Context No. 1749 of 4322 · Acts
Context · Reflection
Acts 3:12-16: in context
12When Peter saw it, he responded to the people, “You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? 13The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to release him. 14But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, to which we are witnesses. 16By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which is through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
A man lame from birth has just been healed at the temple gate, and the crowd rushes to Peter and John in amazement. Peter answers: why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? The God of our fathers has glorified his Servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied before Pilate. You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer instead, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead. And by faith in his name, this man has been made strong.
Peter draws a sharp contrast that is the heart of the good news: you killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead. The one the people had rejected, handed over, denied, and put to death, the one they discarded in favor of a murderer, is the very one God glorified and raised, and through whose name this healing has come. What people threw away, God exalted; the rejected one became the source of life and healing. There is a great reversal here that runs through the whole gospel. Jesus was despised, condemned, and killed, treated by the world as worthless, a criminal to be disposed of; and God raised him and made him the Prince of life, the name by which the lame walk and sinners are saved. The stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone. This is worth pondering both as comfort and as challenge. As comfort, because the one the world discarded is the one who now gives life; there is hope and healing in a name the world despised. And as challenge, because it asks whether we, too, have undervalued or rejected the Christ the world dismisses, whether we recognize in the one the world treats as irrelevant the Prince of life through whom alone we are made whole. Peter's point to the crowd was that the Jesus they had rejected was God's glorified Servant, the source of the healing they marveled at. The one people reject, God has made the giver of life; and it is by faith in his name, and no other, that we are made strong.
Have I undervalued or dismissed the Christ the world rejects, or do I recognize in the one the world treats as worthless the Prince of life whom God raised and glorified, through whose name alone I am made whole, and rest my hope in that rejected and exalted name?