“Lord Jesus, the Jews witnessed the fulfilment of prophecy in Christ, yet they rejected and killed the Son of God. May we, as Your church, obey Your word and present Christ to a world that is intentionally going against God. In Your name, we pray. Amen.”
Acts 3:22-23 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN. HIM YOU SHALL HEAR IN ALL THINGS, WHATEVER HE SAYS TO YOU. (23) AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERY SOUL WHO WILL NOT HEAR THAT PROPHET SHALL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED FROM AMONG THE PEOPLE.’
Peter and John were now moving to the main thrust of their message to the Jews. Their purpose was that the Jews must get back to their God-given plan and purpose of how God had chosen them, revealed His ways to them and blessed them in order that they would be a blessing to the rest of humanity.
Let us go to the instruction of Moses, as he prophesied of Jesus. Deuteronomy 18:15-19 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, (16) according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ (17) “And the LORD said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. (18) I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. (19) And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.
The Jews were familiar with this prophecy of Moses of the Messiah and they were waiting for the fulfilment of this prophecy. Here were Peter and John connecting the prophecy of Moses to Jesus. To the Jews, these words from Peter and John would have been shocking, to say the least, for they would have realised that the prophecy of Moses, had been fulfilled before their eyes, but they had rejected and killed the ‘One who was to come’.
Stephen too explained to the Jews, the fulfilment of the prophecy of Moses, in Jesus Christ. Acts 7:37-39 “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN. HIM YOU SHALL HEAR.’ (38) “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, (39) whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,
Stephen’s message was hard-hitting. He did not spare the Jews for their hard-heartedness and disobedience. Acts 7:51-53 “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. (52) Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, (53) who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”
With Peter and John, the Jews were convicted and they repented but with Stephen, they were angry and stoned him to death. Acts 7:54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
The Jews had a great heritage for they had the oracles of God given to them. Romans 9:4-5 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; (5) of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
The Jews, therefore, had an enormous responsibility to be the instruments and medium of God’s message to the rest of us. It was from the Jews that Jesus came so that they would experience the propitiation of sins and they would then testify of the healing of God to the rest of humanity.
Hebrews 2:16-17 For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. (17) Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
This task of conveying God’s revelation to the rest of the world was not given to angels but to His people, the Jews, and to all those who are the seed of Abraham. All those who have placed their faith in Jesus are the seed of Abraham. Galatians 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The church has the revelation of Jesus, whom we must obey and also like Peter, John and Stephen, let the world know that Jesus is the one whom God has appointed to be the propitiation for man’s sin.