November 8
November 8
No power on earth is greater than the power of God’s transforming grace.
The high priest along with the rulers, elders, and scribes demanded that Peter and John explain a healing they had performed in the power of Jesus. Peter boldly spoke before these powerful religious leaders. Read Peter’s words, and then consider the man who spoke them:
“Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:8–13)
Peter was the disciple who consistently did and said the wrong things. It was Peter who pulled out a sword and lopped off the ear of one of the soldiers seeking to arrest Jesus, who immediately confronted Peter and healed the soldier’s ear. Peter was the disciple who said he would follow Jesus in his suffering but then after Jesus’s arrest denied that he had anything to do with him (see John 18).The man speaking in Acts 4 is a very different Peter. He speaks with gospel clarity and boldness. Not only is he is unafraid of associating himself with Jesus, but he rebukes these leaders for their vile mistreatment of his Savior. Peter confronts them with the fact that the one they crucified is their one and only means of salvation. And he says all of this with clarity and confidence.
Peter stands before these powerful rulers as a living testament to the awesome power of God’s transforming grace. Even these coldhearted religious leaders are astonished at Peter’s brilliance: “They recognized that they had been with Jesus.” There simply is no other explanation for the dramatic change in this man. The power of God’s transforming grace in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, has transformed this disciple.
That transforming grace is for you too. Jesus accomplished his redeeming work so that you would be rescued from sin’s penalty and transformed into his likeness.