22 For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the LORD your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto Me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you.23 And it shall come to pass,thatevery soul, which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.
Peter quoting the Old Testament Scriptures from Deuteronomy 18:15 declares what the LORD Jesus testified of Himself, “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me,”John 5:46. “And again our LORD speaking to the religious leaders of His day, “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.”
So just how do the Scriptures testify of Christ? The word ‘Christ’ is His title. It means the anointed One of the Father. It is the Greek word for the Hebrew ‘Messiah.’ Those who were anointed in the Old Testament were one of three offices:Prophet-1 Kings 19:16, Priest- Exodus 40:15, King- 1 Samuel 9:16. To preach Christ in all of His glory as revealed in the Gospel, is to declare Him in all of His offices. This is the pattern we find in the preaching of Peter in this text, and throughout the book of Acts with all of the apostles.
GOD’S PRIEST- Peter had just declared the glory of Christ as God’s Priest and Sacrifice for the sin of His people, Acts 3:18- “But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled.” All that Christ was to suffer was foretold of the prophets, because God had already purposed from eternity the fulfillment of all things for the salvation of sinners in the death of Christ. We don’t confuse God’s eternal purpose and the fulfillment in time. What God purposed from eternity, He accomplished in time in the death of His Son as the effectual Sacrifice for sin. He is not only the Great High Priest, but the Sacrifice, and the Altar on which the Sacrifice was laid, Hebrews 13:10.
GOD’S PROPHET- Christ, ‘The Word’ made flesh, John 1:1- 4, not only spoke for God, His Father, but God the Father spoke through HIM, Hebrews 1:1-3. None can know the Father except those in whom the Son is pleased to reveal Him. So vital is this truth concerning the LORD Jesus that Moses declared, “Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you.” Not to hear the Son is to be hardened. Not to come to Him to learn of Him is to be reprobate and cast off. The LORD Himself will separate the chaff from the wheat, and destroy every soul from among the people, who will not hear Him. Here is a reminder that there are many who may be under the hearing of the Gospel, but who have never ‘heard.’ Left to ourselves, we would all be blind, deaf, and dumb.
GOD’S KING- Where is He now? Acts 3:21- “whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Christ’s kingdom is NOW. He must reign until HE hath made every enemy His footstool, and full redemption is accomplished when the last of His sheep are called out and brought into the fold…then cometh the end, 1 Corinthians 15:24. All that the Son is to the Father, He is FOR His people, as their Advocate, 1 John 2:1. Therein rests the salvation of God’s elect…in HIM Who is God’s Prophet, Priest, and King…the complete Savior.
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