No Holding Us Back

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

NO HOLDING US BACK

Acts 2:22-28

22 "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25 David said about him: "'I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, 27 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.'  

NIV

 

Peter is quoting David to prove what he just said. But before he talked about Jesus being alive, Peter makes sure to remind them that God sent Jesus for the express reason to go to the cross. Peter states that it was God who handed him over to them and with the help of wicked men, the Romans, for in the sight of God, all men who refuse to accept Jesus are classified by God as wicked. Of course, the Jews that handed him over to the Romans would be seen as wicked as well. It is interesting that Peter says that in death there is agony. The Greek word translated here as agony, means pain, as in the pain of childbirth, but this Greek word is also akin to the word for grief. Combining this we would understand that death holds pain, agony, and grief. Other translations use pains, horrors, pangs, and agony. The idea is that death is not a pleasant experience if one is held within its grip or held in the grave. But by the power of God, Jesus was loosed from the pain of death. The grave could not hold him because God raised him up to life. Once again, we understand the Jews, which would have included David, believed the spirit of a dead person hung around for three days and in that time the body would not start to decay. We see that when Jesus raised Lazarus, his friend, from the grave, Lazarus had already been dead for four days, and Mary knew that he already had an odor for he had begun to decay. David knew that Jesus’s body would not decay for God did not abandon him either on the cross or in the grave. This gives us great hope, well actually the great assurance that God will not abandon us to the grave either, and we will not see decay. Peter is going to explain all this next so will wait for that. But for now, we have that great assurance that our Savior lives, that we serve a living Savior who is in the world today, although in the physical sense he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, the point is Jesus is not in the grave. David makes the point that it is God who made known David’s path in life and it is God who fills David with joy in his presence. First, we also know that God will make known to us our path in life, we only have to listen and follow where he leads us. Second, we also know that there can only be joy in the presence of God. As we have God, the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we are forever, all the time, in the presence of God, and we know that one of the fruit the Spirit manifests within us is joy. So, we come back to the fact that God will always be with us, and that includes the moment of our last breath, and we will leave this corruptible body behind as it will become incorruptible and imperishable. We cannot fully grasp how all that works, considering that even as believers we are stuffed into a coffin or cremated and filled into an urn. But with the power of God, all things are possible, and we will be with our Lord when we leave this place, for death cannot hold us, we will not be held back.