Acts 3:13-16 - You killed the author of life

3:13,14

Peter reaffirms the message he preached on Pentecost. He reminds them again that they had handed Jesus over to Pilate, even after Pilate had offered to release Jesus, saying he could find no grounds for accusing Him. Peter is not afraid to remind people of their guilt. Indeed, the whole Bible is not afraid to remind us of our guilt! Today we often shy away from that, or even teach that we should not remind people of their guilt. This is a deeply unbiblical approach. Peter gives God His “full title”, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus is the culmination of the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of God’s plans, He is not a departure from the Old Testament. God glorified Jesus. The miracles were an outward sign and demonstration of the fact that God has glorified the Son.

3:15

Peter does not mince his words, “you killed the author of life ... we are witnesses of this”. Today to use such a phrase would be considered anti-semitic, and indeed the church over the centuries has much to be ashamed of in its treatment of the Jews. So was Peter wrong to use such a phrase? Absolutely not. He was speaking the truth. So is he being anti-semitic? Again, absolutely not. So let’s see where the problem lies, and it is here. We interpret statements like this as “you killed Jesus, and so are much worse than us”. This then leads to unspeakable behaviour towards, in this case the Jews. So our solution is to not say “you killed the Jews”, but this no solution at all. For today in society we find that it is impossible to say any action is sinful without being branded a “hater” or “x-phobic” (replace x with whichever group you are saying is wrong). The truth is that we are all guilty. As Paul says in Romans 3:23, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, what modern man is saying is “no one has sinned”, and this is a complete lie.

3:16

Peter then makes it absolutely clear that it is Jesus who has healed the man. The people need to face up to their guilt, to repent and to believe, to put their faith in Jesus. The man put his faith in Jesus and the results were obvious for all to see. What people were seeing was not a man being healed by Peter and John, but a man being healed by Jesus because he put his faith in Jesus.