Verse of the Day 3/28

 

Acts 2:23-24 This Jesus, when delivered up according to the definite and fixed purpose and settled plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and put out of the way [killing Him] by the hands of lawless and wicked men.

²⁴ [But] God raised Him up, liberating Him from the pangs of death, seeing that it was not possible for Him to continue to be controlled or retained by it.  Amplified Bible (AMP)

 

As I read these verses this morning I was struck by the first two words "this Jesus".  The Pharisees and Sadducees had seen Jesus as a lawbreaker, breaking the rules of the Sabbath in his healings, they saw him as one who stood in opposition to their religious order.  The sick, the lame, the blind, the downcast saw him as their healer and deliverer.

 

The Jesus that Peter and John talk about in Acts it the one prophesied of in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 52 and 53 and elsewhere.  He is the One who came to die for us.  He went to the cross, died, and rose again to live that we too might live.  This Jesus is the Jesus that we celebrate this weekend in Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter services.

 

Octavius Winslow  describes "this Jesus" and what He came to accomplish for us, "The death of Jesus was the opening and the emptying of the full heart of God; it was the outgushing of that ocean of infinite mercy that heaved and panted and longed for an outlet; it was God showing how he could love a poor, guilty sinner."  Octavius Winslow

We will see images of Jesus in services, in movies such as The Passion or in the current TV miniseries "The Bible".  Which Jesus do we see, that of Peter and John who was the "emptying of the full heart of God,  or that of the Pharisees, or that of the world?

 

In Christ,
Mike

 

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Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

Acts 2:22-24

Amplified Bible (AMP)

²² You men of Israel, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man accredited and pointed out and shown forth and commended and attested to you by God by the mighty works and [the power of performing] wonders and signs which God worked through Him [right] in your midst, as you yourselves know—

²³ This Jesus, when delivered up according to the definite and fixed purpose and settled plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and put out of the way [killing Him] by the hands of lawless and wicked men.

²⁴ [But] God raised Him up, liberating Him from the pangs of death, seeing that it was not possible for Him to continue to be controlled or retained by it.