«　WEEK 3　DAY 2　»

　　Acts 2:24 Whom God has raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, since it was not possible for Him to be held by it.

　　32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we all are witnesses.

　　4:33 And with great power the apostles gave testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus...

　　Christ today is in resurrection. One day, as the One who existed in eternity, Christ became a man by incarnation. Eventually, He was crucified and buried. Through death He entered into another realm, the realm of resurrection. In His preexistence, Christ was God and was with God in eternity; by incarnation, He became a man in the flesh; then, through crucifixion and burial, He entered into resurrection. On the day of His resurrection angels told the women that Christ could not be found in the tomb, for He had risen from the dead (Luke 24:1-6). This indicates that Christ is in resurrection. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 2971)

　　The Lord is both God and resurrection (John 1:1; 11:25), possessing the indestructible life (Heb. 7:16). Since He is such an ever-living One, death is not able to hold Him. He delivered Himself to death, but death had no way to detain Him; rather, death was defeated by Him, and He rose up from it. (Acts 2:24, footnote 2)

　　Christ is now our Savior in resurrection, and the Spirit is Christ in resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45b). After Christ was resurrected, He became a person wholly in resurrection. Today some Christians know Christ in His incarnation and crucifixion. But like Paul we should aspire not only to know Christ in His death but even the more to know Him in His resurrection (Phil. 3:10). We need to know Him in the power, sphere, and element of His resurrection. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 2971)

　　[In Acts 1], Peter went on to say, "It is necessary therefore that of the men who accompanied us all the time in which the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which He was taken up from us, one of these should become a witness of His resurrection with us" (vv. 21-22). The Lord's resurrection is the focus of the apostles' testimony. It refers back to His incarnation, humanity, human living on earth, and God-ordained death (2:23), and points forward to His ascension, ministry and administration in heaven, and coming back. Thus the apostles' testimony of Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, is all-inclusive, as depicted in the whole book of Acts. They preached and ministered the all-inclusive Christ as revealed in the entire Scripture.

　　[In Acts 3], when all the people, greatly amazed, ran to Peter, John, and the lame man, Peter said to them, "Men of Israel, why are you marveling at this? Or why are you gazing at us, as though by our own power or godliness we have made him walk? The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him" (vv. 12-13). Some manuscripts add "the God of" before Isaac and before Jacob. Why in verse 13 did Peter speak of God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Why did he not speak simply of God? This title refers to the Triune God, Jehovah, the great I AM (Exo. 3:14-15). According to the Lord's word in Matthew 22, this divine title implies resurrection: "Concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (vv. 31-32). Peter referred to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because this indicates that He is the God of resurrection.

　　Peter told the people that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob "glorified His Servant Jesus." God glorified the Lord Jesus through His resurrection and in His ascension (Luke 24:26; Heb. 2:9; Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11). (Life-study of Acts, pp. 40, 101-102)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Acts, msgs. 1-2