| The Problem | | Acts 2:38--The "Causal eis" Debate | | Acts 2:32--The Burden for the Causal eis | | Acts 2:38--The analysis of the Causal Eis | | Acts 2:38 - Blood Guilt: Forgiveness or Justification? | | Acts 2:38 -- Blood Guilt: Corporate and Personal | | Acts 2:38 -- Blood Guilt: Resolution and Closure | | Acts 2:38 --A Covenant People and The Covenant | | Acts 2:38 --A Covenant People and The Church Age | | Acts 2:38 --A Covenant People: The Structure of Acts | | Acts 2:38 --A Covenant People: Escaping National Judgment | | Acts 2:38 -- Conclusion |
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Salvation and Water Baptism
by
Ronald R. Shea, Th.M., J.D.
Acts 2:38
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The Covenant
The Jews were a covenant people under Deuteronomy, chapters 28-31, the blessings and curses of the "Deuteronomaic Covenant". Those three chapters of Deuteronomy have nothing to do with eternal life. They have to do with how God would bless the His chosen people on this earth if they , or violated the terms of his covenant. All three chapters basically say "If you do ABC, I will bless you," and "If you do XYZ, I will curse you." It is a covenant of works . . . not unto eternal life, but unto blessings or curses in this lifetime. Because so many of the blessings and curses that befell Israel throughout the text of the Old Testament point directly to these three chapters of Deuteronomy, their significance in interpreting the whole of the Old Testament cannot be overstated.
The blessings and curses of Deut. 28-30, though occasionally directed to an individual, were generally directed at the nation as a whole.
Deuteronomy 28
47 Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;
48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
49 The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;
50 A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of
the old, nor shew favour to the young:
51 And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.
When the Jews were exiled into Babylon and slain by the edge of the sword, it was not only the sinful among them who suffered, but the upright as well. Those who had not worshiped idols or sacrifice their infants to Molech were punished along with those who did. When a nation is judged, the good in that nation are judged along with the wicked. The righteous of a nation are not spared when the nation itself is under a curse. |
The Penlty
In the Gospels, the Jewish people, as a nation, rejected their Messiah, and turned Him over to the Romans to be executed. And for this, the Jewish nation would be cursed in a prophetic parable by Jesus for their eventual murder of their Messiah or under a curse in this action. Jesus prophesied about the forthcoming destruction of Jerusalem.
Mark, Chapter 12, vs. 1-9
1. And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
2. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.
3. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty.
4. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled.
5. And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some.
6. Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son.
7. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.
8. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.
9. What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.
The meaning of the above passage should be fairly obvious. God had established the nation of Israel, and had blessed them. But when God sent the prophets to his people to call them back to the covenant, they beat some, scorned others, and even went so far as to put Isaiah the prophet in a log and sawed him in two. Finally, when God sent his own Son, the nation of Israel rejected their Messiah, condemned him to death, and turned him over to the Romans to be nailed to the cross. For this crime, God would tear them out of the land as prophesied in Deuteronomy. God's curse was upon them. It would be torn out of the promised land, and scattered into the nations of the World.
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Acts 2:38 --A Covenant People and The Covenant |
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