The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 117

Jesus, hi_s "just" co~cluc~, his betre,ya! and repudiation by" his own," his 8Ufferin~, resurrection, 11,nd glonficnt10n, 11,t least m so far as the Ascension was concerned. (2) The second appeal is to their own "oracles," and the prized stores of their own treasured prophecies, Peter well knew the just purchase he ga.ined in confrontin" his audienc~ with quotations from their prophets (vers. 18, 21, 22, 24, 25). (3) The third appeal is one 1~~rle to their ?Wn C<?nscience. This consisted. not only in the plain and uncom- prom1smg rnnnner m which Peter brought to their remembrance their most recent offences against their own conscience, partly under the cover of ignorance in their crucifying of Christ, hut beside this in his direct naming of them as sinners. He exhorts them not iu. "the ninety and nine" "which needed no repentance" but emphatica.lly as those who needed to "repent," needed to " be converted," ~eedcd "the blotting out of their sins," needed the "sending of that very Jesus Christ" who had been "preached unto" them, though hitherto in vain; needed the warnincr of that terrible prophecy, tha.t said, "The soul that heareth not shall be destroyed fro~ among the people; " needed to be reminded that they were the" children of the prophets and of" a most venerable "covenant;" and needed to be reminded, withal, of the last highest touch added to their privilege and their responsibility, in that to them "first God had sent his risen Son," to offer them first the fulness of that richest "blessing," which consisted in the "being turned away each from his iniquities "-gloriou~ diversion 10deed I '!'here is not a. sentence but was a message to the conscience. Not a sentence but what must have "pricked the heart." And not a sentence but what would have been a winged barbed arrow, except for the mercy that each time took the aim, and which mercy was as "purposed" as the arrow's aim was deliberate. Such a marshalling of allegation against hearts and consciences, and the living men to whom they belonged, rarely had been, rarely has been. But when it has, true it is that it is in pari materia that it has occurred-in the matter of men's treatment of Christ and of their own souls. Withal Peter did not distrust the influence of (4) the appeal to hope. Through all the faithfulness of plain speaking and the severity of naked truth, kindliness seems to betray itself, and to wish to make its deeper existence felt. The prompt disclaiming of any special and superior power or holiness in himself and brother apostle was a. happy beginning on the part of Peter, and tended to put to sleep envy and the spirit of a com- parison that would all have added to the smart of the reproof for conscious wrong-doing. .Again, Peter does himself (ver. 17) mitigate in some degree their sin, by the suggestion of their " ignorance " and of that of their "rulers ; " and in the same breath addresses them a.s "brethren." His allusion to the fulfilling of prophecy amid all the stern facts of the "suffering" of Christ had also the germ of hopefulness in it. The "blotting out of their sins," and the whisper of "the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord; " the inspiring quotation of the " Prophet to be raised up from among their brethren, like unto" Moses; and the fixing of the fact that it was on these very exist- ing days that the whole ranks of" prophets from Samuel" downwards had concentred prophetic attention; and, last of all, the rehearsing of the old promise to .Abraham, clenched by the assertion of its being now in course and act of fulfilling ;-surely all this was ground thickly sown with the seeds of hope. So absent was the tone of dis- paragement and depreciation, when the lips of Peter spoke most stinging truth I Great is the recuperative energy of souls, when there is any room for hope left. But depre-· cia.tion is a. cruel foe to hope, if it take effect; and if it do not take effect, it is sure to make more irreconcilably active the spirit of self-defence and of opposition. Nor can we doubt, nor would we wish to doubt, that the sermon of Peter showed one grand fulfilment of the promise, that it "should be given in that same hour what they should speak" to those who were called by the Spirit to speak for Jesus. IV. THE FIRST EFFECTS OF THE SERMON. The first effects were a plaiu augury of what occurred very often in la.ter times. These first effects are not a.II discomfiture. Nor a.re they results that count half and half, with no clear balance either of gain or of loss. To count. nothing on what may succeed them, the first results show the preachers Peter and John bound, the Word they preached 11ot bound. 1. '!he apostle~, who preached, are imprisoned-for what length of _tim_e the so~tence d1scree~ly left unsaid. The apostles were la.id hands on by ecclesiastics, committed by self-rnterest to endeavour to maintain the status qU() in the Church and the world-by one f1fficial and by a few self-st_yled tneolopians, driest, of the dry and most erring of the 111 ·rHE AOTS OF THE APOSTLES. [oa. 111, 1-26.