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The Lord Jesus is the Author of life. As such, He is the origin or Originator of life, the holy and righteous One; He was killed by the Jewish leaders, raised from the dead by God, and witnessed by the disciples.
In Acts 3:14-15 Peter says to the Jewish people, “But you denied the holy and righteous One and asked that a man who was a murderer be granted to you; and the Author of life you killed, whom God has raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.” The Greek word rendered “Author” is archegos, meaning “author,” “origin,” “originator,” “chief leader,” “captain.” In 3:15 it denotes Christ as the origin or Originator of life, hence the Author of life, in contrast to the murderer. According to this verse Peter indicates that Christ is the source, the origin, and the Initiator of life; He is the Author, the Chief Leader, in life. Here we see the imparting of life into others, which is to propagate Christ. For such a propagation, we need the Lord as the Author of life, as the source of life.
Christ as the Author of life is also the holy and righteous One. According to 3:14 the Lord is the holy One. In this verse holy indicates that Jesus, the Nazarene, the One despised by the Jewish leaders, was absolutely for God and separated unto Him. Furthermore, He was absolutely one with God. According to the denotation of the word holy in the Bible, it signifies one who is absolutely unto God, who is absolutely for God, and who is absolutely one with God. In all of human history only the Lord Jesus is such a One. Throughout His entire life the Lord Jesus was absolutely separated unto God, for God, and one with God. There was never an instant when He was not absolutely for God and one with Him. Therefore, He is called the holy One. He alone deserves the title “the holy One.”
In 3:14 Peter called the Lord Jesus not only the holy One but also the righteous One. To be righteous is to be right with God and also with everyone and with everything. Only the Lord Jesus can be called the righteous One, because only He is right with God and with everyone and everything. In ourselves we are not right with God, with others, or even with things. We, therefore, cannot be the righteous One.
As the righteous One, the Lord Jesus is the right One. He was never wrong with God or with anyone or anything. Consider the time when He cleansed the temple: “He found in the temple those selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers sitting there. And having made a whip out of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, as well as the sheep and the oxen, and He poured out the money of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling the doves He said, Take these things away from here; do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise” (John 2:14-16). The Lord Jesus certainly was right in doing this. If He had not done it, He would have been behaving like a politician. The Lord saw the sinful situation, and He was indignant. As the righteous One, the Lord cleansed the temple in a righteous way. He was never wrong, for He was always the righteous One. As the righteous One, He is right with God, with man, and with everything in the heavens and on the earth.
Peter wanted the people to realize that the One the Jewish leaders killed is the Author of life. Although He was killed, God raised Him from the dead. Regarding the Lord as a man, the New Testament says that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 8:11). But considering Him as God, it tells us that He Himself rose from the dead (14:9). Furthermore, the apostles, the disciples, were witnesses of the resurrected Christ, bearing witness of His resurrection, which is the crucial focus in the carrying out of God’s New Testament economy.
As God’s Servant, Christ was raised up by God to bring the blessing covenanted to Abraham, first to the Jews, the chosen people of God, that they may turn away from their wickedness.
In Acts 3:25-26 Peter says, “You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God covenanted with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ To you first, God, having raised up His Servant, has sent Him to bless you in turning each of you away from your wicked deeds.” Here the “seed” of Abraham in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed refers to Christ (Gal. 3:16). Christ is the One in whom all the families of the earth, all races, colors, and nationalities, will be blessed. Furthermore, God sent back the ascended Christ first to the Jews by pouring out His Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Hence, the very Spirit whom God poured out is the very Christ whom God raised and exalted to the heavens. When the apostles preached and ministered this Christ, the Spirit was ministered to people.
At the time Peter was speaking the word recorded in Acts 3:26, Christ, God’s Servant, had ascended to the heavens and was still there. Nevertheless, Peter told the people that God had sent Christ to bless them. What does this mean? Actually, God has received Christ into the heavens. But here Peter says that God has sent this ascended One to the people. In what way did God send the ascended Christ to the Jews? God sent Him by pouring out the Spirit. This implies that the outpoured Spirit is actually the ascended Christ Himself. When the outpoured Spirit came to the people, that was Christ, the ascended One, sent by God to them. From this we see that the poured-out Spirit is identical to the ascended Christ. In God’s economy, for the experience of His people, the ascended Christ and the poured-out Spirit are one. In God’s economy Christ and the Spirit are one for our enjoyment.
In these verses, Peter indicates that God has sent His Servant first to the Jews to bless them by pouring out His Spirit to them. Now they need to receive this One. He is not far from them. Although He is in the heavens, economically He is among them as the poured-out Spirit to bless them. If they call on the name of the Lord Jesus, they will receive His person — the Holy Spirit. Then they will have God’s blessing. This is the way for us to receive the blessing God intends to give us by sending the ascended Christ back to us as the life-giving Spirit.
In Acts 4:10-12 we see that as the cornerstone Christ was despised and crucified by the Jewish leaders, the builders, but raised from the dead by God, becoming the cornerstone of God’s building with God’s salvation being uniquely in Him.
Peter testifies to the Jewish leaders in Acts 4:10-12: “Let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified and whom God has raised from the dead, in this name this man stands before you in good health. This is the stone which was considered as nothing by you, the builders, which has become the head of the corner. And there is salvation in no other, for neither is there another name under heaven given among men in which we must be saved.” The word “Nazarene” indicates the One despised by the Jewish leaders (John 1:45-46; Acts 22:8; 24:5). In 4:11 the Greek word translated “considered as nothing” also means “rejected” (Matt. 21:42). In Acts 4:10, you is emphatic. Here Peter emphasizes the fact that the Jewish leaders crucified the Lord Jesus, but God raised Him from the dead.
The stone despised, rejected, by the builders has become the cornerstone. Literally, the Greek words rendered “cornerstone” mean the “head of the corner.” Verse 11 is a quotation from Psalm 118:22. The Lord Jesus also quoted this verse in Matthew 21:42, where He was indicating that He is the stone for God’s building (Isa. 28:16; Zech. 3:9; 1 Pet. 2:4) and that the “builders” were the Jewish leaders, who were supposed to work on God’s building. His word unveiled the Jewish leaders’ rejection of Him and God’s honoring of Him for the building of His habitation among His people on earth. By this word Peter learned to know the Lord as the precious stone held in honor by God, as he expounded concerning Him in his first Epistle (vv. 4-7). Peter’s quoting this word indicates that he preached Christ not only as the Savior for the salvation of sinners but also as the stone for God’s building. The fact that Christ our Savior is a stone reveals that God’s salvation is for God’s building. It is such a Christ who is the unique salvation to sinners, and it is in His unique name under heaven, a name despised and rejected by the Jewish leaders but honored and exalted by God (Phil. 2:9-10), that sinners must be saved (Acts 4:12) not only from sin (Matt. 1:21) but also to participate in God’s building (1 Pet. 2:5).
In Christ God came in incarnation to be a stone for the building up of His universal habitation, but the Jewish leaders, who should have been the builders, despised this stone, Jesus Christ. However, God made Him the cornerstone. The more the Jewish leaders rejected Him, the more God used Him. At first, He was a common stone. Then the Jewish leaders rejected Him by killing Him. But God honored Him by raising Him up from among the dead and making Him a particular stone, the cornerstone, the prominent stone that joins the walls of a building. As the cornerstone of God’s habitation, Christ joins the wall of the Jewish believers and the wall of the Gentile believers.
Christ is not only the holy One, the righteous One, the Author of life, and the Servant; He is also a stone for God’s building. According to Acts 4:12, this stone is the unique One in whom we can be saved. Hence, He is the Stone-Savior. As the Stone-Savior, He is solid, strong, and reliable. We can rely on Him and stand on Him.
