Did the Jews Crucify Jesus Through Ignorance?

Tom: In this, our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we’re going through the Book of Acts. We’re in Acts 3, and we’re going to pick up with verse 13, but I want to back up to 12, so that we know who is speaking here, Dave. Verse 12 says: “And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” Verse 13: “The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” Dave, in these verses from verse 12-18, this is much of what we have been talking about. Peter wasn’t building up their self-esteem here…

Dave: Prophecy fulfilled.

Tom: …but he doesn’t mess around with them, he lays it out specifically, not tip-toeing over their egos.

Dave: Well, first of all, Tom, he removes any credit from himself. These people are running to him. They have just healed a man—or the Lord has healed a man, and they’re—“Well, who did this?”

“Well, these two guys, Peter and John.”

“Well then, they must be somebodies, you know.” So they are looking to them, and Peter says, “Don’t look to us. We had nothing to do with this. This was not in our power,” and then he gives the credit to God. He calls Him the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob—that’s 12 times in the Bible you have that title—maybe for the 12 tribes of Israel, I don’t know. But this is the God of Israel—203 times the Bible calls him that, so let’s get clear on that. This is not just some higher power.

And really it goes back, Tom, to what we were talking about earlier. The prophecies—the Messiah doesn’t step off of a UFO; He has a genealogy, He has a people, there’s a history, there are prophecies that were laid out that were fulfilled in His genealogy and so forth. So, he’s just saying, “Look, this is the God that you claim to believe in. He’s the one who did this. Now you’ve got a problem, guys, because you denied the truth of your own Scriptures: the prophecies foretold who the Messiah would be, and here comes the Messiah, and I mean, you know what miracles He’s done, and you know the life He lived. You know His humility and perfection, and you denied Him. And you chose a murderer instead of this Holy One of God, and you are guilty of this. You killed the Prince of Life whom God hath raised from the dead whereof we are witnesses, and it is in His name. This One that you crucified, sent by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—this is the One you crucified, and God has raised Him from the dead.”

Tom: As we were talking earlier in our first segment about fragile self-esteem, and so on, you know, part of the danger—maybe the greatest danger in taking that approach—is that we are not allowing conviction of sin. In other words, it throws a salve or an oil—an unction over something, and keeps the Holy Spirit from really convicting our hearts and bringing us to true repentance. That’s one of the major problems with all of that.

Dave: Yeah, well, Robert Schuller has said the worst thing you can do is tell a person they are sinners, that God didn’t die…Many of the Christian psychologists say it: if you don’t build up your self-esteem, you couldn’t believe that Christ died for you, because He wouldn’t die for nobodies, He died for somebodies. So you’ve got to realize you’re worth it before you can really believe that Christ would die for you.

Well, Peter is laying these people low—“You are murderers, really. You have rejected the prophesied Messiah. You have had a murderer released in His place. Instead of the Messiah, you embraced a murderer, and now you better repent, because if you don’t, the judgment of God is going to come upon you.” And then, he does soften it a bit. He says, “I realize,” verse 17, “you did it because of ignorance, as did also your rulers.” And when we get to it, we would get over to chapter 13, and Paul now is preaching, and listen to what he says in Verse 27-29: “For they that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.”

In other words, “You have done just exactly what the prophets foretold. Now, if you had paid attention to the prophets you would have realized you are doing exactly what they said you would do.”

“And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of Him, they took Him down.” So, because they didn’t know the prophets, they fulfilled what the prophets said, and Peter is saying much the same thing here.

Tom: So Dave, we have—I hate to say it—a double whammy, but really the impact here is not only were they under conviction for what they had participated in, but to know that they had fulfilled prophecy, there you have the Holy Spirit, again, piercing their hearts twofold.

Dave: And look, if we are going to get saved, we have to realize we need to be saved, and what do we need to be saved from? Not from some financial disaster or whatever. What we need to be saved from is the penalty that God will mete out upon the sins of all those who refuse to accept the payment for their sins that Christ has made on the cross. And in order to get saved, I’ve got to realize I need salvation. I must realize that I am a sinner, that I am under God’s judgment—otherwise, what is there to be saved from? So Peter is laying out their sin and what they have done, and he says, “Repent ye therefore,” and they do repent. Well, I guess, Tom, it’s a lesson for us today. What is the gospel without this?

And going back just briefly again to Mel Gibson’s film, he doesn’t understand what the cross is about, so he’s trying to give the impression that it was His physical suffering that paid for our sins. So he’s got to have them really beating Him and beating Him and beating Him and beating Him, even on the way to the cross, to Calvary, which is ridiculous, and it’s not in the Bible.

Tom: But, Dave, that’s all we knew, growing up Roman Catholic. That’s where I identify with Mel. This is Catholicism; this is expiating your own sins.

Dave: But that’s what we did to Him. That’s what man did to Him, so that’s not going to save us. For men to beat Him, how is that going to save mankind from the penalty of their sins? It was that “It pleased Yahweh to bruise Him. Thou hast made His soul an offering for sin,” and so forth.

So Peter is saying, “Look, guys, this is what you did—not just the Roman soldiers, but you delivered Him, you rejected Him.” Tom, it’s not just the Jews who were there that day; it’s all of us. The cross is a revelation of the evil in the human heart. Then, since it’s the greatest revelation of the evil in the human heart that man would take the Creator, who has come as a man and loves them, and is kind and compassionate and feeds and heals and so forth, that they would nail Him to a cross—the greatest proof of the evil in man’s heart. It’s in that moment that we have the greatest proof of God’s love, and Jesus says, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” And for God to answer that question, Christ must pay the penalty for their sins. You could meditate upon that for a long time.