The Most Excellent Announcement
(These are the things that the apostles taught people first!)
“Hear, ye! Hear, ye!”
This is how an old English king’s herald might begin to tell the king’s subjects some important announcement from the king.
Please hear! Please hear “the Most Excellent Announcement” of peace through Jesus Christ (10:36)! The greatest of all kings – God Himself – continues to make this extremely important announcement of peace to mankind through His heralds (10:36)!
First of all, believe that there really is a God and that this God is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). This God made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all things in them (14:15; 17:24). Since the creation of the universe God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that were made, so those who deny Him are without excuse (Romans 1:20). Since God is the Creator, He is the master of heaven and earth (17:24).
God does not dwell in manmade temples (17:24). God is not served by human hands (17:25). God needs nothing (17:25). We ought not think that God is a being that we have devised (17:29).
Rather, it is this God who gives life, breath, and all things to all living things (17:25). We people also are God’s offspring (17:28). In connection with Him we ourselves live and move and exist (17:28).
In the former generations God allowed all the ethnic groups to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, He did not leave Himself without witness; He has been good to mankind. He makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good. On both the just and the unjust He sends rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (14:16,17; Matthew 5:45).
From one blood God made every ethnicity of mankind to dwell on the earth (17:26). God has marked out our appointed times and the boundaries of our dwelling places (17:26). God’s purpose in setting the ethnicities in these various places at these various times is that we might seek the Lord, if perhaps we might grope for Him and find Him (17:27). But, actually, God is not far from each of us (17:27). Furthermore, He does not show partiality to anyone in any particular ethnicity (10:34). Indeed, ANYONE who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him (10:35)!
God sent ‘the Most Excellent Announcement’’ [i.e. the Gospel] of peace through Jesus Christ initially to the descendants of Israel through John the Baptist (10:36). John was God’s herald before the public appearance of Jesus (10:37). John heralded a baptism from repentance [i.e. a change of thinking] for the forgiveness of sins [i.e. the ways that people miss the mark in their thinking and doing] (Mark 1:4; Acts 10:37). John urged the people of Israel to change their thinking [i.e. to repent], “for the kingdom of heaven was at hand” (Matthew 3:2).
He told the people to change their thinking about such things as –
- the purpose of baptism (Mark 1:4),
- what made them children of God (Luke 3:8),
- how people should live (Luke 3:10-14),
- Who the promised Savior would be (19:4), and
- the coming judgment by Christ (Luke 3:9,17).
He said to the people that they should believe in –
- the mighty One Whose sandals he was not worthy to untie (Mark 1:7),
- the One Who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; and Luke 3:16),
- the Lamb of God Who would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and
- “the One who would come after him – that is, in Jesus, the Christ”. (Mark 1:4; Acts 19:4).
John identified Jesus of Nazareth as the Lamb of God Who would take away the sins of the world. (John 1:29).
God the Father anointed [i.e. ‘christened’] His Son (Mark 1:11), Jesus of Nazareth, with the Holy Spirit and with power (10:38). Then Jesus Himself, the greatest of all anointed prophets, also began to herald ‘the Most Excellent Announcement’ throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee (10:37), saying, “The time is fulfilled! And the kingdom of God is at hand! Repent! And believe the Excellent Announcement!” (Mark 1:15).
God the Father demonstrated that Jesus was His own beloved Son with miracles, wonders and signs which God performed through Him among the Jews (2:22). He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him (10:38). The apostles were witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem (10:39)
The Jews, having taken Him with lawless hands and affixed Him to a wooden cross, murdered Him (2:23; 10:39). At the same time, this Man was delivered up by the established purpose and foreknowledge of God (2:23).
Jesus Christ, the greatest of all anointed priests, was offering Himself as a sacrifice in behalf of all mankind (Hebrews 7:26-27). He died for our sins (1 Corinthians. 15:3). That Christ would die for our sins was prophesied (1 Corinthians. 15:3). For example, Isaiah prophesied about Jesus. He wrote about a Lamb that was to be slaughtered for the rebellion of His people, Who was to be cut off from the land of the living (Isaiah 53:7-8; Acts 8:32-33). Jesus is that Lamb!
To Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins (10:42)!
Christ was buried (1 Corinthians 15:4).
Then Christ was permanently raised to life from among the dead ones by God the Father on the third day after His death (Acts 10:40; 1 Cor. 15:4)! In this way God put an end to the birth pangs of death for us, since it was impossible for Christ to be overpowered by death (2:24). That Christ would rise to life again was also prophesied (1 Corinthians. 15:4). David, an ancient Jewish king, prophesied the resurrection of one of his descendants, ‘the Holy One’ – that God the Father would not abandon the soul of His Holy One in Hades nor would He allow His flesh to see decay (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:25-31).
Then God granted that His Son became visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses whom God had chosen beforehand (10:40). Christ appeared first to one of His disciples named Mary (Mark 16:9), then, to the apostle Peter, to all of the apostles, to five hundred disciples at one time, and to the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians. 15:5-8). Many of these witnesses ate and drank with Him after His rising up from among the dead ones (10:41).
Forty days after His resurrection (1:3) Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God (2:33). You see, God had also promised David that He would raise up the fruit of his loins according to the flesh to sit on his throne and to rule as a king forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Acts 2:30). David himself had prophesied that Jesus would sit at God’s right hand and that all of His enemies would be placed under His feet (Psalm 110:1; Acts 2:34).
The Kingdom of God had arrived! The greatest of all anointed kings began to sit on His throne and sits there now, having been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18)!
Therefore, let all know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom the Jews crucified (2:35)!
Having ascended to the right hand of the Father, Jesus has received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit (2:33). Jesus began to pour out the gift of the Holy Spirit (2:33) fifty days after He arose.
The prophet Joel prophesied the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He wrote, ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour forth from My Spirit on all flesh; And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams (Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17-18). John the Baptist and Jesus Christ also prophesied about this outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8; John 7:37-39; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:5,8).
Jesus ordered the apostles who had witnessed these things to herald these things to the people (10:42).
God also ordered these witnesses to solemnly testify that Jesus is the One Who has been appointed by God as Judge of both living ones and dead ones (10:42; 17:31), of both the righteous and the wicked (24:15). God has furnished proof that there will be a resurrection of all dead ones by having raised this Man from among the dead ones (17:31). God is about to judge the inhabitants of the earth in righteousness in connection with this Man (17:31). God has fixed a day in which He will judge the inhabitants of this earth (17:31).
God has graciously overlooked our times of ignorance; but He is now declaring these things to people, so that all people everywhere might change their thinking [i.e. repent] (17:30).
But no matter what we do or don’t do, this great day of judgment is certainly coming! It is as though Jesus already has His winnowing fork in His hand and is about to thoroughly clear His threshing floor. Soon He will gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17).
So –
“Be saved from this crooked generation!” (2:40)
- Change your thinking about all these things. Then, change your bad behavior! That is, “repent!” (2:38)
- Believe this Excellent Announcement! Direct your faith toward Jesus!
- Let each one of you be baptized while depending on the name of Jesus Christ” for the forgiveness of sins! Be baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19)! Be born again from above from water and the Spirit (John 3:5,7)!
On the day of Pentecost Peter proclaimed the promise that “you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself” (2:38-39).
- Believe that promise. Believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit is also for you (Galatians 3:14) and, you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (2:38)! The Holy Spirit has often been received at the laying on of hands (8:18).
And now, why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on Jesus’ name (22:16)!
“He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16).
“God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17).
This presentation of ‘The Most Excellent Announcement’ by Martin H. Koestler is essentially a synthesis of four apostolic presentations of “the Most Excellent Announcement” in Acts 2:14-41, Acts 10:34-48, Acts 17:23-31, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. Relevant information was also gleaned from Mark 1:4-8, Acts 8:30-38, Acts 14:15-17, Hebrews 11:6, and several other passages, bearing in mind the six elementary teachings of Christ enumerated in Hebrews 6:1,2 –
- repentance from deadly works,
- faith toward God,
- baptisms,
- the laying on of hands,
- the resurrection of dead ones, and
- eternal judgment.
All the things that you have read are in the Bible. The biblical references are in parentheses (). Where you see only numbers, the reference is to a passage in the Acts of the Apostles.
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Copyright © Second Edition 2015 Lyra Publications, USA