Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0813 – March 30, 2008 – Acts 2:33-36 – The Deity & Messiahship Of Jesus

Alright, it’s been two weeks since we’ve been in Acts so let’s refresh ourselves. I don’t know about you but I need a lot of review. And especially as we get started in these early chapters of Acts we want to get off on the right page. What we did two weeks ago was back off in the middle of Peter’s first sermon on the Day of Pentecost. And we went back to discuss the kingdom in early Acts. It’s in these chapters that you have a strange thing taking place that can lead to the first great confusion in Acts which deals with repentance and water baptism in Acts 2:38. Now, if you understand it when we get there then I’ll have done my job. So to set the stage I showed you that there’s a transition going on here that you don’t want to miss so that it looks like you have two programs crossing paths here, the Kingdom Program of Israel and the Church Program of the Body of Christ. What’s strange for a modern Christian is realizing that the Church started in Acts 2 but the apostles didn’t know that. It took a couple of years for Paul to come along and figure that out. Instead of the church what they had on their minds was the kingdom. Jesus had spent His last 40 days teaching them about the kingdom of God and that’s unabashedly the earthly, political, spiritual kingdom taught in the OT. But He did reveal some new elements, at least some new understanding to their idea of the kingdom and its relationship to Him. Because the Jews were hung up on the problem of “Why if Jesus is the King is the kingdom not here?” And that’s what the Gospel of Matthew is about. It’s to explain how the nation rejected the King and so His kingdom didn’t come. So we find a vital truth and that’s that the kingdom is contingent, contingent on Israel’s repentance. If Israel will repent then the King will come and with Him the kingdom. So in early Acts everything is kingdom oriented even though the Church has already started unbeknownst to the apostles. So the 11 ask, “Is it at this time you’re restoring the kingdom to Israel?” and Jesus doesn’t say “Look guys, you got it all wrong, the kingdom has already arrived, the kingdom is within you or any of that subjective stuff. He says, it’s going to come but only when the Father says so. If He’d said, “Boys, get your mind off the kingdom it’s not going to be here for another 21 centuries” then we might have a problem with our approach. But as it is, presented as certain to come but only when Israel repents, a time fixed by the authority of the Father, the kingdom offer still remains for the nation of Israel. At the end of chapter 1 they choose the 12th apostle, in their minds to solve the dilemma of who would sit on the 12th throne Jesus promised and rule over the tribes of Israel in the kingdom. Then on Pentecost you have the tongues incident which I think we’ve beaten to death, hopefully by now you get that idea, that it wasn’t some kind of a super-blessing or something that always accompanies Spirit baptism as an evidence of salvation. It was, in all factuality a cursing, a warning that judgment was coming on the house of Israel if they didn’t repent and be baptized. You want to keep that in mind because as we go forward in Peter’s sermon and we get into repentance and water baptism you’ll see that it’s related to the judgment that came in AD70. So you had tongues warning of that judgment until AD70. And Peter gives the explanation of the tongues from Joel 2; that a pouring out of the Spirit had occurred. These guys weren’t a bunch of morons getting drunk at nine in the morning. The Spirit had arrived on schedule but the nation wasn’t with it. So Peter preaches the gospel, and there’s some new content here, that must be believed, that Jesus was the Messiah and He died and was resurrected from the dead. That didn’t have to be believed before because it hadn’t happened in history yet. And that just shows that our faith is grounded in historic events. It’s not just some kind of a leap out there into the subjective, some kind of psychological crutch. The Christian faith is firmly rooted in history. So Peter sets out to prove by historic fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus was the Messiah and he does this by saying, alright, here’s what Jesus did, here’s what you did to Him, here’s what God did. Now, lets recap some OT prophecy and he quotes OT passage after OT passage over and over, the word of God said and here it’s taken place, the word of God said this and here it happened, the word of God said that and it’s already happened. So here’s the nation of Israel in unbelief. They had the OT and they had prophecies in the OT of the Messiah suffering and dying but they really didn’t know how to handle those too well because they were all interested in the prophecies of the Messiah reigning in glory. And they couldn’t put it all together how the Messiah could both suffer and reign in glory. So they developed the concept that there would be two Messiahs, Messiah ben Joseph and He was the suffering Messiah and Messiah ben David and He was the reigning Messiah. And Peter insists in his sermon that there are not two Messiah’s but only one, Jesus, and the way these passages are reconciled is by resurrection. The Messiah will come and suffer and then he will be resurrected and come again in glory. So, this is the argument for the resurrection here and that’s why Peter insists that Jesus literally fulfilled Ps 16:8-11, that that Psalm was not about David but David was the Messiah’s mouthpiece. So in verse 32, Peter says, “This Jesus,” the guy you crucified, “God raised up again to which we are all witnesses.” So he’s trying to get a response out of the nation, a response of repentance so Jesus will return and this is all based on eyewitness evidence. Look guys, we saw this, another evidence that Matthias is being numbered with the twelve here. And this is the story of Acts, that Jesus is risen and there were reliable men who witnessed it. And now they’ve been given power by the Holy Spirit to witness starting at Jerusalem, chapters 1-7, to Judea and Samaria chapters 8-11 and to the remote parts of the earth, chapters 12-28, so that’s the basic outline of the Acts of the Holy Spirit because remember, it’s really Him whose operational here. When Jesus ascended He said He would send forth the Spirit and so Jesus Christ departs from the earth and the Holy Spirit arrives on earth. This is what we call the Spirit’s First Coming. He’ll have a second coming when the Kingdom begins. Two comings of Jesus Christ and two comings of the Holy Spirit. Now, recapping the sermon, in verse 22 he mentions the signs, miracles and wonders authenticating Jesus as the Messiah of God, in verse 23 He indicts the nation for crucifying Him, their own Messiah, the Messiah approved by God, in verses 24-32 He shows that the word of God was fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And today we want to look at the ascension and session of Jesus Christ, this is the conclusion of Peter’s argument and he’s going to continue along the track of proving from Scripture that Jesus is the Messiah but also that He is God. 

Acts 2:33-36 τῇ δεξιᾷ οὖν τοῦ θεοῦ ὑψωθείς, τήν τε ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου λαβὼν παρὰ τοῦ πατρός, ἐξέχεεν τοῦτο ὃ ὑμεῖς [καὶ] βλέπετε καὶ ἀκούετε. 34οὐ γὰρ Δαυὶδ ἀνέβη εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς, λέγει δὲ αὐτός· εἶπεν [ὁ] κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου· κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, 35ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου. 36ἀσφαλῶς οὖν γινωσκέτω πᾶς οἶκος Ἰσραὴλ ὅτι καὶ κύριον αὐτὸν καὶ χριστὸν ἐποίησεν ὁ θεός, τοῦτον τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὃν ὑμεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε. (NA27)
Acts 2:33-36 “Therefore, having been exalted (APPart) to the right of God, and having received (AAPart) the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he has poured out (3SAAI) this which you both see (2PPAI) and hear (2PPAI). 34For David did not ascend (3SAAI) into the heavens, but he himself says (3SPAI), “THE LORD TOLD MY LORD, SIT (2SPAImp) AT MY RIGHT HAND, 35UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.” (quote from LXX Ps 109:1) 36Therefore, let all the house of Israel assuredly (emphatic) know (3SPAImp) that God has made (3SAAI) Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (2PAAI).
Acts 2:33-36 “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. 34“For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, 35Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” ’ 36“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.” (NASB95)

So verse 33, Therefore (oun) signaling a conclusion of the argument. Having been exalted that’s a passive voice. Jesus was exalted by some other person or power and what we’re told next is by whom, by whose power. NASB says to the right hand of God but it’s a dative of instrument, it means by the power of God. Jesus was raised by the power of God. Right hand here is an idiom, an anthropomorphism as to God’s working in history. So God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead and He also exalted Him to the highest position, a place above all the heavens. Jesus holds the high ground. It’s a military metaphor used occasionally in the Bible to show that he has military superiority by position and also by rank. Turn over to Heb 7:26 to see this. Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians who were being persecuted and they thought, “Hey, lets go back and practice Judaism until the persecution lifts and then we’ll become Christians again.” And the author is warning them, “Why would you want to go back to that ritual tradition when the real deal has already come. Tradition can’t deliver you. So stay put, persevere through the hard times.” Verse 26-27, “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens;” Alright, that’s what we mean by military superiority. He’s above the heavens which is the domain of His enemies, Satan and the demons, He’s above them. “who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” In other words Christ’s sacrifice is far superior to Levitical sacrifices, so magnificent that He only had to die once for all the sin of the world, past, present and future. It’s retroactive and proactive. So His exaltation is connected to His crucifixion. And we want to see more of this so turn to Phil 2:5. This is the great kenosis passage, and you want to notice right off the bat that doctrine is practical. Paul didn’t give all this hard doctrine just to memorize and take up space in your cranium. He considered this doctrine highly practical in terms of building the proper attitude. Verse 5, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied Himself,” alright that’s the kenosis, the emptying, but you’ll see it’s defined more as a taking to Himself something, not a taking away, “taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8Being found in appearance as a man,” alright, three participial phrases that define the kenosis, and they all boil down to the fact that He took to Himself true humanity. He was the Creator from all eternity and at a point in time the Creator took to Himself the creature. Creator-creature distinction remains intact. And “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,” what name is that? The name Peter is talking about in His sermon, Jesus. “so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Alright, this is where history is headed, to Jesus Christ, to the glory of the Father. So the reason God exalted Him, v 9, was because of v 8, because He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, a horrible death on a cross. And that’s the same way we are exalted, by humbling ourselves (1 Pet 5:6). It’s practical, doctrine is practical. It’s not just theoretical.

So, having been exalted above His enemies He’s now located in the throne room of heaven looking down on His enemies. He has that high position and privilege. That’s the idea of the exaltation and we want to take a minute to go into this throne room and take a look at Jesus here. 

One of the most common misconceptions people have is that when Jesus went back to heaven He’s just God, they forget that He’s man too. This is a little branch of Christology called the hypostatic union, real fancy word meaning He’s 100% God and 100% man, that’s the part people forget, that He became a man and when He was raised from the dead He was given a human resurrection body so when He ascended to heaven He ascended as a man and if you go to heaven right now and enter the throne room of God you wouldn’t just see some kind of a light, you wouldn’t see some kind of freak ghoul or something, you would see Jesus Christ, the God-man. You could walk up and say, “Hey, let me see your hands.” And He’d show you the scars from the crucifixion. Now that’s how real the cross is. It’s not some kind of an idea in your head. It’s real, so real that if you’d been there you could have rubbed your hand down the wood and got a splinter in your finger. And the marks of history He bears eternally as an eternal reminder of His cross work in history for which all men are responsible. So, when you get there you’re going to see the God-man. 

Second participle phrase, these aren’t the main clauses, the main clause is coming next, these are all just showing us how it is that Jesus Christ did what He did from heaven. and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, alright, so when Jesus Christ was exalted by the Father the Father sent the Holy Spirit to the Son. There’s a rank within the Trinity, not defined by essence but by role; God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. 1st, 2nd and 3rd persons of the Trinity respectively. There’s not three God’s but there is one God in three persons. And the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit to the Father and the Son. So, there’s this rank, this order that doesn’t touch in any way their deity. They are all the one God. And one of the things that happened when the Father exalted the Son was He sent the Spirit to Him and now, continuing our verse, He (the Son, that is Jesus) has poured out this which you both see and hear. What did He pour out? Something which caused this sight and sound phenomena. We know from Peter’s sermon it wasn’t alcohol spirits but the Holy Spirit. “A pouring forth of the Spirit” had occurred and that resulted in the audio/video phenomena? So, that which was poured out was the Holy Spirit and He is therefore the source of the audio-visual. This solves one of the old questions of the Church about who sent the Spirit. All this debate is there in Church History and that’s one reason we shouldn’t take these things so lightly. We talk about the deity of Christ and the Trinity and the Substitutionary Blood Atonement and Justification by Faith and all that as if everybody understood that and could formulate that and that’s just not true. We stand in the line of many people who worked for centuries trying to figure these things out. It takes time, it’s not easy stuff. And one of the things you may think is insignificant because you don’t live in the 11th century but if you did this was the theological debate, “Just who sent the Spirit?” Was it the Father or the Father and the Son? This question caused the Great Schism of 1054 when the Western Church in Rome broke from the Eastern Church in Byzantium, it’s a division that still exists today and this question was part of the issue that forced them apart. They call it the filioque clause which just means “and the Son” in Latin. Remarkably this verse, as far as I’ve read, is hardly ever brought into the discussion but it’s so obvious that Jesus was involved. He is the one who poured out the Spirit that resulted in the strange ball of energy that came in and distributed itself among the 12 apostles and then they began speaking in foreign languages. 

Verse 34, “For it was not David who ascended into heaven. Just as it was not David who was raised from the dead so it was not David who ascended into heaven. He’s getting read to quote another OT passage written by David but it has to do with the Messiah and Peter’s going to apply it to the Messiah. So it was not David who ascended, obviously it was Jesus who ascended, Peter was there, remember Acts 1:9-11 they were walking along the Mount of Olives having a nice theological conversation and suddenly a cloud enveloped Jesus and took Him off like an elevator out of sight. That’s when He passed through the heavens into the throne room of God and sat down at the prized position. So to prove this wasn’t David He says, but he (that is David) David himself says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, 35Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” ’ Now here’s a most interesting psalm, it’s one that’s quoted many times and if you turn to Psalm 110 we’ll look at that it. B the way, we said there are four ways the NT authors quote the OT. This one is literal prophecy + literal fulfillment. Peter’s saying Ps 110 was fulfilled in Jesus. Notice David wrote it. Jesus affirms the Davidic authorship, even if the critics don’t, of this Psalm. The critic’s position is that anybody could have written Luke except Luke, anybody could have written Matthew except Matthew, and everybody could have written the Psalms except David. Psalm 110:1, “The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” Now that’s just one little bitty verse, but do you know that is quoted in almost every major doctrinal discussion in the New Testament on the nature of Christ; almost every time. Why? Let’s look at the verse a little more carefully. Let’s first consider David. Who was David at this time in history? In his civil authority where did he stand on the totem pole of rank? He was number one because he was king. Now David says, “The LORD said unto my Lord,” and the second word “Lord” is Adonai, or my Master, or one with a higher rank; it would be used of an inferior officer to a superior officer. A lieutenant sees a major, he salutes first. Why? The major has higher rank. He walks 100 yards and a private comes up; who salutes first? The private does because a lieutenant carries more rank. All right, there’s a hierarchy in command and the word Adonai was used in this hierarchy and what David is saying, The Lord said to the One I salute to. The one who I salute to? But I’m the king? David didn’t salute to anyone in his life. So it can’t refer to someone in the political power structure of ancient Israel because David was the highest authority politically speaking, he didn’t salute anybody. Everybody saluted David, the chief of staff would come in and he’d salute David. The general would come in and salute David; the man on the front lines would salute David but yet the mystery is then who is David saluting. The mystery is who is the Adonai in the last part of verse 1; who is this master to whom David salutes? We know something about him because it says “The LORD said to him,” now this LORD is different, notice the different font, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. The Hebrew word LORD there is Yahweh. Now this is most interesting because we don’t find reference of David saluting anybody except Yahweh and yet here we have Yahweh distinct from this Adonai character. Well how do we get Yahweh and Adonai in this thing? We’ve got the hierarchy okay, we’ve got David saluting Adonai and yet Yahweh says to Adonai, and Yahweh’s giving command so He isn’t saluting him; He’s telling him something. 

We might say well, gee, Peter is pretty smart after all for a little old Galilean fisherman, pulling out Psalm 110. Where did Peter get all this stuff from? Turn to Luke 20:41 and see where he learned this. Please notice again that Peter just didn’t get up and speak from the heart; the heart is desperately wicked and corrupt, you don’t speak from the heart. Peter had been carefully trained by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself so if you are tempted to look at this and say well that’s just your interpretation, we’ve got a problem because this happens to be the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look who started this thing? Jesus, in Luke 20:41, “said to them, How is it that they say the Christ is David’s son?” See, they were saying that since the Messiah was David’s son that made the Messiah less than David, so you’ve got David as superior to the Messiah. So they had that all turned around so Jesus has to straighten them out. And the way He does it is He quotes Psalm 110, He says now look at this, “How can you say that the Messiah is less than David? In the inferior sense when, v 42, “David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand.” Now Jesus comments on that psalm in verse 44, He says, “Therefore David calls Him Adonai,” Lord, Master, one who has higher rank than he has. “And how is he his son?” in the inferior sense. See how Jesus silences His critics? He silences them by asking them to identify Adonai of Psalm 110. Figure it out. And you know what?  No one else has ever figured this out. Jews all through the history have held that this passage refers to Messiah, except… except from 100-300 AD and guess what? Because the Christians were so vigorous, so skilled at taking Psalm 110 into every synagogue in the ancient world and saying okay, you don’t buy Jesus, who is this then? Who is He? And they did that in synagogue after synagogue after synagogue so finally by 100 AD one of the rabbis said okay, we’ve had enough of this, we’ve got to change our interpretation of Psalm 110. So between 100 AD and 300 AD the Jewish interpretation shifted to make this Psalm 110 refer to Abraham and that finally fell apart by 300 AD and to this day nobody still knows, who isn’t a Christian, who this Adonai character is. So we have Jesus originating this quotation; Jesus taught Peter this interpretation, so when Peter gets up to give the first Christian sermon Peter doesn’t just come, O Spirit, speak to me, give me an idea. He’s been learning these things. And the final part of the quotation, verse 35, Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” ’  There’s a time limitation. Jesus will sit at the Father’s right hand Until the Father makes His enemies a footstool. So this is the military motif again, Jesus has enemies but he holds the high ground and He won’t return until His enemies are subdued. 

Let’s turn to his sermon and see what the result was when he worked this thing into his sermon. Acts 2:36, Therefore let all the house of Israel again I remind you this is directed to the nation of Israel. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ and that’s the idea of “recognize.” God recognized Him as Lord and Christ but the nation —this Jesus…you crucified. Now let’s look at the words know for certain. It’s emphatic, first word in the Greek text. This means to know beyond doubt. This is “unmistakable knowledge” that’s what he’s saying. Now that is a tremendous thing to say in our postmodern relativistic world. Our culture is full of people that will not agree with this at all; our culture is full of Christians that do not agree with this at all. Only a small fraction of people still believe in absolute knowledge but most people can’t buy this at all. Just recently we’ve had two conservative Christian professors fired from, not a secular school, but a prominent Christian University. The Ph.D.’s taught in the Bible department. Both of them had tenure, yet, to the administrations disgust they believed you could have absolute knowledge in the area of the spiritual. And that’s such a detestable thought and they weren’t going to tolerate that so they just fired them. Now, that’s what’s going on inside Christianity. That’s how much of the outside has gotten inside. It’s come to the point that you’re looked upon as some kind of arrogant prick if you hold to certain knowledge. So, can you really know something for sure in the area of spiritual things? Some of you really struggle with trusting the word of God and that gets back to a kind of relativism in your soul. That’s what prevents you from trusting, You’re not convinced because you’ve got the idea that well, you know, science deals with things we can know for sure and I can be perfectly objective there and prove something, but religion, I don’t know about that; I hope it’s true, maybe it’s true but I can’t say for certain. But you see how far that is from this statement. Peter claims that they can know for sure that God has recognized Jesus as Lord, the Master who sits at the right hand of God on earth and as the Messiah, the Christ. And he demands that they know this for certain before they repent, before they get water baptized. Don’t waste your time pretending you’re a Christian if you can’t relax and be confident that what we say is true. And my advice to you, particularly if you’re considering the Christian faith, don’t let me pressure you into premature belief. Don’t let your friends do that. I never pressure people into trusting Christ because you can’t make yourself believe, you can’t work it up, you have to be convinced this is true. And Peter would have you know for sure, unmistakably that this is so. 

Alright, we’ve said that Peter’s addressing this to the nation of Israel, and incidentally this is a model apologetic for religious Jews, this is how you would go about it, proving from the OT Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah, He’s at the right hand of the Father on high and he’s about to call for national repentance and individual water baptism but he’s going to wait, he’s going to wait for their response in verse 37. He’s not going to ram, cram and jam it down their throats. Only after they ask does he give the answer. And we want to look at their response next week. So, let’s close in a word of prayer. 

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