Acts 3:18

“But the things which God showed beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled.”

However, he makes it clear that they should not have been ignorant. Let them recognise that what had happened had actually fulfilled what God had shown beforehand through the mouth of His prophets, that His Messiah would suffer. This had been made apparent in the prophecies concerning the Suffering Servant and Lamb of God of Isaiah (Isaiah 50:4; Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12), in the Davidic Psalms such as Acts 22:12, which applied to all the house of David but especially to the coming greater David, and in Zechariah 13:7 where God's Shepherd and the man who was God's fellow was to be smitten. Furthermore it could be discerned by the initiated in all references to the sacrifice of lambs in the Old Testament, for He was the Lamb of God (John 1:19).

In 'all the prophets' (compare Luke 24:27). Here we have a technical term by which ‘the prophets' from Joshua (these early books which we consider historical were called the ‘former prophets') through to Malachi (excluding basically 1 Chronicles to Song of Solomon) were known. Thus by 'all the prophets' he is really using a term signifying ‘the prophets in general'. We must not stress the ALL except as a generalisation. He could hardly be expected in a brief speech to pick out the individual prophets whom he thought specifically proclaimed Christ's suffering. We would put it, 'in the prophetic books it is taught that Christ would suffer, and none of the prophets taught otherwise'.

This could actually have been said even if there were only a few references like those mentioned above, but there can be no questioning the fact that by this time all the sacrifices described in the Old Testament were seen as foretelling Christ's suffering. 'Behold the Lamb of God' (John 1:29) comes as early as the time of John the Baptiser emphasising that Jesus was already seen as having come as the supreme sacrifice. So Peter, who had heard those words, had come to see in the sacrifices a clear portrayal of what Jesus would suffer from the beginning, even though John's words had not come home fully to him until after the crucifixion. He now saw that Jesus was Passover lamb, burnt offering and sin offering, all rolled into one. Thus he would see every mention of these in the prophets as a portrayal of His suffering. In his new found understanding, therefore, he would have seen Christ's suffering as portrayed wherever the sacrifices are mentioned, and such mention is regular in almost all the prophets. The result would be that he saw Christ's suffering as portrayed ‘everywhere'.

We must not judge Peter from the standpoint of a modern scholar. To him in the newness of the resurrection he was no doubt filled with wonder that the whole of the Old Testament had pictured Christ's suffering in this way. His eyes had been opened. It sprang out from everywhere. The whole Old Testament declared His suffering. It was no longer a handbook of ritual but a vivid declaration of Christ's sacrifice of Himself. It was sufficient to make him recognise even at this early stage that Christ's death was predetermined (compare Acts 2:23).