The Message of the Gospel | Acts 2:14-41
Brian Hedges | June 18, 2017
Gracious Father, would you now open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things from your word? Would you minister to us by your Spirit and through your word? Would you make clear to our minds and to our hearts this morning the meaning and the message, the relevance, of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and would you ensure that each one of our hearts would have personally responded to that? So draw near now as we study your word today. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
So for the last several weeks we have been talking about Acts chapters one and two, and we began by looking at the ascension of Christ, that very crucial event in the history of redemption, and then ten days later the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and now we’re looking at Peter’s explanation of that event in his sermon in Acts chapter two. Last week we talked about the meaning of Pentecost and what was involved in the Spirit’s work on that day. Today I want us to look at the gospel proclamation from Peter as recorded here in Acts chapter two.
As we read this let’s keep in mind that this is the first post-ascension, post-Pentecost preaching of the gospel; it’s the first sermon that we have recorded, and it’s a really important sermon for helping us understand just what the gospel is and the relevance of the gospel to our lives today. So, we’re going to read the text, Acts chapter two, I’m going to begin in verse 14, read through verse 41, if you want to follow along in your Bibles or on the screen.
“But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
“‘“And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”’
“‘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. For David says concerning him,
“‘“I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.”’
“‘Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.’”’
“‘Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’
“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
This is God’s word.
So this morning I really just want us to think about the message of the gospel itself. What is the gospel? Now this is a question that we ask every so often; in fact, every time I find opportunity to do so in the text I do that, because I want us to be clear on what the gospel is, but also because I want us to be sure that we ourselves are personally responding to the gospel. This is a wonderful example, in this passage, of defining the gospel for us, showing us just what the gospel implications are for our own lives.
To give a nod to Father’s Day this morning…this isn’t a Father’s Day sermon, but I can think of nothing more important for fathers than that we understand the gospel, that we have personally embraced the gospel and that we are regularly sharing the gospel with our children and indeed modelling the father-heart of God in the gospel. So this message has bearing in particular on us as fathers this morning, but really for all of us.
I want us to look at three things. I want us to look at what the gospel proclaims, what the gospel requires, and what the gospel promises, okay? Those three things this morning; let’s take the first.
I. What the Gospel Proclaims
The word gospel, of course, means good news. The gospel is therefore an announcement of news; it’s a declaration of events that have transpired; it’s a proclamation concerning a new state of affairs that have been brought into being because of these certain events. The question, then, is just what is the news? What are these events? What is this proclamation? What is it that we declare when we proclaim the gospel?
This is very clear in Peter’s sermon. There are four events that Peter rehearses in this sermon, and these are really the four things that are right at the heart of the gospel. Now, every gospel proclamation doesn’t have all the detail that Peter’s sermon does, and in fact in some aspects Peter doesn’t give as much detail as other places, but I think you’ll see that in these events you have really the heart of the gospel; you have the story of the gospel. You have the events that make up the gospel. So let’s just look at those quickly; we don’t have to spend a lot of time on them.
(1) First of all, in verse 22 you have the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. “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.” He just begins by giving a very brief recap of the life of Christ. Here’s Jesus of Nazareth who had done these signs and these mighty deeds and wonders among them.
(2) Then in verse 23 you have the crucifixion of Christ, and again, this is very brief. Peter just in one verse says, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Now it’s interesting here the focus that Peter gives to the cross. Peter does not here elaborate on the meaning of the cross, the significance of the cross, as he does, for example, in his letter, where he tells us that Christ died, the just for the unjust, that Christ died for our sins; he died to bring us to God.
He doesn’t elaborate on that here. Instead he talks about two things; he talks about the fact that the very people to whom he’s preaching were responsible for the death of Christ. So one of the things Peter is doing here is charging them with their guilt. He’s showing them their guilt before God, that they were complicit in the death of Christ, the crucifixion of Christ.
But I want you to see here how he joins that with the mystery of God’s eternal plan. This is just an amazing statement! He says that this Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, and then he says, “But you killed him.”
Now there’s a mystery there. You think about this for just a minute. This was the most wicked event that ever transpired in the history of the world; nothing worse than this. Here’s Jesus, the only fully righteous man, this is Jesus, God in the flesh, this is the Messiah of Israel; this is the Lord of the world, and they killed him. They killed him. It’s the most wicked thing that’s ever taken place, and Peter says it was part of God’s plan. There’s a mystery here: God’s sovereignty joined with human culpability. Now he doesn’t take any of the guilt off of them, he charges them with that guilt, he shows them that they are responsible, but at the same time he shows them that this is part of the mysterious, sovereign plan of God. The crucifixion of Christ.
(3) Then Peter really focuses on the resurrection of Christ, in verses 24 through 32. I’m not going to read all of this again, but I do want you to read verse 24: “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” To paraphrase, we could say this: that death lost its grip on Jesus. He could not be held by the pangs of death. God raised him up; God raised him from the dead. And indeed, when you study the book of Acts the resurrection is by and large the dominant note in the gospel proclamation in the book of Acts. The resurrection of Christ.
And they were witnesses of this! They had seen the resurrected Lord. They had seen it. But they were not only witnesses of it, Peter also wants them to see that this is in fulfillment of the Scriptures. So he quotes extensively from Psalm 16, which was our Scripture reading this morning, our call to worship this morning. In Psalm 16, David, Peter tells us, was really a prophet who was foretelling the resurrection of the Messiah. “You will not leave my soul in Hades or allow your holy one to see corruption.” And Peter says this was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Look in verses 32 and 33: “He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.” So he brings in, really, a twofold witness: the witness of the Scriptures and the eyewitness testimony of the apostles themselves, and he shows that on the basis of these two things you see here the resurrection of Christ the Messiah.
(4) And then the fourth event is the exaltation of Christ, or we might even say here the lordship of Christ; the fact of the lordship of Christ, which is based on his exaltation. You see this in verses 33 through 36; again, let me just read verse 33. “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”
So Peter points to the event of Pentecost as proof and evidence that Christ has been exalted. The fact that the Spirit has been poured out, the fact that the Spirit has descended, shows that the Son has ascended and his seated at the right hand of God. He is exalted. And again he quotes the Old Testament, Psalm 110, and shows how this is fulfilled in the exaltation of Christ.
And then look at the implication, verse 36, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” So he’s proclaiming here the lordship of Christ, the kingship of Christ. Christ is Lord, Christ is King, he is the Messiah; this is shown in his exaltation at God’s right hand.
Now right there you have, in brief outline, the essence of the gospel. It’s all about the person and work of Christ. Now there are lots of ways to elaborate this, there are lots of ways to get into it. As we saw in our assurance of pardon this morning, when Paul gives the gospel he goes straight to the death of Christ: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. But of course his life is implied there.
Sometimes the focus is on the cross, sometimes the focus is on the resurrection, sometimes the focus, in fact, is on the ascension of Christ, as is often the case in the book of Hebrews. But it’s those core events; it’s the person and the work of Christ. It’s what Jesus did in history that makes up the substance, the essence, of the gospel. This is the gospel proclamation. This is what the gospel proclaims.
I think there are two implications for us when we look at this, two applications.
(i) Here’s the first: we cannot truly preach the gospel unless we preach Christ. We can’t preach the gospel unless we’re preaching Christ, the person and work of Christ! The gospel is not mainly telling people what they must do. If you tell people what they must do before you tell them what Christ has done, you haven’t preached the gospel. You’re preaching law and not gospel.
Now as we’ll see there are requirements, there are exhortations; there are things that follow in the gospel that have to do with our response, but we can’t ask for a response to the gospel until we’ve actually preached the gospel itself, which means we’re preaching Christ.
I love Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who was such a Christ-centered gospel preacher. He was a gospel man. One of my favorite preachers in all of history, and I love this statement from Spurgeon; he said, “If you leave out Christ, you’ve left the sun out of the day and the moon out of the night, you’ve left the waters out of the sea and the floods out of the river, you’ve left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of the body, you’ve left joy out of heaven; you’ve robbed all of its awe. There is no gospel worth thinking of, much less worth proclaiming, if Jesus be forgotten. We must have Jesus as alpha and omega in all our ministries.”
And let that be so in every ministry of our church, brothers and sisters. Our job is to preach Jesus, to point people to Jesus; it’s to talk about Jesus, who he is and what he’s done in his life, in his death, in his resurrection, in his humiliation, in his exaltation; Jesus, who is the savior and who is the Lord. That’s the compass of our message; that’s the scope of our message, the person and the work of Jesus Christ. And there is no gospel proclamation if Jesus isn’t there.
(ii) That’s the first implication; here’s the second. I won’t elaborate on this, but I just want to highlight it. We can’t rightly read the Scriptures unless we read them in relationship to Christ. There is a christological interpretation of Scripture. Jesus is the key to unlocking the Scriptures, to understanding the Scriptures, to interpreting the Scriptures.
You see that in the way Peter interprets the Scriptures. Peter in his sermon quotes three Old Testament passages; Joel chapter two, we looked at that just very briefly last week; Psalm 16 and then Psalm 110. Each one he interprets in relationship to Christ, what Christ has done or what Christ has brought about in the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost.
Peter sees Jesus as the one who fulfills the Old Testament Scriptures, and the only way that you and I will rightly understand the Old Testament Scriptures is if we read them in relationship to Jesus.
So the gospel proclamation; this is what the gospel proclaims. The person and work of Christ, on the basis, on the authority, of the Scripture and the eyewitness testimony of the apostles.
II. What the Gospel Requires
You see this in verses 37 through 41. Let me just focus especially on the first few verses here. Verse 37, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
As we saw last week they had a heart wound. They’re convicted of their sins. Here they are; they’ve been charged with the death of Jesus the Messiah; they’ve killed their own king! So they cry out, “What must we do? What must we do? What must we do to be saved?” Similar to the Philippian jailer in Acts chapter 16.
Notice what Peter says. He says, verse 38, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
So there are two things here: there’s repentance and there’s baptism. I want us to think about each one of those for a moment. This is a verse that gives some people trouble. It gives some people trouble because, on the face of it, Peter doesn’t say anything about faith.
“What must we do to be saved?” Well, Paul says in Acts chapter 16, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” But that’s not what Peter says; Peter says, “Repent and be baptized.”
So this gives people trouble. Some people want, then, to do something else with this verse than actually apply it to this issue of salvation.
So some people will say things like this; they’ll say, “Well, Peter was actually only talking to Israel. This is for Israel; it’s not for us today. We don’t need to call people to repent today; Peter was talking to Israel.” But Paul actually, in Acts chapter 17, does say to a whole city full of pagans that “God now commands all men everywhere to repent.” So you can’t say that repentance was only for Israel and not for the Gentiles; it’s really for all men.
There are some people who want to say that this call to repentance and baptism only had to do with a temporal salvation; doesn’t have to do with an eternal salvation. I don’t think that works either.
So, how does this work then? How do we answer the question, “What must we do to be saved?” What is the role of repentance, what is the role of baptism? I just want to reflect on this with you for a few minutes.
So, just think for a minute, first of all, about how Scriptures answers that question, either explicitly or implicitly, answers the question, “What must we do to be saved?” in a variety of different ways. Even in this chapter, in verse 21 we read, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” So to be saved you have to call on the name of the Lord.
Peter, in this passage, says, “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” A few verses later he says, “Save yourselves from this perverse or this corrupt generation.” In chapter three of Acts Peter says, “Repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.”
There are many other examples. You think about Paul’s words in Romans chapter ten, where he tells us that everyone who confesses that Jesus is Lord and everyone who believes that God has raised him from the dead will be saved.
So what’s the answer? What is the role of repentance? This is what I think you have to see: I think we have to see that repentance and faith are really just two sides of the same thing. So one always stands from the other. When one is stated, the other is always implied. Because what is repentance? Repentance is a change of mind, a change of mind and heart leading to a change of life. It’s a turn; it’s a turn in the heart and a turn in the mind, and it’s a turn from something and it’s a turn to something.
What is faith? Well, faith is trust in Jesus. That’s what faith is. Faith is believing in Jesus, but not merely mental assent; it’s trusting in Jesus, it’s looking to Jesus and relying upon him.
So when you put those two things together you really have the biblical doctrine of conversion, and it’s a turning. It’s turning from sin (that’s repentance) and turning to Christ. And listen: you can’t turn without both turning from and to, and so always the two things are implied. That’s why Paul puts them together in Acts chapter 20, where he says, verses 20 and 21, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable in teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and a faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
So the two go together. Repentance is turning from sin, faith is turning to Christ; when one is stated, the other is always implied.
Richard Lovelace, who I think is an underread, understudied, but really profound theologian of the 20th century; Richard Lovelace said, “Faith and repentance are not separable qualities. To have faith is to receive God’s word as truth and rest upon it in dependant trust; to repent is to have a new mind towards God, oneself, Christ, and the world, committing one’s heart to new obedience to God.” I think that’s right.
Furthermore, repentance is not just a one-time thing; repentance is a way of life. Do you remember how Luther said in the 95 Theses, “When our Lord and master, Jesus Christ, said, ‘Repent,’ he called for the entire life of believers to be one of penitence”? So repentance is something that we’re doing all the day, should be doing it every day. I’ve had to repent today already. Maybe you have too.
Repentance is something we have to continually just turn back. Turn back to God, turn away from our sins, turn back to God; it’s a continuous thing. So I think that’s how you put those two things together, faith and repentance; they always imply one another, they always go together. You do not have a true faith unless it’s a repentant faith, you don’t have a genuine repentance unless it is a believing repentance. The two always go together. Repentance and faith are our response to the gospel; it’s what the gospel requires.
Now listen: that doesn’t mean it’s a works salvation. It’s not. We are not repenting in that we’re just turning from unrighteousness to righteousness and then relying on our own righteousness. We are turning from our unrighteousness, we’re also turning from our self-righteousness, and we are turning to Christ, and relying on him alone. So it’s only through faith that we are justified and saved, but the repentance is a real repentance, and it’s a real embrace of Christ. In embracing Christ we are embracing him as Savior, as Lord, we are embracing his gospel, we are embracing his commands, we are embracing him as our all in all.
Now, what about baptism? Look again at what Peter says in verse 38: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
So this is a command, a command to be baptized. I think it’s fair to say this also is a gospel requirement, it’s a requirement of the gospel; if God commands it, it’s required, right? “Repent and be baptized,” and of course this has also given people trouble. So there are whole denominations of Christian churches who believe in what we might call “baptismal justification” or “baptismal regeneration,” who believe that it is actually through the act of baptism that one is saved, that is justified, or that one is born again.
I don’t think that’s what Peter’s teaching here. I don’t think Peter’s teaching baptismal justification; I don’t think he’s saying that baptism is what actually brings us into the life of God or the experience of justification. There are several reasons for that.
One reason is because the New Testament letters and epistles, where the doctrine of justification is more fully expounded, are very clear that we are justified through faith. We’re justified through faith, not through our works, and certainly not through baptism.
It’s not baptismal regeneration because it’s very clear, even in the book of Acts, that someone can be baptized and actually not be saved. So it’s not a mechanical thing; it’s not a magical thing; it’s not the case that if you just get into the water, that when you come out you are therefore a new person, irrespective of faith.
I’ll give you an example in Acts chapter eight. I’m not going to read this, but in Acts chapter eight Philip preaches, and you remember Simon the sorcerer is among a group of people who respond, right? And Simon is baptized. In fact, the text tells us that Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip (I said Peter; Philip was the one who was preaching).
So Philip preaches, Simon, it says, believes and baptized, but then, just a few verses later, Simon is craving this supernatural power. He sees people speak in tongues, he sees the Spirit work in these people and he craves this supernatural power, and he tries to buy it. And Peter’s the one who responds to him then. Peter tells him, “May your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.” He says, “You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord if possible that the intent of your heart may be forgiven you, for I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”
That’s not the description of a saved person. So he’s been baptized, but he’s not saved; he’s still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. He still has a wicked heart; he hasn’t been changed. I think that, and we could look at other places as well, I think that demonstrates that baptism itself, there’s not a mechanical, magical effect to the water.
So, what does it mean, then? I do think we have to be careful not to water down the verse. Peter says, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The preposition there, be baptized for, es, into. That’s what the preposition means; it means to enter into something, right? To be baptized into the forgiveness of sin.
Now why does he say that? What do you do with that? And this is not an isolated verse, by the way. Acts 22, verse 16 Ananias said to Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle Paul, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the Lord.” Okay, so similar kinds of language.
So here’s how I think we put it together. The baptism doesn’t work mechanically, but it is what the Reformers called the sign and the seal of the promise of the gospel. It’s a sign and it’s a seal. As a sign it signifies something, it points to something beyond itself, it’s symbolic; and as a seal it confirms or it assures us of something.
Let me give you an illustration and then a quotation. Think about a wedding ring or a wedding band, okay? [Editor’s note: Brian owes this illustration to John Piper.] I have on my finger a wedding ring, and many of you do as well. Many of you remember when you were married, if you’re married, you remember than when you were married something was said like this, “With this ring I thee wed,” right? You put the ring on your finger, and you come out of that ceremony and you’re pronounced man and wife. There’s a new state of affairs.
Now, the ring is important. The ring symbolizes something; it signifies something. It signifies that I belong to Holly, I belong to her. I’m not available; I belong to somebody else. It signifies that there is a relationship, a legally binding relationship, a covenantal relationship; a relationship with this other person. It signifies that there is a commitment that has been made.
But listen, I could pull the ring off my finger (if I could get it off; I don’t know if I could); I could try to pull the ring off my finger. I could get it off, and if I take the ring off my finger it does not mean that I am no longer married. I could put the ring on somebody else’s finger who is single, and it doesn’t mean that you are married. You can have the ring without having the covenantal relationship, but the ring is still important, because the ring signifies something. It confirms something. It’s a symbol, it’s a sign that points to a true, genuine relationship.
When a person is baptized in the name of Christ, and when there is faith accompanying that baptism, the baptism signifies and seals, it points to, a reality that is genuine. And it confirms and assures in the hearts that reality. The reality of union with Christ, the reality of being washed from our sins, the reality of being baptized into Christ. Now the water doesn’t magically do that; faith in the heart is actually what brings us into that relationship with God, but the symbol is still important.
Okay, that’s my illustration; now let me just give you an explanation here from the Heidelberg catechism, which I have found very helpful personally. So I’m going to read four questions; these will be on the screen. I think these questions and answers are pretty self-evident. Hopefully this will be helpful for you.
“How does holy baptism signify and seal to you that the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross benefits you?
“In this way: Christ instituted this outward washing, and with it gave the promise that as surely as water washes away the dirt from the body, so certainly his blood and spirit wash away the impurity of my soul, that is, all my sins.
“What does it mean to be washed with Christ’s blood and Spirit?
“To be washed with Christ’s blood means to receive forgiveness of sins from God through grace because of Christ’s blood poured out for us in his sacrifice on the cross. To be washed with his Spirit means to be renewed by the Holy Spirit and sanctified to be members of Christ so that more and more we become dead to sin and lead a holy and blameless life.”
Now then notice this crucial question, question 72: “Does this outward washing with water itself wash away sins?
“No, only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit cleanse us from all sins.”
Next question, “Why then does the Holy Spirit call baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins?
“God speaks in this way for a good reason. He wants to teach us that the blood and Spirit of Christ remove our sins just as water takes away dirt from the body, but even more importantly, he wants to assure us by this divine pledge and sign that we are as truly cleansed from our sins spiritually as we are bodily washed with water.”
So what’s the requirement of the gospel? Well, spiritually and internally and at its very heart it is, “Believe and repent.” It’s turn from your sins and trust in Christ, and the sign and the seal of that repentance and faith and the sign and the seal of the promise that God makes to you is in baptism. Baptism itself does not save you, but it certainly points to the reality of salvation, and it’s an important part of your obedience to Christ.
So if you’ve not been baptized, if you’re a believer in Christ and you’ve not been baptized, the requirement of the gospel, the requirement of Christ the King, Christ the Lord, is: “be baptized in the name of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” That’s what the text says.
III. What the Gospel Promises
So we’ve seen what the gospel proclaims, we’ve seen what the gospel requires, and now thirdly, what the gospel promises. We’ll be brief here, but just notice these two things that I’ve already quoted, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
(1) First of all, the forgiveness of sins. This is a new covenant promise. This is one of the promises included in Jeremiah 31, where Jeremiah describes the new covenant and God promises that he will forgive the sins of his people. But it’s a promise with universal relevance, because everybody needs it. Everybody needs forgiveness. We all need to be forgiven for our sins.
But it is also an amazing promise, and I want you to just think for a minute about how amazing this is. Remember who Peter is talking to; he is talking to the very people who crucified the Son of God. He’s already confronted them with it, “You crucified and killed this Jesus,” and now he’s holding out to them the promise of forgiveness. That is an amazing promise.
Did you know that that promise is for you? The promise is for you, that God, through Christ, because of what Christ has done, God can and will forgive your sins, all of them; no matter how wicked they are, he will forgive all of your sins if you will turn to Christ, if you will trust in him.
I don’t care what the sins are. It doesn’t matter, really, what the sins are. You may be guilty of the worst immorality, you may be guilty of the worst crimes. You may be an adulterer, you may have even committed murder. And I want to tell you, in the name of God, that God will forgive your sins through Jesus Christ if you will turn to him and repent. That’s the promise of the gospel. Completely absolved of guilt before the tribunal of God! Completely free in the tribunal of God, justified, counted righteous in God’s sight, if you trust in Christ.
The hymnwriter said it so well:
“My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought,
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross
And I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Oh my soul!”
So whatever your sins are this morning, here’s the promise: you turn to Christ, clean slate. The forgiveness of sins.
(2) But not only that, also the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit! So it’s not just pardon, but also renewal. Not just justification, a clean record, but also regeneration, a new life. A new life, the life of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, indwelling you so that the Spirit of Christ himself taking residence in you changes you from the inside out! The life of God in the soul of man; new birth; born again; born all over again.
The gift of the Holy Spirit; that’s what the gospel promises. Have you received it? Have you received these promises by responding to the gospel?
Conclusion
Let me conclude with just two applications for our church.
(1) Let’s be gospel people. Let’s be gospel people! Let’s be people who proclaim it, let’s be people who live by it, who trust in it, so the gospel is at the center of everything we say and do.
I want to give you John Stott’s wonderful summary of this passage; I don’t think it can be improved upon. “Hear then,” he says, “is a fourfold message: two events, Christ’s death and resurrection; as attested by two witnesses, prophets and apostles; on the basis of which God makes two promises, forgiveness and the Spirit; on two conditions, repentance and faith with baptism. We have no liberty to amputate this apostolic gospel by proclaiming the cross without the resurrection or referring to the New Testament but not the Old or offering forgiveness without the Spirit or demanding faith without repentance. There is a wholeness about the biblical gospel.”
So being gospel people doesn’t mean that we reduce everything to a simple little sound-bite of a message, but it means that the center and the circumference of our message is rooted in the gospel, and it means that everything we say finds its right proportions there. Let’s be gospel people.
(2) Secondly, be sure that you’ve responded to the gospel yourself. If you’ve not done so, I invite you, I urge you, I beg you this morning; do so today. Believe the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, turn from your sins, trust in him, and you will be forgiven, you will be saved.
Let’s pray.
Gracious Father, we thank you that the gospel is not about what we do, it’s about what you have done through the gift of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his death for our sins, we thank you that the penalty of our sins has been paid in full, that the debt of our sin has been cancelled, that forgiveness is promises and offered and conferred upon us through the gospel.
We thank you for the promise of the Holy Spirit, given to the church on the day of Pentecost, given to us when we believe in Jesus. Thank you that the application of the gospel to our own hearts and lives means both our justification, so that we’re freed from the guilt of sin, and also our renewal, so that we are born again and given life by the Holy Spirit.
I pray that anyone in this room this morning who has not responded to the gospel would do so today. I pray for all of us who are Christians that there would be a fresh response, that this morning we would believe as if for the first time, that we would embrace the promise, and that we would rejoice in it, and that it would form and shape us to be gospel people who take this message to others.
I pray for fathers in this room this morning, that we would know and understand the gospel, and that we would clearly share that good news with our children, and that we would model a response to the gospel to them by showing steadfast faith in Christ and a life of repentance, where we are turning from our sins.
I pray, Father, that as we come to the table this morning that, just as baptism is a sign and seal that we are washed by the blood of Christ and by the Holy Spirit, so as we come to the table we would remember that the table is a sign and seal of the new covenant promises of Christ, that Christ has given himself for our sins, that he nourishes us with his very life, that he is the bread of life, so that when we come in faith, when we receive Christ in faith, we are strengthened, we are nourished, we are helped, we are sanctified. I pray that that would be so for us.
So draw near to us as we draw near to you and come to the table. We pray it now in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
