 Repent and be converted. Acts chapter 3 verse 19. Acts chapter 3 has some similarities with Acts chapter 2 where Peter is telling people about Jesus. He accuses the crowd of crucifying Jesus and tells them to repent. But the dialogue is quite different from chapter 2. And the last verse of chapter 3 certainly suggests an aspect of turning from iniquities as it says as part of the repentance so we need to take a look at that as well. But before we begin our study it's important to understand that the context of chapter 3 actually spans into chapter 4 as well. So we won't just look at chapter 3 in isolation. We'll consider chapter 4 as well although I won't have too much material on chapter 4 because Peter will be asked to justify what happened in chapter 3. So verse 19 of chapter 3 is where Peter preached repentance with some similarities to Acts 238 but it's worded quite differently and omits baptism in this case. Now we don't know exactly why Peter wouldn't tell this crowd to be baptized but in the events in chapter 4 he probably wouldn't have been able to baptize anyway. He wouldn't have had the chance because of those interruptions. Whereas he could have done after in chapter 2. So it reads repent you therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And just as a reminder as I often point out it doesn't say of your sins. So let's rewind and let's get some context behind this verse between verses 1 to 11 Peter healed a lame man that asked arms at the temple and the healed man praised God and the people that saw it were amazed at the miracle they had seen. So then in verse 12 we have Peter speaking again very similar to the previous chapter and he asks the people rhetorically and I'm paraphrasing somewhat but why are you amazed by this as if I'm doing it by my own power. And then in verses 13 to 15 just as Peter did in chapter 2 he is talking about God and the glorification of his son Jesus with the only reference to the crowd being that they denied him and delivered Jesus to be crucified. But then God has raised him back up from the dead and the apostles are the witnesses of this. Then in verse 16 it says and his name through faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know yes the faith which is by him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Now just like we saw in Acts chapter 2 we see what Peter is emphasizing in chapter 3. This is about Jesus it's not about you. Now verse 17 is very interesting because this is important in setting the context behind the motivation of this particular crowd and the reason why Peter tells them to repent he says and now brethren I want that through ignorance you did it as did also your rulers. Now you might ask well why is this important well it's because of the motivation behind their rejection of the Christ. Now we did touch on this a little bit in the previous video in chapter 2 so we'll draw a little bit more on the motivation in this chapter. Peter did accuse the crowd of being responsible for denying Jesus and having him put to death which it is sin we can easily demonstrate from the Old Testament law that murder is sin so it's false accusation etc because of this men will say well see you have to repent of your sins because Peter points out their sin of crucifying Jesus then says repent therefore you have to repent of your sins and there are other passages where they'll use similar arguments like for example in Acts chapter 17 verse 30 Paul says to repent and the context is idolatry and worshiping false gods and that they are too superstitious and obviously idolatry is a sin ergo repent of your sins but this argument falls down for several reasons especially when you bring in the christianese jargon that gets thrown around with discourses on repentance such as repentance is a lifestyle change you need to change your sinful lifestyle or he is commanding a lifestyle of turning from sin and serving god etc etc well reasons why this is stupid number one is that this is a one-time sin only it is not as if this particular crowd of people had a history of constantly crucifying christs over and over again this was a one time sin it wasn't a lifestyle of sin reason number two is that Peter is talking to a crowd of mixed individuals in a generalized way now we don't know for sure that every single person in this crowd personally participated in the accusations of Jesus that led to his crucifixion nor do we know if all the accusers were present in this crowd peter may be addressing them as the jewish people who were held collectively responsible for the crucifixion reason number three is that peter does not address any personal besetting sins of the flesh so-called if this crowd needed to turn from a sinful lifestyle then this message was not communicated effectively by peter and reason number four is that peter explained that they did it through ignorance there is no evidence that this crowd was a brutal violent civilization that loved violence and rejoiced in iniquity peter will even call them children of the prophets in a later verse there is no evidence that they had a sinful lifestyle and they did this one sin through ignorance this is very similar to act 17 that it's their ignorance that they have to repent of what you don't know or what you don't understand and reason number five and this is important the sin of murder or false accusation is not what's being emphasized here but rather the person to whom they did it when they tell you that this passage is all about turning from your sins they're emphasizing moral statutes and the law of moses and they're making it all about the actions the works or the sin itself but this is not what peter was getting at here he could have referenced the law of moses or he could have quoted some of the things that jesus said like for example jesus said if you hate your brother you're a murderer and john could have butted in here saying do you not know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him but peter didn't address the moral ramifications of murder or having a sinful lifestyle rather he was getting at the person that they did it to the holy one the son of god who although they had him crucified god has raised him up from the dead which we the apostles have witnessed and i mean we as in in this story right here and you the crowd even if you didn't witness his resurrection you have witnessed the miracle taking place in the temple which was performed by the people who were witnesses to his resurrection and so this is the ignorance of this crowd that needs to be exposed and repented of so it wasn't about the sin itself it it wasn't about the action or the of the murder or the the law of moses being broken it was about the person to who they actually did it to and the motivation behind it which was their ignorance towards this person so this really leads us to a very similar theme to what we saw in acts chapter two this is about jesus not about you this is not about you turning your lifestyle around it is not about you bringing your fruits before god to justify your salvation it's about jesus it's about who he is and what he has done so let's return to the passage then peter points out that christ should suffer these things to fulfill scripture in verse 18 so all of the things prophesied by the prophets point to this person because this is about jesus not about you and so we get to the key verse then in question in verse 19 repent to you therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the lord now people like ray comfort will say that this is sins plural so the context of repentance in this verse is about sins but this is not correct in actuality it is the blotting out of sins that is the context of repentance not the doing of sins so this verse leads us to a few questions like what does it mean to be converted or what are the times of refreshing that shall come from the presence of the lord what is that about well i think it helps just to carry on reading just a little bit more and we'll get some more context in verses 2021 peter goes on to say and he shall send jesus christ which was before preached on to you whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things which god has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began so then these two next verses give us some idea as to what peter was getting at when he said that the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the lord jesus had resurrected back to earth by the time earth peter had said these things but then as obviously he's also ascended into heaven he didn't stay on the earth right so the heaven must receive him and that will be for an indeterminate amount of time until christ's return of which we don't know the day or the hour so while other verses such as repent to be baptized for the remission of sins in the previous chapter suggest that forgiveness of sins is effective more or less immediately when somebody converts here peter appears to be referring to a future event where by the blotting of sins is effectual when it ties in with the restitution of all things so what is that about well we just need to spend a few minutes digressing from ax chapter three to explain this point there are a handful of references in the old testament about blotting out with a small few of these verses referring to sin directly for example psalm 51 verses one and nine there are a handful of verses in the new testament most of them in revelation but none of them are about sin particularly other than here in ax 319 there is some potential to confuse the concept here because typically in english at least when we think of blotting we think of patches of ink spilled on a page but if you look at how the hebrew and the greek are translated across many verses in the bible you would think that a more appropriate term is wipe away and some bible translations will instead use that term for certain verses while wiping away is arguably more literal and would be appropriate for some types of erasure such as if you were writing on a rock with chalk remember that concerning biblical stories using some sort of ink on a scroll or in some cases etching stone tablets was the most common method of writing and you can't technically wipe away this kind of writing so blotting out is the only way you can erase writing of this kind so although the method seemed contradictory the concept is still the same if a written piece of information was either blotted out i.e redacted or wiped away i.e erased although the mechanism is different the outcome is the same the written record is no longer legible if you look up the verses about blotting out you will notice a dichotomy between a good type of blotting out and a bad type of blotting out by blotting out i'm referring to the verses specifically in the king james bible that use this term in english we're not going to look at every single variation of the hebra word which may be translated in other ways in some cases so in terms of a bad kind of blotting out we have for example a person being blotted out of god's book and that's in exodus 32 32 and 33 or you have people's name or remembrance being blotted out from under heaven for example deuteronomy 9 14 25 19 and 29 20 and second kings 14 27 and arguably these kind of verses that say under heaven refer more to people living on the earth rather than something happening in heaven so they are blotted out or not from earthly existence essentially and then you also have a person's name being blotted out from the book of life for example psalm 69 28 which is very similar to the first point from exodus except that this book has a particular name that the book of life and so then we have the good type of blotting out for example blotting out sin and transgression and equity for example psalm 51 1 and 9 as we also see here in acts 3 19 we have been dead in our sins we have been forgiven of old trespassers and the handwriting or ordinances against us are blotted out and nailed to his cross as it says in colossians 2 13 and 14 and then of course you have not been blotted out from the book of life for example revelation 3 5 now for the sake of time we can't get too deep into that concept in this video because it would just drift too far from acts chapter 3 but we basically have two different kinds of of books here or two different books at least there is a book of life or in other words a list of names among the living the bible describes this almost as if it is a book of census records almost there is a positive connotation associated with one's name being written in the book of life the book of life arguably has more heavenly connotations but when the Old Testament describes people's names being blotted out from under heaven it appears to mean to refer to the erasure of nations or persons from existence on the earth so the book of life or names under heaven is associated with remembrance that is to remember those who are alive and not forget them in a carnal sense to cease to be alive or to cease to exist is to have one's name forgotten from under heaven on the other hand there is implied a written record of sins committed although no book is directly named though so this is very similar to the idea of a criminal record there is a positive connotation associated with one's sins being blotted out implying that they were recorded somewhere but then erased and then you also have the books of the law which are described as curses that lie upon the man who does not follow them for example in Deuteronomy 27 26 and 29 20 and Galatians 3 10 so these books are also associated with remembrance except that they are remembrance of deeds committed rather than the name of the person in a carnal sense this is a list of curses of people who are worthy of death rather than a list of living names so at this point you're probably now thinking about the elephant in the room what about Revelation chapter 20 when all men both small and great are judged according to books or written accounts let's take a look in Revelation 20 verses 12 to 15 it says and I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire this is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire now unbelievably as crazy and ridiculous as this might sound I've literally heard these work salvation sinless perfectionist types use that passage in Revelation 20 and say that saved Christians are going to be judged by their works according to this chapter but those of you that actually have the Holy Spirit can instantly discern how ridiculous absurd this is it says the dead were judged according to their works those not written in the book of life were cast into the fire those who were written in the book of life were not judged according to their works in this chapter so according to Revelation 20 there are two sets of books the first is the book of life and this appears to be a single book just the book of life and then we have a collection of books which don't have particular names but they're the books of works basically so people are going to be judged in one of two ways judged by the remembrance of their name in the book of life or judged by the record of their works so in essence those who have forgiveness will find that at the judgment the record of their sins will be blotted out there will be no sins held against them because the records against them cannot be found blessed is he to whom the Lord will not impute sin they also retain their name in the book of life so that they will be written and remembered in heaven and this idea of being written down or being remembered is a concept that we see elsewhere in the bible for example in Luke 10 20 Jesus said notwithstanding in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject onto you but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven later on in Luke in 2342 we have the thief on the cross that he said to Jesus remember me and more specifically when you come into your kingdom remember me in you know in that time so the thief on the cross knew that Jesus would come into his kingdom irrespective of his crucifixion right there and he only appealed to Jesus to remember him it's interesting that he doesn't actually ask him to save him or forgive him particularly just remember me and then we have the famous three verses in Matthew 7 that we as grace believers often use against the legalists but these same legalists like to use this same passage against us interestingly many will brag onto Jesus about their works but Jesus will have no knowledge of them he said I never knew them or in other words he won't remember them because their names are not written in the book where Jesus recollects those he knew but they work iniquity their sins will still be remembered because their iniquities have not been blotted out so that's all Jesus knows about them he doesn't know them according to the book of life he can only judge them according to the books of works for which their iniquities are still written down and then finally that last verse that I mentioned earlier from Colossians 2 where it says buried with him in baptism wherein you are also risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who has raised him from the dead and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh he has quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespassers blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his cross so notice you are forgiven of trespassers and if you remember when we looked at Acts chapter 2 we saw that it was repentance for the remission of all the forgiveness of sins and the way that forgiveness was manifest is by blotting out the list of ordinances or laws that were against us so the law that condemns us for all of our sins and that's Acts chapter 3 language blotting out our sins and this is all through the faith of the operation of God who raised Christ up from the dead and Peter was talking about the resurrection of Jesus in Acts chapter 2 and 3 so you see how the Bible is so consistent here Acts chapter 3 is perfectly consistent with Colossians 2 and Acts chapter 2 it is the operation of God the raising of Jesus from the dead that leads to our sins being blotted out it has nothing to do with our self correction or adherence to the law henceforth there is no mixing the book of life with the book of ordinances against us to repent then according to Acts chapter 3 is to turn towards the operation of God the raising of Christ from the dead that our sins may be blotted out there is no evidence of a lifestyle change that has occurred thus far nor has the sinful lifestyle of the audience been discussed thus far the only sin mentioned was a one-time sin of crucifying Jesus but the issue is the person they did it to and their ignorance rather than the act itself but there's a bit more that we can unravel from chapter 3 and a little bit from force let's keep going so we carry on reading in verses 22 to 23 for Moses truly said unto the fathers a prophet shall the Lord your God raise upon to you of your brethren like unto me him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you and it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people carry on in verse 24 yes and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after as many as have spoken have likewise foretold of these days so once again we see that Peter is pointing us to Jesus this is not about you here's the one whom the prophets foretold about and was manifest in these last times he was the audience's brethren in the flesh at least and they would fit into one of two categories you will hear him in all things whatsoever he shall say on to you or the soul that shall not hear him shall be destroyed from among the people reading on in verse 25 then you are the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God has made with our fathers saying unto Abraham and in your seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed so Peter is getting at the fact that the people he's speaking to here they are the children of the prophets obviously they are the physical descendants that he's talking to here because they're at the temple so they're still at Jerusalem now perhaps we don't get this straight away in Acts chapter 3 it's perhaps not until we get to Paul's writings particularly in Romans 9 where he'll explain that the true children of the prophets are children by faith not the children of the flesh those who have been called by the grace of God and have their faith that's in Christ that's been preached not those who have their genealogy linked Abraham and this is going to be the the New Testament mindset that the Jews are going to have to get into and move away from their flesh mindset of Abraham in the Old Testament but Acts chapter 3 is a little bit early for that yet remember as Paul himself later says that it's to the Jew first then to the Greek so we've talked about this earlier in the series that most Jews rejected Jesus they rejected John the Baptist they rejected the disciples but there were some Jews who would be receptive to the gospel it's just that some of them for whatever reason weren't converted by Jesus or during Jesus time but they would be converted here by the disciples or apostles perhaps this was so that the disciples could fulfill what Jesus said to them prior to his death that they would go on to do greater works than these now here is another key verse in verse 26 onto you first God having raised up his son Jesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquity so this is a key verse that's used to support the repent of sins for salvation idea some of you may be familiar with my recent community post about Ray Comfort commenting on the documentary and he used this first to prove that you have to turn from your sins to be safe but let's take a closer look at what it actually says and how Acts chapter 3 even defines it so first to debunk the you must repent of your sins nonsense who is doing the turning here it says God having raised up his son Jesus sent him to bless you in turning everyone away from your iniquities so this is very similar to what we've seen previously in the series when Jesus said I came to call the sinners to repentance or the joy in heaven over one sinner that repents Jesus is doing the actual thing he's doing the work he's doing the finding he's doing the action the sinner himself isn't actually doing anything technically your typical lordship probably won't argue against this because they'll say something like well of course it's Jesus that is turning you from your sins he helps you to turn from your sins he gives you the conviction of your sin etc etc but you can see quite clearly what they're doing here they are giving Jesus the lip service for doing the work that causes your repentance from sin but subtly it still depends on your turning from sin you need to change your behavior you need to turn from sins you need to feel convicted express your brokenness over sin with pig squeals so you can see why people get so confused by this now they might respond to that and say well so what what's wrong with that why wouldn't you give Jesus the praise why couldn't you turn from your sins if he is changing you well for a start it's confusing it confuses people but the main reason it's so nonsensical is because they've turned this verse into a henceforth commandment but it's not actually a commandment this is not a commandment this is an observation it states that God has done something and that already happened it's in the past tense the listeners are not being told to do anything so with those two things that we've seen so far that God is doing the action and in fact already did the action people themselves did nothing it's ridiculous then to use that verse to teach turn from your sins to be saved but then some of you will be wondering rightly so what exactly does verse 26 mean then how did they turn from their iniquities exactly as when we studied chapter two in the previous video the only iniquity that is directly held against these listeners is the crucifixion of Jesus with more emphasis being placed on the person they did it to rather than the itself there is no lifestyle of sin being discussed here I'm sorry I keep repeating this but I'm trying to drill in this point furthermore due to the people's amazement at the earlier miracle we assume therefore that this was the first time Peter interacted with this specific group of people directly no evidence is given that those present previously knew Peter or John Peter has not sent these people away to first go clean up their life repent of their sins first and then come back and convert they are told there and then to repent and be converted Peter has no way of assessing whether a lifestyle change took place as with Acts chapter two and as with John's baptism the people simply converted straight away no attitude change or lifestyle change was evident therefore if God already did the action in verse 26 it was already complete there is no evidence of a lifestyle change here conversion was offered immediately then verse 26 simply cannot be interpreted to mean repenting of sin or a lifestyle change from sin or in attitude change about sin this is a completely nonsensical interpretation so what does it mean then well reminder first of all remember these are the physical descendants of the prophets of Abraham these prophets were pointing to the present times of Christ the revealed holy one this group either directly or indirectly by affiliation crucified the Christ nevertheless his salvation and forgiveness of sins is being offered to this group through Peter's preaching it is God that sent Jesus to bless them any salvation or forgiveness offered is entirely the work of God with no behavioral change made evident we know from cross referencing this passage with elsewhere in the bible particularly Romans that salvation would be offered to both the Jews and the Gentiles or the Greeks and the Jews cannot use their genealogy to count towards their righteousness but the gospel goes out to the Jews first as it is here so God blessed them by turning every one of them away from their iniquities assuming they repent i.e. they receive Peter's preaching and acknowledge Jesus the holy one they will be delivered from the condemnation of sin that applies to the earthly Israel who rejects Jesus and consequently their sins will be blotted out when when Christ comes in judgment along with all others who belong to Christ and were saved i mean heaven forbid we actually study a passage in its intended context rather than just quote mining verses from random parts of the bible to make a completely different point than what the speaker was talking about like satan did when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness now the context continues in chapter four and the Sadducees are grieved because Peter was preaching Jesus so notice that they weren't grieved because Peter was preaching a hellfire message against sin they were grieved that he was preaching Jesus in the resurrection you go to verses three and four and Peter and John are arrested and the author of Acts tells us that the people heard the word and believed he doesn't tell us whether they turned from their sins or no once again as we keep seeing in this series repentance for salvation always points to the faith not lifestyle changes and works if these people did turn from their sins and have a changed lifestyle from their sins the writer of acts apparently considered it so not worthy to record we won't continue our study for the sake of time but carry on reading Acts chapter four and you will see that the rulers asked by what power the disciples were preaching and doing miracles in verse seven they didn't ask by what law do you condemn our sins Peter preached Christ the name that brings salvation in verse 10 didn't preach turning from sin and the rulers or elders don't want to stop their preaching hellfire and damnation against sin they couldn't deny the miracle that they had seen but they didn't want the name being preached verses 16 to 18 so that's what they didn't like being preached the name it wasn't the hellfire preaching against sin I'll say it again heaven forbid we actually study a passage in its context rather than just quote mining verses like satan did when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness this is no nonsense Christianity reminding you that nowhere in the Bible does it say repent of your sins to be saved