Acts 3:12-16 (NIV)
When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.
Because of the miracle that Peter and John had just done, bringing healing to a man more than forty years old who had been lame from birth, but who was now “walking and jumping and praising God,” a huge crowd was growing in Solomon’s Colonnade. And, as word of the miracle spread, the crowd continued to grow until it was thousands of men.
Peter began his message with a denial that he and John had healed this man by their own power. But he did not yet tell the crowd how it had been done. This whetted the appetites of the people to know how it had been accomplished.
Peter then gave a brief history of Jesus’ death and resurrection. A few things really stand out in this presentation. First, he identified Jesus as a servant of “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” – the God worshiped by the Jews. He noted, however, that Jesus was not like previous servants of God. Instead, he had been glorified by God, given surpassing power, and authority, and victory of a type never before seen.
Next, he focused on the problem of the people. Again, many if not most of them had witnessed the events of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion; most of the men gathered at the temple were residents of Jerusalem. Peter ruthlessly described how the men had turned their backs on the one who had been chosen and exalted by God, handing Him over to the gentiles to be killed, even pressuring and persuading Pilate to kill Him after Pilate had decided to let Him go. The ultimate stroke was that the crowd at the trial had not only forsaken Jesus, they had chosen to have a despicable murderer released instead (Mark 15:6-15).
Next, Peter announced the formal charge against the people: they had killed the author of life, an almost inconceivable crime against God and against His chosen Messenger. Even though many of these men had not personally been crying for Jesus’ blood on the day He was crucified, they knew that, as members of the community, a part of God’s chosen people who had betrayed Him, they bore a share of the guilt for the crimes committed by that community and were posed to suffer God’s indignation and wrath as a result. (See Joshua 7:10-12.)
But that wasn’t the end of the story. From the day of Pentecost onward, the story of Jesus’ death for sins was not told without the fact of the resurrection. And Peter not only told it clearly here, he professed that he and John were both witnesses to the reality of the resurrection. They didn’t merely believe it as a matter of doctrine or theology; they had seen the risen Lord, talked with Him, and even eaten with Him.
Finally, Peter had arrived at the answer to the question of how the man’s healing had been accomplished. It was through faith in the name, the identity, of the Jesus whom these men had allowed to be killed. The resurrected and exalted Jesus had that kind of power and authority.
Also note that it was Peter and John’s faith in the name of Jesus that had resulted in the healing of the man, not the faith of the man who had been healed! Prior to the healing, there had been no explanation to the man of who Jesus was, and even at the pronouncement of the healing “in the name of Jesus,” there had been no chance for the man to profess faith, or even to exercise it. He had immediately been grabbed by the arms and pulled to his feet. Instead, it is the faith of those who are called to pronounce God’s word of healing, those who already believe in Jesus’ name, that facilitates miracles.
Father, it’s amazing how those in the early Church consistently used the same elements in their gospel presentations. It wasn’t “canned” and memorized; it was just the simple facts of the historical evidence. We sometimes complicate the gospel today, trying to load it up with Scriptures and theology, instead of just letting the historical facts and our own first-hand testimony of transformed lives through faith in Jesus speak for themselves as Peter did. Forgive us, Lord, and help us to do better from now on. Amen.
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