Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0915 – April 12, 2009 – Acts 17:2-3 – Reasoning From The Scriptures

Turn to Acts 17. What I thought of doing today is not a total departure from the Book of Acts which is our normal study. What I want to interact with is a phrase first found in Acts 17:2-3, when it says Paul “reasoned with them from the Scriptures.” We want to ask what does this mean Paul was doing. Paul was doing this everywhere he went. Acts 17:17, “So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons,” Acts 18:4, “And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks,” Acts 18:19, “They came to Ephesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.” Acts 19:8, “And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.” There the content is given, the offer of the kingdom of God to the Jews, verse 9, “But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.” And there are further references, that’s just a sample. Now, there are three things up front we want to observe from this phrase in Acts 17:2. First, Paul reasoned from the Scriptures means the Scriptures were his starting point. He did not start with human reason; he started with God’s revelation as a basis from which to reason. Human reason Paul considered to be subject to revelation. So he did not start with the word of man he started with the word of God. The second thing is the word Scriptures. What Scriptures? The Scriptures here are the OT. Paul is not talking about the NT. The NT is important but that doesn’t come till later on, the only NT written by this point is James and Galatians, so since he’s reasoning in the synagogues to the Jews, he’s using the OT. And finally, this is not the concept of Greek reasoning, this is the concept of Hebrew reasoning.  It’s the Greek word dialegomai which means “to turn in the mind, to exchange ideas,” via a question/answer format. So Paul was discussing point by point the OT with people. Paul would have been a master at this because he was a highly trained Pharisee.  He knew all the Pharisaic interpretations of the OT passages but he also knew beginning with Stephen in Acts 6, who literally took Saul to school in the halls of debate, and from that point forward he began to see how the OT passages were supposed to be interpreted, he also got one on one training from the Lord Jesus Christ. So he knew the questions and he knew the answers and could easily reason from the Scriptures with people. 

Verse 3 gives us a little more about what he was reasoning about at Thessalonica, 3explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” What he means by explaining is he opened the Scriptures up so people could understand.  He explained to them what the Scriptures meant and giving evidence, (a very interesting word, paratithemi, which really means to lay two things side by side).  This is where I really got the idea to do this lesson - this word means you take the prophecies of the OT and you lay them alongside Jesus and you compare. Does Jesus match up with the OT predictions? Is Jesus the Messiah? So paratithemi is how you would identify the Messiah, the Christ. And Paul says when you do that the conclusion is that Jesus is the Christ.  Now, that word Christ is not Jesus’ last name. We get so accustomed to saying Jesus Christ that we don’t even know what Christ means. Christ is a title; sort of like Pharaoh.  Pharaoh isn’t the name of an Egyptian, it’s the title of the Egyptian king. And so really we should refer to him as Christ Jesus or Jesus the Christ, that’s his title. In the OT the Hebrew equivalent is Messiah, and the words mean “the Anointed One."  That’s what we’re saying when we say Jesus Christ, we’re saying Jesus, the Anointed One. What do we mean by this? We mean God anointed Him, or chose Him to the office of King. Put another way, the OT predicted the long awaited King of Israel, the King of the nations, the King of the cosmos. And Paul is saying that Jesus is the One who holds the office of King, He’s the Anointed One. And that’s what He was proving to people from the OT. 

So to figure out which passages Paul was using I went through the sermons and speeches of Acts, (these would be commonly used by Peter, Stephen, Phillip and others), and I started pulling out the OT quotes, what passages do these guys keep referring back to in their sermons. I came up with this list. So we want to look at some of these. Alfred Edersheim in his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah says the rabbi’s of the first century identified 456 passages that referred to the Messiah. We’re not going to go through all those, we could but we’d be here till next Sunday. But they saw 456 passages that predicted the Messiah. We’re talking detail; details about His nature, details about His birth, details about His life, details about His death, details about His resurrection, details about His ascension, details about His session, details about His return, details about His kingdom, it goes on and on and on. Now if you don’t know about all the details that were described centuries and often millenniums before Jesus came then you have something very serious to account for. How is it that hundreds of passages could describe a person in minute detail who hadn’t existed yet? That’s what Paul was trying to get these people to see; to see the linkage of history, how everything that happens is interrelated under this grand plan of the infinite-personal God. If you haven’t accounted for the Scriptures insistence that this was all foretold then you're in a load of trouble. God did this so you would see, so you would read this and say, “Alright, God said He was going to do this, and then He did it. He said He would do that and then He did it. God has given Me His word, and then He’s fulfilled His word?” Why? So I could believe in Him, so I could believe what He said. Now, the other side of the coin is secular humanism, and humanism tells us God can’t tell us what is to come, God does not reign, Chance reigns, all is Chance. Well, if Chance reigns how is it that 456 prophecies come true in Jesus Christ? It’s a matter of history.

Paul and Peter and these early guys were very interested in history. And when Paul met Gentiles he ran into an interesting phenomenon. Most of them didn’t know their history too well. That’s because they were pagan and the pagan’s viewed the world as run by the gods and goddesses who warred with one another for control of the universe. But you never knew who was in control or that tomorrow another god may knock off the top god and rearrange the program. It was all war and chaos, war and chaos. Paul ran into these types, which are the same types today all over the world, evolution is no different, back of all things is chaos, all things arose by chance out of the chaos, same old line, nothing new, sure, they slapped some slick scientific terminology on it, but it’s the same old thing in the grand scheme, not a particle of difference. The Greeks called it the Continuity of Being, modern scientists call it Evolutionary Theory. All of it is ancient pagan mythology, don’t take it from me, look it up yourself. 

And Paul encountered this, so he had to start by breaking down the pagan mythology. 
And the way he did that was with the historical framework methodology. We’ve said the historical framework begins with Gen 1-9, the buried truths of origins.  We call them buried because these are truths that are suppressed by the pagan mind; they’ve been bottled up so it’s almost impossible to hear the real story about the origin of the universe. So this is where Paul would start because this is foundational to the gospel. 

And so he would go into Creation, a historical event that was observed by God and reported as history in Scripture. This is not a speculation. This is an historical event personally observed by an eyewitness. God, who is the Creator, created the universe out of nothing. That’s one view.  The other view of origins: evolution, has never been observed, it is pure speculation. It is man’s guess as to how the present universe originated. It is the modern version of the ancient Continuity of Being, the idea that all is one, all is on a continuum. It’s found in Eastern religion, it is part of Western philosophy and it’s in modern evolutionary science. It’s not true that Darwin started it; it goes much farther back than that. So either there are two levels of reality, the Creator and the creature or all is one, the Continuity of Being. Paul would help them understand the true view of history that starts with Biblical Creation.

Then Paul would turn to the Fall of man, and the Fall is also very, very significant because this has all kinds of implications for evil and suffering. There are only two ways of handling evil. 

I’ve diagramed this into two views; there are not 101 different views of evil. There are only two, and they start where the question of origins left us; either evil and suffering have a beginning or evil and suffering are eternal. There are no other options. Either evil and suffering have a beginning and will be separated by a judgment or evil, that’s the biblical view, or evil and suffering are inescapable, that’s the pagan view. The pagan view is hopeless; it’s eternal, never-ending, inescapable horror. So, paganism has a real problem with the issue of evil and suffering.  How do you ever get rid of it?  You can’t, it’s part and parcel of the cosmos. 

Then, after the Creation and the Fall,  Paul would come to the issue of the Global Flood of Noah. The whole issue of the Flood was an issue of whether or not God judges sin and saves those who’ve responded rightly to Him. The Flood was global, it was a catastrophic judgment on man and nature, it affected the geophysical universe; it wasn’t somebody having a psychological breakdown in their heart. It was a worldwide Flood that deposited sediments and rapidly destroyed millions and millions of men, animals and plants, some of which were fossilized. So, there are profound geophysical and geological implications to the judgment and salvation of God. Salvation is not just a psychological feeling some people have. Salvation has geophysical implications, it involves the whole universe and that includes you. The same picture occurs with the gospel, the same picture is all over the Bible. 

Finally Paul would come to Noahic Covenant, the covenant God made with Noah and all life. The issue here is whether or not God controls the universe or not, whether some molecules are loose and out of control or not. After the Flood what did God promise Noah? I will never send a flood to destroy all flesh. Think about that for a minute. Do you know what that does? What would you have to control to promise no Global Flood? With all due respect to Al Gore and his proselytes to the myth of Anthropogenic Global Warming the polar ice caps are not going to inundate the whole world. Why not? Because God promised. It’s the word of God that controls the universe; it’s the word of God that controls the planetary orbits around the sun; that controls the asteroids trajectory through space. The word of God is what brings stability to the physics of the universe. The word of God is controlling everything. So every fact, every law, every molecule is under His control. That’s the truth of the Noahic Covenant. 

Now, in that framework of history, what Paul would do is start appealing to those 456 Messianic prophecies. In that context, in a universe where God is in control of all things, can God tell us all about the Messiah in advance? Of course He can. He planned it and He controls it. So let’s look at some of the prophecies of God’s Messiah. Let’s turn to Gen 3:15. The first Messianic prophecy we’ll look at is the seed promise; the Messiah’s Genealogy. That’s charted in the OT and NT. Right after the Fall of man God promises a Savior of man, the seed of the woman, “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” So the seed of the woman will triumph. And there’s a hint at the virgin birth here because the word “seed” zera is in the masculine, it refers literally to the male sperm, but it’s assigned to the woman. But women don’t have sperm, so it’s a hint that the seed that comes forth will have a strange origin. Second, the seed promise continues in Gen 22:18. This is the chapter where Abraham almost sacrifices Isaac, verse 2 by the way is the background for John 3:16, the only begotten son.  That phrase in John 3:16 comes from this passage with Isaac. In verse 18, God says, “In your seed [Abraham] all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” And “seed” there, Paul insists, is Christ in Gal 3:16. So the seed was promised to the woman, then the seed was narrowed to the descendants of Abraham. Now turn to Gen 49:10, more narrowing. Reading this verse from the NIV. Gen 49 is where Jacob blesses his twelve sons. The twelve sons that give rise to the twelve tribes of Israel are being blessed here. But the seed will come through only one of the tribes. “The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” So the scepter, the rod of rule, the kingship shall not depart from the tribe of Judah until the one from that tribe comes to whom it belongs, namely, the Messiah. Now turn to 1 Chron 17:10b-14, the seed promise continues. 1 Chronicles is the historical analysis of the kings from the standpoint of the Levitical priests. They were interested in how the kings interacted with the priestly worship system and the context here is King David. King David had built himself a luxurious house in Jerusalem and he decided to build the Lord a house, a Temple. Now pick up, middle of v 10, Nathan the prophet says to David, “Moreover, I tell you that the Lord will build a house for you.” But you say, what do you mean? I thought David was going to build the Lord a house but now the Lord says He’s going to build David a house. That’s right. But David already has a house? Yes. But this is a play on words. House can mean two things in the Hebrew. It could mean a physical house which is what David was thinking, but it can also mean a Dynasty. In Europe, the royalty would be referred to as the “House of Stuarts” or the “House of Normandy” and so forth, it was a royal dynastic title, that’s the way it’s being used here, “Moreover I tell you that the Lord will build a dynasty for you. 11“When your days are fulfilled that you must go to be with your fathers, that I will set up one of your descendants after you, who will be of your sons; and I will establish his kingdom. 12“He shall build for Me a house and I will establish his throne forever. 13“I will be his father and he shall be My son; and I will not take My loving kindness away from him, as I took it from him who was before you. 14“But I will settle him in My house and in My kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.” ’ ” So now the seed promise is limited down to David’s family. He’s the dynasty.  Finally, turn to Matt 1. We’ve seen the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of the tribe of Judah and now the family of David. What is the very first verse in the NT? “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:” What did we just get through tracing? These guys. Verse 2, here’s more of the guys, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.” There’s Judah.  Come down to verse 6. Who do you see there? King David. And the whole thing is traced through to Joseph, who was if we look at the last verse of chapter 1, obviously not the father of Jesus, “he kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son, and he called His name Jesus.” Obviously what Matthew is saying is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the seed promise. That’s how the NT opens. And this is what Paul was showing. He’d lay all this out on one side and they say, it all was fulfilled in Jesus. By the way, the other genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3 is Mary’s, and she was also a descendant of David, so Jesus fits the bill. In their day they could go down to the Temple and check the records. The priests kept meticulous records and they could go down and anyone could check out their tribe and get a whole genealogy. It was there and no Jewish writer ever objected to Jesus not meeting this criteria. There is not one single objection to this in all Jewish literature. Which shows you they checked it out and Jesus did fit the bill. He was of the promised seed line. And another thing you can prove from this is that the Messiah had to come before AD70. Because in AD70 the Temple was burned by Titus and the Roman armies. And when the Temple was burned guess what else burned? The genealogical records. So, the Messiah’s genealogy can no longer be checked out. I find it interesting that in the transitional Book of Acts, all during this time when the apostles are presenting Jesus as the Messiah to the nation Israel they could trot right down to the Temple and check it out for themselves. It was in the public records. Again, who controls history? Who controls the fine tuning of historical events such that one man could be born of a virgin girl of the tribe of Judah, the clan of David? 

What else would Paul trot out to show Jesus was the Messiah? Since we mentioned the virgin birth and the house of David, hold your place in Matthew and turn back to Isa 7. Isa 7 is an interesting passage, we’ve been through the details, and notice verse 14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:” who’s getting a sign? V 13 says, “Listen now, O house of David,” so the sign is for the house of David, that’s the Messiah’s line.  V 14, “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” What does Matt 1:23 say? What does Matt say about Mary? That she was the virgin. He quotes this verse. So the virgin birth here clarifies the strange birth Gen 3:15 was talking about, the woman’s sperm. 

Alright, what else could Paul use to prove Jesus was the Messiah? While we’re on the birth of the Messiah look at Micah 5:2, “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” What can we learn about the Messiah from this? We can learn two things. One, he will be born in Bethlehem which is about 5 miles south of Jerusalem. The second thing we can learn is that his nature is eternal, “His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” In other words his humanity will be born in Bethlehem but He’s also God, He’s the eternal God become flesh. The incarnation. Was Jesus born in Bethlehem? The NT reports that He was. The Romans called for a census at that time and thus Joseph had to return to his hometown of Bethlehem.

Paul would also turn to passages like Malachi 3:1. Malachi, one of the smaller prophet’s books, says in verse 1 something about the Messiah. “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming.” But before He is coming who does the beginning of the verse say will precede him? “A messenger, a herald,” someone who will pave the way for the Messiah. Who was it? Who does almost every synoptic Gospel begin with? John the Baptist, John the Baptist, the prophesied herald of the king. Just like in the OT, every new king in the OT would be introduced by the prophet. David was introduced by Samuel, Solomon was introduced by Nathan, prophet before king, prophet before king, the pattern was set and when you come to the NT, the pattern continues, Jesus was introduced by John. John fulfilled Mal 3:1, another prophecy fulfilled. John the messenger introduced the Messiah. And how did he introduce Him? “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Excuse me, but what king was ever introduced that way, as one who takes away sin? I never heard of a king doing that. What kind of king is this that can take away sin?

To see how the king would take away sin under another title, the Servant, turn to Isa 52. And by the way, we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg here.  Remember 456 prophecies. About half of those were fulfilled in Jesus’ first coming, the other half are to be fulfilled in His Second Coming. To see there are two comings Isa 49 should be checked. In that passage Messiah is rejected by His people on the first coming and then He is accepted by His people at the Second Coming. So there are two comings of the Messiah. The Jews struggled with this; they had a difficult time reconciling how you could have passages that described the Messiah as suffering and other passages describing the Messiah as reigning in glory. Their solution was to say there were two Messiah’s: the suffering Messiah they called Messiah ben Joseph, because Joseph was a figure who suffered in the OT, and the reigning Messiah they called Messiah ben David, because David was a figure who reigned in the OT. They reconciled the passage by positing two Messiah’s. The resolution of the problem is that there are two comings of one Messiah. The first coming happened in the first century and the second coming is yet to come. Now, Isa 53 is looking back at the first coming, but from the perspective of the nation Israel just before the Second Coming. So this is future Israel looking back at the first coming which they missed. And they’re realizing what they’ve done and they’re confessing so He’ll return a second time. We’ll read from Isa 52:13, “Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.” Three things, “high” refers to the resurrection, “lifted up” refers to His ascension, and “greatly exalted” refers to His session at the right hand of the Father, but before all that happens, verse 14-15 says he will suffer, “Just as many were astonished at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man And His form more than the sons of men.” That’s predicting the terrible beating He would receive before His crucifixion. The Romans whipped Jesus 40 times with a multi-strand whip, each strand having glass or a nail attached. These would wrap around the body and rip out chunks of flesh. Some people who were scheduled to be crucified never made it because they didn’t survive this beating. Verse 15, “Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand.” What this is saying is that in the end the kings of the world and all the nations will understand who Jesus is and what He accomplished and they will be silenced in astonishment. 

Chapter 53:1-3, “Who has believed our message?” The Jews had disbelieved that Jesus was the Messiah, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 2For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.” In other words, there was nothing about his upbringing or his physical appearance that made Him stand out to Israel as the promised one. He appeared like anyone else. Verse 3, “He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” The nation Israel despised Him and rejected Him and did their best to avoid Him. 

Verses 4-6, the Messiah would die for the sins of men in Adam. Adam fell in sin and we fell in Adam, Christ died for our sin. “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried;” the substitutionary nature of what Christ did, remember, this is future Israel looking back. “Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.” In other words, they didn’t understand what He was doing for them; they thought He was a criminal of God. Deut 23:21-22, “he who hangs on a tree is cursed of God.” What did Christ die on? A tree. They interpreted this as God cursing Jesus. Verse 5, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” At this point in the future they will recognize that what He was really doing was dying for them. Verse 6, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” Israel was like a stray sheep, following after her sinful heart, but the Lord caused Israel’s sin to be laid on the Messiah. Jesus was dying for them on the cross. 

Verses 7-9 explain the crucifixion. “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. 8By oppression and judgment He was taken away;” In other words despite the fact Jesus’ trial was illegal He was silent, He did not object, “And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living” Israel saw him as executed for a legal reason but in reality he was executed “For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?” Jesus Christ didn’t die for His own sin, He had no sin, He died for Israel’s sin. And verse 9, the burial, “His grave was assigned with wicked men,” that is, because he was a criminal who was executed, he would not be given a great burial, but that’s not the way it turned out because Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin gave Him his tomb, and he was a rich man, “Yet He was with a rich man in His death,” God ordained this burial “Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.” Jesus Christ was perfect, He never committed any sin. He even challenged others to show Him His sin, if He had any, and no one tried. Now you show me who can do that? If you ask that of me about 100 people will be ready to point out all my sins, but nobody pointed a thing out against Jesus Christ. 

Verses 10-12, and here’s a look at the death of the Messiah from God the Father’s perspective. Verse 10, “But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering.” See, it was the plan of God to resolve the sin problem. Man introduced the sin problem, God resolved it Himself in His Son. “He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.” Now how is it that this can happen if the Messiah is dead? How can He prolong His days? Only if He’s resurrected, resurrection is the implication of v 10. Verse 11, “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” He will justify all who believe in Him. If you believe in Jesus Christ today you will be justified before God, you will have a right standing with God on the basis of Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death. And finally, verse 12, when He comes in His kingdom, “I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.” He Himself had no sin, yet He poured out Himself for the sins of man, a reference back to the cross which sets up the certainty of His kingdom. Now, is it chance that all these details about the Messiah were given by Isaiah over 700 years before the Messiah was even born into the world? And so, there are several details prophecies fulfilled here to the ‘T’ in the Jesus of the NT. 

Another finally, another prophecy Paul used is in Psalm 16. This is from the time of David. 1,000 years before Jesus Christ. And for the life of me when you read this you think, yeah, that could apply to David and that could apply to David and so could that, but not that, there are some things that could apply to David and some that could not. Peter and Paul both insist later; this does not refer to David but to David’s seed, the Messiah.  David was looking forward to Jesus. And it can’t refer to both David and Jesus because of the principle of single meaning. So what it turns out we have is David forecasting the resurrection of one of His descendants, the Messiah. Lets’ see how he does it, verse 1, “A Mikhtam of David. Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. 2I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.” 3As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. 4The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips. 5The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. 6The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. 7I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. 8I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely.” Now up to this point it could be all David, oh yes, this is David under the wing of God, under the Lord’s protection, but what do you do with the rest? “10For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. 11You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” The explanation says it all, this can’t be David, David died and his body did decay, but not the Messiah’s. Jesus was in the tomb three days, part of Friday, all of Saturday and part of Sunday. The Jews reckoned any part of a day as a full day. For the fulfillment of this turn to Acts 2:25-32. Peter’s sermon on the Feast Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus, the Lamb of God had been slain he says this, verse 25, “For David says of Him,” that is Jesus, and then he quotes Ps 16:8-11, so notice how Peter says, “Psalm 16 isn’t about David, couldn’t possibly be about David,” ‘I saw the Lord always in my presence; For He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. 26‘Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted; Moreover my flesh also will live in hope; 27Because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, Nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” Verse 29, “Brethren,” and now Peter says look, I don’t know how you guys understand Psalm 16 but I’m about to show you it could in no way refer to David, and here’s why, “Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.” In other words, Ps 16 did not refer to David but to David’s dynastic seed, the Messiah. They could go down and check David’s tomb, “Oh yes, there’s David, and he decayed alright. Therefore Ps 16 could not possibly be about David, it’s about someone greater than David. Verse 30, “And so, because he was a prophet,” that is David was a prophet, David actually had the office of prophet, priest and king, just like the one to whom he looked, the Messiah, “And so, because he was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, 31he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. 32“This Jesus,” and there he identifies the Messiah, He is Jesus. Yeshua Mashiach. “This Yeshua, God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.” There’s the eyewitness evidence. They saw Him with their own eyes, they ate with Him, they drank with Him. He appeared to more than 500.  

“Alright then fine,” you say, ‘That’s interesting that men would write all these details centuries in advance and then fulfilled in this Jesus character, but answer me one thing, ‘If all this was predicted of Him then why didn’t the Jews accept Him?’ ‘Why didn’t the Jewish people receive their own Messiah? They had the Scriptures. They read the Scriptures every Sabbath. Why then did they not accept Jesus, certainly that leaves room for me to reject Him, or at least to be skeptical about Him’” Well, I’m going to tell you why they rejected Him and I’m going to give it to you as a stiff warning. Turn to Paul in Acts 13:27. Peter gives the same answer in Acts 3:17 and that answer is this: they did not accept Jesus as the Messiah because they were spiritually ignorant. They were so ignorant spiritually they did not recognize their own Messiah. You say, “Oh, well, I though the Jews knew the OT, they memorized the Torah, they read the Torah every Sabbath. Certainly they knew based on the Messianic prophecies Jesus was the One.” Yes, they did memorize the Torah, yes, they did hear the word of God week after week after week, but they did not know that Jesus was the One. Had they known these words could not have been written by Paul. But what this shows is something absolutely damning; you can read the word of God, it doesn’t matter, you can memorize verses and memorize more verses and you can do this your whole life and still you could miss the whole thing. These guys memorized the whole Torah for crying out loud, and they still missed it. Why? Because they were at enmity with God. Oh, they were very religious. But they were hardened by sin. And you could show them God said He was going to do this, He did it, here it is, won’t you believe it? And most of them said, “Yes, I can see what you’re saying but no I won’t accept it.” Well I’m sorry, but you better. You’re going to lose if you don’t. I assure you. Here it is, verse 27, “For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither” there it is, they didn’t recognize Him, “nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him.” The people who heard the verses read every Sabbath fulfilled the verses. That’s what it says! “And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed.” In other words they had not one piece of evidence against Jesus; the whole thing was a farce. 29“When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him,” see, they were fulfilling the very prophecies they read every Sabbath! “they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.” They did all this, they rejected, rejected, rejected, we don’t approve of Jesus, we don’t like the way He does things, we don’t like His authority; but what did God do, notice the contrast verse 30, “But God raised Him from the dead;” See, God approved of Jesus Christ, they didn’t but God did. 31and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people.” In other words this didn’t happen in a corner, this was publically available information walking up and down the street, Jesus in resurrected flesh. 32“And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, 33that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son; today i have begotten You.’ There’s another one for the record, Psalm 2, God said His Messiah would be raised from the dead. Verse 34, “As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ Another one, this time Isa 55:3, and then another one, verse 35, “Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘You will not allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.’ We already read that one, that was Ps 16, the one written by David that did not refer to David, verse 36, “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay; 37but He whom God raised did not undergo decay. 38“Therefore,” and here’s the grand conclusion, “let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.” You are a sinner, I am a sinner, and all men are sinners in Adam. Now Jesus has come, the promised Messiah and He has died a substitutionary death for you and He’s been raised from the dead. How are you going to account for that? “Do you believe in Him or do you reject Him?” You better get this straightened out today because He’s coming back to judge and it’s not going to be a very nice day. It’s going to be a very bloody day. It’s going to be a messy, bloody thing because sin is a messy, bloody thing. So you better get it worked out today while you still have an opportunity. Believe in Him and you’ll be freed from all things Paul says, that means you’ll be justified, it’s the Greek word for justified, dikaisune, it means if you believe in Jesus Christ you’ll instantly have a right standing with God. He’s the one we’re resting our hope in. 

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