Bible Study Series: Acts 2:37-41. It was during Pentecost. Many pilgrims visited the holy city. We must respond to the gospel of the resurrection.
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn. Let’s learn together and apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click on this link:
At the link to the original post, next, I write more commentary and dig a little deeper into the Greek. I also offer a section titled Observations for Discipleship at the end. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided in the commentary section for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Acts 2:37-41
37 When they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do men, brothers?” 38 Peter replied to them, “Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the free gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and your descendants and all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to himself.”
40 With many other reasoned arguments he powerfully warned and pleaded with them: “Be saved from this twisted generation!”
41 And so those receiving his argument were baptized, and on that day about three thousand souls were being added. (Acts 2:37-41)
Comments:
37:
“cut”: it means “to touch with a sharp point, to prick, spur, pierce.”
“the other apostles”: it is good to read that the other apostles were standing there. They must have been quite a sight. It is good to stand in unity. Did they connect that number twelve related to the twelve tribes? Did the people know that the twelve would sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes (Matt. 19:28)? No one could know that the twelve foundation stones of the New Jerusalem would bear their names until John got this revelation (Rev. 21:14) or unless Jesus had told them privately and unrecorded.
38:
“repent”: it is the verb metanoeō (pronounced meh-tah-noh-eh-oh), and “to repent” literally means “changed mind.” And it goes deeper than mental assent or agreement. Another word for repent is the Greek stem streph– (including the prefixes ana-, epi-, and hupo-), which means physically “to turn” (see Luke 2:20, 43, 45). That reality-concept is all about new life. One turns around 180 degrees, going from the direction of death to the new direction of life.
See my post:
“Baptized in the name of Jesus Christ”: some Pentecostal pastors claim this verse to believe in Jesus alone, and the Father and Spirit are some sort of manifestation of him. So they should be baptized only in Jesus’s name. Error. Rather, he is simply highlighting Jesus’s vindication in the face of his Jewish persecutors. IYou put him to death in your ignorance, when you thought you were doing God a favor? Well, God raised him from the dead. Now be baptized in his name!
In Israel at time, in and around Jerusalem, baths dotted the landscape, where people washed. No doubt the new converts were baptized there, immediately. They were baptizing extra-devout Jews, many of whom were pilgrims. They already knew about Elohim and YHWH (whom they reverently called the Name). Would Peter have said, “Be baptized in the name of Elohim!”? Or baptized in the Name!”? They already knew that. Instead, Peter preached boldly the name of Jesus, the “new sheriff” in town, the new path of salvation. Other baptisms in the name of the God of Israel, as they understood the term, were inadequate. Now believers must confess the name of Jesus publicly. No doubt they did this, as they were being baptized (Bock, p. 143).
Let’s look at other situations of people being baptized in the name of Jesus.
Acts 8:12-16 says that the Samaritans believed Philip’s preaching the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus, and they were baptized simply (or only) “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” The reason for their being baptized in this name only? They too were in the confines of Israel, and they already knew about Elohim or YHWH (or the Name, as they reverently substituted it for the divine name). Philip was emboldened to proclaim the name of Jesus, the new Savior, the new and fuller revelation about God and the way of salvation. They were to be baptized in his name, and not merely the name of Elohim or the Name. Then they were immersed or baptized in the Spirit.
Acts 10:48 says that Peter ordered God-fearing Gentile Cornelius and his household to be baptized “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Peter says nothing about Elohim or the Name. Cornelius already knew about his God. Instead, Peter had to drive home the point that Jesus was the only and new way of salvation.
Acts 19:1-5 teaches us that Ephesian disciples had been baptized by John presumably in the name of Elohim or the Name or the God of Judaism. Paul saw this as incomplete. There was a new Savior, the Messiah, and his name is Jesus. These disciples had to be baptized “in name of the Lord Jesus.”
Here are passages in which people were baptized, but not mentioning any name, but they probably were baptized in the name of Jesus.
Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:38)
Saul (Acts 9:18)
Lydia and her household and friends (Acts 16:15)
Philippian jailer and his household (Acts 16:33)
Crispus the synagogue leader, his household, and many Corinthians (Acts 18:8)
Crispus the synagogue leader, his household, and many Corinthians (Acts 18:8)
So what is the point? We must not make a massive doctrine out of being baptized in the name of Jesus (only). These people were not going to be baptized in the name of Elohim or the Name (YHWH) or certainly not in the name of a pagan deity. Jesus was the newest, only and fuller Savior. Salvation was through him alone. The “Jesus only” believers today are shortsighted because they fail to understand the cultural contexts.
“name”: for this noun, see Acts 2:21 for a closer look.
“for”: it could be translated as “with respect to” or “with reference to.” Repentance first. Water baptism second. Salvation goes beyond initial justification or initially being declared righteous. It involves one’s whole life. And being water-baptized for the forgiveness of sins means that water symbolically washes away one’s sins.
See my post about water baptism:
“forgiveness”: it comes from the Greek noun, which means “release” or “cancellation” or “pardon” or “forgiveness.” Let’s look at a more formal definition of its verb. BDAG a Greek lexicon which many consider to be authoritative, defines it with the basic meaning of letting go: (1) “dismiss or release someone or something from a place or one’s presence, let go, send away”; (2) “to release from legal or moral obligations or consequence, cancel, remit, pardon”; (3) “to move away with implication of causing a separation, leave, depart”; (4) “to leave something continue or remain in its place … let someone have something” (Matt. 4:20; 5:24; 22:22; Mark 1:18; Luke 10:30; John 14:18); (5) “leave it to someone to do something, let, let go, allow, tolerate.” The Shorter Lexicon adds “forgive.” In sum, God lets go, dismisses, releases, sends away, cancels, pardons, and forgives our sins. His work is full and final. Don’t go backwards or dwell on it.
Please read these verses for how forgiving God is:
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Ps. 103:10-12, ESV)
And these great verses are from Micah:
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
19 He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea. (Mic. 7:18-19, ESV)
Please see my post about forgiveness:
“sins”: it comes from the Greek word hamartia. A deep study reveals that it means a “departure from either human or divine standards of uprightness” (BDAG, p. 50). It can also mean a “destructive evil power” (ibid., p. 51). In other words, sin has a life of its own. Be careful! In the older Greek of the classical world, it originally meant to “miss the mark” or target. Sin destroys, and that’s why God hates it, and so should we. The good news: God promises us forgiveness when we repent.
Bible Basics about Sin: Word Studies
Human Sin: Original and Our Committed Sin
“receive”: its basic meaning is indeed to take or receive, but it has an active ingredient. You got to reach out for it.
“the free gift of the Holy Spirit”: “Free gift” means “free gift” and “bounty” and is used of the Holy Spirit in Acts 8:20; 10:45; 11:17 (see John 4:10, where the Gift of God, the “living water,” is the Holy Spirit (see John 7:37-39).
Spirit-inspired languages and the sound of the rushing, mighty wind woke up the Jewish pilgrims to the new era. The fact that the text does not describe the listeners receiving the Holy Spirit does not mean they did not. And the fact that the text does not describe the listeners getting a spiritual language does not mean they did not. Non-Charismatic Richard Longenecker: “In a Jewish context, however, it would not have been surprising if both occurred; in fact, one is probably justified in being surprised had they not occurred” (p. 284). That’s a roundabout way of saying they happened—Receiving the Spirit and Spirit-inspired languages. The atmosphere was charged with the electricity of the supernatural. It was the first outpouring, after all (Acts 2:1-4).
Recall that the Corinthians received the gospel and were baptized, but they are not recorded as receiving their prayer languages (Acts 18:1-11), but we know they loved to pray and praise in the Spirit (1 Cor. 12-13). Once again, Luke the “Omitter” or the “Condenser”
What about baptism for the forgiveness of sins? Is water the sacrament that provides forgiveness? I like what Longenecker says about the linkage between water and forgiveness:
But it runs contrary to all biblical religion to assume that outward rites have any value apart from true repentance and an inward change. The Jewish mind could not divorce inward spirituality from its outward expression. And wherever the Christian gospel was proclaimed in a Jewish Milieu, the rite of baptism was taken for granted as being inevitably involved (cf. 2:41; 8:12, 36-38; 9:18; 10:47-48; 18:8; 19:5; see Heb. 10:22; 1 Pe 3:18-21). But Peter’s sermon is Solomon’s Colonnade (3:12-26) stresses only repentance and turning to God “so that your sins may be wiped out” (v. 19) and makes no mention of baptism. This shows that for Luke, and probably also for Peter, while baptism with water was the expected symbol for conversion, it was not the indispensable criterion for salvation. (comment on v. 38)
39:
The charismatic side of Peter’s preaching is that the Holy Spirit is for everyone, both geographically and generationally far off—you and me.
“the promise”: is the promise of the Father simple Spirit-conversion or Spirit-baptism? See v. 33 and Acts 1:4-5 for a longer discussion, but the conclusion is that the promise of the Father is the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is often distinct from Spirit-conversion. (Sometimes they can happen at the same time as in Acts 10:44-45.) Spirit-baptism with fullness and power and prayer languages are available to all who are far off from Pentecost in the first century—to you and me.
“to himself”: “call” is in the middle voice, which means that an action is done for oneself or benefit. God call people to himself.
40:
“three thousand”: this was a distinct minority of the entire crowds in and around Jerusalem. However, it is not knowable with the information available to us how many were actually in the immediate vicinity listening and how many of them out of this smaller crowd converted. Three thousand for this time and at this place is a solid result. This is revival.
In Exodus 32:28, three thousand died at the giving of the law. Herein Acts the Spirit moves in the opposite direction.
“with many other”: this shows that Luke is deliberately summarizing Peter’s speeches and other speeches in Acts. (HT: Polhill, comment on vv. 40-41 and Peterson, comment on v. 40).
“reasoned arguments”: The Greek noun logos can be translated merely as “word,” but in this context it is clearly a “reasoned argument” (or plural logoi, reasoned arguments). Peter is presenting a Scripture-based and evidence-based (the resurrection of Jesus, which Peter saw) argument. Peter is a “word guy.”
Let’s explore the noun more deeply, as I have done throughout this commentary. It is rich and full of meaning. It always has built into it rationality and reason. It has spawned all sorts of English words that end in –log-, like theology or biology, or have the log– stem in them, like logic.
People have the deepest need to receive solid teaching. Never become so outlandishly supernatural and entertaining that you neglect the reasonable and rational side of preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible. Yes, the book of Acts is very charismatic, but it is also very orderly and rational and logical.
On the other side of the word Word, people get so intellectual that they build up an exclusive Christian caste of intelligentsia that believe they alone can teach and understand the Word. Not true. Just study Scripture with Bible helps and walk in the Spirit, as they did in Acts. Combining Word and Spirit is the balanced life.
“powerfully warned”: the verb can also mean “bear witness to” or “testify.” In these contexts it always means witnessing or testifying through the power of the Spirit.
“saved”: see comments on v. 47.
“twisted”: Even back then, it was a morally twisted generation. How much more is it today!
I really like Schnabel here:
We Christians dare not minimize the transforming power and reality of the Spirit, and we dare not minimize the fact that we still live in a fallen world in which trials, sickness, sin, and death are still realities. However, the fact that Jesus has inaugurated the last days means that the Spirit has indeed arrived. The entire messianic era—from Jesus’s coming in Bethlehem to Jesus’ return at the end of time—is the age of the Spirit, which is the age of “the last days.” Followers of Jesus no longer wait for the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, and the no longer wait for the Holy Spirit—he has come on Pentecost, and he is bestowed on everyone at the moment when he or she acknowledges Jesus as Messianic Lord and Savior. (p. 153)
GrowApp for Acts 2:37-41
1. Peter proclaimed that everyone should repent and be baptized. Have you done this? How? In which circumstances? What happened?
2. Peter said the promised Holy Spirit is for everyone afar off, both geographically and chronologically (v. 39). Has the Spirit come into your life? What happened when he did?
RELATED
The Historical Reliability of the Book of Acts
Book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles: Match Made in Heaven?
SOURCES
For the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 