Peter admonishes his listeners that many of them were eyewitnesses to the signs and miracles
of Yeshua so there shouldn't be any doubt in them.
These signs and miracles fulfilled the prophecies of the
several OT Prophets concerning the Messiah, even those prophecies of King David.
Thus this is the
proof that Yeshua of Nazareth is the Messiah, He is Lord and King, He is eternal, and He
is currently in
Heaven with Yehoveh, His Father.
But then Peter hits them with a roundhouse right to the jaw.
He says to these Jews:
"Messiah is this Yeshua, whom you executed on a stake!"
Peter's eloquent argument and his accusation of responsibility to the
Jews who were listening to him had its effect.
Many realized their guilt and shame (especially the local Judean Jews among the crowd).
What now?
They bore guilt (mostly in a communal sense) for killing God's Messiah;
so how could they possibly survive this unforgivable trespass?
Notice their response: "Brothers, what should we do?"
Peter told them
t1) turn from their sins.
2) return to God.
3) be immersed (baptized) on the authority of Yeshua.
And if they will do these 3 things they will be forgiven.
Of course what Peter is talking about is
the kind of repentance that is acceptable to God.
But the Jewish crowd's reaction to Peter's condemnation of them makes it clear
that they inherently understood that repentance is
above all else an ACTION!
They asked what to do;
not what to pray or what to think.
And so Peter said they were to behaviorally turn from their sins,
actively return to obeying God in their lives,
and hurry to be baptized in the name of Yeshua.
All of these things were tangible actions,
not a change in feelings or merely a passive change of mind or heart.
This idea of repentance as
concrete behavioral change at all levels of our lives has been all but lost in Christianity.
However don't think that this
mistaken mindset that feelings and words of repentance are as good as or
better than
making actual life changes happens only in our day and age.
Listen to this passage written by
John Chrysostom around 400 A.D.,
taken from his work titled
"Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles".
"What shall we do?"
They did what must be done, be we (do) the opposite.
They condemned themselves
and despaired of their salvation.
This is what made them such as they were.
They knew what gift they had received.
But how do you become like them, when you do everything in an opposite spirit?
As soon as they heard, they were baptized.
They did not speak cold words that we do now, nor did they contrive
delays, even though they heard all the requirements.
For they did not hesitate when they were
commanded to "save yourselves from this generation", but welcomed it.
They showed their welcome
through their action and proved it through their deeds what sort of people they were."
Repentance not only requires action; the substance of true repentance IS action.
To say you have
repented but it is not reflected in any discernable way in your life?
Only God can know if He has forgiven you,
but how can those around you think that whatever you piously claim is any more than
"cold words",
says John Chrysostom, if they see no positive change in you?
I tell you frankly that I have seen many
claim repentance and Christ, but few do more than talk the talk.
In the late 90's in a CNN interview, Billy
Graham lamented that the follow up from his Crusades
(that had made him a household word and a giant in Christendom)
revealed that of all those hundreds of thousands who left their
seats to come and
surround the stage and pray the sinners prayer fewer than 3% showed any signs of continuing
on with what they had professed
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