In my last post, we continued with the aftermath of Kefa Heals a Crippled Beggar ~ Part 2. In this post, we hear Kefa Preach Repentance to those who marveled at the Beggar’s Healing.
17 “Now, brothers, I know that you did not understand the significance of what you were doing; neither did your leaders. 18 But this is how God fulfilled what He had announced in advance when He spoke through all the prophets, namely, that His Messiah was to die.
After blaming his fellow Jews in vv. 13-15, Kefa again calls them brothers and mitigates his words by stating: you did not understand the significance of what you were doing. In the Torah, atonement avails only for unintended sins; for sins committed presumptuously, there is no atonement. Even the cohanim and P’rushim involved in the events leading up to Yeshua’s execution may be forgiven through trusting Yeshua, and some availed themselves of the opportunity (see Acts 6:7, 15:5). Kefa softened the message by stating this is how God fulfilled what he had announced in advance. The Messiah’s death does not end all hope; on the contrary, God intended Him to die, be resurrected, and return.
19 “Therefore, repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be erased;
Repent and turn to God means: Change your mind and turn. But to the modern reader, this suggests changing religions from Judaism to Christianity, which is not what Kefa meant. For at that time, “Christianity” as such did not exist; there was Judaism with Yeshua and Judaism without Him (the same choice, along with the possibility of rejecting both, faces Jews today).
20 so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord’s presence, and He may send the Messiah appointed in advance for you, that is, Yeshua.
The phrase times of refreshing means the Messianic Age. In these times of refreshing, self-rule will be restored to Isra’el, and the Messiah appointed in advance for you; namely, Yeshua, will return. Kefa’s audience, like today’s Orthodox Jews, expected the Messiah in the future. Kefa says that the very Messiah they expect is Yeshua goes on in the following verses to explain why He does not come at once.
21 He has to remain in heaven until the time comes for restoring everything, as God said long ago when He spoke through the holy prophets.
He has to remain in heaven at the right hand of God) until the time comes for restoring everything, both social and natural (see Isaiah 11:1-12, Romans 8:18-23) when Yeshua will come on the clouds of Heaven (see Daniel 7:13-14). Yeshua said the same thing at least twice quoting Daniel (see Mt 24:30, 26:64).
22 For Moshe, himself said, ‘Adonai will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You are to listen to everything He tells you. 23 Everyone who fails to listen to that prophet will be removed from the people and destroyed.’
This same passage from Deuteronomy 18:15-19 is also cited in Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7:37. The P’rushim asked Yochanan the Immerser if he was the prophet foreseen in this passage (John 1:21). The five thousand whom Yeshua fed wondered the same thing, as did some of the crowd to whom he offered living water (John 7:40). Evidently, this passage from the Torah was widely understood then as Messianic, and people were looking for its fulfillment.
You are to listen to everything He (Yeshua, the prophet like Moshe) tells you. Everyone who fails to listen to that prophet will be removed from the people and destroyed. But what if the nation as a whole fails to listen? Then this becomes the kind of Torah violation which leads to the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15-68. The destruction of the Temple (70 CE), the expulsion from Yerushalayim (135 CE) and the centuries of exile typify the punishments suffered by the Jewish people, not for deicide and not directly for rejecting Yeshua but for violating the Torah’s injunction to listen to the prophet like Moshe, who is Yeshua. But He can still be heard. He speaks through the Tanakh and the Brit Hadashah. Those who heed him become part of Isra’el’s remnant (see Romans 9-11) and are not removed from the people.
24 Indeed, all the prophets announced these days, starting with Sh’mu’el and continuing through all who followed. 25 “You are the sons of the prophets, and you are included in the covenant which God made with our fathers when He said to Avraham, ‘By your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.’ 26 So it is to you first that God has sent His servant whom He has raised up so that He might bless you by turning each one of you from your evil ways.” Acts 3:17-26 (CJB)
You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant with… Avraham. The point is that for this very reason, it is to you first that God sent Yeshua the Messiah. The Gospel is to the Jew first (Romans 1:16). And it is with the Gospel of Yeshua that the promise of v. 25 is fulfilled, for that promise was made to Avraham and his son Yitzchak, and Yeshua is Himself the promised seed who brings the blessing. The blessing consists in turning each one of you from your evil ways.
Have you repented? Have you turned from your evil ways and put your trust in Yeshua as the Son of God? If not, the hour is drawing near when it will be too late. I believe that we are living at the beginning of the birth pangs of His soon return.
In my next post, we take a break from our series on Kefa to observe the first of the three fall feasts: Rosh Hashanah.
My Heart is for Israel 