Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
What triumphant emphasis is in that 'He'! Peter quotes Joel's word
'pour forth.' The prophet had said, as the mouthpiece of God, '_I_ will
pour forth'; Peter unhesitatingly transfers the word to Jesus. We must
not assume in him at this stage a fully-developed consciousness of our
Lord's divine nature, but neither must we blink the tremendous
assumption which he feels warranted in making, that the exaltation of
Jesus to the right hand of God meant His exercising the power which
belonged to God Himself.
In verse 34, he stays for a moment to establish by prophecy that the
Ascension, of which he had for the first time spoken in verse 33, is
part of the prophetic characteristics of the Messiah. His demonstration
runs parallel with his preceding one as to the Resurrection. He quotes
Psalm cx., which he had learned to do from his Master, and just as he
had argued about the prediction of Resurrection, that the dead
Psalmist's words could not apply to himself, and must therefore apply
to the Messiah; so he concludes that it was not 'David' who was called
by Jehovah to sit as 'Lord' on His right hand. If not David, it could
only be the Messiah who was thus invested with Lordship, and exalted as
participator of the throne of the Most High.
Then comes the final thrust of the spear, for which all the discourse
has been preparing. The Apostle rises to the full height of his great
commission, and sets the trumpet to his mouth, summoning 'all the house
of Israel,' priests, rulers, and all the people, to acknowledge his
Master. He proclaims his supreme dignity and Messiahship. He is the
'Lord' of whom the Psalmist sang, and the prophet declared that whoever
called on His name should be saved; and He is the Christ for whom
Israel looked.
Last of all, he sets in sharp contrast what God had done with Jesus,
and what Israel had done, and the barb of his arrow lies in the last
words, 'whom ye crucified.' And this bold champion of Jesus, this
undaunted arraigner of a nation's crimes, was the man who, a few weeks
before, had quailed before a maid-servant's saucy tongue! What made the
change? Will anything but the Resurrection and Pentecost account for
the psychological transformation effected in him and the other Apostles?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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