Replies

From: Acts 13:26-33

Preaching in the Synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia (Continuation)

(Paul said to the Jews,) [26] “Brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and those
among you that fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. [27]
For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize
him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every sabbath,
fulfilled these by condemning him. [28] Though they could charge him with nothing
deserving death, yet they asked Pilate to have him killed. [29] And when they had
fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him
in a tomb. [30] But God raised him from the dead; [31] and for many days he ap-
peared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now
his witnesses to the people. [32] And we bring you the good news that what God
had promised to the fathers, [33] this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising
Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

16-41. Paul’s address here is an excellent example of the way he used to present
the Gospel to a mixed congregation of Jews and proselytes. He lists the benefits
conferred by God on the chosen people from Abraham down to John the Baptism
(verses 16-25); he then shows how all the messianic prophecies were fulfilled in
Jesus (verses 26-37), and, by way of conclusion, states that justification comes
about through faith in Jesus, who died and then rose from the dead (verse 38-41).

This address contains all the main themes of apostolic preaching, that is, God’s
saving initiative in the history of Israel (verses 17-22); reference to the Precursor
(verses 24-25); the proclamation of the Gospel or “kerygma” in the proper sense
(verses 26b-31a); mention of Jerusalem (verse 31b); arguments from Sacred
Scripture (verses 33-37), complementing apostolic teaching and tradition (verses
38-39); and a final exhortation, eschatological in character, announcing the future
(verses 40-41). In many respects this address is like those of St. Peter (cf. 2:14ff;
3:12ff), especially where it proclaims Jesus as Messiah and in its many quota-
tions from Sacred Scripture, chosen to show that the decisive event of the Resur-
rection confirms Christ’s divinity.

Paul gives a general outline of salvation history and then locates Jesus in it as
the expected Messiah, the point at which all the various strands in that history
meet and all God’s promises are fulfilled. He shows that all the steps which lead
up to Jesus Christ, even the stage of John the Baptist, are just points on a route.
Earlier, provisional elements must now, in Christ, give way to a new, definitive
situation.

“You that fear God” (verse 26): see the notes on Acts 2:5-11 and 10:2).

28. Paul does not back off from telling his Jewish listeners about the cross, the
painful death freely undergone by the innocent Jesus. They naturally find it shoc-
king and hurtful, but it is true and it is what brings salvation. “When I came to
you, brethren,” he says on another occasion, “I did not come proclaiming to you
the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing a-
mong you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:1f).

Sometimes human logic cannot understand how Jesus could have died in this
way. But the very fact that he did is evidence of the divine character of the Gos-
pel and supports belief in the Christian faith. With the help of grace man can in
some way understand the Lord making Himself “obedient unto death, even death
on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). He can discover some of the reasons why God de-
cided on this superabundant way of redeeming man. “It was very fitting,” St. Tho-
mas Aquinas writes, “that Christ should die on a cross. First, to give an example
of virtue. [...] Also, because this kind of death was the one most suited to ato-
ning for the sin of the first man.... It was fitting for Christ, in order to make up for
that fault, to allow Himself to be nailed to the wood, as if to restore what Adam
had snatched away. [...] Also, because by dying on the cross Jesus prepares
us for our ascent into heaven. [...] And because it also was fitting for the univer-
sal salvation of the entire world” (”Summa Theologiae”, III, q. 46, a. 4).

Through Christ’s death on the cross we can see how much God loved us and
consequently we can feel moved to love Him with our whole heart and with all
our strength. Only the cross of our Lord, an inexhaustible source of grace, can
make us holy.

29-31. The empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus to His disciples
are the basis of the Church’s testimony to the resurrection of the Lord, and they
demonstrate that He did truly rise. Jesus predicted that He would rise on the
third day after His death (cf. Matthew 12:40; 16-21; 17:22; John 2:19). Faith in
the Resurrection is supported by the fact of the empty tomb (because it was im-
possible for our Lord’s body to be stolen) and by his many appearances, during
which he conversed with his disciples, allowed them to touch Him, and ate with
them (cf. Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20-21). In his First Letter to the
Corinthians (15:3-6) Paul says that “[what I preached was] that Christ died for
our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was
raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that He appeared
to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred bre-
thren.”

32-37. Paul gives three pertinent quotations from Scriptures—Psalm 2:7 (”Thou
art my Son”), Isaiah 55:3 (”I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David”)
and Psalm 16:10 (”thy Holy One”). All refer to aspects of the Lord’s Resurrection.
Taken together, they help support and interpret one another, and to someone fa-
miliar with the Bible and with what ways of interpreting it then current they reveal
the full meaning of the main texts concerning the promises made to David. Paul’s
interpretation of Psalm 2 and 16 gets beneath the surface meaning of the texts
and shows them to refer to the messianic king who, since He is born of God,
will never experience the corruption of the grave.

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.