Acts 13:26-41

26 “Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. 28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.
32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:
“‘You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.[b]’[c]
34 The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words:
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’[d]

35 So it is stated elsewhere:
“‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’[e]

36 “For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.
38 “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. 40 Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:

41 “‘Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.’[f]”


Dig Deeper
Many people seek out happiness in their life with ruthless passion. They place their own perceived need for happiness above everything else in their life and will go after it with tireless devotion. Of course there is a fundamental flaw with that mentality despite the fact that most humans spend their entire lives in the endless pursuit of this elusive happiness. The reality is that humans were really created to run on happiness we were created to run on the fuel of being God’s image bearers. It is when we realize that function in our lives that we find true joy and the elusive happiness that comes along with that. The problem that this fundamental misunderstanding causes, however, is that people often spend a good bulk of their lives seeking after happiness in the wrong things and putting their hope in the wrong places.

People will pursue money, fame, wealth, sex, food, and a countless number of other things looking to find that eternal and lasting happiness in their lives but it will never come through those things. In fact, people can become so desperate in their never-ending saga to find the pool of happiness from which to drink that they will allow themselves to be abused and mistreated. Will do horrible things to themselves with drugs and alcohol in order to find happiness. Or they will let another person come into and out of a relationship with them and abuse them because they suspect that this person might bring them the happiness that they so desire. The sad thing is that they are putting their hope in the wrong place. I’m not sure that there is anything sadder than that.

Although it may not seem like it at first glance, misplaced hope is at the heart of Paul’s message here. It all comes down to a matter of where they were placing their hope. The Jews and God-fearing Gentiles understood that God had a story that he was weaving throughout history to have a people for himself. They all desired, at one level or another, to be part of that story. But where were they placing hope to be part of God’s story and his people? Was their hope invested in the right place? That is the key question that lies just beneath the surface here.

In the first part of this particular narrative, Paul demonstrated for his audience the fact that the story he was telling was the only logical continuation of the story of God and his people. It simply had to go this way. But now he clearly states perhaps the most exciting aspect of all. God had given many specific promises in the Old Testament concerning the formation of his promised family, their freedom from the curse of sin, and the coming of the Messiah to bring all of that about. For hundreds of years God’s people had waited in eager anticipation for God’s promises to come true. In fact, Hebrews 11 is a primer course on the righteous men and women of the Old Testament times and how they remained faithful to hope of God’s promises despite difficult circumstances and seeming evidence to the contrary. All of those promises had finally arrived and the best part was that they were the ones that were part of the very early years. The incredible gift of God’s salvation had come in their lifetime!

But with great opportunity also comes great responsibility. The Messiah had come during their lifetimes and they had the incredible opportunity to accept his life and salvation but that also meant that those who refused to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah would be making the catastrophic mistake of refusing God’s salvation. The rulers and leaders of the religious groups in Jerusalem had made that mistake. Their condemnation of Christ was really their own condemnation for what it really accomplished was that they took the role of those that had been prophesied who would oppose the Messiah and cause him to suffer. Their opposition, in fact, should not shake the confidence of anyone who was drawn to putting their faith in the Messiah for it wasn’t a sign that he was not the Messiah but was a fulfillment of prophecy and a sign that he was indeed the Messiah.

At every point, Paul stresses that the Jewish leadership acted not out of genuine concern for God but in opposition to him. They had so set themselves up against God’s true purposes that they found themselves fulfilling the role of the villainous persecutors that were all part of God’s plan for his suffering servant. In that sense, they acted according to God’s plan but not according to his will. They had him killed despite having no lawful reason for doing so, they hung him ingloriously on a tree to identify him as one cursed by God, and they had him put in a tomb to rot.

That was the verdict of the religious leaders of Jerusalem but God had clearly vetoed that decision by resurrecting Jesus from the dead. God had overruled their will with his own mighty power and there were many eyewitnesses who could bare testimony to that fact. In point of fact, becoming witnesses to the truth of the resurrection is what all disciples then were called to do and what we are still called to be now. Not in the same way of course, but we still are given the task of calling people to look at the evidence of the power of the resurrected Christ in our own lives.

Like Peter did in Acts, Paul then launched into a series of Old Testament passages to show his audience that he and the other disciples were not claiming to be witnesses to something that was not of God. The sacred Scriptures had pointed to the type of Messiah that Jesus had proven to be all along.

They might not have been able to piece together the prophecies to fully understand the role of the Messiah before he came, but now they only need to look at the Scriptures concerning the Messiah. The second Psalm had declared that a specific day would come when the messiah would be shown to be the true Son of God. And passages like Psalm 16:10 had declared that God’s holy one, the Messiah, would die but his body would somehow not see decay as all people do when they die. Paul also quoted from Isaiah 55 to make the point that all of the blessings and promises of God’s people would find their fulfillment in David’s family. Yet that Psalm goes on to imply that people would not immediately grasp how the Messiah could be the fulfillment of all of God’s promises because man’s thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor man’s ways, God’s way.

His point with all of that was sharp and clear. God had given these promises to the house of David but David could clearly not have been the fulfillment of those promises. David died like all men do. David was buried and then his body decayed like all bodies do. That would clearly disqualify him from being the one that the Psalms referred to. When you think that the answer is 3 but the question is shown to be 2 + 2, the answer clearly cannot be 3. There was only one who could claim to have died yet been resurrected by God without seeing decay. He alone was the one in whom their hope should and their faith should lay.

This isn’t all just a bunch of random and interesting facts though. Understanding who the Messiah is and accepting him as such isn’t just nice mental exercise or even an important philosophy. It is the most important thing that anyone must decide. Do they accept Jesus as God’s promised Messiah or not. Because, according to Paul and the gospel, in the resurrection lies the reality of forgiveness of sins that are available only to those in God’s family. That’s, in that sense, what it means to be justified. God’s promise was to create a family of those that would be blessed from the curse of sin and becoming part of that family is only available by having faith in Jesus and entering through baptism into his life. Following the Law of Moses could never accomplish that. The Law and any other religion or philosophy that still exists today can only conform one’s current behavior. They cannot and never could change one’s status from outside of the family God to a full member (see Eph. 2) and they can never restore and transform one back into the image of God that they were created to be (see 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:21-24; 1 Cor. 15:49).

Because this is such an important and pivotal issue is why Paul attaches a warning. Rejecting the Messiah means completely missing the boat of what God is doing in the world. Verse 41 quotes from Habakkuk 1:5 where God warns of the dangers of missing out on what he is doing. Habakkuk goes on to say that he will stand watch and make every effort to not miss God’s work. God then promises that soon he will justify those that live by faith. This is exactly what God has delivered through his resurrected Messiah. It is in the Messiah alone that we can be justified and brought into God’s promised family. There is great danger if we put our trust in anything else. That’s a truth that must be truly believed by God’s people and proclaimed with great confidence.


Devotional Thought
How confident are you in declaring that entering into the life of Christ is the only way to be restored in the image of God and reconciled with the Father? It is not a popular message in our day but it is the truth. Isn’t it time that you declared it boldly?