Thursday, April 27, 2006
Acts 13
Posted by at 7:48 AM
Dwight: I agree with you... I think Jesus could have had both his incarnation and his death and resurrection in mind when he began his ministry and preaching the gospel... mainly because I think Jesus knew he was the fulfillment of OT prophecy. This doesn't prove it, but I think it's worth checking out what Paul says in Acts 13.
Acts 13:32-39:
There are a lot of other really good passages in Acts to check out too, like when Peter or Paul are preaching.
Acts 13:32-39:
“And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,(ESV)
‘You are my Son,
today I have begotten you.’
And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,
‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
Therefore he says also in another psalm,
‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”
There are a lot of other really good passages in Acts to check out too, like when Peter or Paul are preaching.
Paul does, indeed, tend to talk like Christ's resurrection is at the core of what belief means, yet Jesus went around preaching a message of repentence and belief which didn't, apparently, require the slightest knowledge of any death/resurrection.
If Jesus' gospel was to demonstrate to the Jewish people that he was the son of God, the promised Messiah (this being what they are called to believe?), then I'm left wondering how much further to take it... IOW, to what extent were the Jewish people waiting for the Messiah or what their conceptions of what it meant if the Messiah came, etc., and whether they would have had any conception that the Messiah would die and be resurrected. It's not clear to me that the "Messianic" passages like in Isaiah 53 would have been understood by first century Jews as linked to the Messiah.