Quotations from the Old Testament are included in the sermon as ancient
witness to Jesus Christ. King David’s psalms, praising God for rescuing him
from death, are applied to Jesus’s resurrection. A central project of early
Christian intellectuals, their reading and teaching,
was to show how the prophets of the Bible (that
is, what Christians later call the Old Testament)
bear witness to Jesus.
At the end, Peter urges his hearers to repent and
be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Belief
in Christ is understood to begin with an inward
and outward change. The inward change is
repentance, a change of heart, turning away from
one’s old life to join the community of those who follow Jesus. The outward
change is baptism, a ritual washing that signi¿ es new life in Jesus and marks
the social boundary of the church.
The picture of the exalted Lord Jesus Christ is extended by the early church
in two directions, back before his birth and onward to his coming again as
king. Although elements of the story are familiar, many of the early church’s
assumptions are not. The resurrection of Jesus is not a form of life after death;
The resurrection of
Jesus is not a form
of life after death; it
means that he is no
longer dead.
Christ’s cruci¿ ction and resurrection are central and crucial to Christian
theology and worship.
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