| 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.
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The Structure of the Book of Acts
What is truly interesting, however, is to note the literary structure that these sections create and to develop a literary structure for the Book of Acts as Luke understood it. When the Sections of the Book of Acts are outlined according to topic, we see a chiasmus literary structure. A chiasm gets its name from the letter X, which is pronounced %u201Cchi%u201D or %u201Cki%u201D (kee). Starting at the upper left side of the X, the left-hand side of the X it moves inward toward the right, and then back out toward the left, describing the shape > .
A literary chiasm therefore develops a theme, and then reverses the theme. This is illustrated by the letters below.
A.
B.
C.
C'.
B'.
A'.
And if we outline the Book of Acts according to the "sections" that Luke appears to have created, we see the following chiasmus structure.
A. JERUSALEM, the center of the Jewish world.
B. The OUTLYING AREAS of the JEWISH world.
C. PETER, the apostle to the Jews.
C'. PAUL, the Apostle to the Gentiles
B'. The OUTLYING AREAS of the GENTILE world.
A'. ROME, the center of the Gentile world.
This literary structure basically affirms Acts 1:8, gospel is going out to Jerusalem, Judea, and the outermost parts of the earth. Although this is a generally positive message, there is a negative message to the Jewish nation, and that message is basically: %u201CThe train is leaving the station of Israel, and if you are not on board, you are going to be left behind.%u201D That is to say, the nation of Israel had taken itself outside the blessings of God by crucifying their Messiah. If you are identified with that nation, you will be judged with them under the Deuteronomaic Covenant.
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Escaping National Judgment
And now we come to Acts 2:38. Peter had just preached the first recorded sermon following the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is speaking to Jews from every nation who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of first fruits. In a sermon, Peter accuses them of having taken and killed their Messiah with "lawless hands." In a nation of individuals, this accusation may be hard to understand. Most of us stand guilty or not guilty on the basis of our own actions. But remember, Israel is a Covenant nation. The guilt for killing the Christ is therefore a corporate guilt. And while a man may come to faith in Jesus Christ by believing Peter's sermon (and it appears from Scripture that many believed while he was preaching) that faith in Jesus will save you from hell, but will not save you from national judgment. Hence, Peter's sermon finishes with a stark accusation: "Therefore let all a house of Israel know surely that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and is said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'men and brethren, what shall we do?'" Peter's answer is simple. If they wish to escape the judgment coming upon the nation of Israel, they must change their minds about Jesus (if they had not already done so), and they must identify publicly with the church through baptism, thereby publicly renouncing any association or identification with the nation's action of crucifying the Christ. The "remission of sins" therefore has nothing to do with eternal justification for going to happen when one dies. As we noted earlier, when a nation is punished, the just are punished along with the unjust. "Remission," or "forgiveness," does not inherently refer to eternal justification before God. It is probably used more often in Scripture in the relational sense rather than the positional sense.
Similarly, a Jew who secretly believed on Christ would be positionally justified, just as any man. From a relational standpoint however, a Jew who remained identified with National Israel would be under God's temporal judgment according to the curses of Deuteronomy 28. Hence, when Peter accuses them, as a nation, but having killed their Christ, and they cry out in guilt "what shall we do?" Peter's plea is a simple.
Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38 |
SUMMARY OF THE COVENANT POSITONI:
If you are a Jew, and you want to remove yourself from the curse that Israel has brought upon itself by crucifying their Messiah, firstly, you must first %u201Crepent,%u201D that is, change your mind about the person you crucified. Secondly, you must publicly proclaim your faith in Him through water baptism, making it unequivocally clear that you are disassociating yourself from the actions of your nation when they crucified Him. Otherwise, his guilt remains on your hands, and when that nation is judged for this act of wickedness, you too shall be swallowed up in that judgment.
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Acts 2:38 --A Covenant People: Escaping National Judgment |
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