Introduction
Jesus Christ was a murder victim, killed by the ungodly men who ran the ecclesiastical machinery of ancient Jerusalem. They thought that they had dispensed with the Christ threat, but He exploded their plans by coming back from the dead. Now this risen one had predicted that He would come back from the dead, as His enemies well knew (Matt. 27:63). This prediction had been fulfilled, as they also knew (Matt. 28:11-15). But in addition to this, He had also predicted that Jerusalem would be flattened within one generation (Matt. 24:34). The city was now on death row, and the clock running down. The resurrection was therefore the guarantee that the destruction to follow was certain.
In this context, the great apostle Peter was offering the miscreants terms. He was giving them a chance to repent. Many did, but—in the teeth of the evidence—many others did not. It was not a matter of evidence.
The Text
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities” (Acts 3:19–26).
Summary of the Text
In the first half of this chapter, Peter has preached the objective facts of the gospel—the death and resurrection of the Christ of Israel. He now comes to an appeal for the subjective response to that gospel. He tells his listeners to repent, to be converted, with the result that their sins will be blotted out (including the sin of crucifying Christ), and they will enjoy times of refreshing that will come straight from the presence of the Lord (v. 19). God will send Jesus Christ back again, the same one just preached to you (v. 20)—but this Christ must remain in Heaven until the “times of restitution of all things” (v. 21). These times of restitution have been spoken about by God from the world’s beginning, through all His holy prophets (v. 21).
Moses, for example, predicted that God would raise up a prophet like him, and the people were instructed to listen to everything He taught (v. 22). Moses also said that anybody who did not heed that prophet would be destroyed (v. 23). All the prophets, from Samuel on, were foretelling these days (v. 24). Those listening to Peter were children of these prophets, and children of the covenant that God made with their fathers (v. 25). This covenant was made when God spoke to Abraham, saying that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed (v. 25). And so consequently God, having raised up Jesus, sent Him to bless those who had murdered Him. That blessing would be in turning anyone from his iniquities (v. 26).
Faithful Prophecy
Prophecy should be understood as having two components. There is the forthtelling—where the prophet speaks to the people, in the name of God, telling them what their current spiritual condition actually is. But how can the people know whether this message is truly from God or not? This leads to the foretelling, the predicting. Fulfilled prophecy proves that the messenger of God is truly speaking on behalf of the God who is in full control of all history. This is why Isaiah is able to taunt the idols. “Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: Yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together” (Isaiah 41:23).
Look at the showdown between Hananiah and Jeremiah (Jer. 28), revolving around just this point. The same was true of Micaiah and Zedekiah (1 Kings 22:15-25). “And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you” (1 Kings 22:28). False gods do not know the future, and the true God does.
Immediately after the passage that Peter quotes, false prophecy is made a capital offense (Deut. 18:20). But how can we tell? the people ask. The answer is straightforward. “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him” (Deut. 18:22).
This is a central qualifying characteristic of a true prophet. Christ met that description.
The Great Unforced Error in Apologetics
A number of years ago, I traveled with the atheist Christopher Hitchens, debating him, and one of his arguments was that Christ thought the end of the world was going to happen . . . and then it didn’t. Christ was clearly mistaken, Hitch thought, and so why should we listen to Him? The atheist Bertrand Russell thought the same: “He certainly thought that his second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that.”
But Matthew 24 was not about the end of the space/time continuum, but rather (very clearly) about the looming destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. “Your house will be left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:38). Not one stone will be left on another (Matt. 24:2). The disciples naturally ask when will this happen (Matt. 24:3)? Jesus says it will be within one generation (Matt. 24:34). People are confused because of the collapsing solar system word pictures (Matt. 24:29). But everywhere in the Old Testament that such imagery is used, it is always describing the destruction of a city, and never the destruction of the cosmos—as we discussed in the fifth sermon of this series, it is used of Babylon (Is. 13:10), of Edom (Is. 34:4), of the northern kingdom of Israel (Amos 8:9), of Egypt (Ezek. 32:7), and of Israel (Joel 2:28-32).
One of the great tragedies in the world of apologetics is that many conservative believers have interpreted Matthew 24 in a way that robs Christ of His great vindication, and robs Peter of the great and forceful point of this sermon. Listen to the prophet, and stand in awe, which is not the same as moving the fulfillment of His prophecy to the end of the world, well out of reach.
Christ the Faithful Prophet
Peter is at pains to show that Christ was the prophet that Moses had predicted would come. For Moses truly said. This prophet would be raised up, and moreover, He would be raised up again. You must listen to Him about everything. And every soul that will not listen will be destroyed. Will you not come? Will you not believe? What more could you want?