Salvation In Jesus' Name
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series II, Cycle B
Salvation In Jesus' Name
It is always important to consider the context of a Bible story to understand it correctly. That is certainly true of Acts 4:5-12, the story of Peter's bold speech before the Jewish religious leaders. By the power of Jesus Christ, Peter and John had healed a crippled man in the temple area in Jerusalem. This healing took place a few weeks after Jesus' death and resurrection. That's part of the front-side context of our story.
The front-side context also tells us that the Jewish leaders were deeply disturbed by the sermon Peter gave about the healing of the crippled man in Jesus' name. The high priest and his cohorts were perturbed at the influence Peter's sermon had on the crowd. So they had the two apostles arrested. Acts 4 opens with these words: "While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead" (Acts 4:1-2).
The tension was high as the Jewish leaders learned that about 5,000 people believed what Peter had told them. In other words, the inciting incident of our story is a red-hot power struggle between Christ's apostles and the officials of the temple.
It is also important to look at the back-side of the text before we examine the story itself. Acts 4:13 tells us: "Now when they (the Jewish leaders) saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus." Another translation puts it this way: "They took note that these men had been with Jesus" (Acts 13 NIV).
In other words, the boldness and forthrightness of the speech made by Peter made these religious leaders realize that he and John had picked up power from their association with Jesus. This power was a threat to the powerful men of the temple.
The front-side and back-side context of our story provides us with the information that helps us better understand and apply our text: Acts 4:5-12. In this text we hear the biblical corrective for unjust, corrupt, and illusionary power and the biblical corrective for moral depravity. That biblical corrective is the theology of the cross of Christ.
The Biblical Corrective
For Unjust, Corrupt, And Illusionary Power
We pick up the story in Acts 4, verse 5. "The next day (the day after Peter and John were arrested) their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas, the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, 'By what power or by what name did you do this?' " (Acts 4:5-7). This group was part of the powerful Sanhedrin, before whom Jesus had been illegally tried in the middle of the night. This was the Jewish supreme court that had powers of punishment and imprisonment. Make no mistake about it: this group was politically and religiously powerful. They wanted to know, "By whose power did you heal this man?"
This group of judges was saying, "You are in big trouble here, Peter. Now give an account of yourself and we will judge what to do with you." Peter was standing before a group of men that had had him arrested and was now about to determine what punishment to give him. "Do you understand the power we have over you, Peter?"
We may have trouble with Peter's past behavior. When Jesus told his apostles that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, and die there, Peter took him aside and rebuked him. Jesus in turn rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things" (Mark 8:33). In addition, we may wonder about the man's character as we watch him deny that he even knew Jesus when Jesus was being tried by this same Sanhedrin. We may pity the man called the "Big Fisherman" for his apparent lack of courage.
But here, in our post-resurrection story, Peter stands tall, acts with boldness, and shows us what a powerful witness he was.
We pick up the story in verse 8.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth...."
-- Acts 4:8-10a
In the face of judicial powers that can severely punish him, Peter "tells it like it is." Peter turns the inquisition around. The inquisitors become the ones who are judged. Peter turns the tables on them. The victim acts with unpredictable authority. With fire in his belly, Peter says, "This healing was done by the power of Jesus Christ. Jesus' name has the power to heal." The once arrogant court officials gasp. They are speechless in the face of the accusation coming back at them, but Peter isn't done with them.
"This man has health by the power of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead" (Acts 4:10). Indignant, the officials are nevertheless stunned and stung by Peter's insistence that while they had managed to get a sentence of crucifixion from Pilate, that was not the end of the matter. Peter threw two facts in their faces: 1) You killed the Son of God and 2) God brought Jesus back to life. Bold witness!
But there is more to come. These people know their Bibles. Peter now throws the word of God in their faces to show up their unjust, corrupt, and illusionary power.
"This Jesus is 'the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone' " (Acts 4:11). They know the full text from which Peter accuses them, the prophetic word of Isaiah 28, which describes their disobedience and Peter's lack of panic.
... Thus says the Lord God, See I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic." And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummetÉ.
-- Isaiah 28:16-17
That verse is the biblical corrective for the unjust, corrupt, and illusionary power of the Jerusalem leaders and all rulers of this world who follow demonic theology instead of the word of the Lord. Peter, the prisoner, is saying something like this to the judges: "Your demonic theology has you at the top of the heap. Think again. Our God is an awesome God and you have missed his purpose. God reigns from heaven above and you have presumed to defy his plans. You are fools, filled with moral depravity."
That could be called a sound rebuke.
The Biblical Corrective For Moral Depravity
The last part of the verse from Isaiah must have deeply disturbed the judges. "I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet, says the Lord" (Isaiah 28:17). In other words, Peter said to the supreme court leaders, "You are out of plumb."
Amos 7:8 says, "Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel" (RSV). One man described being out of plumb like this:
A friend of mine, who is an excellent carpenter, made me a plumb line just like the one Amos saw the Lord holding in his vision. It was designed after the ancient Egyptian plumb lines used from the third millennium.
In Amos' vision the Lord was measuring the perpendicular of Israel against the horizon of his commandments and his righteousness and justice. The nation was leaning out of plumb.
I keep the model of the plumb line handy near a cross my dad made for me. Both help me to measure my life each day. It's good to have an objective standard to guide my daily living. The Ten Commandments have not gone out of style, and Christ's call to be a servant has not changed and Christ's call to be a servant has not changed. Christ himself is our plumb line.
-- Anonymous
A plumb line is a line with a weight at the end to determine verticality. In other words, by looking at God's revealed truth about himself and his Son, we can asses our vertical relationship with him. That then leads to determining our horizontal actions or our morality toward other people.
Peter said that the court officials in Jerusalem were out of plumb. He drove the point home by clearly enunciating his Christ-centered theology: "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders.... There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:11-12). In other words, "Your moral depravity at killing the Son of God is a direct result of your inadequate theology which excludes Jesus as the promised Messiah."
That's what happened that strange and wonderful day in Jerusalem when Peter and John stood up to the corrupt court and bore witness to Jesus, the way of salvation. What difference does this story make for us today? Good question.
First, it points us to Christ and his cross as the way of salvation. "There is salvation in no one else," Peter said. The Gospel of John reports Jesus saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). That same gospel has Jesus saying, "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11). That verse is in today's Gospel Reading. In both cases, Jesus uses God's name, "I AM" for himself.
The point is even clearer in John 8:58. Here Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I AM." "I AM" is God's name. Jesus used it for himself. All of the "I am" sayings of Jesus in the New Testament have the same implication as these verses.1 Jesus uses God's name for himself. He is God incarnate, not just one religious teacher among many, not even the best of the lot. He is unique. He alone claims divinity for himself.
When Moses asked God for his name so he could tell the Hebrew people in Egypt who had sent him, God said, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you' " (Exodus 3:13-15). Jesus used that name for himself.
Does that mean that we, as Christians, should go around telling all non-Christians that they are going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus Christ? Of course not! Our job is to be positive witnesses for Christ, not pronounce on the destiny of other people. God alone determines whether a person goes to heaven or hell, but he has given Christians the assignment to witness to the one true way of salvation: through Christ. We aren't called to be judges of other people's religion, but witnesses for Christ.
Does that mean that our Christian religion is better than everybody else's religion? No, that's not the point. In his book, Why Christianity of All Religions? Henrick Kramer says that the point of the New Testament is not that Christianity is better than all other religions. The New Testament teaches that Christ is different than all other people. He alone claims to be divine and human. He alone claims to be the Savior of the world. Everything stands or falls on Christ as the power of salvation for those who believe.
C. S. Lewis lived the first half of his life as an atheist. As an atheist, Lewis dismissed Jesus of Nazareth as a Hebrew philosopher, a great moral teacher. When he was converted to Christ, read the Bible seriously, and became a prolific Christian writer, C. S. Lewis saw the truth.
The claim of Jesus to be the Messiah and to forgive sins rules out the possibility of his being simply a great moral teacher. No great moral teacher ever claimed to be God -- not Mohammed, not Micah, not Malachi, or Confucius, or Plato, or Moses, or Buddha. Not one of them ever made that claim ... The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question ... A man who was merely a man and said the things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic ... or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make a choice ... You can shut him up as a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.2
The first difference this story makes in our lives today is it gives us a biblical corrective for the smorgasbord theology that any old god will do. The second way in which Peter's words become the word of God for us today is that they provide a corrective for raging epidemic called "ethical relativism."
Ethical relativism is the natural outflow of smorgasbord theology. Ethical relativism insists that there are no absolutes. "The only absolute is that there are no absolutes." This philosophy of moral behavior springs from the idolatry -- "any old god will do." The biblical corrective for the moral depravity of our day is the time-tested assertion: "There is only one God." Jesus is God's Son, the Savior who died on the cross that all people can be saved.
In other words, in order to get the horizontal line of right behavior clear, we have to go back to the plumb line that determines our vertical relationship with God. The horizontal flows out of the vertical. The Bible teaches that the moral Law of God is written in our hearts and that all people are called to obey it (Romans 2:15).
"When a culture ignores the moral law," C. S. Lewis said, "such spiritual concepts of the Old and New Testaments as atonement and redemption make little sense. Without a law to transgress and a Law-maker to whom one is accountable, there is little awareness of how far short one falls in keeping that law and therefore, little need for forgiveness or redemption."3
The corrupt judges in our story got atonement and redemption wrong, but they got one thing right. Peter and John had been with Jesus. They were uneducated men, but they had been companions of the Lord.
That's what gave Peter, John, Paul, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and the other early Christians the power to speak boldly for God in the midst of the challenging idolatries around them and the power to overcome the moral depravity of their times.
We need to be with Jesus -- with his word, with his sacraments, with him in prayer, and with his people in Christian fellowship, witness, and service. Being with Jesus means studying God's Word, sharing prayer with other Christians, being in community with other believers, and selfless service in Jesus' name. That's what makes a difference today!
May it be said of us, that like Peter and John, we are people who have been with Jesus.
____________
1.ÊRon Lavin, The Great I Am (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., 1995).
2.ÊAs quoted by Armand Michael, Jr. in The Question of God (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 88.
3.ÊIbid., p. 73.
It is always important to consider the context of a Bible story to understand it correctly. That is certainly true of Acts 4:5-12, the story of Peter's bold speech before the Jewish religious leaders. By the power of Jesus Christ, Peter and John had healed a crippled man in the temple area in Jerusalem. This healing took place a few weeks after Jesus' death and resurrection. That's part of the front-side context of our story.
The front-side context also tells us that the Jewish leaders were deeply disturbed by the sermon Peter gave about the healing of the crippled man in Jesus' name. The high priest and his cohorts were perturbed at the influence Peter's sermon had on the crowd. So they had the two apostles arrested. Acts 4 opens with these words: "While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead" (Acts 4:1-2).
The tension was high as the Jewish leaders learned that about 5,000 people believed what Peter had told them. In other words, the inciting incident of our story is a red-hot power struggle between Christ's apostles and the officials of the temple.
It is also important to look at the back-side of the text before we examine the story itself. Acts 4:13 tells us: "Now when they (the Jewish leaders) saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus." Another translation puts it this way: "They took note that these men had been with Jesus" (Acts 13 NIV).
In other words, the boldness and forthrightness of the speech made by Peter made these religious leaders realize that he and John had picked up power from their association with Jesus. This power was a threat to the powerful men of the temple.
The front-side and back-side context of our story provides us with the information that helps us better understand and apply our text: Acts 4:5-12. In this text we hear the biblical corrective for unjust, corrupt, and illusionary power and the biblical corrective for moral depravity. That biblical corrective is the theology of the cross of Christ.
The Biblical Corrective
For Unjust, Corrupt, And Illusionary Power
We pick up the story in Acts 4, verse 5. "The next day (the day after Peter and John were arrested) their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas, the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, 'By what power or by what name did you do this?' " (Acts 4:5-7). This group was part of the powerful Sanhedrin, before whom Jesus had been illegally tried in the middle of the night. This was the Jewish supreme court that had powers of punishment and imprisonment. Make no mistake about it: this group was politically and religiously powerful. They wanted to know, "By whose power did you heal this man?"
This group of judges was saying, "You are in big trouble here, Peter. Now give an account of yourself and we will judge what to do with you." Peter was standing before a group of men that had had him arrested and was now about to determine what punishment to give him. "Do you understand the power we have over you, Peter?"
We may have trouble with Peter's past behavior. When Jesus told his apostles that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, and die there, Peter took him aside and rebuked him. Jesus in turn rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things" (Mark 8:33). In addition, we may wonder about the man's character as we watch him deny that he even knew Jesus when Jesus was being tried by this same Sanhedrin. We may pity the man called the "Big Fisherman" for his apparent lack of courage.
But here, in our post-resurrection story, Peter stands tall, acts with boldness, and shows us what a powerful witness he was.
We pick up the story in verse 8.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth...."
-- Acts 4:8-10a
In the face of judicial powers that can severely punish him, Peter "tells it like it is." Peter turns the inquisition around. The inquisitors become the ones who are judged. Peter turns the tables on them. The victim acts with unpredictable authority. With fire in his belly, Peter says, "This healing was done by the power of Jesus Christ. Jesus' name has the power to heal." The once arrogant court officials gasp. They are speechless in the face of the accusation coming back at them, but Peter isn't done with them.
"This man has health by the power of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead" (Acts 4:10). Indignant, the officials are nevertheless stunned and stung by Peter's insistence that while they had managed to get a sentence of crucifixion from Pilate, that was not the end of the matter. Peter threw two facts in their faces: 1) You killed the Son of God and 2) God brought Jesus back to life. Bold witness!
But there is more to come. These people know their Bibles. Peter now throws the word of God in their faces to show up their unjust, corrupt, and illusionary power.
"This Jesus is 'the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone' " (Acts 4:11). They know the full text from which Peter accuses them, the prophetic word of Isaiah 28, which describes their disobedience and Peter's lack of panic.
... Thus says the Lord God, See I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic." And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummetÉ.
-- Isaiah 28:16-17
That verse is the biblical corrective for the unjust, corrupt, and illusionary power of the Jerusalem leaders and all rulers of this world who follow demonic theology instead of the word of the Lord. Peter, the prisoner, is saying something like this to the judges: "Your demonic theology has you at the top of the heap. Think again. Our God is an awesome God and you have missed his purpose. God reigns from heaven above and you have presumed to defy his plans. You are fools, filled with moral depravity."
That could be called a sound rebuke.
The Biblical Corrective For Moral Depravity
The last part of the verse from Isaiah must have deeply disturbed the judges. "I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet, says the Lord" (Isaiah 28:17). In other words, Peter said to the supreme court leaders, "You are out of plumb."
Amos 7:8 says, "Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel" (RSV). One man described being out of plumb like this:
A friend of mine, who is an excellent carpenter, made me a plumb line just like the one Amos saw the Lord holding in his vision. It was designed after the ancient Egyptian plumb lines used from the third millennium.
In Amos' vision the Lord was measuring the perpendicular of Israel against the horizon of his commandments and his righteousness and justice. The nation was leaning out of plumb.
I keep the model of the plumb line handy near a cross my dad made for me. Both help me to measure my life each day. It's good to have an objective standard to guide my daily living. The Ten Commandments have not gone out of style, and Christ's call to be a servant has not changed and Christ's call to be a servant has not changed. Christ himself is our plumb line.
-- Anonymous
A plumb line is a line with a weight at the end to determine verticality. In other words, by looking at God's revealed truth about himself and his Son, we can asses our vertical relationship with him. That then leads to determining our horizontal actions or our morality toward other people.
Peter said that the court officials in Jerusalem were out of plumb. He drove the point home by clearly enunciating his Christ-centered theology: "This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders.... There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:11-12). In other words, "Your moral depravity at killing the Son of God is a direct result of your inadequate theology which excludes Jesus as the promised Messiah."
That's what happened that strange and wonderful day in Jerusalem when Peter and John stood up to the corrupt court and bore witness to Jesus, the way of salvation. What difference does this story make for us today? Good question.
First, it points us to Christ and his cross as the way of salvation. "There is salvation in no one else," Peter said. The Gospel of John reports Jesus saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). That same gospel has Jesus saying, "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11). That verse is in today's Gospel Reading. In both cases, Jesus uses God's name, "I AM" for himself.
The point is even clearer in John 8:58. Here Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I AM." "I AM" is God's name. Jesus used it for himself. All of the "I am" sayings of Jesus in the New Testament have the same implication as these verses.1 Jesus uses God's name for himself. He is God incarnate, not just one religious teacher among many, not even the best of the lot. He is unique. He alone claims divinity for himself.
When Moses asked God for his name so he could tell the Hebrew people in Egypt who had sent him, God said, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you' " (Exodus 3:13-15). Jesus used that name for himself.
Does that mean that we, as Christians, should go around telling all non-Christians that they are going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus Christ? Of course not! Our job is to be positive witnesses for Christ, not pronounce on the destiny of other people. God alone determines whether a person goes to heaven or hell, but he has given Christians the assignment to witness to the one true way of salvation: through Christ. We aren't called to be judges of other people's religion, but witnesses for Christ.
Does that mean that our Christian religion is better than everybody else's religion? No, that's not the point. In his book, Why Christianity of All Religions? Henrick Kramer says that the point of the New Testament is not that Christianity is better than all other religions. The New Testament teaches that Christ is different than all other people. He alone claims to be divine and human. He alone claims to be the Savior of the world. Everything stands or falls on Christ as the power of salvation for those who believe.
C. S. Lewis lived the first half of his life as an atheist. As an atheist, Lewis dismissed Jesus of Nazareth as a Hebrew philosopher, a great moral teacher. When he was converted to Christ, read the Bible seriously, and became a prolific Christian writer, C. S. Lewis saw the truth.
The claim of Jesus to be the Messiah and to forgive sins rules out the possibility of his being simply a great moral teacher. No great moral teacher ever claimed to be God -- not Mohammed, not Micah, not Malachi, or Confucius, or Plato, or Moses, or Buddha. Not one of them ever made that claim ... The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question ... A man who was merely a man and said the things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic ... or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make a choice ... You can shut him up as a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.2
The first difference this story makes in our lives today is it gives us a biblical corrective for the smorgasbord theology that any old god will do. The second way in which Peter's words become the word of God for us today is that they provide a corrective for raging epidemic called "ethical relativism."
Ethical relativism is the natural outflow of smorgasbord theology. Ethical relativism insists that there are no absolutes. "The only absolute is that there are no absolutes." This philosophy of moral behavior springs from the idolatry -- "any old god will do." The biblical corrective for the moral depravity of our day is the time-tested assertion: "There is only one God." Jesus is God's Son, the Savior who died on the cross that all people can be saved.
In other words, in order to get the horizontal line of right behavior clear, we have to go back to the plumb line that determines our vertical relationship with God. The horizontal flows out of the vertical. The Bible teaches that the moral Law of God is written in our hearts and that all people are called to obey it (Romans 2:15).
"When a culture ignores the moral law," C. S. Lewis said, "such spiritual concepts of the Old and New Testaments as atonement and redemption make little sense. Without a law to transgress and a Law-maker to whom one is accountable, there is little awareness of how far short one falls in keeping that law and therefore, little need for forgiveness or redemption."3
The corrupt judges in our story got atonement and redemption wrong, but they got one thing right. Peter and John had been with Jesus. They were uneducated men, but they had been companions of the Lord.
That's what gave Peter, John, Paul, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and the other early Christians the power to speak boldly for God in the midst of the challenging idolatries around them and the power to overcome the moral depravity of their times.
We need to be with Jesus -- with his word, with his sacraments, with him in prayer, and with his people in Christian fellowship, witness, and service. Being with Jesus means studying God's Word, sharing prayer with other Christians, being in community with other believers, and selfless service in Jesus' name. That's what makes a difference today!
May it be said of us, that like Peter and John, we are people who have been with Jesus.
____________
1.ÊRon Lavin, The Great I Am (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., 1995).
2.ÊAs quoted by Armand Michael, Jr. in The Question of God (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 88.
3.ÊIbid., p. 73.
