29.07 | The Message
Acts 3
‘But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus…”
Acts 3:18-20
I’ve made a little list in my Bible, at the beginning of the book of Acts.
It lists all the places in Acts where the Good News of Jesus is preached. It comes from a shamelessly nerdy effort to analyse the message that is preached throughout Acts, as the core elements of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The second (after Peter’s Pentecost teaching) on this list is found today.
It goes like this:
His Christ would suffer …[therefore] Repent … that your sins may be blotted out … times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord … He may send the Christ.
Cross. Repent. Blotted out. Refreshing. Return.
Christian discipleship takes us deeper and deeper into these themes. It is the message that we were saved into, and yet it is also so much the very message that we live out from each and every day. These are the truths that establish and form and send us. To know them is to more greatly know reality.
His Christ would suffer. The message is rooted in the Cross, because the Cross initiated this new and final stage of history. The Cross is our point of reconciliation with the Father, and the removal of all of our shame. It is the moment of the defeat of those suffocating powers under which humanity was enslaved—the devil, sin, and death. The suffering of Jesus inaugurates a new moment in history, where the estranged and enslaved become the reconciled and redeemed.
Repent. The literal meaning of ‘repent’ is a change of mind or purpose. It is the reorientation of a life into a new direction. It is the honest recognition that a life without God is universally headed into destruction, and yet a life lived towards God yields the life of the inbreaking age. Repenting is an act of the will, decisively rejecting the things of death and the life apart from God, and embracing Him as our fullness and His purposes as our vocation.
Blotted out. The Greek word is exaleiphō, which describes the total erasure of something—the whitewashing of a wall, or the obliteration of a legal document held against you. It’s made up of two words, ek (meaning ‘wholly out from’) and aleiphō. Aleiphō means ‘to smear’, or more commonly in the New Testament, to anoint. This erasure of sin is the necessary removal of our mistakes and shame, readying us for the anointing of the Spirit. Exaleiphō is the same word that is used in Revelation 7:17 and 21:4, where God wipes away every tear from our eyes. The Gospel of Jesus is this: it is the wiping away of the tear stains of sin and pain from our lives, readying us for the renewing anointing of God’s own fresh anointing upon us.
Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Again, a little Greek helps us. Refreshing comes from the Greek word anapsuxis. It describes the ability to breathe easily again. Anapsuxis infers that we had been breathing the toxic air of this age, and yet the Lord will send upon us the fresh oxygen of the inbreaking age, through the breath of His own Spirit, to enable us to breathe and thrive and live again. It is this breath of God that enables the filling of our soul again with the very atmosphere of heaven.
That He may send the Christ. For inasmuch as Jesus came and announced His inbreaking Kingdom, gaining the victory that we will live within for all eternity at the Cross, so too now we await His Second Coming. For while the first coming initiated this final age of the earth, it will be the Second Coming that brings to fulfilment every promise of the prophets with cosmic impact.
Cross. Repent. Blotted out. Refreshing. Return.
Such is our reality. And such is our message.
Reflect:
Cross. Repent. Blotted out. Refreshing. Return.
Which aspect of this new reality do I need most to lean into today?
Pray:
Father,
There’s a danger for me,
That your Gospel
Fades into the background of my thoughts,
And, in doing so,
Depletes:
From the truths of breathtaking brilliance,
To cheap clichés and empty words—
Finding themselves disconnected from the invasion of my heart.
But Father,
Today,
Would you embed this message afresh in me.
Root me in truth,
That my life may be lived,
From the power of His Cross;
In the renewal of my mind and purpose;
In the wiping away of my pain and shame;
In the fresh oxygen of your Spirit re-awakening every part of my soul;
And in continual anticipation of my coming King.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Jeremiah 23-24 | Psalm 91