God had approved and raised up Jesus whom they crucified. 515 iii. Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking SECT. vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not a gospel so gloriously attested. (2 Thess. i. 7, 8.) Then shall these figurative expressions be literally fulfilled. Then shall the heavenly luminaries be quenched in their orbs; the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all that is therein shall be burnt up: (2 Pet. iii. 10.) But even then, all those that have believed in Christ, and with obedient love have called upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved with an everlasting salvation. May that be through grace our happy portion; and may its prospects be daily brightening upon us, till it shall open in its full lustre, and shine beautiful and glorious amidst the flames of a dissolving world! SECT. IV. Peter continues his discourse to the people just after the descent of the Holy Spirit, and shews that Jesus, whom they crucified, was risen from the dead, and was the true Messiah. 22-36. ACTS II. 22. YE men of Israel, ACTS II. 22. Acts II, hear these words; WHEN Peter had quoted the passage in Joel, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles and wonders, and sigus, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: ye a mentioned above, as referring to the days of the Messiah, he added, Ye men of Israel, let me charge it upon you, that hear these words with an attention proportionable to the importance of them: You cannot but remember, that there hath lately appeared amongst you a celebrated person, called Jesus the Nazarene; a man who was approved and recommended to you by God himself, by those powerful operations, and wonders, and signs, which God wrought by him in the midst of you, in your most public places and assemblies; as ye yourselves have seen, and cannot take upon you to deny but that ye also know: 23 Him, being de- Yet you were so far from paying him any belivered by the deter- coming regard, that you entered into an impious minate counsel and and ungrateful conspiracy against his life; and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, have in prosecution thereof seized him, even and by wicked hands this illustrious prophet, being given up into your hands, by the determinate counsel and prescience of God, who well knew what treatment he would have crucified and slain : meet a Recommended to you.] Amodidy here signify decree; and Elsner has shewn, usas, pointed out to you as the object of your most respectful regards. b Prescience of God.] Grotius, as well as Beza, observes, that goywars must VOL. VII. it has that signification in approved Greek c By Ver 21 SECT. iv. Acts II. 22. 23 516 SECT. iv. His resurrection was foretold by David; meet with from you, and for wise and good reasons permitted it to be: Him, I say, by the hands of Gentile sinners, with public ignominy 11. 23. you have fastened [to the cross] and slain, as if he had been the meanest and vilest of malefactors. Acts 21 Whom God hath holden of it. 24 But be it known unto you, that God hath raised up, having loos 25. of it. For David saith concerning him, when he is speaking in the person of the Messiah, (Psal. xvi. 8. & seq.) "I have regarded the Lord as always before me, with an assurance that in the greatest trials I am called to he will con By the hands of Gentile sinners.] That is, by the hands of the wicked and idolatrous Romans, who were the immediate agents in the crucifixion of Christ, yet were only the instruments of the Jewish rage and cruelty in what they did. Some copies read it, dia xes avouwv, by the hand of the ungodly. d The pains of death.] Beza conjectures, must necessarily signify the state of confine- 15, and Rev. xvii. 1. e David saith concerning him.] Itis plain, that as aulay here signifies of or concerning him. The particles has the same import, Eph. v. 32. and is likewise used in the same sense, Heb. i. 7. as the prefix and the particle . is sometimes 25 For David speaketh concerning him, foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right be moved. tinually hand, that I should not where, that the apostle does not make David to speak these things, first of himself, and then of the Messiah, only in a secondary sense, but quotes them as referring to Christ alone. fI have regarded the Lord as always be fore me.] The sixteenth psaim, from whence this quotation is taken, cannot without great difficulty be wholly explained, as spoken in the person of the Messiah; and yet it is very hard to say, on that supposition, We might have imagined the sense of the where he is first introduced as speaking. 10th verse to have been, "I am persuaded thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, beOne to see corruption in the grave; and, cause thou wilt not suffer Christ thine Holy by what thou wilt do for him in raising him up, thou wilt give me a security of my own resurrection." This, I say, might have seemed an easy solution, did not the apostle in the 31st verse, reter both the clauses to Christ. I therefore suppose the transition to be made immediately after the 7th verse of the psalm, and to express the instruction which David received from God, in a revelation concerning the Messiah made to him in the night-season; when, perhaps, he had some vision, in which he heard him speak the following words.-The passage is here quoted in the words of the Greek translation, something different from the Hebrew ; but the sense is much the same. g Thou 26 For he spake not of himself, but of Christ. moreover also, my wilt not leave : soul in hell, neither ruption. tinually be ready to appear in my behalf; 517 SECT. iv. the whole series of my labours and sufferings, Acts Therefore did that I might not be moved by any of them. And II. 26. my heart rejoice, and for this reason, upon account of the firm conmy tongue was glad fidence I have in him, my heart is glad, and flesh shall rest in hope: my tongue exulteth in the most chearful manner; yea, and moreover too, even my mortal flesh, while it lodges in the sepulchre, shall rest in a 27 Because thou joyful and assured hope; Because I am fully 27 my satisfied, that thou wilt not leave my soul, while wilt thou suffer thine separated from it, in the unseen world; neither Holy One to see cor- wilt thou permit even the body of thine Holy One, thy peculiar favourite, whom thou hast set apart to such honourable and important services, so much as to see corruption in the grave, or to lie so long there as in the course of nature to be in danger of putrefaction. Thou 28 hast made me to know the ways of life, to which thou wilt assuredly conduct me; and after all with thy countenance. my sufferings here, thou wilt fill me with joy, in those upper and more glorious regions to which thou wilt raise me, making me glad with the light of thy countenance, and taking me to dwell in thine immediate presence, where there is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand, where there are everlasting and uninterrupted pleasures." 28 Thou hast made known to me the ways make me full of joy of life: thou shalt 29 Men and bre speak unto you of the chre is with us unto this day: thren, let me freely cited these words at large, Ye men of Israel, He g Thou wilt not leave my soul in the unseen 1xxxviii. 3. lxxxix. 48.)-But as Yox, world.] Beza (to guard against the Popish which is the word here used, can hardly doctrine of Christ's descent into hell,) would be thought to signify a dead body and adne render the words as they stand in the He- is generally put for the state of separate brew, NSW my corpse in the spirits, (see note f on Mat. xvi. 18. p. grave: And it is certain that nephesh and 462. the version here given seemed presheol have sometimes these significations; ferable to any other: nor can any just (see Whitby and Beza in loc.) and the inference be drawn from it, in favour phrase of bringing a person's life down to the of Christ's descent into the hell of the grave, or up from it, often occurs. damned. (Compare Psal. xax. 3. xlix. 15. lxxxvi. 13. h His sepulchre is among us unto this day.] 3 T2 518 The apostles were witnesses of his resurrection. SECT. He therefore could not say this of himself; but iv. Acts 31 30 Therefore being a prophet, and know flesh, he would raise 31 He seeing this before, spake of the being a divinely inspired prophet, and knowing ing that God had sworn that God had, in a special revelation from with an oath to him, II. 30. heaven, solemnly sworn to him with an oath, that that of the fruit of his of the fruit of his loins, or out of his descen- loins, according to the dants, he would, according to the flesh, when he up Christ to sit on his should send his Son into the world in the hu- throne : man nature, raise up the promised Messiah, to sit on his throne, and to inherit universal empire; (Psal. cxxxii. 11.) He, with a firm reliance on the faithfulness of God, foreseeing [this] great resurrection of Christ, event, by divine inspiration spake the words which I have now been repeating; not meaning them of himself, or intending they should be taken in any lower sense, but referring them to the resurrection of the Messiah; thereby plainly signifying, that his soul should not be left in the unseen world, nor his flesh be suffered to see corruption. 32 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. This Jesus then, whom we assert to be very the true Messiah, God hath now raised up according to the tenor of this promise; of which resurrection, astonishing as it may seem, all we his apostles are witnesses, on our own personal and certain knowledge; having seen him with our eyes, and examined into the truth of the 33 matter with all possible care. And more than 33 Therefore being this, we solemnly assure you, that mean and by the right hand of contemptible as this Jesus once appeared among ing received of the Fayou, he is invested now with sovereign domi- ther the promise of nion; and being exalted therefore to supreme the Holy Ghost, he majesty and glory at the right hand of God, and hath shed forth this, which ye now see and having, as the great anointed of the Lord, re- hear. ceived the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he hath, agreeable to the notices he gave Jerome mentions the remains of David's us God exalted, and hav i According to the fesh.] This is expressed in the original in such a manner, with an article prefixed, ( nair onçxa avaSHOELY TO XEIc,) as seems to refer these words, not to the loins of David, but to Christ; and so may be an intimation, that it was only with respect to his human nature that the Messiah should descend from David, while there was still a higher nature in which he was superior to him, and was indeed to be regarded as the Son of God. (Compare Rom. i. 3, 4.) It was with a view to this, that Clarius and some others suppose these words to be inserted here by the apostle; and I have therefore so disposed them in the version, as to leave no room for any ambiguity. God had exalted him, and made him Lord and Christ. 34 For David is not ascended into the heahimself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou vens: but he saith on my right hand, 35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool. 36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that Lord and Christ. iv. 519 us before his ascension, which happened but SECT. ten days ago, shed forth this miraculous effusion of it, which has produced the wonderful effects that you now see and hear, and which II. 33. is given us an holy unction from above, by which he constitutes us ministers in his church below. Acts And indeed it appears from other passages of 34 his writings, that the great patriarch, whom I mentioned before, had some views to this kingdom of the Messiah; for David, who has never yet been raised from the dead is not himself ascended into heaven in the body, to be advanced there to the highest dignity and power; but plainly intimates, that this belonged to one superior to himself, when he says, (Psal. ex. 1.) The Lord Jehovah said unto my Lord, that is, God the Father said unto the Messiah, (whom though in one sense he is to be my Son, I honour as my Lord,) Sit thou exalted on a throne at my right hand, Until I make all that are 35 so presumptuous as to go on to be thine enemies thy footstool and lay them prostrate at thy feet, so that thou mayest trample upon them at pleasure, as entirely subdued." Therefore upon the whole, from this concur- 36 rent evidence both of prophecy and miracle, God hath made that and from the testimony God has given to that same Jesus whom ye Jesus whom we preach, not only by his resurhave crucified, both rection from the dead, but by the effusion of the Holy Spirit on his followers, let all the house of Israel assuredly know, how contrary soever it may be to their former apprehensions and rooted prejudices, that God hath made this Jesus, whom you rejected and crucified, that Lord and that Messiah whose kingdom you profess so eagerly to desire, and who will surely come to execute his wrath upon you, if you are still so obstinate as to continue in your sins. Thus Peter concluded his discourse, and God blessed it as the means of awakening and converting thousands, as we shall see in the following section. IMPROVE Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.] This text is quoted on this occasion with the happiest address, as suggesting, in the words of David, their great prophetic monarch, how certain their own ruin must be, if they went on to oppose Christ.- |