Acts 3:11-26; Genesis chapters 15, 18, 22, 26, and 28; Deuteronomy 18.
As with the great signs of the Spirit at Pentecost, which attracted a crowd, Peter uses the sign of the healed paralytic as an occasion to preach to the astounded crowds who had gathered on Solomon’s Porch—the outer rim of the Temple. He first act is to “debrief” them, assuring them that the healing is not because of the piety of John or Peter, but because of Jesus, the Messiah. Immediately he makes a connection with them, recalling their common faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the fathers that they share. This is an important move, because he has some straight talk to give them, and needs to make a link with them first. Let’s hear his sermon in full:
While [the healed man] clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in Solomon’s Porch. And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.” Acts 3:11-26
As soon as Peter has made this connection with his listeners, that they all worship the God of the patriarchs, he gets to the heart of the matter. That God in whom they all believe has glorified Jesus. It is Jesus who will be lifted up during this sermon, and it is He who is uppermost in Peter’s mind. Peter wants to redirect their thoughts away from the astonishment of the moment so that they can look back to the truly shocking thing: that God became a human being, and died for them, and that His resurrection and ascension to heaven are the prelude to that final day when God will restore all things. Both the tragedy and the victory of His life were planned by God, who sent the Messiah to His own people and to the world. Jesus was “the Christ appointed” for the Jews—including those in this crowd, and after the resurrection, God sent Him first to them!
As with the sermon at Pentecost, Peter does not mince words. Though God planned for all this, and foretold it by the prophets, the people have incurred guilt. They have not simply killed God’s servant, but the actual Author of Life! They have not listened to the prophets. They, along with their leaders have been misled. And yet there is a softness here. The apostle concedes that they sinned “in ignorance,” and now he is explaining things to them so that they can make amends. As part of the explanation, he quotes the patriarchs. In the words of our father St. John Chrysostom, “Christ sent the Jews back to Moses so that, through Moses, he might draw them to himself” (Against the Anomoeans 12.5. FC 72.287). Perhaps the most important place to which Peter refers is that promise in Deuteronomy 18 of a mysterious Prophet to come, to which all the people will listen: Peter, and Christians since him, have understood that Prophet to be Jesus, who is Prophet, Priest, King, and our LORD.
So then, the first theme concerning Jesus— crucified, glorified, resurrected, and received by heaven until the time of restoration— is added to the charge that Peter makes. Yet this also is connected with God’s promise of blessing if they turn back, since Christ was appointed for them. He reminds them of who they really are –not, fundamentally, slayers of the author of Life, but sons of the prophets, sons of Abraham, and students of Moses. The most important statement of God is left until the end of his sermon: God made a promise to Abraham to bless all the nations of the world through Abraham’s offspring. This foundational promise, made implicitly when God covenanted with Abraham, and then ex[throughout Genesis (chapters 15, 18, 22, 26, and 28) points to God’s ultimate plan, and also to the identity of Jesus. Jesus is the seed of Abraham, as St. Paul will point out in his letters, and the One who will ultimately bless the entire world. Israel was to have been a “light to the Gentiles,” but it is Jesus, their Messiah, who ultimately fufils this role. If they come to understand that Jesus is the true son of Abraham, they will know what it is to be children of Abraham themselves. That would mean not colluding with Gentile rulers to rebel against God (cf. Psalm 2), but shining God’s light so that even the Gentiles will worship God.
The old English commentator Venerable Bede makes an important point regarding our calling Jesus “the seed of Abraham.” He declares, “Here it must be borne in mind that the One whom he calls the offspring of Abraham is at the same time the Son of God because of the two natures of the one Christ. Thus they should not believe either that Christ is only a man or that there is one son of man and one Son of God” (Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 3.26. CS 117, 46.)
Peter, then, prevents any in the crowd from making either mistake, since he calls Jesus both the seed of Abraham, and the Author of Life. In the centuries to come, it would not be only Jewish people who misunderstood the nature of the God-Man, but also those in the Church, who sprang up with heresies like weeds, and could not take hold of this miracle of One who is truly and properly God as well as truly and properly Human. If they had only heeded Peter’s words with care, these errors would not have plagued God’s people, whether from Arius, or Nestorius, or Eutychius, or any of that sequence of confused ancient theologians. The name (and names) of Jesus, and the faith of His people are meant to come together in perfect harmony, working in synergy, for He has taken on everything that it is to be human so that we might be refreshed in the present, and glorified in the future with Him.
Finally, Peter talks to the crowd in such a way that reminds us both of the personal and corporate aspect of our faith. He begins by talking to “the people,” and calling them children of the patriarchs. But he ends by speaking of “every one of you,” just as he did in the call to baptism on the first Pentecost. There is something about the presence and power of Jesus that takes every person with absolute seriousness and dignity, but also sees us as part of a single body, intended to be knit together in Christ.
These disobedient children of God, who stand for the disobedience of all of humanity, are every one of them called to repent, and so to be blessed. In doing so, they will, like the paralytic, cleave to the apostles and the communion of the early Church; in doing so, they will also, each of them, become the person that God has in mind for them to become. Out of ignorance into knowledge, out of darkness into light, out of self-centeredness into Christ, out of being under the curse into blessedness—this is the route laid open for each and every one of us, whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, rich or poor, in social liberty or in oppression. It is by His Name, and by faith in His Name, that the Church is knit together, and added to daily. Peter preaches this Name to them not only by calling their attention to what has happened recently among them (and this is important!) but by going back to the Old Testament, to the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15, when the prophecy was made concerning that Great Prophet to come –our LORD Jesus, who is a prophet and more than a prophet. He also reminds them of God’s promise to Abraham in several places of Genesis (chapters 15, 18, 22, 26, and 28!) that all the world would be blessed through the seed –one particular son—of Abraham, Jesus, the one to come. And so the Author of Life has come, and brought healing to everyone, whether Jew or Gentile.
Edith M. Humphrey 