Freed unto resurrection gladness

 “A Glad Father”

(Acts 13:32-41, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 17, 2012)

[32] And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, [33] this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,
“‘You are my Son,
today I have begotten you.’

Our God is a Father who makes great promises to His children and keeps them. When Paul talks about God making promises to the “fathers,” he is referring to the ancient patriarchs of the Jews that we learn about in Genesis 12-50. We need to remember that those fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, had a heavenly father, just as we have a heavenly father.

Your Father is Israel's Father. He is glad about you. It is not because you or I have been especially wise sons. It is an eternal gladness that is built on a much more secure foundation than that. When God spoke from heaven about His only-begotten son, He said that He was well-pleased with Him. Jesus not only died for us. He was also a wise and perfectly holy Son of the Father for us. Because of Him, your heavenly Father is glad about you. That will never change.

This glorious gladness of your Father became visible in the resurrection of Jesus. About 1000 years before that resurrection, David wrote in Psalm 2 about a future day that he called “today.” “You are My Son, today I have begotten you.” This is the way, Paul says in the synagogue in the Galatian town of Antioch near Pisidia, that God spoke so long ago of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was a new beginning for the eternal Son of God. He was the firstborn from the dead. He was the first of the new sons of God. As He is, a resurrection Man, so shall we be. This resurrection tells us that the purposes of God to be a glad Father of many sons were on track. The Son who has become the Source of our righteousness has risen from the dead.

[34] And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’No matter how many ways God prepared His people for the resurrection of His Son, when it happened it was completely astounding. Most obviously Jesus Himself had told His disciples that He would rise from the dead on the third day, but even when two of His disciples had heard about an empty tomb in Luke 24, they were still discouraged, and He was the one actually speaking to them at that moment on the road to Emmaus, though they did not know it.

But long before the day of His resurrection, God had given testimony to this coming good news in the Old Testament Scriptures. One of the ways that He did this was to continue to speak about King David long after David had died. God had promised David Himself that one of His descendants would be an everlasting King. But it was in the later prophets who wrote hundreds of years after David's life that the Lord kept on talking about David. (Isaiah 9:7, 16:5, 22:22, 37:35, 55:3, Jeremiah 17:25, 23:5, 30:9, 33:15, Ezekiel 34:23-24, 37:24-25, Hosea 3:5, Amos 9:11, Zechariah 12:7-10, 13:1) Here Paul quotes from Isaiah 55.

“Incline your ear, and come to me;

hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
because of the LORD your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you. (Isaiah 55:3-5 ESV)

Who was the “you” in this passage who would call a nation? We are among the nations that did not know Israel's God, and we have come running to hear the voice of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, because God has glorified Him. How did the Lord glorify Him? Through His resurrection from the dead. God gave His Son the glad blessing of resurrection life.

[35] Therefore he says also in another psalm,
“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
[36] For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, [37] but he whom God raised up did not see corruption.

As we have already seen, a rich source of Scriptural promises concerning the resurrection of the Messiah came from the words of the actual old David Himself. Here Paul quotes another Psalm of David, Psalm 16, which reads “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.”

David was not referring to Himself in this psalm. The later testimony of the Hebrew prophets confirmed this expectation of a coming Son of David, and here in Psalm 16, the original David wrote a song of a future Holy One of God, who though a Man, would not be given over to the grave forever. His body, through God raising Him up, would not see the normal pattern of corruption that happens in this dying world.

David himself fell asleep, that is he died, and he was buried. He saw corruption. But Jesus, the promised new David, did not see corruption.

[38] Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, [39] and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

The point of this entire message delivered in a synagogue in Galatia so many years ago was this: Through this Man, Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. The law of Moses could never free you from the debt of your sins. The law of Moses proclaimed to you your fault, your problem with God. It could not tell you how you could make your heavenly Father truly and eternally glad with you. Jesus has freed you from forever living under the condemnation that you have been a big disappointment to God. You are free from all that now in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His wisdom has been credited to you, and through the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of God is dwelling in you, making the Scriptures alive, and leading you in paths of righteousness.

[40] Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:
[41] “‘Look, you scoffers,
be astounded and perish;
for I am doing a work in your days,
a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”
Now you know. You have heard the detailed preaching of the Apostle Paul. You have heard about the resurrection of the promised David. Do not scoff at this message. Believe. God has done something that you really need to take notice of. In Jesus, the resurrection age has come.

1. How has the good news that God promised been fulfilled?

2. Why is it significant that the Lord was raised, no more to return to corruption?

3. How is it that through one man, Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to many?

4. What work was God about to do that would cause many to scoff to their own destruction?

OT Passage: Proverbs 15:20a