Acts 13:27-29 - The rulers did not recognise Jesus

13:27

Paul then refers explicitly to those who lived in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ ministry and death. He includes both the people and the rulers. They acted in the way they did because they did not understand what the prophets (of the Old Testament) were saying. This was despite these prophets being read every Sabbath. There one or two interesting points out of this. First, hearing the word alone is not enough, for the Jews heard the word. We need to “have ears to hear”, our minds need to be opened to the word of God. Today when we preach and teach we should ask God to enable the hearers to truly hear. No amount of eloquence is sufficient to overcome spiritual blindness, only the Holy Spirit can do that. Secondly, one might ask what would the people have done if they had truly understood the Scriptures, would they have then still had Jesus crucified? Now at one level at least this is a silly question, it is certainly a hypothetical one, but there is still something we can learn from it. The people should have repented and believed, that is the clear command of God. Killing Jesus was utterly wrong, even though it was fulfilling Scripture. We should always seek to do what is right, without wondering or worrying if and how this is going to lead to God’s will being done. It is always God’s will to do what is right.

13:28,29

Again we have clear links between what is said here in Paul’s speech and gospel accounts. The trial of Jesus was so clearly wrong for no cause for death could be found, Pilate could find no judicial justification for Jesus’ death (Luke 22:4). All this happened in fulfilment of Scripture. God knew and God planned what was going to happen, it was all meant to happen, but this in no way takes away human responsibility.

When Jesus was dead He was taken down from the tree and His body was laid in the tomb. It is common in the New Testament to speak of the cross as a tree, because it was made of wood. As an aside this does illustrate an interesting point in Biblical interpretation. There are eternal debates (though presumably they will end after Jesus comes back!) on whether there is a young or an old earth, was the world created in six literal days or not. Many of these debates focus on the words used for “day” in Genesis. This is a relevant point, but its relevance is limited. The context in which words are used is also crucial. For here the word for tree is tree, but this clearly does not mean that Jesus was crucified on a literal tree, such an interpretation would be plain stupid. So it seems to me that much of the talk about the meaning of the word “day” in Genesis is somewhat irrelevant.