Times of Refreshing and the Restoration of All Things in Acts 3:11-26
Commentary on Acts 3:11-26
There are four sections in Peter’s sermon.
A] 3:11-16 Explanation of the miracle
B] 3:17-21 A Call to repentance
C] 3:22-24 Speaks of a prophet like Moses to come
D] 3:25-26 Prophecy to Abraham about how his seed would be blessed
A] Peter's second speech was given in the colonnade of Solomon along the eastern edge of the Temple Mount, preserved from earlier structures and incorporated unchanged into Herod’s massive renovation. It served as a sheltered public space for teaching, gathering, and early Christian preaching. Peter focused on the origin of the power that had healed the lame beggar. Jewish tradition sometimes associated miracle workers with exceptional holiness (as in later rabbinic stories about Honi the Circle-Drawer and Hanina ben Dosa). Instead of claiming any credit for the miracle, Peter attributed the power instead to the Lord in whose name he had acted.
In Gaelic, we talk about the modh direach, i.e., “A direct way of speaking.” Peter did not pull his punches when he engaged in a damning series of indictments against hisaudience. Jesus was described as God's 'servant' or 'child’ and he was the 'holy and righteous one' and the 'author of life', the one whom God 'glorified' and raised from the dead. In each case, the rhetorical effect was heightened by the contrast between Jesus' status in the eyes of God and the way in which he was dishonored and rejected by the people.
B] There were, however, a number of mitigating factors. Both the crowd and their leaders acted 'in ignorance.' Unknown to them, Jesus' death was part of the divine, saving plan. The sufferings of the Messiah had been foretold by 'all the prophets'. This is an important theme for Luke, who has already had Jesus explain it to his disciples after the resurrection (Lk 24:26, 46), on the road to Emmaus, but he had not yet revealed precisely which prophetic texts could be interpreted in this way.
C] Jesus is described as “prophet,” the fulfilment of God’s promise to raise up a prophet like Moses. In Deut 18:18 we read, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” Then Peter calls upon his listeners to reform their lives, as he himself had done when he betrayed Jesus, by turning from their sins so that they might be forgiven. His appeal for repentance was a precondition for experiencing 'times of refreshing’ and the 'restoration of all things.’ These two phrases underline the fact that even for Luke the period of apostolic mission marks only a temporary postponement of the final consummation at the end of time. Origin, one of the great scholars in the early Church, built his theory of Apokatastasis, the doctrine about the restoration of all creation to its original, purely spiritual state, before the end of the world, upon this verse. Later on, his theory was rejected as misguided by the Church.
D] Peter’s address concludes with a reference to Abraham, our father, in faith. Peter regarded Abraham as the primary example of the “ancestors” he had just mentioned. The past that God made with Abraham became the way of life for all his descendants. And the blessings that came to the patriarch were to continue for his offspring for centuries. Moreover, through Abraham’s offspring, blessings were to come upon all the families of the earth. This quotation in Peter’s speech foreshadows the spread of the Christian message to non-Jewish families as well. First, however, the message had to be addressed to the Jewish people in Jerusalem. As a Gentile convert, Luke was keen to promote this notion.
