Acts 1:16-19 – "With" and the Sovereignty of God
16 “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; 17 for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.”
18 (Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. 19 And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.) Acts 1:16-19, New King James Version
"If we," interposes C.S. Lewis, "could see things from a sufficient height above we should all realize that we are in fact proper objects of pity.”
Peter, then, is a man who between his denial of Christ and his great coming out in Acts 1:16-19 has seen things from a sufficient height. If I could know the whole of his spiritual itinerary, I would copy in stride for stride. Perhaps it as well, then, that so few of our Lord's words that hit Peter's ears between His Resurrection and His ascension survive.
Perhaps it as well, then, that the Holy Spirit didn't preserve a man-centered, thought for thought memoir of Peter's experience. For, if I had it, I would be inclined to rejoice in the Peter Method rather than in the individualized and unpredictable sovereignty of God.
Already, in his opening, inclusive phrases of, "Men and brethren," which reach out from Acts 1:16, we see that Peter is a different man. Are these the same lips which, by grace, survived their proclamation of Peter's distinction from his fellow disciples at the Last Supper? There, he pronounced that it all others betray Christ, he would not.
Now, the ground is level at the point of need for the cross. Peter, seeing himself truly as an object of wholly undeserved divine pity, is emphasizing connecting kinship in preference to his own specialness. He is just getting started in abasing himself that Christ might be exalted. We would marvel if Peter's heart works tenderized enough to include the fellow disciples he so recently derided, to admit that God's grace extended to that selected circle.
Yet, Acts 1:17 humbly confesses right at the time when men launching a movement would be thinking about brand distinction That the Twelve were no different from other men. Peter is scandalously plain that for years Judas' part among them was indistinguishable. He didn't wear the black hat. Astonishingly, Peter doesn't fit him with one after the fact in order to award himself the halo of retrospective discernment. The same man who betrayed Christ, Peter said, with not only numbered among us, but he ministered with us.
Wonder at the scope of the grace of God continues to unwind as Peter testifies. Despite the depth of Judas' treachery, the Earth Christ made did not instantly swallow up His betrayer at the moment Judas approached those who would become his co-conspirators. By the like grace and forbearance of God, Judas was deprived of neither the respect of men nor the means to do business with them.
Marked as the son of perdition, Peter reveals that Judas still carried on trade for a while without the weight of condemnation crushing him straightaway. Just as he was one of The Twelve, to every human eye, he was one of the wider community. For a moment more, he prospered. For a fleeting instant, he was superior in the world's eyes to Peter who wouldn't say shortly, silver and gold have I nine.
As a last vestige of the image of God which likewise, Genesis says, rested even on him, Judas gets to exercise dominion. He gets to use money God granted to claim something as his. Even in his demise, he exercises a shadow of Adam's naming prerogative and marked the field with his title as a last act according to Peter's proclamation of kinship, kinship and condemnation apart from the intervening, electing grace of God in Christ.
What card or title, then, Christian, do we lead with? Do we use the length of our elevator speech to distinguish ourselves from the lot of our fellow men? Do we deploy our vocabulary, our illusions, our name-dropping of connections, to establish as quickly as possible that we are a card above our hearers? Peter, most intimate confidant of our Lord, could have done this in a few words. Instead, in that same brief span of breath, he knit his heart to 5000 future brethren near to the door of grace and just as much in need of Christ's persevering salvation as he was.
We would do well, Christian, would we not, to check our passion for drawing attention to those one or two aspects in which we believe we are head and shoulders above other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve? We have but a brief window, after all, to establish common cause, common, desperate need with those likewise under just condemnation before, as Christ says, at the Last Judgment, He separates the sheep from the goats. THAT is the distinction that matters. In light of that day, may we use this one.
Might we, moved by the parity of pity, parry the distracting thrust of bitterness as readily as we do that of pride. For, if we don't succumb to the urge of one upmanship in order to compete for people's respect at the cost of conveying Gospel grace, surely the opposite blunting of our testimony is ready at hand. Seeing men, guilty as Judas, with means in their hands which we might not possess, conducting trade as though their hearts had not betrayed our Lord, we can begrudge the momentary prosperity of the wicked.
Like the psalmist, then, and like Peter centuries later, we can bring our own divided hearts to the sanctuary of true worship. We can, by God's grace, realize the temporary nature of what seem to be Earth's haphazardly granted freedoms. We can begin to discern, as God gives us His eye and His ear in place of portals so readily misreading, where true and lasting riches lie. We can begin to measure the true and astounding stature that Christ has called us His own.
18 (Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. 19 And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.) Acts 1:16-19, New King James Version
"If we," interposes C.S. Lewis, "could see things from a sufficient height above we should all realize that we are in fact proper objects of pity.”
Peter, then, is a man who between his denial of Christ and his great coming out in Acts 1:16-19 has seen things from a sufficient height. If I could know the whole of his spiritual itinerary, I would copy in stride for stride. Perhaps it as well, then, that so few of our Lord's words that hit Peter's ears between His Resurrection and His ascension survive.
Perhaps it as well, then, that the Holy Spirit didn't preserve a man-centered, thought for thought memoir of Peter's experience. For, if I had it, I would be inclined to rejoice in the Peter Method rather than in the individualized and unpredictable sovereignty of God.
Already, in his opening, inclusive phrases of, "Men and brethren," which reach out from Acts 1:16, we see that Peter is a different man. Are these the same lips which, by grace, survived their proclamation of Peter's distinction from his fellow disciples at the Last Supper? There, he pronounced that it all others betray Christ, he would not.
Now, the ground is level at the point of need for the cross. Peter, seeing himself truly as an object of wholly undeserved divine pity, is emphasizing connecting kinship in preference to his own specialness. He is just getting started in abasing himself that Christ might be exalted. We would marvel if Peter's heart works tenderized enough to include the fellow disciples he so recently derided, to admit that God's grace extended to that selected circle.
Yet, Acts 1:17 humbly confesses right at the time when men launching a movement would be thinking about brand distinction That the Twelve were no different from other men. Peter is scandalously plain that for years Judas' part among them was indistinguishable. He didn't wear the black hat. Astonishingly, Peter doesn't fit him with one after the fact in order to award himself the halo of retrospective discernment. The same man who betrayed Christ, Peter said, with not only numbered among us, but he ministered with us.
Wonder at the scope of the grace of God continues to unwind as Peter testifies. Despite the depth of Judas' treachery, the Earth Christ made did not instantly swallow up His betrayer at the moment Judas approached those who would become his co-conspirators. By the like grace and forbearance of God, Judas was deprived of neither the respect of men nor the means to do business with them.
Marked as the son of perdition, Peter reveals that Judas still carried on trade for a while without the weight of condemnation crushing him straightaway. Just as he was one of The Twelve, to every human eye, he was one of the wider community. For a moment more, he prospered. For a fleeting instant, he was superior in the world's eyes to Peter who wouldn't say shortly, silver and gold have I nine.
As a last vestige of the image of God which likewise, Genesis says, rested even on him, Judas gets to exercise dominion. He gets to use money God granted to claim something as his. Even in his demise, he exercises a shadow of Adam's naming prerogative and marked the field with his title as a last act according to Peter's proclamation of kinship, kinship and condemnation apart from the intervening, electing grace of God in Christ.
What card or title, then, Christian, do we lead with? Do we use the length of our elevator speech to distinguish ourselves from the lot of our fellow men? Do we deploy our vocabulary, our illusions, our name-dropping of connections, to establish as quickly as possible that we are a card above our hearers? Peter, most intimate confidant of our Lord, could have done this in a few words. Instead, in that same brief span of breath, he knit his heart to 5000 future brethren near to the door of grace and just as much in need of Christ's persevering salvation as he was.
We would do well, Christian, would we not, to check our passion for drawing attention to those one or two aspects in which we believe we are head and shoulders above other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve? We have but a brief window, after all, to establish common cause, common, desperate need with those likewise under just condemnation before, as Christ says, at the Last Judgment, He separates the sheep from the goats. THAT is the distinction that matters. In light of that day, may we use this one.
Might we, moved by the parity of pity, parry the distracting thrust of bitterness as readily as we do that of pride. For, if we don't succumb to the urge of one upmanship in order to compete for people's respect at the cost of conveying Gospel grace, surely the opposite blunting of our testimony is ready at hand. Seeing men, guilty as Judas, with means in their hands which we might not possess, conducting trade as though their hearts had not betrayed our Lord, we can begrudge the momentary prosperity of the wicked.
Like the psalmist, then, and like Peter centuries later, we can bring our own divided hearts to the sanctuary of true worship. We can, by God's grace, realize the temporary nature of what seem to be Earth's haphazardly granted freedoms. We can begin to discern, as God gives us His eye and His ear in place of portals so readily misreading, where true and lasting riches lie. We can begin to measure the true and astounding stature that Christ has called us His own.
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