ACC ~ Acts 2 v22 - 36

OVERVIEW:

After having announced, by his use of the text from Joel, that what his auditors are experiencing proves that a new era of prophecy has been inaugurated, Peter goes on to interpret prophetically the meaning of the event by linking it to the resurrection of Jesus. The event of the resurrection was prophesied by Psalm 16, while the fact that Jesus is now in a position of authority was foretold in Psalm 110 and is verified in his pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Peter concludes with a proclamation of the true identity of the crucified One as revealed by his being made Lord and Christ. The Fathers are sensitive to this important role of Peter (BEDE) and to the constant theme of the apostolic preaching that all that took place was the plan of God (ARATOR). They take a theological stance in dealing with the “pains of death,” pointing out that death could not hold Christ (CHRYSOSTOM, AUGUSTINE, BEDE), that his flesh or his humanity died but that the Godhead is immortal (THEODORET, GREGORY OF NYSSA) and that by his risen humanity we are given immortality (GREGORY OF NYSSA). Augustine, typically, comes to grips with the statement that Jesus is the “firstborn of the dead” in the light of the resurrection of the “saints” recorded by Matthew at the moment of Jesus’ death. The notion that the humanity of Christ is now the source of the Spirit is highlighted by Chrysostom and Bede, while many Fathers seem to take a contemplative delight in gazing on the transformation of the humanity of Jesus described by Peter’s phrase, “God has made him both Lord and Christ.”

2:22 | People of Israel, Hear

A MAN APPROVED BY GOD. BEDE: As a learned teacher, Peter first admonishes unbelievers for the crime that had been committed, so that once their consciences had been stung by righteous fear, he might afterwards devote [his discourse] more advantageously to the plan of salvation. And because he is speaking to those who know the law, he shows that Christ himself is the one promised by the prophets. Nevertheless, here Peter does not at first give him the name Son of God on his own authority. Rather [he calls him] a man approved, a righteous man, a man raised from the dead—not raised with others in the ordinary and general resurrection (that is, the resurrection that is deferred to the end of the world), but raised in that resurrection celebrated on the third day, so that his assertion of a unique and glorious resurrection might acquire [the value of] a testimonial to his eternal divinity. For when he has proved that the bodies of others underwent corruption after death, he demonstrates that this man, of whom it is said, “I will not give over your holy one to see corruption,” was exempt from human impermanence. Peter also proves that he [Christ] exceeded the merits of the [merely] human condition and that he should therefore be considered to be God rather than [merely] human.

In the history of Cornelius the centurion and in the sermon given by the apostle Paul at Athens, you will be shown the sort of introduction that the apostles used in preaching among the Gentiles. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2.22-23.

2:23 | Delivered According to God’s Plan

THE WOUND BECOMES THE MEDICINE. ARATOR: Also, permitting himself to suffer in accordance with the law of flesh born from the womb of a mother, he himself preferred to die in order that the world might not lose life. But that which was born of a child-bearing virgin, that died. Innocent, he was hung from a tree, and the burden of the tree [of Adam] was removed. Thus the wound of the unrighteous [Adam] became the medicine of God. ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 1.

2:24 | God Raised Christ

THE TRAVAIL OF DEATH. CHRYSOSTOM: “But God raised him up, having freed him from the pangs of death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.” Here he hinted at something great and sublime, for the expression “it was impossible” is in itself that of one assigning something. It shows that even death itself, when it held him, experienced birth pangs and suffered terribly (by pangs of death the Old Testament means danger and disaster). It also shows that he so rose as never again to die. For the words “because it was impossible for him to be held in its power” mean that his resurrection was not common to the rest. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 6.

NEVER HELD BY THE PANGS OF DEATH. AUGUSTINE: And if one is hard put to explain how the pangs of hell were loosed by him—for he did not stay in them as in bondage and hence did not loose them as if they were chains that bound him—it is easy to understand that they might have been loosed like the snares of hunters, not because they held him, but so that they might not hold him. That is how we can believe that he loosed the pangs that did not bind him but did bind others whom he knew he was to set free. LETTER 164.

HE DIED AND ROSE AS MAN. THEODORET OF CYR: Peter said, “God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ” and said too, “This Jesus whom you crucified God has raised up.” Now it was the humanity, not the Godhead, that became a corpse, and he who raised it was the Word, the power of God, who said in the Gospel, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” So when it is said that God has made him who became a corpse and rose from the dead both Lord and Christ, what is meant is the flesh, and not the Godhead of the Son. DIALOGUE 3.

WE CAN RISE WITH HIM. GREGORY OF NYSSA: But since it was also fitting that he should implant in our nature the power of rising again from the dead, he becomes the “firstfruits of them that slept” and the “firstborn from the dead,” in that he first by his own act loosed the pains of death, so that his new birth from the dead was made a way for us also, since the pains of death, wherein we were held, were loosed by the resurrection of the Lord. REFUTATION OF EUNOMIUS’S “CONFESSION OF FAITH” 2.8.

2:27 | The Holy One Will Not See Corruption

HIS HUMANITY GIVES LIFE TO OURS. GREGORY OF NYSSA: Truly the prophet David also, according to the interpretation of the great Peter, said with foresight of him, “You will not leave my soul in hell, neither will you suffer your holy one to see corruption,” while the apostle Peter thus expounds the saying, that “his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption.” For his Godhead, which was the same before taking flesh and in the flesh and after his passion, remains immutably the same, being at all times what it was by nature and so continuing for ever. But in the suffering of his human nature the Godhead fulfilled the dispensation for our benefit by severing the soul for a season from the body, yet without being itself separated from either of those elements to which it was once for all united and by joining again the elements that had been thus parted. [By this was given] to all human nature a beginning and an example that it should follow of the resurrection from the dead, that all the corruptible may put on incorruption, and all the mortal may put on immortality, our firstfruits having been transformed to the divine nature by its union with God, as Peter said, “This same Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ.” And we might cite many passages of Scripture to support such a position, showing how the Lord, reconciling the world to himself by the humanity of Christ, apportioned his work of benevolence to humankind between his soul and his body, willing through his soul and touching them through his body. But it would be superfluous to encumber our argument by entering into every detail. REFUTATION OF EUNOMIUS’S “CONFESSION OF FAITH” 2.13.

2:29 | David Died and Was Buried

NO ONE ROSE BEFORE JESUS. AUGUSTINE: I know it seems to some that the death of the Lord brought to certain just souls the same resurrection that is promised to us at the end of time, since it is written that by the earthquake that occurred at his passion the rocks were rent and the graves opened and many bodies of the saints arose and were seen with him in the holy city after his resurrection. But, if these did not resume their sleep by the reburial of their bodies, and if so many preceded him in that resurrection, we must certainly examine and find out how Christ is the “firstborn from the dead.” The answer to this might be that it was said by anticipation, but it meant that the tombs were opened by the earthquake, while Christ hung on the cross, while the bodies of the just did not rise then, but later, after he had first risen, although it was added to that sentence by anticipation, as I said, so that we should unhesitatingly believe that Christ was the firstborn from the dead, and that it was then granted to the just to rise to eternal incorruption and immortality following his leadership. In that case, there still remains this difficulty, how Peter could say—and he said it with absolute truth, since he asserted that Christ, not David, was foretold by that prophecy—that his flesh did not see corruption, but he added that the tomb of David was still with them. And this would certainly not be a convincing argument, if David’s body were no longer there, because, if he had risen at the time of Christ’s death, his flesh would not have seen corruption, but his tomb would still be there. It seems hard that David should not have been in that resurrection of the just, when Christ was of his seed, as is so often, so distinctly and so honorably repeated to his praise. Those words also would be made ineffective that were said to the Hebrews concerning the just people of old: that they provided better things for us “that they should not be perfected without us,” which would happen if they were established in that incorrupt resurrection that is promised for our perfection at the end of the world. LETTER 164.

2:31 | He Foresaw Christ’s Resurrection

NOT ABANDONED TO HELL. BEDE: Christ did indeed descend, with respect to his soul, to those in hell so that he might come to the aid of those for whom it was necessary; but he was not abandoned in hell, because returning immediately he sought his body, which was to rise again. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2.31.

THE WORD ASSUMED A COMPLETE HUMANITY. THEODORET OF CYR: These and similar passages clearly point out that God the Word assumed not only a body but also a soul. DIALOGUE 2.

2:33 | The Promise from the Father

CHRIST RECEIVES AND POURS OUT THE SPIRIT. CHRYSOSTOM: “And having received the promise of the Holy Spirit.” This again is important. He speaks of “the promise,” because it was made before his passion. Observe how he now makes it all his, quietly making an important point. For if it was he who poured it out, it is of him that the prophet spoke above, “In the last days I will pour out my Spirit upon my servants, both men and women, and I will show portents in the heaven above.” Observe what Peter secretly inserted! … It also shows that the cross not only did not make him less but rendered him even more illustrious, seeing that formerly God promised it to him but now has given it. Alternatively, “the promise” refers to what he promised to us. He knew beforehand that it will come to pass and gave it to us greater after the resurrection. “He poured it out,” that is, not requiring worthiness, and not simply that, but indeed with abundance. HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 6.

THE PROMISE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. BEDE: [In reference to the Spirit whom] you see in the tongues of fire; [whom] you hear in our discourse. Indeed, by saying that “he received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and he poured [the Spirit] forth, both natures of Christ are manifested, for he received [the Spirit] as a man and poured [him] forth as God.” COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2.33B.

THE LOWLY ONE IS EXALTED. THEODORET OF CYR: Who then was exalted? The lowly or the most high? And what is the lowly if it be not the human? And what is the most high save the divine? But God being most high needs no exaltation, and so the apostle says that the human is exalted, exalted that is in being “made both Lord and Christ.” Therefore the apostle does not mean by this term “he made” the everlasting existence of the Lord but the change of the lowly to the exalted that took place on the right hand of God. By this word he declares the mystery of religion, for when he says “by the right hand of God exalted” he plainly reveals the ineffable economy of the mystery that the right hand of God, which created all things, which is the Lord by whom all things were made and without whom nothing consists of things that were made, through the union lifted up to its own exaltation the manhood united to it. DIALOGUE 2.

2:34-35 | David Did Not Ascend

SON AND LORD OF DAVID. AUGUSTINE: We know that Christ took his seat at the right hand of the Father after his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven. It is already accomplished. We do not see it, yet we believe it. We have read it in the sacred Books, we have heard it preached, we hold it by faith. And by the very fact that he was the son of David, he has become David’s Lord. That which was born of David’s seed is so honored that he is also David’s Lord. You wonder at this as if such things did not happen in human affairs. For if it should happen that someone became king, though his father was a commoner, would he not be the lord of his father? It is wonderful that it can happen: not only does the son of a commoner become king and thus the lord of his father, but the son of a layman becomes a bishop and thus the father of his father. Therefore, by the very fact that Christ took on flesh, that in the flesh he died, that in the same flesh he rose again, and in the same flesh he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, and in the same flesh now so honored and glorified, transformed into a heavenly condition, he is still the son of David and also the Lord of David. EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 109.7.

NOT DIVINITY BUT FLESH. BEDE: For it was not divinity but flesh that was crucified, and this certainly can happen because it was able to be crucified. COMMENTARY ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 2.34B.

A MAN RECEIVES DIVINE HONORS. THEODORET OF CYR: The words “Sit on my right hand” he speaks as to man, for they are not spoken to him that sits ever on the throne of glory, God the Word after his ascension from earth, but they are said to him who has now been exalted to the heavenly glory as man, as the apostles say, “for David is not ascended into the heavens, but he himself says that the Lord said to my Lord ‘Sit on my right hand.’” The order is human, giving a beginning to the sitting; but it is a divine dignity to sit together with God “to whom thousand thousands minister and before whom ten thousand times ten thousand stand.” DIALOGUE 2.

2:36 | Lord and Christ

THE CRUCIFIED ONE IS EXALTED. IRENAEUS: Thus the apostles did not preach another God or another Fullness or that the Christ who suffered and rose again was one, while he who flew off on high was another and remained impassible; but that there was one and the same God the Father, and Christ Jesus who rose from the dead. They preached faith in him to those who did not believe on the Son of God and exhorted them out of the prophets, that the Christ whom God promised to send, he sent in Jesus, whom they crucified and God raised up. AGAINST HERESIES 3.12.2.

CHRIST’S TRUE IDENTITY REVEALED. GREGORY OF NYSSA: We, learning this from him, say that the whole context of the passage tends one way—the cross itself, the human name, the indicative turn of the phrase. For the word of the Scripture says that in regard to one person two things were wrought—by the Jews, the passion, and by God, honor. It is not as though one person had suffered and another had been honored by exaltation. He further explains this yet more clearly by his words in what follows, “being exalted by the right hand of God.” Who then was “exalted”? He that was lowly, or he that was the highest? and what else is the lowly but the humanity? what else is the highest but the divinity? Surely, God needs not to be exalted, seeing that he is the highest. It follows, then, that the apostle’s meaning is that the humanity was exalted: and its exaltation was effected by its becoming Lord and Christ. And this took place after the passion. It is not therefore the pretemporal existence of the Lord that the apostle indicates by the word made but that change of the lowly to the lofty that was effected “by the right hand of God.” AGAINST EUNOMIUS 5.3.