Acts 2:21

ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα, the usual LXX rendering of a common Hebrew phrase. The expression is derived from the way in which prayers addressed to God begin with the invocation of the divine name, Psalms 3:2; Psalms 6:2, etc., and a similar phrase is found in classical writers, ἐπικαλεῖσθαι τοὺς θεούς, Xen., Cyr., vii., 1, 35; Plat., Tim., p. 27, c.; Polyb., xv., 1, 13. From this it was an easy step to use the phrase as meaning the worshippers of the one God, Genesis 4:26; Genesis 12:8, 2 Kings 5:4. It is therefore significant that the Christian converts at Corinth are described by the same phrase, 1 Corinthians 1:2. But just as in Romans 10:12 this same prophecy of Joel is beyond all doubt referred by St. Paul to the Lord Jesus, so here the whole drift of St. Peter's speech, that the same Jesus who was crucified was made both Lord and Christ, points to the same conclusion, Acts 2:36. In Joel Κύριος is undoubtedly used of the Lord Jehovah, and the word is here transferred to Christ. In its bearing on our Lord's Divinity this fact is of primary importance, for it is not merely that the early Christians addressed their Ascended Lord so many times by the same name which is used of Jehovah in the LXX although it is certainly remarkable that in 1 Thess. the name is applied to Christ more than twenty times but that they did not hesitate to refer to Him the attributes and the prophecies which the great prophets of the Jewish nation had associated with the name of Jehovah, Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, pp. 8, 10, 16 (1894), and for the force of the expression, ἐπικ. τὸ ὄνομα, in 1 Corinthians 1:2, see Harnack, History of Dogma, i., p. 29, E.T. ὃς ἂν ἐποκ., “whosoever”: it would seem that in St. Peter's address the expression does not extend beyond the chosen people; cf. Acts 5:36. σωθήσεται : to the Jew salvation would mean safety in the Messianic kingdom, and from the penalties of the Messianic judgment; for the Christian there would be a partial fulfilment in the flight of the believers to Pella for safety when the Son of Man came in the destruction of Jerusalem; but the word carries our thoughts far beyond any such subordinate fulfilment to the fulness of blessing for body and soul which the verb expresses on the lips of Christ; cf. Luke 7:50. And so St. Luke places in the forefront of Acts as of his Gospel the thought of Jesus not only as the Messiah, but also as the Σωτήρ, Luke 2:14; cf. Psalms of Sol., Acts 4:2 (Ryle and James).