We're specifically going to look at the biblical theology in the Book of Acts or the redemptive history, the place that the Acts of the Apostles finds in redemptive history, which is so important and yet so misunderstood by many Christians that I think if I do my part and God gives us understanding you all should walk away thinking about the book of Acts maybe differently than you have in the past even though you've probably read it a good bit. And so let me pray for us and then we're gonna read Acts 2 and we'll actually read down to verse 41. Father, we pray that you would please shine the light of your presence into our hearts, that you would open our minds, that you would make us attentive, that you would give us understanding and wisdom, that you would help us to see your son who is risen and ascended. And even now sitting at your right hand, we pray that you would overwhelm us with a sense of your presence, that you would send times of refreshing, and that you would restore us in our knowledge of you and your son and you would cause us to grow deep and that you would give us a greater grasp of the scriptures so that we can better walk by faith and live by faith in light of them. And we pray that you would please help us by the power of your Holy Spirit. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Acts 2, beginning in verse 1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues, as of fire, appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, and at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who speak Galileans? How is it that we hear each of us in his own native language, Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome? Both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others, mocking, said, they're filled with new wine. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words, for these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days, It shall be, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servant and my female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst. As you yourself know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan And for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David said concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me. For he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he is both dead and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. this Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said, Repent and be baptized for every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. Now, it's interesting, Acts 2 is one of the most important chapters in the scriptures for redemptive history, and yet it's one of the most misunderstood chapters in the scripture. And I remember as a boy having grown up in a Christian home, and when I would read the book of Acts, I would think, why am I not seeing these things happen today? Why am I not seeing these miraculous, powerful things happening? That's a question that a lot of people ask. And the common answer that you'll find in American evangelicalism, which has been inundated with the charismatic movement since really the Azuzu Street revivals of the turn of the 20th century, is we don't have enough faith, we're not praying enough, we don't really believe. And that permeated American churches and religious organizations. And one of the things that we have failed to understand is that these were no ordinary times. That these were no ordinary times. Now, there are two ways we can look at the Book of Acts. One way that we can look at the Book of Acts is through the lens of its historical reality. So its place in redemptive history. That's what we're talking about tonight. Then we would look at the role of the Book of Acts as it applies to our life. And certainly there's massive application to our life from the Book of Acts, but the historical foundation of the Book of Acts, the theology of the Book of Acts, and what's going on in redemptive history and its application to our life are not always seen as closely connected as we would like for them to be. What I mean by that is The book of Acts is written by Luke. You'll often find scholars writing volumes on Luke-Acts, the theology of Luke-Acts, and that's right to do. And no one that knows the scriptures carefully at all would ever say that what happens in the gospel of Luke is normative across the board no matter what. It's very clear that Jesus is doing a once-for-all redemptive historical work in the Gospels, that much of what happens between Jesus and the disciples is explicitly about Jesus and the disciples, and exclusively about Jesus and the disciples, the messianic ministry and the apostolic ministry. When we come to the book of Acts, it's really part two of Luke's Gospel, And most people will say, well, the Book of Acts is about the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is so prominent in it. And clearly it has much to say to us about the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. But the book of Acts is in the truest respect the continuing acts of Jesus through the apostles, by the Spirit, in the church, in the world, building his church. And so it is intimately related to his messianic ministry. And we have to say that just like the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, The outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost is part of his once-for-all redemptive historical work. Pentecost is non-repeatable in one sense. And I can say that because when we read through the rest of the Book of Acts, we find these little sort of earthquake aftershocks, as the gospel goes to the Gentiles, a little mini Pentecost, as it were, where the room that the people are in is shaking, but nothing like Pentecost, nothing to that extent. And just as we would say Jesus only died once and rose once and ascended once, we can say that Pentecost only happened once, and we have to say that. We have to say that if we don't say that, then we're left explaining why the rest of church history doesn't have anything like Pentecost, even the great revivals, the great awakening, what some people call the not so great awakening, the second great awakening. They are movings of God's Spirit through the preaching of his word, but Pentecost is a redemptive historical event. Now we know that, and Luke gives us a number of undertones from the Old Testament, and the first very clear one is that what we're waiting for is the coming of the new age. We're waiting for the fruit of Jesus's victory. The whole Old Testament said he's coming, God's kingdom's coming, God's gonna restore what's broken. Everything is moving toward entropy in the world and getting worse and worse and worse, but God has promised to make it better and Christ has come. And so now that Christ has come, the kingdom has come, The power has come. Redemption has been secured. The gospel is going to go to the nations. The Abrahamic covenant is going to be fulfilled. God's purpose and plan of redemption is going to see its exponential increase. The old age is going to pass away. The new age has come. And that's going to happen with the outpouring of the Spirit. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is really and why Pentecost stands as this great redemptive historical event is that what's happening is God saying, I have fulfilled my promises. That's evident in Acts 2 from Peter's appeal to Joel. Prophecy in Joel 2, there in verse 16. The people think that what's happening, some people think, well, these guys are drunk. We, you know, they must be drunk. They sound, we can't understand them, but these people can understand them speaking. And Peter says, they're not drunk. It's, it's the morning, it's early. But this is what was uttered, verse 16, through the prophet Joel in the last days. Now, it's interesting because American evangelicalism has also sort of adopted this end time madness where, you know, I know the end's coming soon, and it's coming, and we're in it, and it's gotta be right now, and Obama's president, and that definitely means that we're in the end time. You know, Hillary's crossed off of the Antichrist chart, and Bill's crossed off of it, and now Obama's on it, and then it's gonna be somebody else. and people are reading their Bible through current event eschatology, and they've got their newspaper out, and they've got their Bible open, and they're trying to make sense of it, and if they would just listen to Peter, they ask Simon Peter, do you think we're in the last days? Peter would say to them, oh yes, I absolutely think we're in the last days, here in the first century, because Peter understands redemptive history, and he understands that with the coming of the Holy Spirit is the establishment of God's kingdom in the world, the overthrow of the old order, when Joel speaks about signs and wonders, blood and fire and vapor, smoke, the sun turned to darkness, the moon to blood, This is symbolic language of the overthrow of kingdoms. It's not literally the sun being darkened and the moon literally turning to blood. It's that the natural order of things is being turned inside out because the kingdoms of this world were being broken in upon by the kingdom of God. And Peter says, this, not this will be, this, what you see, verse 16, this, is what was uttered in these last days. And so Peter understands, well, yes, there is a last day. There is going to be a day of consummation when Christ comes back and judges the nations. That the period between the first and second coming of Jesus, and specifically you might want to say the ascension him sitting down on the throne of God and his second coming is the last days. It's the new covenant era. It is the new age. It is the age of the coming of God's kingdom in the world. And that's why Pentecost is such a big deal. And that's why it's also a once for all non-repeatable redemptive historical event because Peter is saying the signs and the wonders that occurred at this period were to show that God's kingdom had come, that God had fulfilled all things, just like the miracles that Jesus did were to show who he was. The miraculous things we see in the book of Acts through that extension of the messianic ministry in the apostles was to show that God's kingdom had come, that his church was being established throughout the nations. Now, We do see those little tremors. If you could think about Pentecost as the seven-point earthquake. And then in chapter 10, and there's a couple other places as the gospel goes out to Gentiles, and the Spirit comes, and there's these little tremors. That's the ripple-out effect, and it's showing that that's moving out. I think that we have also clues of all that in Acts 2 because What Acts 2 is really doing is it's going back and it's showing the problem that men didn't know God, that they didn't know Christ, that they didn't have their sins forgiven, that languages were a barrier to that. That's what Pentecost is about in part. Languages were a barrier to that. God doesn't give them a tongue to pray to him with. That's not what's in view in Acts 2. The gift of tongues is the ability for God's people to speak to others and others to hear in their own language. D.A. Carson speculates, I think he's actually right, that it was probably some, it was not them speaking German, for instance, two Germans, but some verbal supernatural gift of the spirit in which when they spoke, whatever they were speaking was understood by the different people groups. In that way what happened at Babel is being reversed because the Gospels come to the nations. So the nations were formed at Babel, now the Gospels going out to the nations. And so it's not so much a unified language as it is the proclamation of the Gospel going out to all nations that we're seeing at Pentecost. Now there are these sort of other redemptive historical undertones here and one that I want to talk about specifically tonight is that in the book of Acts what you're really seeing established is a new temple and a new city, and a new people. You're really seeing those three things. A new temple, a new city, and a new people. Now, a new temple is very obvious. In the Old Testament, when the temple was built, God came down. He came down in a cloud. He filled the temple. Here at Pentecost, he is coming down on the new temple. Peter will say, you are living stones. You, collectively, are the temple of the living God. I will be with you. I will be in you, God says. I will dwell with you. Jesus is the chief cornerstone. The apostles are the foundation. The whole house is built together. God doesn't dwell in a physical place. He dwells in his people now. And so what you have at Pentecost is God coming down just like he came down in the temple. There may be an allusion to that with the tongues of fire coming down on the people. fire in the temple, on the sacrifices. I think there's also probably an allusion to Israel being let out, and we'll come to this in a minute, through the wilderness with the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud. God's presence was with his people. It is a theophany that God is here, God is in this place. So you definitely have this new temple idea. You see Peter actually picking up on the idea of the temple. In several places, you find, well, throughout the whole of the Book of Acts, you find these different allusions to tents and to temples. G.K. Beal has done a tremendous job of pointing out the biblical theology of the temple in his book, The Temple and the Church's Mission. I think that's what it's called. And he has a whole section on the temple theme in the Book of Acts, which would be worthwhile reading. Peter will say in one place, he will talk about that the tabernacle of David has been raised up, quoting from Amos. So as the gospel goes out, he sees the tabernacle of David, the dwelling place, where God's throne and his residence are with his people. And so Acts 2 is really preparing us for that. So you have the new temple, you have the new city. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it's interesting because the apostles at the beginning of this, they say, Lord, when are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And they don't yet understand that God's plan is for so much more than just Israel. They should have known that. God's promised to Abraham, you're going to be a father of many nations. That was always the plan of God. It's not enough, Isaiah says in Isaiah 49 6, about the Messiah that I should raise you up, God the Father says to the Son, to be a light to my people Israel, but I'm going to send you to be a servant to the Gentiles. So God's plan was always to the Jew and then to the Gentile and to the Greek. And so it was gonna go out and the Abrahamic covenant was gonna expand out. And so the book of Acts, we're seeing that break out. And it's interesting, and we don't wanna miss this, that the Holy Spirit comes in close connection to the Passover in Jerusalem. The Spirit falls on the people in Jerusalem. It starts there, but it doesn't stay there. And God is saying, and when Jesus tells them, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth, He is essentially saying, I am bringing the, I am establishing the new Jerusalem. It's not about physical Jerusalem. If it was about physical Jerusalem, it would have stayed there, but that's the starting place. And then when we read in Hebrews, 12 about the Jerusalem above, Galatians 4 and Hebrews 12, Zion, Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And so it's fitting that the Holy Spirit brings all of God's purposes from the heavenly Jerusalem to bear there in what was in the Old Covenant, the city of God, and then it moves out from there. And so God is establishing His city There's a whole point in the book of Hebrews that even Abraham, they were not looking for physical Jerusalem. They were looking for the city that had foundations. We know that because Abraham never got anything but a burial place. So it was never about the city of Jerusalem. It was always about the heavenly Jerusalem. But it's interesting that Jesus does pour out the Holy Spirit there in Jerusalem as the starting place, I think, to show Thirdly, that he is creating a new people. It's the new Israel. And I think we see this with that pillar of fire imagery coming down on the people. Remember also we have the fact that you had 12 tribes and 12 apostles, and the 12 apostles are going to be the foundation of the new Israel. And so you have this, you have this, Jesus is now establishing the new Israel in the world. And he is, I think you see this, we've done this lesson a couple times, but the Apostle Paul says, you know, now circumcision doesn't mean anything or uncircumcision, but a new creation And as many as walk according to this rule, mercy and peace be on them, even upon the Israel of God." So the new creation is the new Israel who have been raised up with Christ, who is true Israel, who have been united to Jesus. And as the 12, very interesting, very interesting. And this hit me as I preached through Acts this year. I never thought about this before. Judas falls out. Judas falls away. Book of Acts, one of the early things is Judas went to be with his own place. We need to pick somebody else. Why? Because there have to be 12. Why does there have to be 12? Because it's the new Israel. Jesus has reconstituted the 12 tribes with the 12 apostles. So they felt as though there was something wanting in not having the full number of what Jesus had appointed. So you have all those undertones, you have the emphasis on the 12, you have the kind of the theology of, and in some respects I think you can actually see in the Book of Acts sort of a wilderness wandering for the people. you know, they're being scattered as they go out. In a sense, and there's some, there's been a doctoral dissertation done on this called Acts and the Isaanic Exodus, something like that. You would never obviously read it because it'd be very technical, but Isaiah prophesied about this new exodus, and what this author does in this doctoral dissertation is he goes through those passages in Isaiah where he uses the exodus imagery to talk about the new covenant and the new exodus, and to show how that's manifested throughout the book of Acts. So that would be a theme you could look for. One place that you find that, interestingly, besides the fact that this is taking place pretty much at Passover, it's interesting, the two most important Passovers in Israel's history were the first one and the last one. And the last one is the death of the firstborn son, the crucifixion of Jesus, the sacrificing of the Lamb of God, so that God's judgment is passed over, and then the outpouring of God's Spirit on his people, leading them on to glory. And so you have this exodus theme, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the people of God, you know, die spiritually, are raised in him, raised with him, are then led through their wanderings on to glory. And there's one place in Acts, and I want to tell you guys about a little book you might want to get. It's by a Methodist named Tannahill. the narrative theology of Luke, Acts, something like that. And Tannahill, it's interesting, a lot of Reform guys will cite this work. It's so important for the biblical theology of it. And Tannahill has this really interesting chapter. There's this There's a part in Acts, I think it's in chapter 12, where Peter's in prison, and the disciples are praying for him, and you have this striking You have this striking resemblance in the language used throughout Acts 12, 1 through 19, where you have this Exodus language background. I'll just point out a few. You've got Herod as sort of a counterpart to Pharaoh, and he's oppressing the people of God. Herod's persecuting the church. He's killed James. There's this persecution emphasis. Herod is going to get struck with worms at the end of this, the way that Pharaoh got struck with plagues. So you're going to have this sort of parallel identity, which is not enough to prove this, but it's very interesting, just the parallels that Herod the king as sort of a parallel to Pharaoh. And what you have with Peter, notice in verse 6 and following, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains. So he's enslaved, as it were. He's in prison. And notice verse 7. Behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side, woke him up, said, Get up quickly. His chains fell off, The angel said, Dress yourself and put on your sandals. He did so. He said to me, Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. He went out and followed him. He did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate, leading them into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along the street, and immediately the angel left him. When Peter came to himself, he said, now I'm sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all the Jewish people were expecting. Now, Tannehill will take this passage and he'll examine the Greek that Stephen uses in Acts 7. The same book, Acts chapter 7, Stephen's dying speech, and the identity of the language that Stephen uses about what God did in delivering his people from Egypt. that there are all these grammatical connections, same words used, same forms. Luke had to know these similarities. Plus, if you go back to the Exodus account, you find this similarity where God essentially says to the people, put your sandals on your feet, get your stuff, put your clothes on, get ready to go, we're going out. The gate opens of its own accord, the sea parts of its own accord. You have all these things that may not be, this may be fanciful, but it's hard not to see that the people of God, and here one of the leaders of God's people, the head of the apostles at this point, is leading his people through, that God is leading his people through an exodus. Jesus had gone through an exodus, death and resurrection. His people are going through this. That brings us to the final thing I wanted to talk about tonight. The idea of union with Christ in the book of Acts. You have these striking similarities. between the miracles of Peter, who is predominantly going to the Jews, you know, as he goes out. God calls him to establish the new covenant church among Jews, and Paul to the Gentiles. And really, the book of Acts is Peter's ministry, Paul's ministry. You could divide it that easily. As Peter's ends, Paul's takes over. And there's these striking similarities between the miracles of Peter and Paul and the miracles of Jesus. So if you took time to go through those, you would say, wait a minute, this sounds strikingly like what Jesus did. And the liberal scholars are going to say that's because the later Christian tradition superimposed all these things and drew all these identical things. Again, because they don't know or love Jesus or believe the Bible. We would look at that and we would say there has to be a reason. Well here's the reason. It's stressing union with Christ. That the apostles are in union with Christ. What he did they're now doing. They in a special way are doing that in union with Christ. But that will also stand as an example to us of our union with Jesus and what he even said, you know, the things that I do, you'll do greater things than these. And there's an analogy because we're in union with him, not the miraculous per se, but the greater works of love and witness. And you see all throughout this book, this emphasis on union with Christ. I want to show you one really amazing place. Look over in chapter 13. And you see union with Christ in the apostolic ministry especially. That's especially being highlighted in redemptive history, that they are in union with Christ and therefore what's true of him is true of them in redemptive history. Because remember, there is a sense, and I meant to say this at the beginning, where if I could draw on a board two overlapping lines kind of making an X, And on this side is the Old Covenant. On this side is the New Covenant. And what's underneath that X, in that bottom part of the X, would be the Book of Acts. It's the intertestamental period. That kind of helps get the redemptive historical part of it. The New Covenant is crashing in. The end time purposes of God are breaking into time and space. Isaiah said, oh, that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down. And he did in the coming of Jesus. And then he does in the coming of the spirit, in the outpouring of the spirit of Jesus. And so you have this intertestamental period where, as the gospel is going out, what's happening is very unique and very special in the apostolic ministry. But we're to see this close identity between Jesus and the apostles that can only be summed up by virtue of their union with Christ. Jesus emphasizes union with Christ at Paul's conversion. Remember when Saul of Tarsus is going to persecute Christians, he has the letters, he's traveling on the Damascus Road, and Jesus stops and blinds him and he says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I have many times thought Paul got union with Christ seemingly better than the other apostles in his letters. Yes, he wrote more, but union with Christ is the overarching paradigm for Paul because that's the first thing that Jesus teaches him. That when Paul was persecuting Christians, he was persecuting Jesus because they were united to him. When the body suffers, the head suffers, and the body suffers because of the head. You know, it's because of the Lord that his people suffer. And so Paul got union with Christ at the beginning, and then you see the union with Christ manifested in the apostolic ministry. And notice this in Acts 13, this is really an amazing little proof thing. Notice in verse 47, now Paul is going out, his ministry is progressing, just starting to take off, and Notice in verse 46, Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you, to Jews. Since you thrusted aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we're turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us. And who's the us? The apostles. So the Lord has commanded us, saying, now he quotes Isaiah 49.6, which I mentioned earlier, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Who is Isaiah 49.6 about? Well, Isaiah 49.6 is about Jesus. If you go back to Isaiah, it's very clearly messianic. It's in that whole section of the servant of Yahweh, the suffering servant, where in Isaiah 49.6, Jesus is in view, the Redeemer. God the Father saying, I've sent you to be a light to the nations. Who is the light of the world? Jesus is. Here, the Apostle Paul looks at that and he says, God has commanded us. I've sent you to be a light to the Gentiles. Paul understood that what was true of Jesus was true of them in their apostolic ministry, in the proclamation of Jesus. Now, let me say this as we close. the fuel behind everything in the Book of Acts. So whether it's the outpouring of the Spirit, whether it's the establishment of the new temple, new people, whether it's the powerful works that Jesus does through the apostles in both preaching and in the miracles that they perform. The centerpiece of the book of Acts is the resurrection of Jesus. It's not even so much the death of Jesus, as important as that is. And the death and the resurrection always go hand in hand. They're one thing. Death and resurrection, it's dangerous to rip them apart. Paul said, I determined not to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ and him crucified in first Corinthians two, but then spends 57 verses on the resurrection in chapter 15 of 1st Corinthians, so clearly they're a unit. But the sum and substance of everything that the apostles proclaim is that Jesus who was crucified is risen. And his resurrection means new life, power, the guarantee of the coming of the Holy Spirit, that the resurrection of Jesus takes center stage throughout the whole book of Acts and throughout redemptive history. I mean, everything's moving to the resurrection because the resurrection of Jesus guarantees the restoration of all things. It means the resurrection of the people who hear the gospel and believe that they are raised from death to life The resurrection of Jesus brings about the new creation in people the resurrection of Jesus and guarantees the reign of Christ in the world the kingdom comes through the Resurrected Jesus who now reigns at the right hand of God the Father. He has fulfilled all things he was the son of David according to the flesh, but he's been raised and by the power in the spirit. It's the age of the spirit, the age of the resurrection. And what it does, and I wanna just point this last section out to you. What it does is it guarantees, it guarantees for us the consummation of all things too. That the resurrection of Jesus holds together the purposes of God in redemptive history and eternity so that the risen Jesus is now the head of a new humanity and so the kingdom of God is going to triumph. It's going to march through this world no matter what obstacles it faces. In order for God's kingdom to be stopped, Jesus would have to be dead. resurrection of Jesus means the kingdom of God is going to press on in power. It may not always seem evident everywhere, but Jesus's resurrection guarantees the progress of the gospel in the world. It guarantees the ultimate glorification of his people. And notice that it also guarantees the new heavens and the new earth. It's interesting, if you look through the book of Acts, you'll find these little hints, and then definitely in the epistles, which we'll talk about the next time, but you find these little these little hints, and I thought one of them was in Acts chapter 3, where Peter talks about, yeah, times of refreshing. Here we go. It's the last verse I'll look at here. Acts 3, Notice Peter's preaching to the Jews who crucified Jesus. He says, repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you Jesus whom heaven must receive. until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago." And so Peter is saying the risen Christ has been received into glory and must be there until the, and literally in the Greek, regeneration of all things. That is the renewing of the new heavens and the new earth. So You'll notice as you go through Acts, and I'll stop with this, what a central role the resurrection of Jesus plays. In one sense, if I can say this carefully, because I do think we downplay who the Holy Spirit is in modern Reformed Church, sadly. The Puritans didn't do that. It was actually Reformed theologians who gave us the great works on the Holy Spirit. Calvin first, Abraham Kuyper, Sinclair Ferguson. The greatest works on the Spirit have come from Reformed men. If you read the book of Acts, the focus is not so much on the Holy Spirit as it is on Jesus who has been risen from the dead. The focus is on Jesus. The preaching is centered on Jesus. The apostles almost don't even preach about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the blessing that's poured out from Jesus. But the focus is on Jesus. Remember, Jesus said in John 16, Yeah, the time's coming, he says, when he will come, the spirit of truth and the comforter, he will take of what is mine and he will declare to you, he will glorify me. So the book of Acts is about Jesus. It's about the resurrected Jesus. In a sense, if you took Luke moving to the resurrection, but it's really moving to the crucifixion, where he makes atonement. The high priest laying down his life. Yes, the resurrection follows. Book of Acts is, here's what the resurrection is going to do. Here's why the resurrection is so central. The epistles, which we'll talk about next week, are really giving you the theology of the resurrection. They're going to give you all the eschatology. What does that mean? What does resurrection mean? And so in many respects, while the epistles are going to give you a lot, they're going to explain the death, they're also going to really focus on what it means that he's risen and you're united to him who has been risen. So we're united to the risen Christ who is now reigning. Paul was saying Colossians, you know, you died with him, you've been buried with him, you've been raised with him, you've been seated with him. So that redemptive historical process Last thing I'll say as we close. The other thing the Book of Acts highlights is that Jesus is not done working. Sometimes we mistakenly think death, burial, resurrection. Like, you know, almost like a mantra, sadly. But death, burial, resurrection, as if, you know, Jesus did everything necessary, and he did in his death. And he did in his resurrection, but as if that's it. And he's just this historical figure out there. When the Bible says, even now, he is reigning, he is ever living to make intercession for us. If you read Hebrews and Acts together, you would get the full theology of the ascension of Christ. What is the ascended Christ doing? And we need the ascended Christ right now. We need the crucified Christ. We need the blood of sprinkling. We need the resurrection of Christ, the victory that we have in that resurrection. But we need the everyday reigning Christ that we're in union with. And that's what Acts is driving us to. And this is where I want to just close. We ought not be looking for the miraculous. We ought to be looking for the Christ who is reigning and trusting in him and calling on him and living our life in light of him. The miraculous were just saying, it's done, it's complete, I've fulfilled everything. They are the trumpet blast that God was saying, I've fulfilled these things. How do I know that? How do I know I'm right in telling you that? Because when you read the epistles, the emphasis is not on miracles. It's on the day in and day out aspect of you trusting Christ, knowing what you have in him, knowing where he is. You almost don't, I mean, Paul tells Timothy, your stomach hurts, drink some wine. You find this reduction in the miraculous because the miraculous is you're united to Jesus who's reigning. you have everything necessary for life and godliness. So we'll come back to that. But it's hard to move through. It's hard to press through acts because there's so much. But I at least wanted to introduce some of those ideas to you just tonight, you know, for you to kind of A couple of books I want to recommend. Dennis Johnson, you could, any of y'all could read this. And it's deep, but it's good. And it's written somewhat devotionally, even though it's heavy theology, it's a nice blend. Dennis Johnson, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption. Great book. All these books are going to do a lot of the stuff we talked about tonight. Best commentary on the acts in my opinion is David Peterson. He's a more theological college guy in Australia Incredible commentary David Peterson acts of the Apostles Dennis Johnson has a little let's study acts with different stuff than what is in his theology That's really helpful. And then the heaviest on what we talked about and I read it as a new Christian and it was I over my head, and then I read it when I preached through Axten, and I was like, wow, this is amazing, how did I not get this? Is Richard Gaffin's Perspectives on Pentecost, and he deals with how Pentecost is a one-time, non-repeatable, redemptive historical event. He has a 46-part lecture series on the theology of Axten Paul on the Westminster Theological Seminary website. So all of those would be the best things you could read or listen to on this.