It was a big stage and Peter had it. The Holy Spirit captured the attention of the crowd on the day of Pentecost and then directed it to the words of Peter. That was a privileged opportunity, a weighty moment. What message would you share? Peter had options. He listened to Jesus teach and witnessed his miracles. His personal stories included walking on water and seeing the ear he cut off restored. Peter could have kept their attention with the most incredible stories. Instead, he convicted their hearts with the most essential truth.
First, Peter quoted from the prophecy of Joel (vv. 16-21) to explain the acts of the Holy Spirit they were all experiencing. Then he began his message with these words, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:22-24)
When Peter was given the most influential stage, he preached the most essential message.
Peter spoke of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as historical realities with huge spiritual significance. The SDA Fundamental Belief entitled The Life, Death and Resurrection says that these “provide the only means of atonement for human sin”.
How are the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus essential for our salvation?
Life- How is the life of Christ essential for our salvation?
The first thing that Peter said about Jesus is that he was “a man” (v. 22). Jesus was on the earth as a man just 10 days before Peter’s sermon, but he didn’t want the people to miss the humanity of Jesus. He reminded them that they saw the mighty works and Jesus was in their midst (v. 22).
All throughout Christian history the nature of Christ has been debated. Not only has Christ’s divinity been questioned, but his humanity has also. An early false teaching called Docetism claimed that Christ only seemed to have a physical body. The strong influence of Gnosticism, which taught the material world was evil and the spiritual realm was good, rejected the idea that the Word became flesh. Flesh was the bad stuff.
The human life of Christ was God’s plan and a historical reality. He had a body. He had friends. He had pain. He got hungry. Fundamental Belief #4 describes the son with these words, “Forever truly God he became also truly man.” In addition to the love, humility, and relatability of God to us that the incarnation demonstrates, it is essential to salvation in at least these two ways.
- Christ’s life is the perfect sacrifice that is necessary for our salvation.
The first line of the Fundamental Belief #9 reads “In Christ’s life of perfect obedience…” Here is some of the Biblical language that affirms Christ’s life of perfection.
- 1 Peter 2:22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin..
- Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
- Hebrews 7:26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
In the sacrificial system it was necessary that the sacrificial lamb be without blemish (Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 22:22; Malachi 1:8). The perfect life of Christ was necessary in order for him to be the sacrificial lamb for our sin (1 Peter 1:19).
2. The perfect life of Christ is the source of the righteousness required for our salvation.
In Hebrews 5:8-9 we read that “being made perfect, he [Christ] became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” His perfection is the source of salvation!
Here is how that works.
Righteousness is required for salvation.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
God’s grace did not change that requirement, it met the requirement.
Romans 8:3-4 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The righteousness that saves us is the righteousness of Christ (justification). The righteousness that Christ grows us into is rooted in his righteousness (sanctification). Notice the association between our righteousness and Christ’s in the following verses. Our righteousness depends on his righteousness.
- 1 Peter 1:15-16 But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
- 1 John 3:3-5 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
- Hebrews 9:14 How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
A crucial caution should be stressed here. The perfect human life of Christ is not an example to show us that humans can achieve their own perfection. It is a source by which humans might receive Christ’s perfection.
Peter first stresses that Jesus was “a man” because the perfect life of Christ is essential to our salvation. When Christ resisted the temptations of Satan he was living for our salvation. When he chose humility instead of pride, truth over lies, purity over lust, or service over selfishness he was living for our salvation. When he said, “away from me Satan” and “not my will but yours” he was living for our salvation.
Death- How is the death of Christ essential for our salvation?
There was another essential piece of salvation that Peter wanted the crowd to hear. Jesus died. They killed him. And all of it was “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (v. 23). Death was not God’s plan for his creation but in response to sin, his own sacrificial death was the plan.
The Fundamental Belief includes four important words that summarize why the death of Christ is essential to our salvation. These four words are “substitutionary and expiatory, reconciling and transforming.”
Substitution
The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23). God didn’t excuse our sin, he condemned it with his own death in the place of ours. This is why we can say in our Fundamental Belief that the death of Christ “both condemns our sin and provides for our forgiveness.”
Here is some of the language the Bible uses to describe the truth that Jesus died as our substitute, in our place.
- But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his
- Isaiah 53:5-6 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- 1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
- Leviticus 16:21-22 And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.
- 1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
Because of Christ’s substitutionary death, those who receive him will not die the second death (Revelation 2:11; 20:6).
Expiation
There is a good word. Expiation is the removal of the guilt of sin. The death of Christ has power to purify the sinner and remove our guilt.
Hebrews 9:13-14For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify ourconscience from dead works to serve the living God.
God’s acceptance of us in not forgetfulness of our sin. He died to have the right to take away the guilt of our sin. He bore the sin to have the right to remove it.
Reconciliation
God created us to be in intimate relationship with him. His death brings us back in to this relationship with him.
Notice the reconciling effect of the death of Christ in the following verses.
- Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.
- 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;that is, in Christ God was reconcilingthe world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
- 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.
Transformation
The transformation available in the death of Christ is extreme. It is the transformation from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:1-4; Romans 6:11). Our nature was corrupt and we were objects of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). In the death of Christ we die to sin.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Peter wanted the crowd to know that Jesus died as part of the plan of salvation, the ultimate example of love (1 John 3:16).
When Jesus was hanging on the cross, he was dying for our salvation. When he was beaten, and mocked he was dying for our salvation. When he struggled for breath and committed his spirit to the Father, he was dying for our salvation.
Resurrection – How is the resurrection of Christ essential for our salvation?
Peter wanted that crowd to know that the savior who lived and died for their salvation also rose to life for their salvation (v. 24). When Paul was reminding the Corinthians of the gospel he preached and that they received he said, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). The resurrection is among the few gospel realities Paul considers of first importance!
Here are two reasons why the resurrection is essential.
- The resurrection of Christ validates the saving work of the life and death of Christ.
Paul continued in 1 Corinthians 15 to make a list of things that would be true if Christ was not raised from the dead. The list includes:
The whole thing depends upon a risen savior. Fundamental belief #9 declares that the “bodily resurrection of Christ proclaims God’s triumph over the forces of evil, and for those who accept the atonement assures their final victory over sin and death. It declares the Lordship of Jesus Christ, before whom every knee in heaven and on earth will bow.”
2. The resurrection of Christ is what gives us new life now and secures our resurrection at his return.
The next verse after Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 15 says, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (v. 20). He is the “first fruits”. This means that there is more resurrection harvest to come… us! Our hope of eternal life is not rooted in the immortality of the soul but in the resurrection of the body (1 Corinthians 15:50-58)!
Christ’s death dealt with our sin and death but it is his resurrection that calls us to life with him!
- Romans 4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
- Romans 6:4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
When Christ rose from the grave he was rising for our salvation!
Peter chose well to talk about the life, death, and resurrection when he was given the most influential stage. Together, they are the only means of atonement for human sin! We need a perfect savior! We need a sacrificial savior! We need a living savior!