Why Peter Said "Whom You Crucified" — Acts 3 & 4 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, and now let's just go right back to where we ended in our last program, which was in Acts chapter 3, verse 21. Again, as always, we'd like to welcome our television audience from wherever you are. We always appreciate your phone calls and your letters, and especially from that satellite audience. We have been hearing from New York to California, every place in between, and we'd love to hear from you. We appreciate your letters and your comments. And for those of you here in the studio audience now, I just want to take you right back to where we left off, and continuing on Peter and John having dealt with this lame man. The nation of Israel is all upset how it happened, and yet Peter and John are trying to explain that it was through the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom they had crucified. And so consequently, back in verse 19, 20, and 21 then, Peter said, if the nation would just repent, I think primarily of that awful sin of having rejected their Messiah as well as all their other national sins. But if the nation would have repented, then God would have immediately instituted the tribulation. They have to go through that, as I mentioned in the closing remarks last program. The tribulation had to come, because it was in prophecy. It was all determined back there in Daniel chapter 9, and down there I think it's about verse 25 where it says that in the middle of that final week, when the Antichrist would come into the temple and defile it, and the Lord Jesus referred to it Himself, of course, in Matthew 24. And so all these things had to happen, and Peter knew that, and so that's why he said that in verse 21, that even though the Lord was ready to return if Israel would repent, it would still have to wait until that period of restitution of all things, which is the tribulation. And then now in verse 22, continuing on, Peter is still speaking to this great crowd of Jews, and he says, Now that, of course, takes us all the way back to the role of Moses in the life of Israel. He was the Deliverer. He was, in so many words, the Redeemer. He brought them out of slavery. He led them out of captivity and brought them unto Abraham's God. And so even as Moses then was the Deliverer in type back there, now Peter says, And now here's where I, not too many years ago, saw for the first time myself that Peter is still on covenant ground, and it's so obvious. And I'd missed it forever so long. As you read on now then, verse 23, In other words, what did Jesus say in John's Gospel chapter 3? Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Now this is a follow up on that. If Israel would have repented, there would have been no unbelieving Jews go in. But as we're going to see in the closing verse of this chapter, the admonition is for every Jew to become a believer, and then there would have been no problem. But no unbeliever will ever go into the Kingdom of Heaven. So he says in verse 24 then, and here's the verse that just totally changed my thinking quite a few years ago, Now stop and think for a moment. I said in the last program, this is only about eight or nine weeks after the crucifixion. And so you go on back into the three years before, so we're talking about only three years and a few months of what Peter is making reference to. That all of these things that have happened in these days were all in fulfillment of what God had said, now going into the next verse, 25, Repeat the subject, See how that excludes Gentiles? Gentiles aren't in the lineage of Israel. It just won't fit. You cannot push them into the Gentile nation, I mean into the Israeli nation. They're Gentile. But this is Jewish. And so he said, Now of course that was through the work of the Messiah. But through what nation did the Messiah come? Israel. And Israel was to be the vehicle all the way along. Now I didn't have time in the last program, but I'm going to do it yet. Go all the way back to Isaiah. I think it's been a long time since we've done this on the program. We do it periodically in our classes, and I'm sure I've done it at least once or twice in the last four and a half years, but it's been a long time. Isaiah chapter 42, and we'll just start at verse 1. Isaiah 42, verse 1. Because I want everyone to get the concept now that God has not forgotten about the Gentile. Oh, He's been dealing only with the nation of Israel to be sure, but He still has the Gentiles in the picture. But like so much of Scripture indicates, it's all tied to the nation of Israel. How many times? Well, now let's see. Keep your hand in Isaiah. Honey, I throw a curve at her all the time, don't I? Keep your hand in Isaiah. Go back to Deuteronomy again, because some of these verses just have to be seen over and over before we can finally understand what it's talking about. I hope I can find it. Maybe I goofed. No, 32. Deuteronomy chapter 32. Boy, it almost makes me sweat when I think I can't find a verse. Deuteronomy 32, verse 8. Deuteronomy 32, verse 8. Oh, we've looked at it a lot of times in our classes, I know. When the Most High, when the Most High divided to the nations, plural, their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people, that is, of all the other nations. He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. Isn't that something? So who is at the very core of the whole human experience? Israel. See? God's covenant people. They're at the core. Everything else is going to fall in place as it begins with Israel. And even today, why is that little nation, postage stamp size on the globe, in the news every day, why is the whole world concerned about Israel making peace for their neighbors? Well, they don't know. But it's a sovereign God at work, and the nations stumble over Israel. They'll stumble over Jerusalem until Christ comes and becomes the King of kings and Lord of lords. But until then, the world can't comprehend how and why this little nation, only a few million people, are the litmus of the whole operation. And here it is. All right? Now then, come back, if you will, to Isaiah 42. And so God was only planning to deal with the Gentiles all the way up through the Old Testament, through this covenant people. They were going to be the ones that would take salvation to the Gentiles. Isaiah 42, verse 1, "...Behold My servant, who I uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth, I have put My Spirit upon him," singular. "...He," singular, "...shall bring forth judgment," or rule, "...to the Gentiles," so who we're referring to? The Christ, the Messiah. All right? Right? Come on over to the same book, Isaiah, but now to chapter 49. Isaiah 49, and drop down to verse 6 and 7, and just watch what these verses are saying, plainly. And he, God, said, It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee a light to what people? Gentiles. See? That's what God's mind was set on, that Israel would take His light to the Gentiles. That thou mayest be my salvation, how far? To the end of the earth. See? Thus saith the Lord, verse 7, The Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, the Messiah. To him whom man despitheth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord who is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose thee. All right, staying in Isaiah, go to chapter 59. Chapter 59. My, I wish people would just get this straight, and that just makes the book of Acts come alive, just like putting it under a microscope, and it just jumps at you when you understand that this is how God had originally laid it out to the nation of Israel. Now in His total purpose, as Paul speaks of it in Ephesians, in the eternal purpose of course, He is looking beyond all this to when He would go to the whole human race without Israel, which He has done. But first things first, we've got to take it as the Scripture unfolds it, and here He's dealing with Israel. Now verse 20 of 59, And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, now that's Jerusalem, unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD, as for me, this is my covenant with them. See, there's that covenant word again. My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and forever. Those are the promises given to the nation of Israel. Now come down in chapter 60 verse 1, Arise and shine, for thy light is come. What did Jesus say to the Jews in His earthly ministry? You are the light of the world. Who was He talking to? Jews, and that was to have been their role. You, He says, are the salt of the earth. That was their role. Now, of course, we can come back and we can make application. You and I as believers are now the light of the world, but that isn't who Jesus was talking to in His earthly ministry. He was talking to Israel, and so that's what I'm always saying concerning the Gospels. We don't throw them out. We don't blanket them out, but we just simply say in their original setting it was God dealing with Israel under the law, but we can come in and make applications. Of course we can. All right, read on. Verse 2, For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, a spiritual darkness, and gross darkness the people Israel. But the LORD shall arise upon thee, the nation of Israel, and His glory shall be seen upon thee, the nation of Israel. And then verse 3, And the Gentiles shall come to thy light. And who was to be Israel's light? The Messiah, the Christ. Do you see that? But it was for all the world, but it had to come through Israel. All right, now last program we read the one in Zechariah where nations will take hold of the skirt of Him who is a Jew. All right, now if you'll come back then to Acts chapter 3. Continue on. Acts chapter 3, verse 25 again. You are the children of the prophets, Peter says to this Jewish audience, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers when He said unto Abraham. Now I'd better remind you all again, and especially those that have just tuned in lately on our program, remember that the Abrahamic covenant was basically three promises, and within those three promises all the other covenants are involved. The first one He promised Abraham was that out of him would come a nation of people, the nation of Israel. Secondly, when they become a nation of people, He would put them in their own geographical area of land, the promised land as we understand it in Scripture, or today again the nation of Israel. And then the third part of this Abrahamic covenant, remember, was that when you have people in a geographical area, they have to have a government, and so He would come and be their King and their Messiah, and of course also their Redeemer, their Savior. It had to be a salvation as well. Now that's the Abrahamic covenant. All the other covenants are wrapped up inside of this one, that after they'd become a nation of people in that geographical area of land, then one day God Himself in the person of the Messiah would come to be their King. Now, I always make the qualification, you cannot have a kingdom, a viable kingdom without a what? Without a king. On the other hand, a king is of no earthly use unless he has a what? A kingdom. So when you see these two, always realize that they have to come together. When Jesus came and John the Baptist presented Him as Israel's King, what was in the long view? Well, the kingdom. See? And this is what Israel was to have understood. Their King was there, and He was ready to now bring this whole Abrahamic covenant into fruition by ushering in the kingdom. But Israel rejected the King, and when they rejected the King, they rejected the kingdom, and the Lord went back to heaven. Now, the kingdom of course is centered in heaven, and you and I as believers, Colossians from Paul's pen says, the moment we're saved we are now translated into that kingdom which is in heaven. But it's the same kingdom, because it's yet going to come back on the earth, and we're going to rule and reign with Him. But all right, that'll be coming later. Now see, it's funny how people are always running ahead of me. For a long time they couldn't wait until I got to the book of Acts. Now I'm in the book of Acts, and they're writing, I can't wait until you get to Paul's epistles. But anyway, that's what I have to just fight constantly. You know, I've got to be patient. We're going to take it one step at a time, but Paul's epistles are coming, and we're going to teach them verse by verse. We're in the book of Romans now in two of our classes, I guess. One is a little further than the other. But oh, that's thrilling when you get into the book of Romans and see how God is now dealing with you and I as Gentiles, not under the Mosaic system, but under grace. And we'll get there. But in the meantime, we've got to see what it took before God revealed all those new, what shall I call them, new doctrines, new teachings, which of course was in His mind from day one, but He'd kept it secret. All right, back to Acts chapter 3. Let's finish the chapter. So verse 26, covenant ground. Peter is resting on that Abrahamic covenant, on the Davidic covenant, on the Palestinian covenant, on the Mosaic covenant. And now he says, unto you first. See that? Unto you first, the nation of Israel. God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you. How? By turning away, now watch this, how many Jews had to turn? Every one. Every one, that was the prerequisite for the King. Every Jew had to repent of their sin, had to follow it with water baptism, Acts 2.38 is appropriate still. And then Christ would have ushered in the tribulation, lifted the curse, brought in the kingdom. Israel could have gone out and evangelized the nations and brought them to a knowledge. Now that was a valid offer, that's all it was, because God knew, God knew that Israel wouldn't do it. And so God knew that He would be going to the Gentiles without Israel. Now you want to remember that from the time of the crucifixion until the destruction of the temple by the Roman army was 40 years. Don't ever lose sight of that. The book of Acts is a 40 year period of time that God is still dealing with His covenant people, even though He's going to start going to the Gentiles before that 40 years is up. But at the end of 40 years, which in Israel's history has always been a period of testing, and at the end of that 40 years, Israel is still adamant in their unbelief. And so what does the sovereign God permit? Rome to come in, destroy the city in the most awful siege in all of ancient history. They destroyed the temple, and Israel was sent into a dispersion amongst all the nations of the world that you and I have seen finally begin to come to an end. It hasn't ended yet for the most part, but a lot of nations now are completely devoid of Jews. Albania doesn't have a Jew left in it. Syria, I think, is down to less than 200. And so many of the Eastern European nations are down to relatively small numbers compared to what they were. But the Jew, you see, is finally getting back to the nation of Israel. It's been slowed right now, but there's going to be something again that will trigger it, and there's going to be a great influx of Jews into the little nation of Israel in order to prepare for the coming of their Messiah. But anyway, here in verse 26, Peter admonishes everyone, everyone, to turn and to confess their sins and to believe. All right, now let's just move right on into chapter 4 in the moments we have left. And now then Peter and the rest of these 12 men are continuing to preach that this Jesus whom they had crucified had been raised from the dead. Well, now that just flew into the face especially of one group of Jewish religious leaders. Who knows what they were called? Sadducees. The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection of the dead. They did not believe in a life hereafter. You live to the best of your ability, and the only eternalness that they could conceive of was that they would pass it on to the next generation, and that was what they thought of as eternal life. But they saw nothing of a resurrection of the dead. All right, so now when Peter and John and the rest of these men begin to proclaim the resurrection of Christ and the hope of resurrection for other believers, that caused a hornet's nest, you know. And so you come to verse 5, "...it came to pass on the morrow that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, and the Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, as many were as of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem." Now look at that verse. Take it apart. Can you squeeze a Gentile in there? Well, if you can, you can do more with English language than I can. There is not a Gentile in that verse. They're all Jews. They're all next of kin of the high priest, and a high priest had to be a Jew. Then verse 7, "...so all these Jews now at Jerusalem set them in the midst, and they asked them, saying, By what power or by what name have you done this?" Now what are they still talking about? The healing of that lame man. I mean, they can't get it out of their craw. How did you do it? Then Peter. Now Peter is always the spokesman, has been even since his earthly ministry. Now of course I don't agree that Peter was the first pope, and I make no bones about that, because Peter never had a ministry among Gentiles. And even though our dear Catholic friends may disagree with me, and that's their privilege just as well as anybody else, but yet I see that Peter never had a ministry amongst Gentiles. And so now he's filled with the Holy Spirit. Now this still reverts back to just a couple weeks ago, the day of Pentecost. And now under the power of the Holy Spirit, he again speaks forth, and he says, "...ye rulers of the people, and elders of," what? "...Israel." And he doesn't say, "...and you Romans, and you Gentiles." No, he's talking to Jews. Verse 9, "...if we be this day examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he's made whole." Now look at verse 10, "...be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel," including any Gentile? No. "...only the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth..." Now here's where I usually have to stop. When Peter keeps emphasizing the name, the name, the name, what does that imply? I always give this illustration. If I were to name Bill Clinton, what's the first thing that flashes in your mind? Whether you like him or not, that's beside the point. He's still Bill Clinton the what? The President, and immediately your mind pictures the White House, because that's what he is. He is the President, and when you mention his name, then his position flashes in your mind. All right, now this is what Peter is driving at, that when they heard the name Jesus of Nazareth, or Jesus the Christ, what did Peter want to immediately associate that with? Who he was, his office, and what was he? The Messiah, the King, the Savior, the Redeemer of Israel, and that's all he's implying. Now again, watch the language. There isn't a single reference here to his atoning blood, to his death, to his resurrection, to his power, not a word. Only that Israel had killed him, that he was who he said he was, he had proven it, and God had raised him from the dead. He was still waiting in glory to still come back and fulfill that which he had begun. All right? So verse 10 again, "...to all the people of Israel, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified." Now if Peter was on church ground, what should have he said there? He should have said, who died for you? Peter then should have said, who died for your sins? But he doesn't. He says, whom you crucified. You see how plain it is if we just look at it? "...whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole." Now I wish I had a whole hour to teach on the next verse. This is the stone which the builders set at naught, and has become the head of the corner. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.