FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2023
CHRISTIANITY / BIBLE / ACTS
You can learn a lot about the early church, just from reading the little sermons given by the apostles in the books of Acts.
I'm currently working on a project where I'm extracting out the sermons given by the apostles. The purpose of this exercise is very simple: to get at the essentials of what the early church believed from the very first days of the church.
By looking at just the apostle's sermons, we can get a sense of their theology in regards to who they thought Jesus was, and why he was essential for salvation.
The first extract is one of the most famous: Peter addressing the crowd at Pentecost, right after the infilling of the Holy Spirit:
But Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed them: “You men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, know this and listen carefully to what I say. In spite of what you think, these men are not drunk, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. But this is what was spoken about through the prophet Joel:
‘And in the last days it will be,’ God says,
‘that I will pour out my Spirit on all people,
and your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
and your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
And I will perform wonders in the sky above
and miraculous signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and clouds of smoke.
The sun will be changed to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
And then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man clearly attested to you by God with powerful deeds, wonders, and miraculous signs that God performed among you through him, just as you yourselves know— this man, who was handed over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you executed by nailing him to a cross at the hands of Gentiles. But God raised him up, having released him from the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held in its power. For David says about him,
‘I saw the Lord always in front of me,
for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced;
my body also will live in hope,
because you will not leave my soul in Hades,
nor permit your Holy One to experience decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of joy with your presence.’
“Brothers, I can speak confidently to you about our forefather David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. So then, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, David by foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his body experience decay. This Jesus God raised up, and we are all witnesses of it. So then, exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he has poured out what you both see and hear. For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says,
‘The Lord said to my lord,
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”’
Therefore let all the house of Israel know beyond a doubt that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.”
Now when they heard this, they were acutely distressed and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each one 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 away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.” With many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves from this perverse generation!”So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added.
Acts 2:14-41 - New English Translation
Commentary:
It's interesting to note that in the first ever recorded sermon on the death and resurrection of Jesus, Peter leaves out a phrase that you hear all the time in modern day Christianity: that Jesus died for our sins.
Peter certainly tells us that Jesus did, in fact die; that he did, in fact, resurrect from the dead; and that belief in him will lead to your salvation, and that belief in Jesus does allow for your sins to be forgiven. But he never says explicitly that Jesus died for your sins. One might argue, and argue correctly, that the theology of atonement is present implicitly in this mini sermon, but it's strange it's not stated more bluntly.
One thing for sure, belief in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus all seem to be equally important for a person's salvation, at least that's what Peter seems to be hinting at.
But the punch line of this sermon isn't the atoning death of Jesus, but the resurrection life of Jesus and the pouring out of the promised Holy Spirit. The part about Jesus dying was a necessary consequence of God needing to show us that Jesus is far more powerful than death, and the big idea you need to understand from this sermon is that by believing in Jesus, not only will your sins be forgiven, but you too can look forward towards resurrection yourself.
My entire life as a Christian has been the constant reminder of the theology of the atonement: Jesus dying for my sins. It does not matter what church or denomination I went to, they all harp on that point, and the one who goes the furthest in reminding of you of it constantly is the Catholic Church.
But when you read the four gospels and the book of Acts, there's hardly a word spoken about it! Rather, the emphasis is always on the resurrection of Christ from the dead, not the atoning sacrifice. That bit of theology comes later on, and mostly from the pen of Paul, but even he is far more interested in the resurrection than the atonement.
One could almost say, using only the four gospels and the book of Acts, that it wasn't the crucifixion and death of Jesus that saves us from our sins, but his resurrection from death. If you think about it logically and critically, it makes a lot of sense to think of it that way.
"Jesus resurrected from death for our sins"
- Pseudo Boethius