The Messiah
David had spoken in Psalm 16:
"I foresaw the Lord always before my face." The same psalm affords
the clearest proof that the Messiah (and no Jew could doubt that the Messiah was
in question there) would be characterised by the most absolute trust in God
through His life; that he was to lay down His life with trust in God just as
unbroken and perfect in death as in life; and finally that He would stand in
resurrection. It is the psalm therefore of confidence in God that goes right
through life, death, resurrection. It was seen in Jesus, and clearly not
applicable to David its writer. Of all whom a Jew could have put forward to
claim the language of such a psalm, David would have been perhaps the uppermost
one in their hearts. But it was far beyond that famous king, as Peter argued:
"Men [and] brethren,* let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David,
that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him,
that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up
Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of
Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see
corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses."
* It may be well to guard the
English reader from supposing that two classes are intended. The phrase is
literally "men‑brethren," and means simply men who were
brethren. — Let me add, that the true text in the last clause of verse 30 is
simply, "to seat from the fruit of his loins on his throne."
Thus the fresh and notorious facts as to Jesus, and no one
else, completely agreed with this inspired testimony to the Messiah. Nor was it
confined to a single portion of the Psalms. "Therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." But David is
not ascended into the heavens. Thus Peter cites another psalm to show the
necessary ascension of Messiah to sit at the right hand of Jehovah, just as
much as he had shown resurrection to be predicted of Him as of no other. "for
he says himself, Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I
make thy foes thy footstool." Who was the man that sat at God's right
hand? Certainly none could pretend it was David, but his Son, the Messiah; and
this entirely corresponded with the facts the apostles had beheld personally.
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." Thus the
proof was complete. Their psalms found their counterpart in the death,
resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus the Messiah. God had made Him
"both Lord and Christ;" for here the testimony is very gradual, and
the wisdom of God in this we may well admire and profit by. In meeting the
Jews, God condescended to put forth the glory of His own Son in the way that
most of all attached itself to their ancient testimonies and to their
expectations. They looked for a Messiah. But apparently all was lost. for they
had refused Him; and they might have supposed that the loss was irretrievable.
Not so: God had raised Him from the dead. He had shown Himself therefore
against what they had done; but their hope itself was secure in the risen
Jesus, whom God had made to be Lord and Christ. Jesus, spite of all that they
had done, had in nowise given up His title as the Christ; God had made Him
such. After they had done their worst, and He had suffered His worst, God owned
Him thus according to His own word at His own right hand. Other glories will
open there too; but Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, as Paul says, was to be
raised from the dead according to his gospel. Timothy was to remember this; and
Paul can descend to show the connection of the glorious person of the Lord
Jesus with the Jew on earth, as he loved for his own relationship to behold Him
in heavenly glory. Thus the link with the expectations of the earthly people,
though broken by death, is reset for ever in resurrection.
WK on Acts