Acts 3:11-16 – While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. 12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over to be killed, and you disowned Him before Pilate, though he had decided to let Him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.
“You killed the Author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.” Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus is the Author of our faith. If we don’t have faith, we are not in a saving relationship with God (Hebrews 11:6). If we are not in a right relationship with God, through faith in Jesus, then we remain spiritually dead (John 3:18). To be spiritually dead is to be separated from God (John 3:18, 5:24, Ephesians 2:1-3). To be separated from God means that one has no spiritual life, it means that since one has believed the lie of the world (1 Thessalonians 2:10b), if they hold to that lie till their physical death, they will end up in the Lake of Fire for all eternity (Revelation 20:11-15). Family, in the end there is only on Truth that will matter to every soul that lives, or will have ever lived, and that truth is the Gospel (John 14:6). We know that there is only one God and that one God is also our only Savior (Isaiah 43:11, 1 Timothy 2:5, Acts 4:12) and that is Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God, our Savior and our Lord. Ultimately, there is only one Truth and that God and His Gospel. There is also only one lie, and that everything and anything that denies the Gospel. Jesus is the truth, and every form of the one lie that denies Jesus, is spiritual death (1 John 2:22-24).
Who is the One who created all of creation, we know it was God (Genesis 1:1). God is the one who gave life, and who gives life, to everything that ever was and is alive (Genesis 1:1-2:3, Colossians 1:16-17). In Genesis we read that God is the Creator of all life and in Colossians the Word narrows it right down to say that Jesus the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity, is the One through whom all things were created. Jesus is the Author of Life. The Jews know that God is the sole Creator of life and so what Peter is telling them is the same thing Jesus said of Himself and for that reason, said the Jews, is the reason they wanted to kill Him (John 10:33). Peter unabashedly put himself in harm’s way by what he was proclaiming. The Jews wanted Jesus dead and they made sure that happened at the hands of the Romans. When Christian hating people or websites falsely claim that the Jews did not kill Jesus, bring them back to this verse which clearly states that the Jews killed Jesus. Yet, as was previously discussed, it was the will of God that the blood of the Savior must be shed, and that it would come at the hands of the very people God had always used. Family, make no mistake about it, God still loves the Jews, and Jesus died for the Jews. Jesus died for them and for all of us, but the Word is clear He came to die first for them and then also for us (Romans 1:16, Deuteronomy 7:6). Jesus came to die for all (John 3:16), but He was born a Jew, lived a Jew, had a Jewish mother, attended Jewish Temple, selected only Jews to be His twelve disciples and cried over Jerusalem. Jesus was Jew and loved the Jews and loves the Jews. Though most Jews missed their Messiah, God remains faithful to them (Romans 3:3). Family God made a promise to the Jew and He keeps it because He does not lie and because He will not be unfaithful to what He has said, that would be to deny who He is (2 Timothy 2:13).
Yes, the Jews killed Jesus, but Jesus sacrificed Himself to save all human beings, first the Jew and then the gentile (all who are not Jews). But He came to the Jew first because He came from them to save them, and that grace was also for all the world. God told Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to the world (Genesis 22:18) and through the Jew called Jesus, that is exactly what they have become. Family, if we take the Jews from the Bible, there is no Bible. Love the Jews, God does.
What we must never forget is that no one could take Jesus’ life unless Jesus allowed it. He said that He laid His life down and He will raise it up (John 10:18, John 2:19). We must see the big plan of God. The Jews knew what had been their part in the crucifixion of Jesus, and there were hundreds of witnesses that Jesus came back to life. All the Apostles, and many of the disciples of Jesus, and perhaps many of the Jews present saw that Jesus had been killed and then He was raised up from the dead. The Jews understood that this could only happen by the hand of God. And the Jews were well aware of the culpability of their leaders, and many of them their selves.
Family, though the enemy of our souls used the Romans and the Jews to kill the Lord, he supposed that he was stopping the will of God. Even the devil was an unwitting participant in the glorification of God through Jesus. His hatred, expressed through man, brought about the greatest expression of God’s love and good will toward mankind. As Joseph said to his brothers “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20). The ministry of Jesus to the world had not been quashed, but only multiplied. Praise our God who cannot be defeated. Praise our God who knows how bring about His will where there seems to be no way (Isaiah 43:19, Matthew 19:26). After all, when the future of man seemed hopeless, God created the way and brought us ultimate hope, He brought us Jesus! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.