Peter Addresses His Jewish Hearers
PETER ADDRESSES HIS JEWISH HEARERS
ACTS 3:17-26
It is a simple rule that if we want to know God’s blessing, we must repent and turn to him.
Peter addresses his Jewish hearers as:
Old Testament prophecy is again appealed to in order to show that the cross was part of a divine plan (3:18), and also that God’s offer in sending Israel’s Messiah, likened in 3:22 to a second Moses, is not to be trifled with (3:23). Indeed it is not simply that there are individual prophecies of his coming: the entire fabric of Old Testament Scripture is a preparation for the events which have recently taken place, Peter declares (3:24).
God’s redeeming purpose began with Abraham whose family is blessed in succeeding generations (3:25). Ultimately, as Paul shows in Galatians, this promise will embrace the Gentiles (Galatians 3:6-9,29). But both apostles agree that the offer of Messianic salvation is sent “to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16: 3:26). This fact stamps all missionary work among the Jewish people with an importance which is unique.
Notes 3:17: a reference to Luke 23:34 seems intended. Who else “acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13)? 3:19-20: “times of refreshing” and the “establishing (of) all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets” go together, and relate to the full joys of the Messianic era, to be consummated at the return of Christ (3:20). 3:22: John’s Gospel enshrines references to this aspect of the Messianic hope, current among the Samaritans who awaited a “restorer” (John 4:19,25,29). 3:26: The verb speaks of Jesus’ mission, not his resurrection. He is God’s Servant as in Isaiah’s prophecy. Just possibly he may be likened to Isaac (3:25) whose “binding” (Genesis 22) was understood by the rabbis as atoning for sin.