Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 6.djvu/25

Rh sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19. And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: 20. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: 21. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 22. Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: 24. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. 25. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: 26. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: 27. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 28. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. 29. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. 30. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; 31. He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. 32. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. 33. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. 34. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, 35. Until I make thy foes thy footstool. 36. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

We have here the first fruits of the Spirit in the sermon which Peter preached immediately, directed, not to those of other nations in a strange language; (we are not told what answer he gave to those that were amazed, and said, What meaneth this?) but to the Jews in the vulgar language, even to them that mocked, for he begins with the notice of that, (v. 15.) and addresses his discourse (v. 14.) to the men of Judea and inhabitants of Jerusalem; but we have reason enough to think that the other disciples continued to speak to those who understood them, (and therefore flocked about them,) in the languages of their respective countries, the wonderful works of God. And it was not by Peter's preaching only, but that of all, or most, of the rest of the hundred and twenty, that three thousand souls were that day converted, and added to the church; but Peter's sermon only is recorded, to be an evidence for him that he was thoroughly recovered from his fall, and thoroughly restored to the divide favour; he that had sneakingly denied Christ, now as courageously confesses him. Observe,

I. His introduction or preface, wherein he craves the attention of the auditory, or demands it rather; Peter stood up (v. 14.) to shew that he was not drunk, with the eleven, who concurred with him in what he said, and, probably, in their turns spake likewise to the same purport; they that were of greatest authority, stood up to speak to the scoffing Jews, and to confront those who contradicted and blasphemed, but left the seventy disciples to speak to the willing proselytes from other nations, who were not so prejudiced, in their own language. Thus among Christ's ministers, some of greater gifts are called out to instruct those that oppose themselves, to take hold of sword and spear; others of meaner abilities are employed in instructing those that resign themselves, and to be vine-dressers and husbandmen. Peter lifted up his voice, as one that was both well assured of, and much affected with, what he said, and was neither afraid nor ashamed to own it. He applied himself to the men of Judea, ἄνδρες Ἰȣδᾶιοιi.e. Ἰουδᾶιοι [sic]—the men that were Jews; so it should be read; "And you especially that dwell at Jerusalem, who were accessary to the death of Jesus, be this known unto you, which you did not know before, and which you are concerned to know now, and to hearken to my words, who would draw you to Christ, and not to the words of the Scribes and Pharisees, that would draw you from him. My Master is gone, whose words you have often heard in vain, but shall hear no more as you have done, but he speaks to you by us; hearken now to our words."

II. His answer to their blasphemous calumny; (v. 15.) "These men are not drunken, as you suppose. These disciples of Christ, that now speak with other tongues, speak good sense, and know what they say, and so do these they speak to, who are led by their discourses into the knowledge of the wonderful works of God. You cannot think they are drunk, for it is but the third hour of the day;" nine of the clock in the morning; and before that time, on the sabbaths and solemn feasts, the Jews did not use to eat or drink: nay, ordinarily they that are drunk, are drunk in the night, and not in the morning; those are besotted drunkards indeed, who, when they are awake, presently seek it yet again, Prov. 23. 35.

III. His account of the miraculous effusion of the Spirit, which is designed to awaken them all to embrace the faith of Christ, and to join themselves to his church. Two things he resolves it into—that it was the fulfilling of the scripture, and the fruit of Christ's resurrection and ascension, and, consequently, the proof of both.

1. That it was the accomplishment of the prophecies' of the Old Testament, which related to the kingdom of the Messiah, and therefore an evidence