The "Gift" and the "Promise" Part 2
by Larry Fain
(http://www.watchmanmag.com/0102/010202.htm)
Acts 2:38-39
Devoted students of the Book of Acts realize that the Apostles had very little ingenuity in their approach to preaching. These poor guys had only one outline. It had six points: 1) Jesus Christ is the Son of God; 2) God sent Him to the earth; 3) The Jews killed Him 4) God raised Him from the dead; 5) The apostles were witnesses to the resurrection; and 6) Faith in these facts must move one to obey certain commands in order to benefit from His death. Every place the apostles went, they preached the same sermon. People either believed it and obeyed it or they refused to believe and obey. In this way we see that the initial commands of Acts 2:38 are universally applicable.
What about the promise? Verse 39 speaks to a "promise". "For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call" (Acts 2:39). Again, in a very practical, to the point way, Peter is assuring these people that life eternal is the ultimate goal now of life on this earth. Under the Mosaic system, the Law was very specific, especially in regard to people's attitude toward God. "You shall not bow down to them nor serve them {"carved images" vs. 8}. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me" (Deuteronomy 5:9). Instead of visiting the iniquity of the murderers of the Messiah upon the children to the third and fourth generations, Peter affirms that the promise which he had just made to those murderers concerning remission of sins and salvation was applicable and available not only to them, but to their children and their grand children and throughout all generations, "as many as the Lord our God shall call."
Why do we need to make "our passage" difficult? Sinners asked a question about how to be free from their guilt. Peter and the others answered the question, simply and directly. It was the answer to the question they asked. It was the answer to what they wanted to know and needed to know. The answer was not theologically "heavy." It was not complicated. It did not go off into areas of which these original recipients were either ignorant or apathetic. When a murderer wants to save himself from sure capital punishment, he is neither interested in ancestry nor ancient promises. He wants to know about the here and now.
Consider the prison guard from Philippi. He was ready to commit suicide when he asked, "What must I do to be saved?" The concept of being saved carries with it both the idea of immediate relief and long term reprise. Paul and Silas told him to believe on the Lord. Some say that Paul did not answer the jailer's question. He was asking a physical question and they supplied him with a spiritual answer. Either way, the situation of pending death was defused. That was essential. That is what the jailer wanted. What then happened satisfied his real need of not only life, but eternal life. The record tells us, "Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house" (Acts 16:32). Paul and Silas answered all of his questions and provided all that his family needed to know about true life free from sin.
The Bible contains within its pages a simple plan. It is a plan for fallen man to recapture his glorious state in God's presence. It is the way for man to be saved. I believe with all my heart that it is an understandable plan. It was revealed by simple people to simple people. The apostles, prophets, and preachers who first delivered the message to the common folk of the first century never made it hard when it could be said easy. We need to do the same. Peter certainly affirmed that some of Paul's writing were hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16). If it is hard, do it hard, but if it is easy do it easy. But whether it is hard or easy, we have to find a way to get it done. The gospel is "do"-able.
The gift -- Peter preached salvation to the people who murdered the Christ. He preached to them relief from their guilt. That is what they wanted and that is what they needed. They were totally unaware and unconcerned about the Holy Spirit and His workings within the lives of Christians. An indwelling divine Spirit was a foreign concept to these blood stained Jews. They would come to learn a great deal more about the Holy Spirit later. They wanted and received what the Holy Spirit GAVE, His GIFT.
The promise -- A simple promise. Do what the Lord commands and he offers remission of sins, not atonement, but full remission. One of my favorite songs, in the third verse, says this: "My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought, My sin, not in part, but the whole, Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul. It is Well with My Soul." I am the beneficiary of the promise of Acts 2:39. I am "afar off". I am some 2,000 years departed from that great Day of Pentecost when twelve uneducated men turned the city of Jerusalem upside down by preaching the good news of a resurrected Savior. These twelve men made a promise to a believing people who had heard the truth about Jesus. That promise was the gift of life, eternal life, the gift of the very Holy Spirit of God. It was for them, and it is for you. Accept the gift and receive the promise is our prayer for every reader.
QUESTION FOR STUDY ­ answered by Leon Mauldin
(http://www.hsv.tis.net/~rew/rel/leon/)
Does God have a certain time for every one to die?
1. Death is universal (Heb.9:27). Life is both brief and uncertain (Jas.4:13-15).
2. There were times in the Bible when it specifies that God brought about the death of someone.
3. But we live in the flesh. This outer man is perishing, decaying (2 Cor.4:16). Ordinarily, the aging process takes its toll. The body just wears out. There is no evidence that God has a certain time for everyone to die.
4. Principle of Eph.6:4: We can live in such a way so as to prolong life.
a. Conversely, we can live so as to hasten death. Drug abuse; some working conditions hasten death. When one dies as a result of sniffing glue, the Bible does not teach that his death was because God had determined that he die at that time.
b. Judas (Matt.27:5). No scriptural basis to say that God took him.
5. Some Christians died as a result of persecution (Acts 7;12; Rev. 2:13).
6. Maliciousness of others.
7. Sometimes carelessness; there is such a thing as an accident. (Eccl. 9:11).
8. If in fact, God did intervene and set a time for one to die at a specified time, there would be no way for us to know that, because He has not revealed that to us. cf. Luke 13:1ff
Find the Time ­ Author Unknown
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