Acts 2:14-36

St. Peter's First Discourse, 14-36.

No doubt the few discourses St. Luke has given us in the ‘Acts,' represent faithfully the various characteristic features of early apostolic preaching. They are studiedly simple: the arguments brought forward are carefully chosen with due regard to the audiences the preacher was addressing. They usually contain several guiding thoughts connected with the sacrifice and death of Christ. In most cases, whatever is advanced is supported by reference to Old Testament prophecies and statements; we use the word ‘support' advisedly, for in these famous sermons the Christian leaders of the first days never base their assertions merely on prophetic utterances. These are used constantly, however, as powerful and weighty collateral evidence to the truth of the preacher's words. The discourse of St. Peter here falls most naturally into three portions:

(a) Acts 2:14-21. The inspired ones whose strange, beautiful words they had been listening to, were not drunken, as some of them were exclaiming. Had not one of their own prophets (Joel) prophesied such an outpouring of the Spirit in the last days as this they had just witnessed? Did he not conclude his prophecy by bidding whosoever would be saved to call on the name of the Lord?

(b) Acts 2:22-28. And the Lord, the prophet referred to, was Jesus, who, approved by God as Messiah by His works, was yet murdered by the very people He came to save, who was now risen from the dead. Of this very death, and of the impossibility of death being able to hold such a holy Being, David in well-known words has written in his Psalms.

(c) Acts 2:29-36. They were not to think David was referring to himself when he wrote these things. He was dead, and they all knew his tomb. The One of whom he wrote, that no death could hold, was Jesus, who, having burst the bands of the grave, and having been exalted to the right hand of God, poured out this which they then saw and heard. No, they must not think David was referring to himself, for he wrote of One whom he called his (David's) Lord. Assuredly the ‘Exalted One' of the Psalms of David was no other than Jesus the crucified.