Acts 2:14-36

Peter Explains the Occurrence. Peter is, as before, the mouthpiece of the community. His speech is not addressed to foreigners but to the people of Jerusalem, and shows us, as his other speeches do, the style of argument used by Christians in their first great controversy, that with their Jewish neighbours. This address falls into three parts: (a) Acts 2:14, the phenomena are not due to intoxication but show that prophecy of the Last Things is being fulfilled, and that further fulfilment is at hand; (b) Acts 2:22, the Resurrection of Jesus proves His Messiahship; (c) Acts 2:33, appeal to the Jews to recognise Him accordingly.

Acts 2:14. Intoxication is not an affair of the early morning; it is not yet the time for morning prayer, and the Jew did not eat nor drink before that hour. The lively utterances of the believers are due to the direct inspiration of God according to His promise in Joel (Joel 2:28; LXX with slight differences). The passage predicts what is to precede the final deliverance, and Peter suggests that as the earlier part is being realised in the inspiration of the Christian community both in its older and younger members, the later parts, the heavenly portents and the day of judgment, may be expected forthwith. To escape therefrom they must call on the name of the Lord (Joel 2:32); and by the Lord the writer understands Peter to point to Jesus as Kurios; in Acts 2:36 he expressly so names Him.

Acts 2:22. That Jesus is Lord and is to be called upon is proved by the fact of His resurrection. The doctrine of Christ set forth in Acts 2:22 is very simple. His human life is appealed to: Jesus the Nazorean, as He is called, is spoken of as a man, but a man whom God approves to the Jews by the wonderful works He did through Him, powers and wonders and signs; powers, as showing the energy which dwelt in Him; wonders, from their arresting character; and signs from what they proved about Him (2 Corinthians 12:12). In spite of all this it was God's deliberate counsel for nothing happened to Jesus that God did not know beforehand and arrange for that He should be delivered to His enemies and done to death by the Jews. They were the real authors of the crime, though in the act of His execution wicked hands, the hands of men outside the Law, were employed. The speaker passes lightly on from the death of Jesus to His Resurrection; he has no doctrine of the virtue of Christ's death, but hurries on to the act by which that fearful crime was redressed and turned to its opposite. God raised Him up, having loosed the pangs (so LXX, Psalms 18:5; Psalms 116:3; Heb. bonds) of death. He could not be held of it; it was inconsistent rather with the Divine plan than with the inherent nature of Jesus, just described as a man.

Psalms 16, from which a quotation follows, is originally an utterance of the Jewish community, expressing its faith in God and in touching phrases its confidence that He will not suffer death or destruction to approach it. In the Gospels and Ac. all the Pss. are regarded as the work of David and as speaking of his fortunes. Psalms 16 records his view of his own death, and expresses the conviction that he will arise out of it and not be left in the place to which all souls went at death. But this was clearly not fulfilled in the person of David. Peter appeals to the Jews, whom he now addresses as brethren, in a bond of faith and hope with him, to allow that David died and that they know his tomb (mentioned Nehemiah 3:16 and several times in Josephus); what then do his words mean? He was a prophet, and the words must have a fulfilment. David knew of the descendant, in whom his throne was to be established for ever (2 Samuel 7:12 f., Psalms 132:11), and it was of Him he spoke in Psalms 16. It was actually true of Christ that God raised Him up; that is the fact of which all the apostles are witnesses (Acts 1:3; Acts 1:8; Acts 1:22) and of which David spoke.

Acts 2:22. Jesus the Nazorean: the origin of this expression is obscure; Burkitt in RTP, ix. 714, discussing the term Nazorean, which occurs seven times in Ac., and Nasarean found in Mk. and Lk., does not profess to have solved the difficulty. He warns us against basing the explanation on the name of Nazara, where the Lord was brought up. The name Nosri was applied to Christ, as Matthew 2:23 informs us, and may mean watchman, tower-dweller, pagan, according to 2 Kings 17:9. As a term of reproach His followers would be called Nazoraioi after Him. The sect of Nazoreans was more ancient; Epiphanius speaks of them, and the name may mean rebels.

Acts 2:33. Conclusion. The inference is that Jesus is the cause of the ecstatic speech, Jesus raised by God's right hand, Jesus exalted. It is He who has obtained from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, and has poured out what is seen and heard in His followers. There is no reference to the gift as one of languages, nor to the fact that Jesus already was full of the Holy Spirit in His lifetime. Another Ps. quotation follows (Acts 2:34), of frequent occurrence in NT (Matthew 22:44; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 11:3) but not elsewhere used just as it is here. In Mt., Psalms 110 proves that the Jews were mistaken in their view of the Messiah; He was a greater than David, not less; in 1 Cor. it proves a point as to the future development of Christ's power; here, that the exaltation is true of Jesus alone, who is therefore to be regarded as Lord and Messiah. David was buried and lies in his tomb (Acts 2:29), he never rose to heaven; but Jesus has sent down the Spirit from heaven to His followers (Acts 2:33). In Him, then, the prophecy is fulfilled; God, as the whole house of Israel is to recognise, has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah.