Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.
when they heard this - "Just what had Peter been preaching? Had he proclaimed the glad news which we now preach that 'We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace?' Had he offered his hearers salvation by faith in the blood of the One who had recently died on Calvary? Had he said anything about being reconciled to God by the cross, or about the cross having put away the enmity between God and man? No! He had accused his hearers of the crucifixion of Christ and had warned them that their Victim was alive again. We must clearly distinguish here between prophecy and the mystery later revealed to Paul, for, from the prophetic point of view it was the cross that had made the enmity between God and the nation (especially Israel) and this 'controversy' will have to be settled before the world ever knows peace or prosperity...It was clearly Peter's purpose to convict his hearers of their guilt in the crucifixion of Christ and to bring them to repentance." (Stam)
pierced to the heart - cut to the heart
repent - "To change one's mind; specifically, here, about Jesus of Nazareth, and to acknowledge Him as Lord (= God) and Christ (= Messiah)." (Ryrie)
“Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” -
"It is difficult for us to understand how honest men can continue to change the simple meaning of this verse to make it harmonize with the gospel of the grace of God, as though the baptism here had nothing to do with salvation. It would be fully as legitimate to interpret Heb 11:4 to mean that Abel's sacrifice had nothing to do with his salvation...Indeed, the requirement for salvation here are no different than those previously laid down by John the Baptist, for we read in Mark 1:4, that 'John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." The only difference between Peter's proposition and John's was one of historical development. The Holy Spirit had now come and Peter could add: 'and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.' But there was no change in the meaning of the ordinance, for at John's baptism too they had come 'confessing their sins' (Matt 3:6). John's baptism and Peter's both signified a confession of sin and a cleansing therefrom...The keys of the kingdom were committed to Peter; 'the gospel of the grace of God' to Paul (Matt 16:19; Acts 20:24; Eph 3:1-3) and Peter learned of the gospel of God's grace and the delay in Christ's return only as he heard it later from Paul (See Gal 2:2, 7. 9; 2 Pet 3:9, 15). Until we see this clearly — until we see that the gospel of the grace of God belongs to the great mystery revealed only after Israel had rejected her King both in incarnation and in resurrection — we must remain entangled in the hopeless confusion which has embroiled those who are still trying to serve God acceptably under the wrong commission. What a vast difference between Peter at Pentecost, demanding repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, and Paul later proclaiming Christ's righteousness for the remission of sins! (Rom 3:21-28)." (Stam)
"We must bear in mind that Peter addressed those who had openly rejected Jesus. They had, therefore, also openly to acknowledge their wrong and thus openly own Him as Messiah, whom they had disowned by delivering Him into the hands of lawless men. Repentance meant for them to own their guilt in having opposed and rejected Jesus. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ (in which it differs from the baptism of John) was the outward expression of that repentance. It was for these Jews, therefore, a preliminary necessity. And here we must not forget that Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost had it still to do with the kingdom, as we shall more fully learn from his second address in the third chapter. Another offer of the kingdom was made to the nation... In this national testimony the word 'repent' stands in the foreground, and their baptism in the name of Him whom they had crucified was a witness that they owned Him now and believed on Him. As soon as we leave the first part of this book in which Peter's preaching to the Jews is prominent, we find the word repentance no longer in the foreground; all the emphasis in upon 'believe.' (Of course faith and repentance are inseparably connected.) The Gospel in all its blessed fullness as revealed to the great apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, which he called 'my Gospel,' and as preached by him, makes 'faith' — 'believe' as prominent as Peter's preaching 'repent.'" (Gaebelein)
For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself. -
"At first sight it may seem that the 'you' and 'your children' of Verse 39 refer to Israel, while the phrase, 'all that are afar off' refers to the Gentiles. But a more careful examination of the passage will prove that this cannot be so. First, the promise of the Spirit (cf Verses 33, 38) was never made to the Gentiles. True, it affected the Gentiles, but it was unquestionably made to Israel. We Gentiles in the flesh are exhorted in Eph 2:11-12 to remember that we were 'strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.' Nor does the phrase 'afar off,' used here and elsewhere in Scripture, refer exclusively to Gentiles. We Gentiles were spiritually 'afar off' (Eph 2:17) but Israelites outside of their own land were geographically 'afar off' and are so designated again and again in the Old Testament Scriptures. Among other places, we find the phrase 'afar off' in Daniel's famous prayer (Dan 9:7). Peter, addressing a Jewish audience, then, declared simply that the promise of the Spirit was both to them and their children and those (of their people) who were afar off. And this harmonizes with the closing verses of Chapter 3, where he reminds his Hebrew hearers that they are the children of the covenant and that unto them first God has raised up a Savior, 'His Son Jesus,' since through them the nations of the earth are to be blessed." (Stam)
those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls - "Three thousand souls baptized in one day may seem, at first, like a large number. In fact it was a very small minority in the great nation which Peter and the eleven so earnestly sought to bring to Messiah's feet. Our Lord, while on the earth, had predicted that the kingdom would be 'taken from' the leaders in Israel and 'given to a nation [not nations] bringing forth the fruits thereof' (Matt 21:43). It is not difficult to determine who were to comprise that 'nation,' for in Luke 12:32 we learn that 'the kingdom' was to be given to the 'little flock' of Christ's followers, and in Luke 22:28-30 we find that the twelve apostles were to be the appointed rulers in that kingdom. These three thousand at Pentecost, then, added to the number of those already following Christ (1:15, cf. 1 Cor 15:6) constituted the 'little flock,' the 'nation' which was to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom. They were the believing remnant, the true Israel, and they did indeed bring forth those fruits." (Stam)
See also: http://tis-justme.blogspot.com/2010/12/acts-2-church-today-message.html
when they heard this - "Just what had Peter been preaching? Had he proclaimed the glad news which we now preach that 'We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace?' Had he offered his hearers salvation by faith in the blood of the One who had recently died on Calvary? Had he said anything about being reconciled to God by the cross, or about the cross having put away the enmity between God and man? No! He had accused his hearers of the crucifixion of Christ and had warned them that their Victim was alive again. We must clearly distinguish here between prophecy and the mystery later revealed to Paul, for, from the prophetic point of view it was the cross that had made the enmity between God and the nation (especially Israel) and this 'controversy' will have to be settled before the world ever knows peace or prosperity...It was clearly Peter's purpose to convict his hearers of their guilt in the crucifixion of Christ and to bring them to repentance." (Stam)
pierced to the heart - cut to the heart
repent - "To change one's mind; specifically, here, about Jesus of Nazareth, and to acknowledge Him as Lord (= God) and Christ (= Messiah)." (Ryrie)
“Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” -
"It is difficult for us to understand how honest men can continue to change the simple meaning of this verse to make it harmonize with the gospel of the grace of God, as though the baptism here had nothing to do with salvation. It would be fully as legitimate to interpret Heb 11:4 to mean that Abel's sacrifice had nothing to do with his salvation...Indeed, the requirement for salvation here are no different than those previously laid down by John the Baptist, for we read in Mark 1:4, that 'John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." The only difference between Peter's proposition and John's was one of historical development. The Holy Spirit had now come and Peter could add: 'and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.' But there was no change in the meaning of the ordinance, for at John's baptism too they had come 'confessing their sins' (Matt 3:6). John's baptism and Peter's both signified a confession of sin and a cleansing therefrom...The keys of the kingdom were committed to Peter; 'the gospel of the grace of God' to Paul (Matt 16:19; Acts 20:24; Eph 3:1-3) and Peter learned of the gospel of God's grace and the delay in Christ's return only as he heard it later from Paul (See Gal 2:2, 7. 9; 2 Pet 3:9, 15). Until we see this clearly — until we see that the gospel of the grace of God belongs to the great mystery revealed only after Israel had rejected her King both in incarnation and in resurrection — we must remain entangled in the hopeless confusion which has embroiled those who are still trying to serve God acceptably under the wrong commission. What a vast difference between Peter at Pentecost, demanding repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, and Paul later proclaiming Christ's righteousness for the remission of sins! (Rom 3:21-28)." (Stam)
"We must bear in mind that Peter addressed those who had openly rejected Jesus. They had, therefore, also openly to acknowledge their wrong and thus openly own Him as Messiah, whom they had disowned by delivering Him into the hands of lawless men. Repentance meant for them to own their guilt in having opposed and rejected Jesus. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ (in which it differs from the baptism of John) was the outward expression of that repentance. It was for these Jews, therefore, a preliminary necessity. And here we must not forget that Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost had it still to do with the kingdom, as we shall more fully learn from his second address in the third chapter. Another offer of the kingdom was made to the nation... In this national testimony the word 'repent' stands in the foreground, and their baptism in the name of Him whom they had crucified was a witness that they owned Him now and believed on Him. As soon as we leave the first part of this book in which Peter's preaching to the Jews is prominent, we find the word repentance no longer in the foreground; all the emphasis in upon 'believe.' (Of course faith and repentance are inseparably connected.) The Gospel in all its blessed fullness as revealed to the great apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, which he called 'my Gospel,' and as preached by him, makes 'faith' — 'believe' as prominent as Peter's preaching 'repent.'" (Gaebelein)
For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself. -
"At first sight it may seem that the 'you' and 'your children' of Verse 39 refer to Israel, while the phrase, 'all that are afar off' refers to the Gentiles. But a more careful examination of the passage will prove that this cannot be so. First, the promise of the Spirit (cf Verses 33, 38) was never made to the Gentiles. True, it affected the Gentiles, but it was unquestionably made to Israel. We Gentiles in the flesh are exhorted in Eph 2:11-12 to remember that we were 'strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.' Nor does the phrase 'afar off,' used here and elsewhere in Scripture, refer exclusively to Gentiles. We Gentiles were spiritually 'afar off' (Eph 2:17) but Israelites outside of their own land were geographically 'afar off' and are so designated again and again in the Old Testament Scriptures. Among other places, we find the phrase 'afar off' in Daniel's famous prayer (Dan 9:7). Peter, addressing a Jewish audience, then, declared simply that the promise of the Spirit was both to them and their children and those (of their people) who were afar off. And this harmonizes with the closing verses of Chapter 3, where he reminds his Hebrew hearers that they are the children of the covenant and that unto them first God has raised up a Savior, 'His Son Jesus,' since through them the nations of the earth are to be blessed." (Stam)
those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls - "Three thousand souls baptized in one day may seem, at first, like a large number. In fact it was a very small minority in the great nation which Peter and the eleven so earnestly sought to bring to Messiah's feet. Our Lord, while on the earth, had predicted that the kingdom would be 'taken from' the leaders in Israel and 'given to a nation [not nations] bringing forth the fruits thereof' (Matt 21:43). It is not difficult to determine who were to comprise that 'nation,' for in Luke 12:32 we learn that 'the kingdom' was to be given to the 'little flock' of Christ's followers, and in Luke 22:28-30 we find that the twelve apostles were to be the appointed rulers in that kingdom. These three thousand at Pentecost, then, added to the number of those already following Christ (1:15, cf. 1 Cor 15:6) constituted the 'little flock,' the 'nation' which was to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom. They were the believing remnant, the true Israel, and they did indeed bring forth those fruits." (Stam)
See also: http://tis-justme.blogspot.com/2010/12/acts-2-church-today-message.html
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