The Prince of Life

Acts 3:13-15 “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.  But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.”

This is Peter explaining people in the temple on how their deeds were towards Jesus. It is important for us to understand that we took the same stand as the Jews and have to repent. Jesus was actually glorified after his ascension based on John 7:39 but the order Peter mentions is that the Jesus who was glorified was denied at Pilate’s place. This is a confirmation to us that it is intended to us and not Jews alone.

 Peter starts the dialog saying that it is the same God who we have been worshipping and the God who always provides us goodness had a very wise plan in glorifying Jesus. God’s expectation is that we should see the glory of Jesus and follow Him. As per John 1:14, the early apostles saw the glory and then they could claim that Jesus has only revealed God (verse 18). God was revealed only through Jesus and not by any other means. The original translations refer Jesus as “the only begotten God” which clearly point at Christ’s divinity. The glory of Christ as in Revelation 1:12-16 should be understood by us. He is holy and clean in perfect white but fearful in the eyes. He stands firm in His position with the strongest voice. The mouth disciplines everybody without partialities and He is the brightest which no naked eyes can see. This image of Christ should be conceived by us and this is the glorified Jesus.

The verses say that we denied Jesus in Pilate’s presence meaning that we denied the glorified Jesus in front of the world and Satan.  The world and Satan are already defeated at the cross. They tempt us and torment us but in the end they have to allow you to go to Christ. It is our choice clearly that we chose Barabbas instead of Christ. The verse says that we delivered Him up for murder. We knew that He is offended and still as per Hebrews 6:6, for our selfishness we crucify Him.

Now, the important problem is that Jesus is holy and just. We have hardships in living with a holy and just one. Living and accepting a sinner is easy to us because we are heroes there. We do not desire the presence of holiness as we love darkness as in John 3:19. If we love light we would want to be like Jesus. But we have trouble tolerating Jesus and his perfection as it humbles us. Jesus clearly wants us to come to Him and accept Him. It is not His will that we deny Him. In John 7 we read the feast where Jesus was hesitant to go public on the ministry but in a few days, he starts teaching. In the end of the feast, He could not hold His love towards us and so, stood up and cried in a crowd asking people to believe in Him.

Our foolishness is displayed when we choose to live with a murderer and thief. Barabbas, when he is freed, the people know that their lives are at stake. We know that one lie, a vulgar word or a dirty video is fatal and can consume our entire lives, but still we choose to do that just because holiness does not excite us, but sin does. We need to understand the glory of God and His magnificence to make right choices in life.

Jesus being the prince of peace explains that he could give us life. Believing in Him as the messiah or the redeemer makes us perfect and strong. The crippled person was outside the gates being handicapped. But the name of Jesus, through faith of Peter and John changed him with sound health. The call to the men who crucified Jesus is (vs 19,20) that if we repent, Christ, the prince of life will come to us and give us a brand new clean life. This life will flow not just inside our hearts but outside so that others would receive Christ through us.

There are three statements Peter makes in order to establish Jesus with the Jews in Chapters 2,3,4 and these incidents happened at the street, the temple and then with the high priest and other important leaders. In the first Peter says that Jesus was attested by God through miracles and then in the temple Peter mentions Jesus as the prince of life. The next chapter Christ is described as the corner stone. This clear understanding of Christ will help us live. We should see Christ as a successful person to follow, then the source of life and then the foundation of our life.

Amen.