MONDAY November 4th
Acts 3:6
‘I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.’
As I continue in the devotions and return to Acts 3:6, we see that linked to the name Jesus, Peter used another name or title, ‘Christ’. In Matthew 16, Jesus asked the disciples a question, ‘Who do men say that the Son of Man is?’ and they begin to give some answers: ‘“Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”’ But then came the big test, ‘“But who do you say that I am?”’ and in verse 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
He makes two statements concerning Jesus. You are 1) The Christ, 2) The Son of the living God, and our devotion today is based around the first statement ‘You are the Christ’.
The name Christ identifies Jesus as being the One who had been sent from God, it is linked to the name ‘Messiah’, together these titles or names identify Jesus as actually being the one that the Jews were waiting and longing for. The one who had been promised through the psalms and the prophets who would be as we saw when Simeon saw him in the temple ‘the consolation of Israel’ and Simeon on seeing the baby Jesus recognised him as the ‘Lord’s Christ’. (Luke 2:25-26)
The sad reality is that when it eventually came time to not only recognise and accept Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the people instead chose to reject him, which led of course to Jesus being taken and crucified. But thank God that what seemed to be a negative was all a part of God’s eternal plan for salvation, and we read in Acts 2 the following ‘this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men’, and in those awful moments of crucifixion the most amazing transaction took place, for the One who was named Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, and the account in Acts continues ‘God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it’ (v24) and then ‘Being therefore a prophet, (that is David) 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.’
What we see is that Jesus was the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in so many ways, but here fulfilling the prophetic statements of the resurrection of Jesus as the Christ, the sent One, the promised One, the Messiah (Psalm 16:10).
It is a mystery in so many ways, the very fact that those whom he came for so openly rejected him, yet as a result we who are Gentiles by birth can come not only to accept him as Saviour but also as the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the verses from Acts 2 continue with the following, ‘Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’ This takes us to the next title for which we will turn to Philippians 2, the title of ‘Lord’.