Sunday, November 10, 2024 AM

The Resurrection of Jesus as the Center of Acts and the Gospel

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day that You have made. We thank You for reminding us of Your grace in our lives today. And Lord, we pray that You would help us to rejoice in Your truth as You bring to bear by Your Spirit Your Word concerning Your Son.

I pray that Your will would be accomplished in our lives, that You would shape us, correct us, teach us, and invigorate us into all godliness, into all Christlikeness, for the fame of Your name and for the spread of the gospel.

And I pray that You would cultivate the fruit of the Spirit amongst us, that in all things there would be praise to You and love between one another. We pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts 17.

Acts 17, and we will be reading verse 22 through the end of the chapter, verse 34 this morning. Acts chapter 17, verses 22 through 34. When we read the gospel of Luke, and, of course, the same could be said for Matthew, Mark, and John, but when we read the gospel of Luke, we are left with an absolute confidence that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the culminating high point.

That is the event to which everything else points. It's the high point of the gospel. The whole of the person of Christ and the entirety of the work of Christ coalesces in brightest and deepest glory at that singular point, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

When we think about other things that are also vitally important, the cross of Jesus Christ has no efficacy, no power, and the coming of Christ has no victory unless Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And that is why when the apostles went forth preaching the gospel in the Roman Empire, they made such a point of the resurrection.

This was the centerpiece of their good news as they heralded the King of kings and the Lord of lords who reigned from the right hand of God the good news of the kingdom. They emphasized the resurrection.

That He has risen from the dead so magnifies His person and so exalts His name that all mankind are therefore compelled to bow the knee to their new Lord. This is the message of Luke, and then comes the amen of Acts.

Chapter 1, you'll notice in the book of Acts, is about the resurrection. Chapter 2, Peter's sermon is about the resurrection. Chapter 3, the healing and the preaching in the temple is about the resurrection.

Chapter 4, Peter and John on trial amongst the Jewish religious leaders, the point was about the resurrection. You could go on and on throughout the book of Acts, which is why the book of Acts is the acts of the risen Lord Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit amongst His apostles and people.

Now, when Paul comes to Athens and he is surrounded by idolatry, his heart is so provoked, he is so stirred up by all of these idols and all of the paganism around him, that in the synagogue and in the marketplace, he goes out and he preaches the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

He did this so much, so prominently, that he was noticed by the leading philosophers of the day, those who would preside at the Oropagus, and they grabbed hold of him and said, why don't you come up here and tell us more about this, you seed picker, you bird brain?

We're hard up for some entertainment, so why don't you come up here and tell us about these new gods that somehow the Athenians have missed? And so, Paul goes up to the Oropagus and preaches the gospel.

Now, what's interesting is that how Paul begins noting the very religious nature of the Athenians sounds like he has switched subjects, that he is done talking about the resurrection of Jesus that he addressed in the synagogue, in the marketplace, and now he's going to move on to some sort of other message and try to meet the philosophers where they're at in their philosophy.

Now, he does meet them, but he doesn't change his subject, because we'll see as we finish out his Oropagus sermon this morning, he comes right back to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which reminds us that when it comes to this theme, we ought to pause and reflect.

It is good for us to stop and to study the resurrection more than just once a year. That's why we meet every Sunday. We need to pause and reflect on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Its Selah is our Shalom.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important fact in all of history, the shining light in which we presently live, and it is the anchor point for all that lies ahead. I invite you to stand with me as you're able.

We're going to begin reading in verse 22 of Acts 17. This is the word of the Lord. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Oropagus and said, "'Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious.

For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, "'To the unknown God.'. Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you, God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him.

Though He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.

Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained.

He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them.

However, some men joined him and believed. Among them Dionysius the Aropagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Our apologetic needs no apology.

Our defense of the faith should not be accompanied by defensiveness. God is not a rich, bombastic, but good-hearted uncle that we have to carefully prepare new guests to meet. Now, now, don't be put off by Him.

He means well. Our declaration of God is that He is the good God. The good God is the only God, bountifully God, truly God, gloriously God. And we herald the good news of the kingdom exalting the risen Jesus Christ by whom all men should know their Creator.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of understanding. As we think of Him first and think of Him most, we think of Him in the light of Jesus Christ.

So we've been looking at Paul's Aropagus sermon that the good God is revealed, not someone that we can investigate and find out on our own resources, that God is self-sufficient. He needs nothing. We're the ones who are dependent upon Him.

The good God is sovereign. He's in charge of everything, including where everybody lives and what time they live. The good God is Savior. He has arranged everything in this world so that we would look to Him as our Savior.

The good God is spirit. He does not have a body like man. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And lastly, the good God is righteous, we see in verses 30 through 34. Now, Paul closes out his sermon with an emphasis on the present need, given the future peril, which was made absolutely certain by an undeniable past.

The present need is repentance. The future peril is a day of judgment in righteousness, and the undeniable past that makes all of this clear and unavoidable is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

And this is immediately applicable to us. We still live in the shockwave of this momentous, historical, transforming power. The world has never gotten over the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, we're going to think about this righteousness that we see in the good God revealed in Jesus Christ, manifest in His resurrection from the dead, promised to be revealed at the day of judgment.

We're going to think about the righteousness of the good God and then consider the results of Paul's preaching. So, first of all, the present need. The present need is repentance. Now, we see that in verse 30.

Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now, presently, commands all men everywhere to repent. Repent. That's the present need. It's repentance. And it's a need that is universal. God commands all men everywhere to repent.

All those who are made in His image, all those who are descendant from Adam, made from the one blood of Adam, all men everywhere are to repent. I appreciate Chris mentioning the Greek word for repentance, methanoia, with the mind, that there is a turning.

And repentance is always paired with faith, either explicitly in the text or implicitly. Repentance and faith always go together because faith is about knowing who God is in Christ, affirming that indeed that is the truth, and entrusting yourself entirely to Christ as your Savior, as your sovereign, as your shepherd, saying, He's the one.

Everything in my life is dependent upon Him. That's faith. Repentance is simply the turning away from anything and everything else that would keep you from turning to Christ in those three ways. We can repent from ignorance.

We can repent from false information. We repent from denying that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. We repent from denying God's truth in whatever fashion that we have. And we repent from ever entrusting ourselves to anyone else or anything else that we would be right before the face of God.

So repentance and faith, they go together. There's a turning of the person. There's a turning to Christ so that the whole life confesses Him and is in agreement with Him. Now, Paul is saying this applies to all men everywhere, which means it includes his audience right in front of him, the Athenians, the Greek philosophers, the Arapagite judges, everybody who is there.

No matter what their status is, he's saying to them, you must repent. And what must they repent away from in the text? It looks like it's ignorance. They need to repent away from ignorance. It's like, well, if I don't know that I don't know, then I don't know.

Still, because you're made in the image of God, you're liable. You are culpable. You're made in His image. And if you're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, you're still guilty before the face of God, and they are to repent from their ignorance.

Now, ignorance is not a valid excuse. It's an often used excuse, but it is not a valid excuse before God. When we stand before God, we stand there with our mouths closed, our hands over our mouths, and we are without excuse.

Men are not justified for lack of knowledge. That's a common theory. Well, if someone never knows who God is, never hear the gospel, never get a passage of Scripture ever read to them, they're ignorant of the good news of Jesus, then when they die, God will say, you get a pass, you get to come to heaven.

I'll just justify you by your ignorance. Well, that's not what the Bible says. In fact, what we find is that God holds men responsible for suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, and men are not justified for the lack of knowledge.

In fact, the Bible says we perish for lack of knowledge. We perish for lack of knowledge. God does not forgive on account of ignorance. So Paul is making a contrast here between the time of ignorance, the pastimes of ignorance, with the present need of repentance, but he's making a point about the transformational impact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He's not making a clause for ignorance. He's not making an escape hatch for those who are in ignorance. The present need is repentance. We're going to come back to this idea of God overlooking the times of ignorance.

We're not going to overlook the overlooking. We're going to come back to that. But notice the future peril. The present need is repentance. The future peril is a judgment of God in righteousness. God has determined not only the present response of repentance, God has determined a future day, so therefore we must repent.

Now, when it says He has placed a day, He has set up a day, it's the exact same Greek word used for setting up an idol, putting an idol in its place, setting something prominently somewhere. But God does not set an idol.

He sets a day where all men will be judged. He will judge the world in righteousness. Righteousness. Righteousness is that which agrees with God who is right. He's the good God. Does it agree with Him or disagree with Him?

God is not in orbit around anyone or anything else. God is not in orbit around some abstract idea of law that He's in agree with, so we better be too. No, He's the center. God is not in orbit around some idea of human flourishing that He's for it, so we ought to be for it too.

No, He's the center. He's the glory. He's God supreme. He is God the good God, truly God, gloriously God, everything in this universe revolves around Him. And so He has established a day that He will judge the world in righteousness, and righteousness is what agrees with Him in His character.

Righteousness is what He says it is because of who He is. And this righteousness which was mandated by God in creation and modeled by God through the covenants is now supremely manifested by God in Christ.

That's the path of Scripture. The righteousness of God that was mandated in creation and modeled by God in the covenants is now manifested in Christ. And God is determined, He is appointed, He is ordained a day.

And He is determined, and He is appointed, He is ordained a man. How do we know that in fact we must repent now because of a future day of judgment in righteousness? How can we be assured of this? Paul says, because of an undeniable clarifying moment in the past, which was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Listen to the text again. Verse 30, truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained.

He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. That's the undeniable past. That's the cataclysmic event concerning which the world has never gotten over. We've never gotten over that, never gotten past it.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That is the undeniable past that says our present need is repentance given the unchangeable future that God has established today where He will judge the world in righteousness by Christ.

So that's our evidence, that's our basis, the resurrection of Jesus. Now God has not hidden this vitally important information. Romans 3 .25 says that God set forth His Son. It was obvious. Paul, when he was preaching, said God didn't do these things in a corner.

He said it out prominently, publicly. Jesus Christ died outside the camp on Calvary publicly, and He was raised from the dead in a way that nobody could deny, though they tried. So God has determined the man of history.

This is a similar idea to what Peter preached to Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, as Peter saw fit to preach to this Gentile God-fearer in Acts chapter 10 and verse 39. Peter says, and we are witnesses of all things which He did, meaning what Jesus Christ did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree.

Now listen to verse 40. Him, Jesus Christ, God raised up on the third day and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us, who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.

He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that this is He who was ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witnessed that through His name whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.

This is what Peter preached to Cornelius, this is what Paul preached to the Athenians. Jesus Christ has been appointed the judge of mankind. He is the Son of Man, thus He is the man of all men, and He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and all men will have to stand before Christ who will judge all men.

He is the man of history. The word determined is the Greek word horizon. The Son of Man is the firstborn from the dead. He is the man of history. He is the horizon of all humanity. Jesus Christ is described as the last Adam.

Who is Jesus Christ? He is both the foundation and the frontier. You want to know what humanity is? Look at Jesus Christ. He is the man of all men. He is the last Adam. He is the trailblazing captain, Hebrews chapter 2 says.

He is the archaegos. So all the focus that Paul is given now after saying you don't understand who God is, you're ignorant of Him. Let me explain to you that the true God is not worshiped by silver and gold and stones in men's hands.

Let me tell you that this one true God is manifested in Jesus Christ, and you need to repent of your ignorance and turn to God and submit to Him because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. He's going to judge all men.

That's essentially a synopsis of Paul's sermon. Now, what happened when he mentions the resurrection? In the passage, we see that after they hear the resurrection, some mocked. Well, that was the plan from the beginning.

They wanted to mock Paul. They wanted to come up to Europagus because they wanted to mock him, and now they have their moment, their opportunity. He stopped quoting from their poets. He stopped talking about their shrines, and now he's preached to them something that they have no context for whatsoever, the resurrection from the dead.

And so in the lack of any other response, all they can do is laugh and scorn and mock. While others said, we will hear you again on this matter. So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed.

Among them Dionysius the Aeropagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with him. Some rejected the message. Some said, I want to revisit the message, and some repented and believed. Dionysius the Aeropagite, we learn from history, was one of the judges of the court of Europagus, one of the college of the twelve judges there, and he had helped make Athens famous.

We learn from church history that he became a leader in the church at Athens and died a martyr. We don't know if that actually happened or not, but that's what we hear from church history. We don't know who Damaris and the others are, but what do we see happen?

We see those who had not known about Jesus Christ and did not know the gospel now turn to Him and be saved by the grace of God. We rejoice in the salvation of sinners by the grace of God, the preaching of the gospel.

And this is a very difficult place for the kingdom to advance, and yet the kingdom advanced. How? By the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul departed from them, we read, even though not all of them had yet believed.

He's trusting that God, this good God, this good, bountiful, true God will take care of them. Paul has preached the full counsel of the Word of God because he has preached to them Christ, and now he is guiltless of the blood of all these men, and he walks away resting in Christ.

God Overlooked the Times of Ignorance and Now Commands Repentance

Now, what does it mean that God overlooked the times of ignorance? This is a passage that is often used for fanciful and theoretical ideas. As I have mentioned before, I think Acts is the second most abused book in the New Testament after Revelation, and all kinds of moments like this in Acts can get used and spun and utilized for various ideas of universalism or inclusivism and so on.

What does it mean that God overlooked the times of ignorance? Again, the text says, truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

He's given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. First of all, let's think about the timing. Paul contrasts the former times of ignorance with the present command to repent. What's changed?

Why has everything changed? The reason that everything has changed is not the fact that he has appointed a day to judge all mankind. That had been appointed from a long time before that. That's been appointed and settled from eternity past.

It's always been in place. What has changed is that God has now provided assurance of that day of judgment to all mankind by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That's what's changed.

Prior times, Jesus Christ had not been raised from the dead. Now he has. Former times of ignorance, present times where all men everywhere need to repent, all commanded to repent. The need was there prior, now the command goes out to all.

From eternity past, God had decreed that the Son incarnate would judge all mankind, but in the time and space of redemptive history, Jesus Christ died on the cross and was raised the third day. Before the resurrection, God overlooked the times of ignorance prevailing amongst the Gentiles.

After the resurrection, God commands repentance of all men everywhere. It is the manifestation of Christ in his finished work that has changed the world. What was before is no longer what is now. We hear this kind of contrast throughout the scriptures in Romans 3 .21, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is manifest, having been witnessed by the law and the prophets.

Now something has changed, and what Paul says here is very much the same thing as he preached in Lystra in the region of Galatia in Acts 14 verses 14 through 18. I'm going to read that briefly for you so you can hear the familiarity.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude who were trying to sacrifice to them, crying out and saying, men, why are you doing these things?

We also are men with the same nature as you and preached to you that you should turn, repent, turn from these useless things to the living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.

It sounds much like the full sermon here in Acts 17. Now listen to this, verse 16. The same God who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways, nevertheless he did not leave himself without witness in that he did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

And with these sayings they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them. So the timing is different. Think about the way that the times are different. The gospel of the kingdom preached by both Peter and Paul emphasized the conclusion of the old covenant and the beginning of the new.

The new has come, the old is now obsolete and ready to pass away. The old age was passing away, the new had come. Former times, present times. That's not an entirely exclusive Jewish concern because God's covenants address all creation anticipating Christ.

What God said to Noah and what he said to Abraham, what he said to Israel, what he said to David, those covenants address all of creation and they all anticipate Christ. Now there was a distinction in that God did not send his special revelation, his prophets with his word to all the nations and say, thus saith the Lord to China, thus saith the Lord to the Aztecs.

We have the Lord sending his prophets to Israel with the special revelation of God, the ordinances, the covenants, and the promises were given to the Jews. So the ignorance is not an ignorance of God entirely as if there was no creator, as if there was no one who did good to them.

It was an ignorance of the special revelation of God. The special revelation of God through the scriptures given by the prophets to the people of Israel was not something that was widespread disseminated amongst all the nations, but now even though God has in past times in various ways spoke to through his prophets, but now in these last days, the last days of the old covenant, the first days of the new, God has supremely manifested himself through Jesus Christ who was the exact express image of the Father.

The revelation of God through Jesus Christ goes to all men everywhere because he's the last Adam and he is the fulfillment of all that God revealed to the Jews. So when we read this passage where Paul is saying that God overlooked the times of ignorance, the King James Version famously renders it that God winked at the times of ignorance.

I don't know what winking meant 413 years ago when the King James was written, but the original term, the Greek term, does not convey some sort of condoning, permissive, overlooking as from some lazy security guard winking at the thief, go on in, you're fine.

That's not what that means. It's very important that we understand this. The point that Paul makes is that God is not now holding the Gentiles accountable for revelation they had never received. They had never received all this testimony of the prophets concerning the Messiah.

They were ignorant of it. And Paul is saying God is not now holding you accountable for revelation you had never received. And yet God does hold all men accountable for the truth that they do have, which is an unrighteousness and ungodliness suppressed, Romans 1, 18 through 20.

All men everywhere know that there is a God. God has revealed Himself broadly, widely, and vitally through creation, which is saying to him about, this is my Father's world. All knowledge that is true knowledge comes by revelation of God in some sense.

He reveals Himself to us. He sends the rain. He has the sun shine on the wicked and the righteous. The knowledge of God through creation is only enough to condemn us, but not enough to save us. We know enough from creation that there's someone bigger than us, there's something bigger than us, is far broader than we can wrap our heads around.

The necessity of the divine was a principle that the Greeks agreed with, that Paul used to preach the gospel to them, but they didn't know who it was. But in Jesus Christ, we know who it is. We want to see the Father, we look at the Son.

We want to know who God is, we look to the only begotten God in the bosom of the Father. We look to Jesus Christ, and He tells us who God is. Let me give you a practical example. And you can see the connection between the general revelation of God that all men know and are accountable for, versus the special revelation of God by which we, what we need, we have to have the gospel preached to us if we're going to be saved.

I'll give you a practical example. Timothy. Timothy had a Greek father and a Jewish mother and Jewish grandmother. Okay. Timothy did not become wise unto salvation by his Greek father. He became wise unto salvation through the holy scriptures taught to him by his Jewish mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois.

You see the difference? Timothy had a Greek father, Jewish mother, and grandmother. One of them, the Greek father, would have taught him the ways of the Greek thought, the Hellenistic thought, philosophy, and so on, but it was his mother and grandmother that gave him the scriptures.

And these were just the Old Testament scriptures, but they are sufficient to make us wise unto salvation. The full gospel is there. And Timothy became a Christian because of the scriptures being taught to him and declared to him.

And that's the difference. So, what Paul is saying to the Athenians is, you did not receive that special revelation. God's not holding you accountable for that past. You didn't receive it in the past.

But now Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and so now that supreme manifestation of God, you are accountable to that. It's undeniable. Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and all men everywhere need to repent and turn to Him.

That's the sense in which Paul is holding the Athenians accountable. The special revelation of God in Christ used to be localized. Now, it's globalized. Before, it was focused in Israel, and if you wanted to know who God was, then folks like Ruth or Rahab or otherwise had to come towards that localized revelation of God, especially since the glory of God was manifested in the temple and the structures and the festivals.

That's where the glory of God was shown. That's where the hope of the gospel was found, localized. But now Jesus Christ has come, and He has fulfilled the entirety of the role and the structure and the revelation of Israel.

Because everything that they did and everything that they were, as they were called the Son of God and the Servant of God, has been fulfilled in Christ, who is the Son of God and Servant of God, just with capital S's.

This is why Jesus is the just judge. Not only does He fulfill all of Adam, He fulfills all of Israel, and He stands at the last day as the judge of all mankind, and He will judge in righteousness because He perfectly manifests the glory of God.

Let me share with you two passages to bring this home. In John 5, verses 24 through 29, we hear about two kinds of resurrections, two kinds of resurrections, and both have Jesus Christ at the center. John 5, verse 24, Jesus is preaching, and He says, Most assuredly, I say to you, He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear, meaning hear receptively and believe, will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of Man.

Now, what is Jesus saying? If you hear My good word, if you hear My gospel, if you hear what I'm saying to you, this gospel of the kingdom, and you believe, you have passed from death into life. You have eternal life.

You shall not come into judgment. That's that last day. You were in death, now you are in life. Well, we have the expression to Nicodemus, that means you are born again. Another expression, you are raised to newness of life, Ephesians 2.

The idea of resurrection is here. We are raised from death to life by believing the gospel and having come into eternal life and everlasting life. We will not be subject to the judgment of God. We will not be condemned.

That is what Jesus is saying, now is. The hour is coming, and now is. The dead are hearing the voice of the Son of God, and Jesus, who in the beginning says, let there be light, says to Lazarus, come forth.

He says to sinners, be born again, believe, come to Me. And He raises the dead, as the old hymn says, it takes a miracle to be saved. It takes a miracle to come to God. Now, that's resurrection number one.

Why do we have life in Christ? Because He is the resurrected one. He is raised from the dead. He gives eternal life to all who believe in Him. But also, verse 27 says, God has given Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man.

Verse 28, do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming, notice He doesn't say, and now is, right? He says, an hour is coming in which all who are in the graves, all the dead, will hear His voice and come forth.

Those who have done good, those who have been changed by that resurrection that we just read about, those who have been changed with that new birth, those are coming to the resurrection of life because they don't have any condemnation, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

So, Jesus raises the dead. He is the firstborn of the resurrection. He raises the saints with Him in this life. So, we have eternal life, and this is eternal life that we know God. In Jesus Christ's name, He is sent, and at the end of everything, He raises the dead and judges according to righteousness.

Let us stand in the righteousness of Christ. Another passage that Jesus shared was from Matthew chapter 5, and He was giving some wise counsel concerning what it's like to live in His kingdom. And in Matthew 5 and verses 23 through 26, there is an example, an analogy that He uses that I think has a lot of practical application for our lives to live without bitterness and to live in love and forgiveness, but it also has, I think, a massive implication given what we've just looked at in Acts 17 and the day of judgment.

Matthew 5 verses 23 to 26, Jesus says, "...therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way.

First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.". Jesus was teaching those who were still participating in the sacrificial system that offering up the sacrifices was not the main point.

The main point was that they would be in unity and reconciled together. God doesn't want a people full of sacrifices. He wants a people full of faithfulness. He expressed that in many ways in the Old Testament, and Jesus is just affirming that.

Verse 25, "...agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.".

So you see how the second analogy is built upon the first, the need to go and be reconciled with the one who is offended with you prior to the day of decision. It's the same idea of who is our adversary if we are made in the image of God, live in idolatry, trying to make God a man's image, and every day work unrighteousness in the face of God's righteousness?

Well, God is our adversary. God is our adversary, but He has appointed not only a judge at the end of time, but He has also appointed a mediator. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, and we must go to Jesus Christ to be reconciled with our adversary.