ACTS 13:23

The Apostle Paul was speaking to Jewish people in a synagogue in what is today the country of Turkey, and Paul had just mentioned the king that God had given to the people of Israel: King David. Paul said in Acts 13:23, “Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus.” There are three main points mentioned in this verse: 1. Someone came in the lineage of David, and that someone was Jesus. 2. God had promised that He would send someone else in the lineage of David, and God always keeps His promises. 3. The primary reason that Jesus came was to be a Savior.

The fact that Jesus came in the lineage of David was a very important fact that showed that he had the main human qualification to be the Messiah. Anyone who was not in the lineage of David could not be the Messiah. That is why Matthew started his gospel with a geneology of Jesus, and the first thing that Matthew mentioned in that geneology was the fact that Jesus was in the lineage of David. Matthew 1:1 says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

God had promised that He would send the Messiah in the linage of David, and Paul was revealing to these Jews that God had kept His promises. If you want to live by faith and know and understand the things that are really going on in the world, then you must know the promises of God. God has made many precious promises: promises about His children and promises about the future; and God will keep every one of His promises.

There are many promises from God about every facet of life, but the promise that Paul is referring to here is the promise that God would send a Savior. Every human being needs a Savior. The Israelites need a Savior both because of how greatly they failed God and failed to keep the responsibilities that He had given to them when He brought them into the promised land. Of course, Jesus is the Savior not only of the Jews, but of everyone in the world. And everyone needs a Savior because of the sins that we have all committed.

That was the emphasis of the coming of Christ: the fact that He came to save people from their sins. Jesus said about Himself, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” One of the things that shows what the ministry of Jesus was all about was the ministry of John the Baptist who came just before Jesus to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. Paul said about this in Acts 13:24, “When John had first preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.”

John preached the baptism of repentance because water baptism was symbolic of being cleansed from one’s sins, and because repentance is the way to obtain forgiveness of sins. When people have done the wrong thing, and that always has to do with selfish motivation and going away from God, the way to get things right is to have a change of mind, and to turn away from their own way and turn back to God. Repentance involves sorrow for having done the wrong thing, and it involves a desire to start doing the right thing. If you repent, you can turn to Jesus and find cleansing from your sins. That was the message of John the Baptist as he prepared the way for the coming of Jesus, and that is still the message of the gospel. Repent and be saved.

As great as John the Baptist was, and as great as his message was, Paul wanted to make sure that his listeners understood the difference between John and Jesus. John was still a man, but Jesus is much more than a man. You need to understand who Jesus really is if you are going to believe in Him. John understood that Jesus was the Messiah and so did Paul. Paul said in Acts 13:25, “And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.” John was the greatest of all men, and yet he knew that Jesus was greater. An important part of believing the truth is understanding exactly who Jesus is: the Christ, the Son of the living God.

In the next several verses Paul makes clear the central theme of the gospel: the death and the resurrection of Jesus. Paul said in Acts 13:26-30, “Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulcher. But God raised him from the dead.” As in other passages of scripture, we see both the power of God and the wickedness of man at work at the same time. There are certain things that God is always going to do no matter what man does. There are other things that God will only do as a result of what man does. That is why we should pray and not faint. Prayer changes things.

Things that God has prophesied in the scriptures are going to come to pass no matter what man does. One of those things was the crucifixion of Christ on the cross. Man could not stop it from happening; and the very sinfulness of man was used to bring it to pass. Wicked men out of jealousy had Jesus falsely accused; and then political pressure was put on Pilate so that he would send Jesus to be crucified. The Father permitted it all so that sins of mankind could be paid for. When Jesus hung on the cross, He looked up to the Father and said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Of course, the greatness of God is also shown in the fact that even though Jesus was put to death, the grave could not hold Him. The reason that Jesus can still save people from their sins is not just because He did not save Himself, but is also because He rose from the dead. If you believe in Jesus, you are not believing in a dead Christ, but in a living. Paul went into some detail about the resurrection of Christ and Paul said in Acts 13:31-37, “And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God raised again, saw no corruption.”

Anyone who has seen death knows what it means for those whose life dwells within a physical body. As soon as the spirit leaves the body, the body begins to corrupt and to decay, until it eventually turns to dust. God made the human body from dust, and to dust it shall return. At a funeral we commit the body back to the dust from which it came. But because of Jesus the final meaning of all that has been changed. Jesus rose from the dead. His body did not turn to dust. He was raised from the dead. This victory over death and over the grave Jesus gives to all who believe in Him. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

In Acts 13:34 Paul quotes one of the great verses from the Old Testament that reveals the totality and completeness of salvation and forgiveness. He quoted Isaiah 55:3 that spoke of the “sure mercies of David.” God had made a promise of mercy to David and to David’s heirs that had no conditions whatsoever to it. Remember that God always keeps His promises, and so if He makes you a promise with no condition, you have a bright future. The problem with the holy and righteous law is that it has conditions, and no one can keep the conditions, because the conditions are: you must not break the law ever. The wonderful thing about the forgiveness that is in Jesus Christ is that it is based upon the “sure mercies of David.” Yes, you have done things that you should not have done, but it is sure and it is certain that God is going to treat you with mercy and not with judgment, if you are a believer in Jesus, because through Jesus you are guaranteed the “sure mercies of David.”

The Bible says in Acts 13:38-39, “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Three important things are given in these verses: 1. Who gives the forgiveness of sins, 2. How a sinner obtains the forgiveness of sins, and 3. What the forgiveness of sins means.

Jesus gives the forgiveness of sins. No one else can give you the forgiveness of sins: no prophet, no preacher, no priest: no one: only Jesus. Jesus is the Savior. Jesus has the power to forgive sins. In order to obtain the forgiveness of sins, there is no place for you to go to, but there is a person for you to go to: the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The old gospel hymn asks the right question. It asks, “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power, are you washed in the blood of the lamb?”

If you do come to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, this is what you do to obtain the forgiveness: believe. That’s it. That’s all. Believe. To believe means to trust in and to rely upon. You come to Jesus and you believe in Him: you trust in Him and you rely upon Him for the forgiveness of your sins. You realize that you have already failed and there is nothing you can do now to cleanse yourself. You are guilty and you are seeking the forgiveness. Because you rely upon Him, that is, because you believe on Him, He gives you the forgiveness. Anyone who is going about to establish their own righteousness has not seen how sinful they already are, and has not come to Jesus knowing that Jesus is their only hope.

For those who have come to Jesus and done nothing but believed on Him in this way, the benefits are more than human language can completely describe, but we try anyway. If you are forgiven, then you are justified. Listen to verse 39 again, “And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” If you are justified, it means that in God’s eyes you have been declared righteous: you have been declared to be a person who has never done wrong. Some believers are going to be in for a big surprise when they get to heaven and see that the guilt that they carried with them was totally unnecessary. If you have gone to Jesus for forgiveness, you have been completely forgiven. All of your sins have been removed from you. When God sees you, He doesn’t even see your sins. He sees a completely righteous person. He sees a person that has been justified by faith in Christ. There are no judgments and no condemnations that can go against you from God. That is why an entrance into heaven is a sure thing for those who believe. We will never be able to thank Jesus enough for doing this for us.

For those who do not believe, the Bible says in Acts 13:40-41, “Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets, Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.” There are two words given in these verses that are words of warning to the unsaved: “beware” and “perish.” There is a bad side to the word beware, but there is also a good side. The bad side is that there is danger ahead, but the good side is that there is still a chance to avoid the danger if you heed the warning.

The ones who do not heed the warning will perish. To perish in this context means spiritual death, which is an eternity separated from God: an eternity in hell. The reason that the unsaved end up in such a state is because they do not believe. It is not because of their great sins: all have sinned. It is because they do not believe, and the reason that they do not believe is also given right here. They are “despisers,” despisers of the gospel and despisers of Jesus Christ. If anyone goes to hell it will be because they did not believe when they could have, and instead of believing they despised and rejected the truth. You do not have to be that way. You can turn to Jesus today and find salvation.

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