Preaching 2 - Acts 13:26-42

Paul again gives a call to “men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.” It’s almost like he’s saying, “this isn’t just for Jews anymore, but all those who believe, regardless of circumstances. I wonder how well this went over with the Jewish leadership listening to all this. Even though he had already called for Jews and “God-fearers” in the beginning, calling to them again puts emphasis on what he is about to say. It’s like when you’re speaking to someone about something, and just to draw their full attention to what you are about to say, you say their name again. I personally really hate that, I don’t know why, but I really don’t like it, so I can see that it serves its purpose.

There also might be a “well if the Messiah came to Jerusalem, why didn’t anyone tell us about it?” which is a fair point, if the Savior that they’ve all been waiting for had in fact come to his people, then why wouldn’t anyone from Jerusalem have told them about it? Why wasn’t this “Messiah” embraced with open arms and glad hearts? And if these Jews expected the same militant Messiah that the Jews in Jerusalem did, then they were probably wondering, “why are we still slaves to Rome? Wasn’t the Messiah supposed to free us, his people, from bondage?” I feel like Paul probably had the same powerful speaking voice and mannerisms that a southern Baptist preacher does.
In keeping with the timeline and perhaps because he knows that this is a question for some people, Paul heads off the topic and tells the people, who might feel some estrangement from the Jews at Jerusalem anyway, “for they that Dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.” The Jewish leaders at Jerusalem didn’t recognize the Savior for who he was, but whose fault is that? Was Jesus just so timid about his place in the kingdom that nobody really knew? Because that wouldn’t be fair if Jesus didn’t really announce himself. No, the lack of acceptance wasn’t any fault of Jesus, but of those who were in authority because they didn’t know the scriptures. And that’s a bold statement to make concerning those who are supposed to be experts in the law and the prophets.
So if this Jesus really was the Messiah, why didn’t he make all the changes that they were expecting? If he really was the Son of God, then he couldn’t have just been rejected and killed. Paul points out that in fact the scriptures did prophesy exactly what happened. And not only did the scriptures prophesy of Jesus’ rejection, but it was the unbelieving Jews themselves that fulfilled it. This kind of outside perspective is always eye opening when understood, it’s like in 1^stNephi saying that Nephi was commanded to make a second set of plates but didn’t know the reason. I wonder how Joseph Smith felt when he read that and realized that it was because God knew that he would lose the first 118 pages of the Book of Mormon translation.
Paul points out that Jesus didn’t just die, but that he was murdered and that the Jewish leadership manipulated Pilate in order to have it done. He alludes to the atonement, “and when they had fulfilled all that was written of him,” again citing the scriptural prophecies, and while it makes it seem like the atonement was a group effort, I’m taking this more to mean that when they had done to him all that had been prophesied, or everything that had been prophesied had been done. Jesus was dead and they put him “in a sepulchre,” but that’s not the end of the story, as it usually is with mortals, because “God raised him from the dead.” Jesus didn’t raise himself, the disciples didn’t steal his body, this was all God’s plan from the beginning and God himself was the one who resurrected Jesus.
Referencing the law of witnesses, Jesus was “seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.” It wasn’t just one day when someone who might have looked like Jesus was spotted from a distance, Jesus was seen repeatedly after he died in many places to many different people, to especially to people who knew him personally and intimately. It wasn’t some generic guy who walked around saying, “I’m Jesus raised from the dead,” the person that was seen was convincing enough to those who knew him really, really well for them to declare that he was in fact risen from the dead.
And it just occurred to me that Jesus’ disciples really didn’t have anything to gain by lying to the people about the resurrection. Jesus had been executed by Rome at the insistence of the Sanhedrin; so presumably, anyone who continued on in his cause would have become an instant target, as we see with the execution of Stephen and James. If Jesus had just died and that was the end of it, then the disciples were fully prepared to go back to their regular lives and pick up where they left off three years previously. They wouldn’t have been hassled, they wouldn’t have been persecuted very much, they would have just lived relatively peaceful, quiet lives. So really, if anything, those who embraced the resurrected Christ took upon themselves a lot of suffering and hardship, and very few people would have endured that for a lie.
This is the good news that Paul and Barnabas came to share, “that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Again anchoring his statements in the scriptures, he announces that the ancient promises made to Abraham, the promises that he mentioned in the beginning of his sermon, had been fulfilled through God sending His Son, Jesus Christ to accomplish all the promised made in the scriptures.
Paul has presented the past, through the Abrahamic covenant, the immediate past, Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection, now he points to the eternal future. He reminds his audience, that even David, the greatest Jewish king “fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption.” Even the greatest of them all, the one whom they admired and emulated couldn’t keep himself from dying and rotting away, “be he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption.” Jesus did what no other person had done, he was risen after death in a perfect, immortal body, that had never happened before, even to the greatest among them, therefore, Jesus was more important than anyone who had ever come before.
The case for Jesus being special and the fulfillment of many prophecies has been made, so if they are to believe in Jesus’ gospel, then what is his gospel exactly then? Paul tells them that Jesus’ gospel “is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” The IM quotes Elder Richard G. Scott as teaching, “Whether the violation be great or small, the solution is the same: full repentance through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement with obedience to His commandments… I testify that of all the necessary steps to repentance, the most critically important is for you to have a conviction that forgiveness comes in and through Jesus Christ. It is essential to know that only on His terms can you be forgiven. You will be helped as you exercise faith in Christ.”
We can be saved by repentance and faith in Christ, but if the only way to be saved is through the Atonement and Jesus performed the atonement, then he sets the terms of our forgiveness. This means that we can’t make up our own ways to be forgiven, we can’t say, “I’ll just pay $10 to the church and be forgiven,” no, that’s not the way that Jesus has established the process of repentance. The concept of repentance is empowering and liberating to many of us who have committed grievous sins, but want to do better and who love Jesus now. The preaching of the opportunity to be forgiven if we repent is life changing in so many ways for so many people, especially back in this time when so many people believed that salvation came through bloodline, therefore the vast majority of the human population was excluded.
So for the Jews, the good news is that the Messiah that they’ve been waiting thousands of years for has finally come, and for the gentiles, the good news is that the true and living God had prepared a way for them to be saved if they repent. That’s all pretty good news for everyone. But because the Jews have had a previous knowledge of what was to come, Paul warns them, again using the scriptures that they shall “perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.” He’s saying, “Consider what I’m saying carefully because there are eternal consequences for your reactions.” With little surprise, the Jews in the audience got up and left at the end of the synagogue service, but “the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.”