Acts 2:37-41

37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.




Dig Deeper
Some people seem to have a natural sense of direction wherever they. At any given point and time they seem to know exactly where the cardinal directions are and how to get where they want to go even if they have never been there before. I am the exact opposite of those people. I have no sense of direction at all, can easily forget how to get to places that I have already been many times, and can get lost almost anywhere. I recall one incident in particular when I was driving somewhere that I had not been before. I had the directions written down telling me where I wanted to go but when I came to one turn I had to make to get on a highway, the directions simply said to get on that highway without indicating whether I should go North or South. I probably should have been able to figure out the right direction but knowing that I’m terrible at that sort of thing, I just guessed. I quickly realized that I had chosen the wrong direction and needed to turn around, but then things got worse. As I was looking for an exit at which I could turn around I saw a sign that said that the next exit was 20 miles down the road. It’s a sinking feeling to know that you are going in the wrong direction and cannot turn around.

A major part of Jesus’ ministry, one that Luke stressed even more than the other gospel writers and one that is often missed, is Jesus’ constant warnings to the children of Israel as a nation. They were heading in the wrong direction. They were believing that God would exalt them no matter what and that someday the Messiah would come and defeat their enemies, namely the Romans. Because of that belief they moved closer to war with Rome all the time believing that God would give them victory. Jesus constantly and firmly warned them that this was not the way and it was not God’s plan. If they continued going down that road any longer they would soon find that there were no exits where they could turn around and that the only thing that awaited them was destruction. Jesus’ death was the final exit for the nation as a whole. There was no turning around now. What can be worse than finding out that the next exit is twenty miles down? It is to find out that there are no more exits at all.

Jesus had warned that if Israel did not turn off of the path on which they were heading that things would end with the judgment of God pouring out on them in no uncertain terms. This is what would happen to God’s people if they rejected his way and substituted it with their own. Yet, the message of the Cross was stunning in its implications. Jesus, as the Messiah, was not only the true king of Israel, he would also serve as their representative and take on the very wrath and judgment of God that was due to them. He went into Jerusalem, the very city where he promised the judgment would be poured out, and took it on himself so that they would not have to bear the brunt of it.

He was the Messiah. He was the one that God had promised and had sent to fulfill all of God’s promises (2 Cor. 1:20). Jesus was the one that could bring salvation and reconciliation to the people who would embrace God’s plan and come to faith in Jesus. It was too late for the nation of Israel as a whole but anyone who would believe in Christ as Messiah and Lord could receive a pardon and turn around. As Peter declared all of this, the hearts of many were moved. God had promised that one day he would remove the stone hearts of his people and give them a new heart of flesh animated by his own Spirit. Now they were cut to the heart and those that responded to God’s plan could receive what God had promised. They had been moved in their hearts and wanted to know what they could possibly do.

Realistically what could they expect? Would it have been that shocking if Peter replied that there was nothing that they could? Would it have been completely unexpected if he said that they had killed the Messiah and now the only thing that their generation could do was to expect judgment? But that’s not the response they heard from Peter. They would not be treated as they deserved. The reality was almost beyond belief. They had killed God’s Son and would now be offered sonship. They had taken the life of the Messiah but would be offered eternal life. They had tried to seize the vineyard and take the inheritance for their own and would now be offered the full rights of co-heirs. They had turned their hearts from God and hardened them and now God was offering to give them completely new hearts.

How should they respond then? Peter offers two conditions and two results, but in both cases they can almost be said to be one-in-the-same because the two conditions are inseparable from one another just as the two results are inseparable from one another. Baptism was not unknown to the Jewish people. It appears that Jewish converts by the first century were being baptized to signify their purification as they became Jews and John the Baptist had called people to be baptized to identify themselves with the repentance and forgiveness of sins that was to come as they aligned themselves with the new thing that God was doing in the world.

Repentance was not merely a desire to try something new. It was a complete change of mind and to turn one’s entire life in the opposite direction. It meant to leave behind one’s life and way of doing things and enter into the life of the Messiah. Luke seems to make no effort, try as many might have since then, to separate repentance and baptism. They cannot be separated as one is contingent upon the other. To repent and show faith in the life of Christ over one’s own is to submit to baptism into his life. But this is no magic ceremony. Baptism without repentance and true faith in Christ is little more than a bath.

What set this baptism apart was that it offered the ability to enter into the life of Christ and brought with it the fulfillment of God’s promises to deal with the sin of his people once-and-for-all. Being baptized into Christ would bring with it the incredible mercy and grace of God, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who enter into Christ will find themselves hidden in Christ (Col. 3:3) and clothed in him (Gal. 3:27).

It has become increasingly popular in the last two centuries to marginalize the necessity of baptism, as it has been relegated to the status of a symbolic act, despite any lack of scriptural citation to make such an assertion, as well as the high place given baptism in the Scriptures themselves. Paul places the one baptism (it is clear that Paul said “one” and meant “one” despite modern claims by some that there are actually three different baptisms) into Christ with pretty lofty company such as the one faith, one Lord, one Spirit and one Father (Eph. 4:4-6). Luke will later go in to make it clear in Acts that the symbolic baptism of John was not adequate (Acts 18:24-19:7), nor was the simple act of prayer to receive the forgiveness of one’s sins (Acts 22:16). The early church continued that same view of the necessity of responding to God’s offer of mercy by being baptized. The late first century work, Shepherd of Hermas, a highly respected work in the early church, states “[T]here is no other repentance than that which takes place, when we descended into the water and received the remission of our former sins.” Similalry, second century church leader Justin Martyr wrote that “Accordingly, we have believed and testify that the very baptism which he announced is alone able to purify those who have repented. And this is the water of life. . .” While writing around 180 AD, church leader Irenaeus argued that the Gnostics, false Christians according to the early church had actually been “instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God.” We would be wrong, though, to think of baptism as a simple ritual. It is a birth (Jn. 3:5). It is the incredible moment when God allows a repentant sinner to move from the family of fallen humanity and be born again into his new family (see Rom. 6:1-14).

Although this incredible offer of grace was being given to individual Jews and would eventually spread to be announced to all the nations of the world, it was much more than just personal salvation. Salvation is an individual event but we are saved into a body, into God’s family. This is likely what Peter meant by declaring that the promise that God was making available was for them and their children and even those who were far off. Peter’s audience that day would likely have understood him to be referring to Jews that were scattered around the world far off but the part about the promise being for them and their children would have been clear. This wasn’t a reference to infant baptism (something that proponents of that doctrine often claim) which would contradict Peter’s conditions for the promise, namely repentance and a baptism of faith into the life of Christ. As infants can neither repent or have faith we can safely conclude that baptism into Christ and the reception of the Holy Spirit is not something that can truly be available to infants. What Peter was likely referring to was the formation of those who accepted his message into the family of God. He wasn’t just issuing a call to a new sect of Judaism or any other religious group. They were becoming the people of God and were receiving the same kinds of promises that God had given to an obedient Israel (Deut. 6:1-3). The choice was theirs: they could enter into God’s promised family or remain as part of the corrupt generation, a phrase that connected them with the Exodus generation that rebelled against God (Deut. 32:5, 20), and a concept that came to be connected with those that rejected Christ (Matt. 12:39, 45; 16:4; 17:7; LK. 9:41; 11:29).

About 3,000 people present that day responded to Peter’s message through the faith of repentance and baptism. Some critics have argued that this is an unrealistic number but recent scholarship has demonstrated that the population of Jerusalem was likely approaching 200,000 plus all of the festival’s pilgrims. In addition, recent archaeology has shown that there were more than enough pools present around the Temple to accommodate all of the baptisms in short order. Truly Jesus’ promise to them that because he was ascending to the Father and sending the Spirit that they would do even greater things than he had done (Jn. 14:12) had begun to be fulfilled. As amazing as this day was, it was just the beginning of God’s great reconciliation project with the family of fallen humanity, a task that continues to this day.



Devotional Thought
Peter placed repentance in the category of something that was needed in order to enter into the family of the Messiah. To repent means to totally turn one’s life in the other direction. It means to live the life of Christ rather than the life of our own identity. It is something that we must continue in constantly (1 Cor. 15:31) as Jesus called people to the standard of carrying their cross daily (Lk. 9:23). Have you continued in the way of repentance and dying to self or have you try to resurrect the dead of your old self?