Week 50
Witnesses to the Resurrection
Acts 2:22–36
“This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.”
Acts 2:22–36 (NKJV)
Peter speaks publicly about events: Jesus lived among them, was crucified, was raised, and was exalted. Christian witness rests upon what God has done in history.
The cross involved human wickedness and divine purpose without making evil innocent. God’s foreknowledge does not excuse the hands that killed Jesus, and their sin cannot defeat His saving plan.
Death could not hold Him. The resurrection is not the survival of an inspiring cause but God’s bodily vindication of the crucified Messiah.
Peter reads David’s psalm as hope fulfilled in Christ. Scripture and event illuminate one another, revealing the faithful promise running through Israel’s story.
The apostles are witnesses. They do not present resurrection as a private symbol but as news they have been commissioned to announce.
The risen Jesus is exalted and pours out the promised Spirit. Resurrection witness therefore depends upon present divine power, not memory alone.
Peter’s conclusion is direct: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. The gospel offers comfort by first telling the truth about who reigns.
Bear witness with the apostles: know the message, live by resurrection hope, depend upon the Spirit, and speak of Jesus as the living Lord rather than a figure safely confined to the past.
In Conversation with C. S. Lewis
Lewis reflected on the resurrection miracles as the beginning of a new mode of embodied life—the first movement of renewed creation entering the old.
Peter proclaims the historical and royal center of that hope: the crucified Jesus has been raised, exalted, and revealed as Lord and Messiah.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Risen Lord Jesus, root my faith in the mighty act by which the Father defeated death.
Fill me with Your Spirit and free me from speaking of You as though You belonged only to the past. Give me clarity, courage, and resurrection-shaped hope.
Let my words and life bear faithful witness that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.
Think and Walk with Christ
Let truth become wisdom.
Return often to Acts 2:22–36. Ask the Spirit to renew not only what you believe, but how you see and live.