Salvation in the Book of Acts

Please put your thinking caps on. Not that you haven’t had them on. You’ve been very attentive and responsive, and I think you’ve been tracking me pretty good.

But I admit to you that the subject of salvation in Acts is one which I think we need to think very carefully and closely about in order to understand the material that is here.

However, that daunting introduction belies the fact that I think the solution to the problems in Acts as they relate to the doctrine of salvation revolve around a single word, and the word is “forgiveness.”

And I’m going to do something I don’t usually do. I haven’t done it so far, at least this week. I’m gonna dictate two statements to you about forgiveness. May I? You don’t have to take them down.

“Go slowly,” Judy said. Yes, that’s important. These are two statements about forgiveness.

Number one: Forgiveness is not a judicial issue. Forgiveness is not a judicial issue between man and God, but it is a personal issue between man and God. Forgiveness is not a judicial issue between man and God, but it is a personal issue between man and God.

That statement, number one. Anybody want it repeated? Okay, everybody got it.

Statement number two: Forgiveness is not the removal of a penalty. Forgiveness is not the removal of a penalty, but it is the removal of estrangement, estrangement, e-s-t-r-a-n-g-e-m-e-n-t, meaning not getting along. But it is the removal of estrangement between God and man.

Let me repeat that one. Forgiveness is not the removal of a penalty, but it is the removal of estrangement between God and man.

Anybody want that one repeated? If I can get you to understand the bearing of those two statements on our understanding of forgiveness, everything in the book of Acts is easy. It’s easy.

Let me illustrate here for a minute. If you are charged with a crime and you go down to court, do you expect the judge to say, “I forgive you”? I never heard of a judge saying that.

He will either say, “You’re guilty,” or, “You’re innocent.” He will pronounce the decision of the law upon you.

Now, if you have offended the judge, after he gets down from his bench and lays aside his robes, you may go to him and say, “You know, I should never have been down here, and I caused you a bunch of trouble, and…” He can then say, “I forgive you,” but that’s personal.

Now when the judge says, “You are innocent,” we all know that therefore there is no penalty. Right? And therefore a declaration of innocence is tantamount to the removal of a potential penalty.

But when the judge in his ordinary street clothes says, “I forgive you,” that’s not a removal of the penalty, unless it is a purely personal penalty like, “I guess I’ll have you over to my house on Sunday night.”

What I’m trying to say is that even in ordinary life, forgiveness is not an issue that goes before the courts. An issue, forgiveness is an issue between people.

And to forgive a person is to remove the barrier of estrangement between you and that person. Or for that person to forgive you is to remove the barrier, barrier of estrangement between you and him or them.

That is very important.

Now, a little question here. I’m very fond of asking the question, “How many times does the word ‘repentance’ occur in the Gospel of John?” And, of course, the answer is “zero.”

But have you ever asked this question? “How many times does the Gospel of John refer to the forgiveness of sins?” Once.

And the passage is, “Whoever’s sins you remit they are remitted to them, and whoever’s sins you retain, they are retained,” and obviously it is not in a salvation context. Right?

The issue in the Gospel of John is not, not forgiveness of sin. The issue is what?

Eternal life.

Now turn with me, if you will, to Revelation, chapter 20. Revelation chapter 20. Let’s read starting at verse 11. This is, of course, the Great White Throne Judgment, the final judgment of the unsaved.

Revelation 20:11, Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.

And then we can skip verses 13 and 14.

And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, who founded Dallas Theological Seminary, was used to making a very important statement, I think. He said, “The cross settled the sin question, and now the question between the sinner and God is the Son question.”

The Bible teaches us that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross that He became the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.

Let me put it this way: By His sacrifice on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ removed sin as a judicial issue between man and God, and God will not send anybody to hell because of their sins.

You say, “Well, what are these books for?” The books are to give each and every individual that has ever lived on the face of the earth a fair day in court.

An enormous number of people have died thinking, “I’ve done enough good works to make it.” And God is not just gonna sit there and say, “Sorry. You didn’t.”

He’s gonna have the books opened, and He’s going to have the whole record unfolded for each individual so that each individual is confronted with the reality that the Bible has already confronted us with, that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight.

The sinner who stands before the Great White Throne Judgment will realize he has no claim on God on the basis of his works.

Notice, it doesn’t say “sins” here, even though evil works would involve sins. But the issue’s not sin at this point in the judgment. The issue is whether, what’s, what’s the guy done? Does he have a claim on God? Answer: No.

But what is the basis of his final disposition by the tribunal of God, by the Lord Jesus Christ? It’s the other book, the Book of Life.

And whoever’s name was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

Let me put it to you this way: Everybody who has eternal life is saved even if, at the moment, not all of their sins are forgiven.

And anybody who does not have eternal life is unsaved, and until they get eternal life by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s no chance that they can go to Heaven.

And if they stand before God at the final judgment and their names are not written in the Book of Life, they must be cast into the lake of fire.

The Lord Jesus Christ removed sin as a judicial issue between man and God. God is satisfied about the sin question as far as His judgment court is concerned.

The only question that remains is whether or not the individual has eternal life, and that is something God can give freely because of the price paid by the Lord Jesus Christ at the cross.

The Catholics have forgiveness so wrapped up into the warp and, warp and woof, I can’t say it at this hour of the night, it was so wrapped up in the fabric of their theology that if a person dies with unconfessed sin, they at least go to Limbo.

I remember someone telling me, “God can forgive every sin except suicide.” And many Catholics believe that you have to die with all your sins confessed, with every sin forgiven, and that if you don’t, you go to hell.

And the issue for them is not eternal life, but forgiveness of sins.

We had an elderly woman in our assembly for quite a while, and she used to be a Methodist before she got on to the wonderful truth of eternal security.

And she told me several times during my acquaintance with her, she says, “You know, when I was a young girl and,” she said, “I believed that you could lose your salvation,” she said, “at night,” she says, “I’d get down by my bed and I would confess all my sins, and then I would hop into my bed and pull my covers over my head and try not to think, for fear I would go to sleep having committed a sin in my mind that would send me to hell.”

That’s an awful way to live.

And she couldn’t say enough about the wonder of God’s grace that guarantees that at the moment of faith we have eternal life, and we are assured of Heaven.

This is an important distinction. I can’t emphasize it enough, and if we can grasp this distinction, I think we will be able to talk with greater intelligence about the experience of the saved in Acts.

I’m gonna show you the bottom of this overhead before I show you the top of it.

We want to distinguish three things here. Regeneration brings eternal life.

May I say, also, that I would certainly say that the flip side of the coin of regeneration is justification, which is a judicial clearing of the believer.

So there’s nothing to call him into court for. He doesn’t go into judgment to be judged whether or not he’s saved. He’s already been cleared by the, by the heavenly court. He’s justified. He’s regenerated. He has eternal life.

Forgiveness ends, I have put the word “experiential” in parentheses there. I’ll explain that in a moment, but for now it, it ends our estrangement from God, the barrier that sin creates between man and God in terms of man having harmony and fellowship with God.

And the baptism of the Spirit inducts us into the Body of Christ.

My feeling is that, on, that a vast majority of those who are confused by what the book of Acts has to say about the doctrine of salvation do not distinguish these three things adequately.

It is possible for a person to be regenerated and not have the Holy Spirit. And it, it’s not possible now the Holy Spirit, two different things. We have to keep that in mind.

And forgiveness is a third different thing.

And when we mix all these things in our mind inappropriately, then we find some of the material in Acts confusing, where I think it really ought not to be.

So let’s start with the experience of the Palestinian Jews in the book of Acts. Acts 2:38.

In response to the question, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter says, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Question: What does that verse say about eternal life?

“Nothing,” Dick says over here correctly. Nothing, nothing.

Now Peter has concluded his sermon by saying, “Be it known to the whole house of Israel that God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

And the people said, “We don’t believe it.” Well, they didn’t say that. They said, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” That implies clearly, I think, the acceptance of Peter’s proposition.

By the way, this idea is certainly not original with me. It goes back to Dr. H. A. Ironside. There’s a good discussion in his volume on Acts of the fact that these people already believed the message that Jesus was the Christ.

Now remember what the Gospel of John says: These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you might have life through His name.

And 1 John 5:1: Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

I say that the moment anyone in that audience believed the message that Peter preached, he had eternal life by faith.

And the one and only way that eternal life is ever bestowed is by faith.

You can’t find a verse anywhere that conditions eternal life on anything but faith, even in the book of Acts.

In chapter 13, “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”

You should be shaking your head. It doesn’t say that. “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Believed, that’s all, and all it ever is. That’s all it’ll ever be.

Eternal life is by faith and by faith alone, and it is always, pardon the expression, absolutely free. Absolutely free.

Now, what is Peter calling for? They say, “What should we, we’ve made a terrible mess of this. You have just persuaded us that the Man we crucified was the Messiah. What should we do?”

“Repent of your sinful behavior. Reverse course. Be baptized. If you are baptized, I will readmit you into fellowship. I will admit you into fellowship, and you shall also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

If somebody asks the question, “What does Acts 2:38 really say?” here’s what it really says, folks: Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit.

That’s what it says. That’s what it means.

You must repent, you must be baptized for the remission of sins, and you will get the Holy Spirit.

I think all the efforts to make this say something else are misguided in the extreme because they confuse the elements that are part of the total salvation package.

Yes.

Is it remission of sins or forgiveness of sins?

Remission and forgiveness are the same word. Yeah, that’s a good question, Judy. I was quoting, I think, the old King James has “remission,” does it not? But it’s the same word for “forgiveness.”

I should have been consistent here and used the word “forgiveness.”

So what is, what is really being taught here? Okay.

Well, they already have eternal life by faith. Now, they must turn around, they must repent of the evil that they had been doing.

Let me point out that one of the things that the Jews did was to reject the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus.

John baptized with the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And then Jesus also baptized, though He didn’t personally do it. His disciples did it.

And we’re talking about people in Palestine, in Judea, Jerusalem, who had been exposed to the baptizing ministry of John the Baptist, the preaching of Jesus Christ, which included baptizing His disciples, and God is saying, in effect, to them, “I want you to repent of your sinful ways. I want you to be baptized, and when you are baptized, I will admit you into fellowship with Me via the forgiveness of sins. And then, as people who are in fellowship with Me, I’m gonna give you the Holy Spirit. I’m gonna give you the Holy Spirit.”

It means exactly what it says.

And our problem with this is that we confuse regeneration, forgiveness, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We put them together.

No wonder we put ’em together, however, because we get ’em together.

So what about the experience of Gentiles and Jews outside the land of Palestine, as far as the book of Acts is concerned?

The classic case is the case of Cornelius in Acts 10:43 to 48.

Remember that Peter is preaching to Cornelius, and he says to Cornelius: “To Him give all the prophets witness that whoever believes in Him shall receive the remission of sins.” And while he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on those who heard.

And then Peter says: “Who can forbid baptism to these people who have received the Spirit the same as we have received it?”

Now notice that in this statement of it, faith is specified for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is not specified.

I’ve put it in parentheses here because it might or might not occur at this point.

Admission to fellowship is instant, breaking down of the barrier of estrangement. The gift of the Spirit is instant.

And here I want to distinguish, if I may, between what I have called “experiential forgiveness” and “in Christo forgiveness.”

There is a sense in which every believer who is in Christ has a total and full forgiveness. “Even as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

He has blessed us with every blessing in heavenly places in Christ, in whom we have redemption and the remission of sins.

Now forgiveness at that level is, to our positional relationship to God, is perfect, and our harmony with Him, positionally speaking, is perfect.

There can be no question, if I am dead and raised with Christ, if I’m seated with Christ in the heavenly places, can there be any question of a barrier between me and God? Of course not.

But this is positional truth. This is what we have by being baptized into the Body of Christ.

But on earth we experience forgiveness as we commit our sins. That’s a very important observation.

So when I get saved, like Cornelius, now we’re not talking about them for the moment, when I get saved, all of my sins, all of my past sins, are forgiven, every one of them. That’s experiential forgiveness.

But do I ever need forgiveness again? Yes, sir. Every day.

In fact, the Lord taught us, taught His disciples to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

And this is a daily prayer because it says, “Give us today our daily bread.”

1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now listen closely. We cannot get experiential forgiveness for sins we have not yet committed.

We get forgiveness of sins as we commit our sins and as we acknowledge them to God.

We get our first experience of forgiveness at the moment of conversion, just as Cornelius did. But we continue to get forgiveness for the rest of our life.

Does that threaten our salvation? Not if you remember the statements we made.

Forgiveness is not a judicial issue between man and God. It’s a personal issue. It’s a question of fellowship. It’s a question of communion. It’s a question of harmony with Him.

And what we have in the case of Cornelius, quite obviously, is what we would call the standard case for the Gentile world and also, apparently, for Jews outside the land of Palestine.

That is, at the moment of faith we get all these blessings together. We are regenerated. We are forgiven of all our past sins. We are forgiven of all sins totally in Christ because we’re also given the Holy Spirit and we are put, or baptized, into Christ.

We get all these things at once.

But the people the day of Pentecost did not. Like us, they got eternal life through faith. But before they could get the gift of the Spirit, before they could get “in Christo” forgiveness, they had to pass through the waters of baptism, God forgave their sins, then He bestowed the Holy Spirit upon them.

I say that’s what it says, and I also say it shouldn’t bother us.

God is, has the right to set the terms for forgiveness in every age, doesn’t He? In the Old Testament, He offered forgiveness when they brought sacrifices. Isn’t that right?

And when there wasn’t a sacrifice to offer, David just had to cry out for the mercy of God. “Thou dost not, desirest not sacrifice. Otherwise, I would bring it.” There’s no sacrifice for this sin, but there was a sacrifice to be offered for many sins.

God conditions fellowship in every age on His own terms.

So in the Old Testament, He conditioned fellowship on the sacrificial system. In the brief period of transition from the Old Testament period to the Church Age, He conditioned fellowship on repentance and baptism.

Today, He conditions our fellowship with Him on confession of sin.

That’s, God has a right to set down the terms of fellowship, bearing in mind, fellowship is not the removal of a penalty. It’s the removal of the estrangement between God and man. It’s what gets me back right with God.

Now, let me say this about the book of Acts: Many scholars, in the book of Acts, have noticed what they thought was an inconsistency on the part of Luke in describing things like baptism, the forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit.

They have pointed out, you know, in Acts 2 they had to be baptized before they could get the Holy Spirit, and in Acts 10 they got the Holy Spirit before they were baptized.

And if you’re familiar at all with liberal literature, they have various explanations of this, like: Luke contradicted himself, or Luke was using one source when he wrote Acts 2, and he was using another source when he wrote Acts 10.

That’s not it at all.

If we look carefully, we will discover that the only time these terms are articulated are in Jewish situations in and around Jerusalem, or in the land of Palestine and Samaria.

So Acts 22:16, this has to do with the Apostle Paul. Where was Paul saved? Certainly on the road to Damascus. Did he enter immediate fellowship with God? No.

He was led to Damascus. He was blind. He didn’t eat or drink for three days until Ananias came to him and said, “Brother Saul, arise,” Acts 22:16, “be baptized, and wash away your sins, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

You say, “That’s a problem. He was saved on the road to Damascus and didn’t get his sins forgiven till later.”

Not if you remember the two statements.

What saved Paul was the impartation of eternal life. Which got him into dynamic fellowship with Jesus Christ was his baptism and the forgiveness that followed it, and the gift of the Spirit is implied by the fact that he’s filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now folks, guess where Paul was when he told this story of his conversion, including the part in 22:16. Where was he? Was he on the Gentile mission field? Was he in Rome? He was in Jerusalem.

You read that account carefully, you will find he’s trying to identify with his Jewish audience, and he’s saying to them, “I used to be just like you, zealous for righteousness, and I thought I had to resist the Lord Jesus Christ. And I discovered that He was the Christ.”

And then he’s saying, in effect, “I had to be baptized to get into fellowship with, with Christ, and you’ll have to be baptized, too, to do the same.” Acts 2:38.

Acts 2:38 and Acts 22:16 are exactly the same thing, exactly the same thing.

Let me show you one more overhead, and then I’ll open it for the questions which I have a feeling will now deluge me.

We’ve pointed out that Paul’s career, as recorded in the book of Acts, begins with a sermon, just as Peter’s does, at least right up front, very close to the beginning of the career.

What we notice is that Peter, in his sermon, does speak of forgiveness.

Now to see Paul’s actual words, will you turn to Acts 13:38? Acts 13:38. Acts 13:38. This is his climax:

Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

The first clear reference in the book of Acts to justification, appropriately on the lips of the Apostle Paul.

What is the difference between these two speakers? Well, in my judgment, Peter speaks only of what we have called practical experiential forgiveness. Paul speaks generally of forgiveness, and I would suggest that he has both positional and practical in mind, and in addition he speaks of justification.

Do you notice that Paul says nothing here about water baptism? Peter says something about water baptism as a condition for this practical or experiential forgiveness. No mention of water baptism here.

In the speech in Acts, these are Greek words, but let me tell you what they say. Paul has a section where he kind of distinguishes between the “martyres,” the witnesses at Jerusalem, and the witness that he is giving in the synagogue in Antioch.

So here we have, in Acts 13:31 “whom,” referring to the Twelve, are witnesses to the people, pros ton laon, the people of Israel, and we, emphatic word “we” in Greek, meaning Paul and Barnabas, evangelize you.

The “you” is also emphatic. The Twelve bore testimony to the people of the land down in Jerusalem and in Judea. We are evangelizing you.

When the testimony was given to the people in the land, baptism was a condition. When it is given to you who are not in the land, it is not.

I would claim that Luke is exceedingly consistent with his treatment of all these issues here, and the problem that we have with it is that we collapse the distinction between the various terms involved.

We collapse the distinction between eternal life and forgiveness. We collapse the distinction between regeneration and the gift of the Spirit.

And once those distinctions are collapsed, our ability to discriminate what Luke is talking about is seriously impaired.

So what we’re talking about here is that for a brief period of time, apparently, those who had been under the direct ministry of John and Jesus were required to be baptized before they were admitted to fellowship with God or admitted to the Church by the baptism of the Spirit.

But this is a requirement that the book of Acts shows us existed only on the mission field, only off the mission field in the land of Palestine.

And the mission field conditions were the type of conditions expressed by Peter in the household of Cornelius and by Paul himself in the synagogue at Antioch.

How does this track practically? Well, we have a graduate of the seminary and a close friend of mine who has a pastorate in Marshall, Texas, and it’s a kind of a hotbed of the Church of Christ which, of course, insists that you have to be baptized to be saved.

And their two most favored verses, I better get this one back on because this is the one that we’ll probably have most of the questions about, their two most favorite verses are these two up here.

And this pastor begins to deal with them with this question: “Both of these verses are spoken to Jews in the land of Palestine. Can you show me a verse that requires baptism in the book of Acts that is spoken to Gentiles?”

They’re not used to getting that kind of response.

What they have done is to assume that Acts 2:38 and 22:16 are normative ways of salvation in their term “salvation,” that this is normative.

It has never occurred to them that these conditions are confined, even in the book of Acts, to the Jewish context in the land of Palestine.

And then the pastor can go on to say, “But in the household of Cornelius, all he was asked to do was believe, and he was forgiven, and the Holy Spirit fell on him, and then he was baptized. And when the Philippian jailer says, ‘What should I do to be saved?’ Paul didn’t say, ‘You have to be baptized.’ You’re camping on verses that belong distinctly and exclusively to the Jewish and Palestinian context.”

Now your questions. I’ve held you a little overtime. I apologize for that. This is a hard subject to discuss briefly, but maybe have some questions.

In 1 Peter, chapter 3:18-22, especially verse 21, it says, baptism now saves you.

Am I, if I remember correctly, First Peter was written to the Jews who had been scattered, right? Were they mostly, well maybe not. No.

No, I would say Peter, Peter writes to the Christians in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia and so on. He calls them “scattered” because they are now like a dispersion.

They weren’t necessarily Jews.

No, I don’t think so. And although that position has been maintained about First Peter, it has also been countered by the fact that the description of the, of their pre-conversion days doesn’t really suit the Jews. It suits Gentile pre-conversion conduct.

And in this passage we went through, this is a classic passage because this is the passage that also includes the descent into Hades. And later on it, the Gospel is preached to the dead, and so on.

But in my judgment, without getting into the details of this passage, the reference to baptism is not a reference to water baptism, but to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that the Ark, which is in the background here and the typology is a symbol of when the, Noah and his family went into the Ark, and the symbol of the incorporation of Christians into the Body of Christ, and so on.

But that’s a complicated passage. It would take the rest of the night to explain it.

No, that’s all right, but my answer would be, no reference here to water baptism, even though the flood obviously had water. And I think I could defend that if we had the time to, to do that.

I believe it’s First Corinthians 12 that talks about being baptized into one body, you know, at the moment of salvation. Well, why do you have the gift of Spirit after eternal life? Doesn’t that happen at the moment you were saved, or is that the indwelling, and is that the filling of the Spirit? Is that what you’re, I don’t understand the sequence you’re having.

Okay, this, this is the flaw, no doubt, in trying to diagram this. I mean to say, under here, see this solid line that goes up to the edge of the waters? I mean to say that all of this occurs for us at one and the same moment, but that up here, eternal life occurred on this side of the waters of baptism, and these other things occurred on the other side of the waters of baptism.

That’s a good question. I’m, I’m, I’m, maybe others were thinking in the same way. Yes.

I’m just curious. Cause ah back in college, I talked to a Jew who, two Jews. Is that still the way to?

Evidently not, and one of the features that is decisive here is the speech in the synagogue in Antioch. In other words, this is a Jewish audience, and there, not only is there no repetition of any of the special features of the Acts 2:38 appeal, but we have typical Pauline doctrine here.

We read Romans, I think it’s clear that Paul preached the same thing both to Jews and Gentiles.

So what I’m saying here is, and the book of Acts shows us that this distinction existed in the early Church, I think the, I think the evidence is overwhelming here. And it’s only by multiple theatrics that we can reduce this to equal this. They do not equal each other.

But what we must say is that as far as the book of Acts is concerned, these conditions do, are never repeated anywhere but in the land of Palestine.

Now, we’re not told precisely what the reason for this is, but one obvious, probable reason would be because the Palestinians had been personally engaged with the ministry of John and Jesus, both of which were baptizing ministries.

They, they were directly responsible for the crucifixion, and when you come to Acts 13, where Paul is speaking to the Jews in the synagogue, he doesn’t charge them with the crucifixion. He charges the people down in Judea and Jerusalem with that.

So I would say that there is no reason whatsoever to think that this special category applies to anybody who was not involved in the First Century in the rejection of Jesus in the land of Palestine.

I would see, therefore, that this is a, a purely transitional element that is accurately preserved for us, historically speaking, by the book of Acts.

But these conditions have passed away, and now what we preach to everybody, Jew and Gentile alike, is the experience of all these things at one time.

Coming back to Pam, this whole white line is a dot, and everybody receives all these benefits at the moment of faith, and then they can be baptized as a testimony of what has happened to them.

I hope you won’t forget Jan’s question from before.

Okay.

It was a good question that I forget. But anyway, she needed. But the other thing is.

Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry. We’ll get back to it.

I’ve heard this before and I think, I think that’s one thing that, you remember, that you made the point very strongly the last time I heard this was that forgiveness has to do with estrangement. And it seems to come out of Peter’s speech in 2:23, that of all the sins, you took the Son of God and crucified Him, that there was a very special estrangement between God and the Palestinian Jews. Yes that there never has been before, and never will be again, they crucified Christ.

That’s right. That’s very good. I think that’s exactly it, and it’s the Acts 13 speech that persuades me of this because he draws a sharp distinction.

If Paul had been inclined to blame the whole Jewish race for the crucifixion down there, he would not have drawn the kind of a distinction he draws there. So I think that’s right, right on.

Jan, I’m sorry. I forgot that you had raised a question. Would you do it again?

Well, well I feel you’ve answered it.

Oh, wonderful! I’m delighted. We’ll go to Dick’s question, then.

My question was Ed’s question.

Oh, okay.

Can you distill this down to being those people who had a connection with the rejection and crucifixion of Christ, the baptism then being an identification with Him in His death and resurrection, which you can’t impose on, on those receiving Christ outside of Judea?

Yeah, exactly. And the answer to that is, “Yes, you can do that.” And, and that’s what I was, that’s what Ed was, Ed was doing, basically. Yeah, exactly.

Well, I wish all questions were handled that easily.

Today if someone equates eternal life with baptism of the Holy Spirit, that may manifest through something supernatural, that would be, the problem with that would be because this is for the Jesus’ time of Christ, rather than today? In other words, that would be qualification of that passage because of.

It depends on what form this comes to you in. For instance, if the person says, “a person gets saved, and later he receives the baptism,” that’s one form of theology.

Or if he says, “If you’re really saved, you have the baptism, and then you can speak in, you ought to be able to speak in tongues,” that’s another form of theology.

And taking both of them, it seems to me that we can say to the first person that the Epistles show, first of all, of this, this is transitional, as we’ve already said.

But also the Epistles teach us that by one Spirit have we all been baptized into one body, and Romans 8 tells us that if any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he’s not His.

So the Spirit of Christ is the possession of everyone who believes, and we are baptized into the Body of Christ at the moment that we believe.

And this condition, as we’ve said, is transitional only and applicable only to the Palestinian situation.

Now if somebody says, “All right, I’ll buy that, but if you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit, you ought to be able to speak in tongues,” I will say to them, “The Bible does, teaches that not everybody is supposed to speak in tongues.”

And I take them to the verse that says, “Do all speak in tongues?” And the Greek, of course, indicates a negative answer is expected.

So the equation of receiving the Spirit with tongues speaking is a misunderstanding of the biblical doctrine of gifts.

It would depend, therefore, on, on just exactly what the theology of the person who brought this to me was.

Thanks, folks. You’ve been extremely patient. I’ve enjoyed it greatly.

Let’s close our study for the week in prayer.

Father, we thank You for this great and wonderful book that stands in the very middle of our New Testaments, and we’re painfully conscious that we’ve only scratched the barest surface of the, the gold mine of truth that is buried in this book.

Father, we just pray that each of us may be stimulated by the study that we’ve gone through to search the Scriptures in greater depth, to glean from the book of Acts the many truths that we haven’t even talked about in the week that has passed.

And we pray that we may be able to apply these truths to our own lives and have such a command of them that we may be able to instruct and help those who are confused.

We thank You for this church and its commitment to grace and its eagerness to know the Word. I pray Your blessing upon it in Christ’s name. Amen.