SAVIOUR OF SINNERS
Tim VanderHoek
1 Corinthians 15: 1-4; Acts 10: 1-5, 19, 20, 24-27, 33-44; 17: 1-4 (to Silas), 11, 16-25, 30-32
What was on my heart to speak of was the Lord Jesus presented as the Saviour of sinners and presented in such a way as brings the completeness of the which He went through. We have 1 Corinthians 15, in those two succinct verses, “that Christ died for our sins … and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day”. It is spoken of faithfully by both Peter and the apostle Paul – how the Lord Jesus is presented by both of them as having gone through death and then as being raised from the dead. It is only through the completeness of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, in going into death and then being raised for our justification, that we have the forgiveness of sins. These two portions in Acts bring quite a contrast between hearers of the testimony concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Those in Acts 10 were referred to as “all present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God”, (v 33). It is quite a statement. And it is that which would be the exercise of heart and soul that there would be those open to hearing the glad tidings, receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. He is the One who would bring us into full peace with God, the One whom we would present as the Saviour of sinners. It is quite striking that in the last verse of the hymn we sang it says:
Peace, sonship, joy, the Holy Spirit giv’n.
Through Him are known. (Hymn 123)
The Lord Jesus Christ is presented as the Saviour of sinners, as the One who would bring us into the fulness of peace, the place of sonship, the fulness of joy and then we have the Spirit given, as we have referred to here, in both Acts 10 and Acts 17.
I was thinking of how this man Cornelius brings before us someone who had an exercise of soul and yet he did not have peace and joy. He was exercised to be before God in a righteous way and yet he was missing something. Of course, we have in Acts, the acts of the Spirit of God, the transition from the old dispensation to the new dispensation: the Lord Jesus Christ, as having gone into death and being raised, a testimony as to Himself was just beginning to go out. And so we have the old dispensation having to be set aside even by those that were saved out of it such as the apostle Peter. We did not read his vision, but he had this vision that would emphasise how God is not a respecter of persons and that each one must come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour regardless of whether born a Jew or a Gentile the apostle here saying, “I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him” (v 35).
So we have here those who would be before one who would bring the glad tidings, Peter as having been sent by the Spirit. The Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men seek thee; but rise up, go down, and go with them, nothing doubting” (vv 19,20). This is the same activity of the Spirit of God in this scene to-day, convicting men of their need of a Saviour. It is a very real activity which we would be thankful for, how the Spirit would be working to convict men of the need of a Saviour. Here we have those that, we might say, were in Cornelius’s circle. We had a touch of that this morning, how there would be that circle of affection. Well, here he had a care for souls. In verse 24 it says he had “called together his kinsmen and his intimate friends”. He had a care for them in such a way that he would desire that they would have this news that he anticipated being brought by the apostle. He did not know what the news would be but he had been given this vision, the Spirit of God no doubt working in his soul and having told him to send for this one called Simon, surnamed Peter. There was that willing spirit. They were gathered together and the apostle went in, talking with Cornelius, “and found many gathered together”. They were receptive to the word of God working in their souls. It is also striking to me that as the apostle Peter speaks faithfully of the Lord Jesus Christ, he speaks to them as His being a judge (v 42): “And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he” – that is the Lord Jesus – “it is who was determinately appointed of God to be judge of living and dead”. A very positive note comes in before that in the apostle taking these ones up who, naturally speaking, were very strange to him and he was even forbidden to go into them, being a Jew. But having been enlightened by the Spirit of God in the vision and seeing that God was no respecter of persons but that all needed to come to know the Lord as Saviour, he can speak plainly to them of that beloved One as having gone into death, who the Jews had hanged on a cross and yet God raised Him up the third day; then a testimony as to His being raised from the dead was given because He was openly seen to those that were witnesses.
So here there were those who were hearing the word of the gospel. And so it is with each one of us: there has been a sovereign work in our souls, those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and have been receptive to hearing about the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who was raised up the third day after having been hanged on a cross, after having been put to death. God raised Him up the third day and we have witness and testimony to the fact that He is no longer here, no longer in death. It says, in Corinthians, that if we had the Lord still in the grave, we would be really the worst of all men. We would have no hope. But the Lord Jesus Himself is on high.
So the apostle Peter here speaks of being commanded to preach to the people that He, the Lord Jesus, was the One appointed by God to judge the living and the dead, and these with receptive ears would be those whom the Spirit could come and fall on: “While Peter was yet speaking these words the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were hearing the word”. This was not just some idle tale that the apostle Peter was speaking of, but he was speaking of that Lord of glory, the One who went into death to settle the sin question and the One who was raised again for our justification.
In chapter 17 we have the same line of thought that there were receptive ears and in contrast those who did not have receptive ears. Here in chapter 17 we have the apostle Paul on his journey, coming to Thessalonica, again coming in amongst the Jews and speaking to them as to the Christ and how He “must have suffered and risen up from among the dead” (v 3), a testimony again to those who had put Him to death, to the Jews themselves. So the apostle Paul could speak of the Lord Jesus Christ and He could say, “Jesus who I announce to you”. It seems that Mr. Darby places the emphasis on the “I” there, and I wonder if it is not because here the apostle could speak from personal experience. He had seen this One who was raised from the dead. He had seen that great light from heaven and, no doubt, that personal experience with the Lord Jesus as the living One and the One that brought light into his pathway, brought the apostle to know Him, the Lord Jesus as Saviour. He could speak personally as he could emphasise it: “Christ must have suffered and risen up from among the dead, and that is the Christ, Jesus whom I announce to you”. Well, it was on this testimony that it says, “And some of them believed, and joined themselves …”, just “some of them”. There were some who, no doubt, had their heart pricked as the apostle himself had had. It was those who realised that the Lord Jesus Christ had gone through death for themselves, and it is when we come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we would be drawn into that joy and peace and place of sonship through the knowledge of our sins forgiven, through the knowledge of that beloved One and the finished work that He accomplished, the One who is soon coming for us.
So difficulties arise because of this testimony. We did not read the verses, but the apostle is taken off to another area and then it speaks of those who heard this same testimony (v 11) and it says, “And these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, receiving the word with all readiness of mind”. “Readiness of mind” is required to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. There must be a receptive heart; there must be a “readiness of mind”. And yet it is puzzling in a way then to read, “daily searching the scriptures if these things were so”. That was not done in a sceptical way, no doubt, but in a way that would then solidify what they had heard in their own souls that caused them to have the solid foundation of the word of God as to the testimony of what they had heard. And this is required too for any growth in our own souls, that we would search the scriptures. Many of us have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, some of us in our very young years and some maybe not so young, but all of us then have a need to search the scriptures to be well-founded in the Word so that we would fully appreciate what we have been brought into.
We then come to a further testimony because difficulties arise and the apostle was taken away from that place and ended up in Athens where he was waiting for his brethren. And yet what he saw in Athens, it says, “painfully excited” him in his spirit. He could see the gross unbelief around him and therefore he was out giving the glad tidings as to the Lord Jesus Christ. “He reasoned therefore in the synagogue with the Jews, and those who worshipped, and in the market-place every day with those he met with”. Well, I do not imagine it was restricted to the Jews, as we read of these Athenians. He was giving a testimony as to the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, but how was it received? It was received in such a way that they could say “What would this chatterer say?” (v 18). Now, we could say that they were not like those in Cornelius’s household who were there with readiness of mind, waiting to hear what the Spirit of God had to say through the apostle Peter. But these who would refer to the apostle Paul as a chatterer did not have an open heart or readiness of mind and so the apostle Paul, in announcing the glad tidings of Jesus to them and the resurrection, seemed as a foolish chatterer. And so it is a sovereign work that must occur in our souls to come to realise that we need a Saviour.
So the apostle is brought in to speak of what he had been proclaiming in the market-place and in the synagogues, and yet it is very interesting and instructive to see in verse 21 that those who wanted to hear what he had to say were those who were described as spending “their time in nothing else than to tell and to hear the news”. It is very telling to see the order in which that is put, “to tell and to hear the news”. In Acts 10 it says they were gathered together (v 27) and then Cornelius said, “Now therefore we are all present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God” (v 33), and then earlier in this chapter, “receiving the word with all readiness of mind”. We are thankful that the sovereign work of God has taken place in our souls so that we have been hearers of the report, hearers of the testimony that has been given to us and that we have believed. But these are described as those there to tell, first. It seems that they did not have an openness to hear what the apostle was speaking of in his testimony as “he announced the glad tidings of Jesus and the resurrection to them” (v 18). They were there to tell first and then to hear the news. Is that not typical of man in the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ? Man has self interest first and other things second and so our natural inclination is not to hear, not to be receivers of the word, but that we would have something first to tell. Of course, that would be the “I” of man, the big “I”. So these Athenians and strangers were there “to tell and to hear the news” and therefore they completely missed having an open ear to hear the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus Christ and how He is the Saviour of sinners.
So the apostle ultimately speaks and announces the glad tidings using as a basis this unknown God they had identified. The apostle spoke to them faithfully of how there is one God and how He has brought in the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 30 he says, “God, therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, now enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent, because he has set a day in which he is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed”. That was a very serious thing to bring before these Athenians, the thing that brought them into responsibility. Now, dear one, as we think of the good news of salvation going forth, the gospel, and how it is preached in every region of the globe, men are put into responsibility, hearing of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. These Athenians and strangers here were brought into responsibility and the apostle could speak to them of the need of repentance and need to come to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour.
But he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as being Judge. It is a severe warning to those who have not accepted Him as Saviour. He will be the Judge, and Judge not only of the living and the dead, but here as it is put “the habitable earth”. That is, the Lord Jesus is qualified and has the rightful place to be the Judge of everything in the habitable earth. Even in Acts 10 the apostle Peter brings before them that He would be the “judge of living and dead” and yet they received remission through His Name. The had an open ear and each one of us who has come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour would have that open ear. We have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and we know the Lord Jesus as the One who is to be the Judge, but He has already borne our judgment. We look on Him as our Substitute and He has received our judgment as to our sins. How thankful we are for that! We know Him as the Lamb in that sense. But here these men, those who were gathered together at the hill of Mars in Acts 17, were warned by the apostle that He would “judge the habitable earth in righteousness” through that very One, the Lord Jesus Christ, and these then had the opportunity to come to know the Lord as Saviour. But when they heard that, heard of the resurrection, they mocked. They refused to hear of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour.
How sad it is that there are those who know not the Lord Jesus Christ and yet what a joy it is for those of us that we know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. We have been brought into that place, as we sang, of joy, peace, a place of relationships in sonship, and we are indwelt by the Spirit of God. That would be the normal portion of every believer, every one who has accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. May the Lord bless His word!
DENTON
13 June 1999