Resurrection is the fulfilment of God’s promises
With the controversy nearly whether Jesus' resurrection was bodily last week, it seems appropriate to proceed to reverberate on the pregnant of the resurrection in Luke'southward account of the early church in Acts. This is the second instalment of my notes written for BRF Guidelines Bible reading notes which take just come out and lead up to the Easter season. If you are non encouraging those in your congregation to apply Guidelines, what Bible reading notes are y'all encouraging?
5. Resurrection as the fulfilment of the story of State of israel Acts 5:27–32, 7:35–38
If this bulletin about Jesus and the resurrection is bringing in a whole new order of things, then there is a serious theological question. Is this 'new guild' really something of God, or is information technology leading people astray? Is this new community displacing the 'congregation of Israel' that God led through the wilderness into the promised country? If these apostles have a new message, is it contradicting what God has taught them? Moses himself warned against new teaching—fifty-fifty if the messenger was able to do 'signs and wonders' (Deuteronomy 13:1–3). The trouble of 'another teaching' is 1 that Paul had to face early on on (Galatians 1:6–9), and information technology is one that faces every generation of Christians.
In Acts 5, Peter and the other apostles are once more before the authorities, following the healing of many and their own miraculous release from prison house. Peter's defence has a triple emphasis on the story of Israel. First, it is 'the God of our ancestors' who has 'raised Jesus from the dead'; it is the living God, worshipped by his living people, who has brought life where at that place was expiry. This is characteristic of God from the outset, when he breathed into the 'globe fauna' (adam) the 'breath of life' (Genesis two:seven). And it marks his human relationship with his people, who find renewal in exile when the Spirit of God breathes new life into them (Ezekiel 37:10). Secondly, Peter is articulate that the purpose of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus relates to Israel—to bring them to repentance and forgiveness (Acts 5:31), the hope expressed at the start of Luke's whole account (Luke 1:77). Thirdly, the signs and wonders of the Spirit are given to those 'who obey God' (Acts five:32)—so the miracles are actually confirmation of the message every bit coming from God.
The allegation confronting Stephen is similar—that he is leading people away from the didactics of Moses. In response, Stephen rehearses the history of Israel, and the turning point of his voice communication centres on Moses himself. He was rejected every bit leader by the people; God vindicated him; and the signs and wonders he did confirmed this. Jesus was rejected in the same way, merely God vindicated him (in the resurrection) and the signs and wonders done past Stephen confirm that this message is from God.
vi. Resurrection every bit boundary breaking Acts 10:34–46
The kickoff part of Acts has focussed on the message in Jerusalem and to the Jews there, and has begun to come across the ripples spread out every bit predicted past Jesus in 1:8. The persecution of the fledgling community has resulted in them 'preaching the word wherever they went' (8:four), which has already led to some surprising results—the bulletin existence received by the despised Samaritans, and the Ethiopian eunuch coming to faith and being baptised. We have been introduced to Saul, who will proclaim God'south proper name to the Gentiles (9:15) but he has nonetheless to take center stage.
In fact, the ministry to the Gentiles begins with Peter'due south alter of understanding through the vision of the sheet with unclean animals, representing the 'unclean' Gentiles whom God at present wants to attain. Peter's address is unapologetically particular, focussing on the events of Jesus' ministry, decease and resurrection, and specifically mentioning Nazareth, Galilee, the 'country of the Jews' and Jerusalem, all in fulfilment of the 'prophets' who (together with 'the police') form the Jewish scriptures. And he gives a special prominence to the 'witnesses…who ate and drank with him afterward he rose from the expressionless.' The resurrection forms a community of witness, and in doing and so forms a boundary distinguishing between those on the within and those on the exterior, just as Jesus' own educational activity had done (meet Mark 4:xi).
And notwithstanding at every phase, Peter then moves beyond into universal language. The message from God to the people of Israel is that Jesus is 'lord of all' (v. 36). His ministry involved delivering 'allwho were under the power of the devil' (v. 38). And in his resurrection God appointed him as 'judge of the living and the dead', not but the judge of Israel. This and then ways that 'everyonewho believes in him', Jew and Gentile alike, will 'receive forgiveness of sins' (5. 43). The resurrection addresses non merely the hopes of Israel for a renewed national life, merely the hope of all humanity that, in the words of David 'I will meet God in the state of the living' (Psalm 27:13). The resurrection is not just boundary making, but boundary breaking, creating a customs that straddles divisions of race, nationality and ethnicity, centred on the testimony to the power of the God of Israel.
seven. Reflection: the paradoxes of resurrection
We noted in Acts 1 that the resurrection offers continuity, forms customs, and gives confidence. But it is already clear that it does these things in ways that we probably did non expect.
Peter and the apostles are emphatic that Jesus' ministry building, death and resurrection are in consummate continuity with God'southward programme for Israel and the world—and it could hardly exist understood equally anything else. From Matthew, through Paul, to the Book of Revelation, Jesus is the fulfilment of all that God has done beforehand, the crowning and completion of his activity, and the last Word of all the words of God. Withal it looks like a new and unexpected matter both to the Jewish leaders and to us—and perhaps even to the apostles themselves. Peter confidently claims that 'all the prophets [of the OT] prove about him' (Acts 10:43), simply you take to read the prophets in a detail way, and with the benefit of retrospect, to run into that.
The resurrection also forms a customs centred on those who spent the 40 days with Jesus prior to the ascension, and bounded by belief in Jesus as God's anointed judge through whom nosotros have forgiveness. There is a very clear sense of partitioning between those who bring together this new motion and those who resist it—just as Jesus had said he would (Luke 12:51–52). And yet the boundaries of this customs do not follow expected lines; it already includes many, similar the Samaritans and the Ethiopian eunuch, whom many would take excluded, but excludes many, like the Sadducees and other Jewish leaders, whom many would have assumed included. This non nearly a sloppy 'anything goes' inclusion, since these people receive the gift of the HolySpirit and are incorporated into the distinct and holy people of God.
And the resurrection gives this new community a sense of confidence—merely a confidence that looks very vulnerable. They are persecuted and scattered, and God uses this communal fragility as a style of taking the message well-nigh new life in Jesus to unexpected places where it takes root and flourishes.
The resurrection not merely challenges our expectations of what God is doing, but the way in which he is doing it. Information technology is a piece of work of God that we cannot replicate past our own efforts.
8. Resurrection showing the successor to David Acts thirteen:16–41
The ministries of Peter and Paul have dovetailed in the terminal few chapters, with Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus coming between episodes in Peter's ministry. Simply the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas past the Christians in Antioch (13:3), shifts the focus decisively to Paul. Subsequently the encounter with Elymas the sorcerer on the isle of Cyprus, Paul and his companions land in Pamphylia, at present the south declension of Turkey, and continue to preach the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
Ananias was told that Paul would 'proclaim my [Jesus'] proper name to the Gentiles' (Acts nine:xv) and Paul himself confirms this in Galatians 2:7–8, contrasting his ministry with that of Peter to the Jews. But here Paul follows his consequent practice on his travels—to go first to the synagogue and tell his message to Jews and 'God-fearing' Gentiles (vv. xvi, 26) earlier so preaching to whole population of the metropolis (v. 44) and seeing many Gentiles joining this Jewish renewal movement (v. 48). This expresses Paul'south belief that the good news is 'first to the Jew, so to the Gentile' (Romans one:16). Like Peter, Paul 'motions with his hand' to proceeds attending (5. xvi, Acts 12:17) and like Peter at Pentecost makes his entreatment in a speech which has ii halves (vv.16–31 and vv. 32–41). And Paul agrees with Peter'due south emphasis on Jesus as the one pointed to by the prophets (v. 27).
Only in a motility of extraordinary irony, Paul's speech communication rehearses the history of Israel just the fashion that Stephen had done before his murder, which Paul witnessed and of which (at the time) he canonical. Paul shifts the focus from Moses to David, and from similarity to contrast. Jesus' resurrection is the fulfilment of the ancestral promise (v. 33) because it ways that Jesus is the ane who receives the promise that David did not see realised. Like the Davidic rex in the royal Psalm ii, Jesus is the true Son of God. Only unlike him, Jesus has received the promise of transcending death through resurrection (five. 37), a promise that was intended for all the people of God (see Isaiah 55:3 which Paul quotes) and which would spill over to the nations of the world. The resurrection shows Jesus to be 'swell David's greater son'.
nine. The resurrection as challenge to culture (i) Acts 17:14–21
Nosotros have jumped on to the middle of the second stage of Paul'due south missionary travels, moving beyond Asia (western Turkey) and into Europe. Later on visiting Philippi, Paul is escaping those pursuing him from Thessaloniki, and he has arrived in Athens, on his mode further south to the then more than important city of Corinth. A striking aspect of this episode is that Paul is, for the first and last time, ministering lonely. In both his teaching and his writing, he habitually works with others, merely at present awaits his coworkers Silas and Timothy. This does not prevent Paul from preaching, just it is no coincidence that this solo ministry building is the least fruitful in Acts.
Luke describes the pantheon of Greek gods in typically Jewish terms—as idols (v. 16). In the Quondam Attestation, the description of other religions as idol worship expressed both the error and the foolishness of non-Jewish belief; the mocking clarification in Isaiah 44:9–twenty contrasts idols with the uniqueness and the power of the God of Israel to rescue his people from exile. Paul'south preaching strategy takes a significant plough hither; as well equally debating in the synagogue with Jews and the associated God-fearers as he has done before (v. 17), he also at present debates in the marketplace-place, engaging with those with whom he shares petty in terms of religious and philosophical outlook. The lack of common agreement is evident from their reaction, describing Paul as a 'babbler'. The word derives from the action of birds who peck hither and there at seeds, somewhat at random, and was used in mockery of those who did not have a proper philosophical system, but pretentiously threw our disconnected ideas.
The other criticism tells united states why they thought this; Paul is 'advocating strange gods'. The term for 'resurrection' in Greek is the feminine noun anastasis, from which we become the woman's name Anastasia. Paul was so insistent on talking about Jesus and anastasisthat his listeners understood this equally a pair of gods, one male and one female. Despite the incomprehension and credible irrelevance, Paul remains resolutely committed to the message of the resurrection as central to the proficient news he brings—offering the liberating truth to a civilization ignorant of the reality of Paul's God.
I would heartily recommendGuidelines every bit a way of enabling personal Bible reading. They have a great slate of writers (every bit yous can run into from the cover of the current edition here) and are arranged into weekly blocks. But the days are not individually dated, which helps to assuage any guilt for missed days, and there is a summary reflection at the end of the calendar week to describe themes together. And then they aim to stimulate understanding, reflection and application. You can order online from the BRF website hither. Do also check out the resources available from Scripture Spousal relationship.
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