to the Gentile mission. Other scholars have also applied Isaiah’s language in that verse to the Gentile mission (Eph 2:17; cf. 2:13). In context, Isaiah may refer to both Diaspora Jews returning and to Gentiles converting; these nuances would serve Luke’s purpose as well. Some early Jewish interpreters applied the text to proselytes. One of the other two uses of μακράν in Acts (it appears only ten times in the NT) also suggests that Gentiles are in view here (Acts 22:21; cf. discussion of Isa 57:19 at Acts 10:36). (Later interpreters of Isa 57:19 applied “far off” to those who had recently repented and turned to the law, but the tradition is probably Amoraic.) Most likely Peter and his hearers within the narrative world would not yet understand the allusion that Luke offers his own informed audience through Peter’s words. Many ancients believed that individuals could sometimes speak prophetically in ways they did not understand (e.g., John 11:49–50). Perhaps developing the Greek conception of loss of control in prophecy, many imagined the possibility of prophecies unintended and unrecognized by the speaker. They also allowed for literary or rhetorical observations of unintended truth; thus, for example, when a speaker unwittingly said something that sounded like a confirmation of Timarchus’s known immorality, the informed audience laughed and spoke of truth prevailing over human intentions (Aeschines Tim. 84).
By concluding that the gift was available to “as many as God calls,” Luke clearly echoes the end of Joel 2:32 (3:5 LXX), completing the quotation interrupted in Acts 2:21. That is, having finished his exposition of “whoever calls on the Lord’s name” (2:21) by showing that the name on which his hearers must call is Jesus’s (2:38), he concludes the quotation in 2:39. By applying a biblical text about YHWH to Jesus, Luke emphasizes Jesus’s deity in this text; that other early Christians interpreted the Joel text similarly (Joel 2:32 in Rom 10:9, 13) signals that Luke follows an earlier tradition of interpretation. (Both God and those who are saved “call.”)
For Luke, this quotation reinforces the “all flesh” of Acts 2:17, summarizing “your children” plus “those who are far away” earlier in 2:39. With “your children” it points beyond Peter’s generation, at least implicitly, to all who call on Jesus for salvation (2:21, 38–39). It is clear from this passage that Luke, as Turner notes, “believed the ‘Spirit of prophecy’ was still available to all believers.” In contrast to the suggestion of some scholars that Luke’s circle was no longer charismatic, the warnings of problems in the church in 20:25–35 do not include “a waning of the Spirit.”
Peter “solemnly testifies” to his audience. Luke elsewhere summarizes speech (Luke 24:27; Acts 1:3; 8:35; 15:12) but here uses a special formula to note it. Speakers could be quite long-winded. Cato spent an entire day speaking, thus preventing Caesar’s faction from having the chance to present their case (Plut. Caes. 13.1). Cicero complains about Rome’s Pompeian law (52 B.C.E.) that allowed each speaker for the defense (of which there could be more than one) only three hours (Cic. Brut. 93.324). Because courts eventually placed limits on the length of one’s speech, Albucius preferred to speak in other venues (Sen. E. Controv. 7.pref. 8), perhaps even speaking for nine hours at a time. (See further comment on Acts 24:5.)
In light of long speeches, historians often had to compress their contents, and some careful writers explicitly noted that they could report only a portion of what was said. For example, a source concludes a report of one of Musonius Rufus’s lectures thus: “These words [ταῦτα] and others [ἕτερα] like them he then spoke, exhorting and urging his hearers to look upon hardship with disdain.” Xenophon justifies merely summarizing Socrates’s words by admitting that Socrates and his friends said more but that he intended not to report the entire trial, instead emphasizing a central point only. Tacitus recounts some sample arguments as direct speech and then summarizes the effect of “these and similar arguments.” Novels could use the same form: one person exhorted another “with these and many other like words.” Luke’s summary in fact uses “a well-known stylistic abbreviatory device,” as van der Horst notes. This “literary device . . . shortens the length of a speech and suggests the transcriptional character of the part ‘quoted.’” Jewish interpreters likewise explained texts on the assumption that biblical narratives merely abbreviated what had really been said. This does not necessarily mean that Luke knew more of the speech than he reports (any more than that, as many scholars think, he knew less), only that he knew that there was more.
Writers also often mentioned that they had many more examples available and were providing only a sample (e.g., Mus. Ruf. 10, p. 78.22; 2 Macc 2:24–25; Heb 11:32). Rhetoricians sometimes noted that they could offer other examples but that they provided only those necessary to demonstrate their case. Sometimes writers or speakers indicated that they could have provided further evidence of a person’s guilt, thereby insinuating greater guilt than they had stated. Similarly, one could imply a subject’s virtue by noting that one lacked sufficient time to recount all the positive examples available. The same was true of great sufferings, the teachings of scribes, or an epideictic treatment of virtue.
Probably this verse means that Luke skips through many supplementary πιστοί (proofs, arguments; some of which the informed reader may infer from the broader context of Luke-Acts) and moves quickly “to the peroratio, the final exhortation and emotional appeal involving pathos”: “Save yourselves!” This restates briefly the speech’s central deliberative thrust. Although Luke, like other early Christian writers, makes abundant use of “salvation” language, the immediate referent of “Save” here and “saved” in Acts 2:47 is Joel’s prophecy in Acts 2:21: whoever calls on the Lord’s name will be saved. For Luke (especially in view of his application of Joel’s prophecy), this salvation is deliverance from God’s eschatological wrath and destruction, available through Christ (4:12; 11:14; 15:1, 11; 16:31). Thus Luke would apply it to his own generation as well as to Peter’s.
For Peter’s hearers to save themselves from the generation’s wickedness was not, as some later Gentile Christian interpreters would have it, a summons to leave Israel and their Jewishness; rather, it was a summons to leave their rebellion against God, like a repeated prophetic summons to Israel in the OT. Luke’s term γενεά means here a temporal “generation,” not (against some popular interpretations) “race” (γένος). Perhaps in contrast to the pious generation of Jesus’s childhood (Luke 1:50–55, 68–79), Jesus held harsh words for his own generation (γενεά, 7:31; 11:30–32), which he called faithless and twisted (διεστραμμένη, 9:41) and evil (11:29). Jesus also condemned it in advance as guilty of his murder (17:25; perhaps Acts 8:33) and hence guiltier than rebellious generations before it (Luke 11:50–51) and destined for judgment (21:32). Luke distinguishes that generation from previous generations (Acts 13:36; 14:16; 15:21). By calling the generation σκολιᾶς (“crooked”) here, he surely alludes to Deut 32:5 (γενεὰ σκολιὰ καὶ διεστραμμένη), the same LXX text alluded to in the Jesus tradition in Luke 9:41 (//Matt 17:17; these texts use γενεά and διεστραμμένη). The crooked generation needed to be straightened to be prepared for the Lord’s coming (Luke 3:5; cf. Acts 13:10, using διαστρέφων). (Following the LXX more fully, Paul combines both terms for “twisted” in Phil 2:15.) Deuteronomy 32:5 refers to the rebellion of the wilderness generation; Ps 77:8 LXX (78:8 ET) provides the only other occasion where the LXX employs σκολιός with “generation,” and it also depicts the wilderness generation. Peter’s point is an exhortation not to harden their hearts as their ancestors did in the wilderness (Ps 95:8).
Luke’s language here is closest to his earlier description of John the Baptist, who also announced the good news to the people with many “other exhortations” (Luke 3:18), summoned crowds for a baptism of repentance (3:7–8), and answered their question how to be saved (3:10). Peter thus continues the preaching tradition followed by John, underlining the continuity of salvation history and of the saving message.